It’s more emotionally comfortable in the back

They were all being very helpful during breakfast of the fresh week old croissants from France and home made blackberry jam.

“Don’t forget the suicide whippets,” said Sleesy.
“Do you write a blog?” asked Colin. “How many followers do you have?”
“One,” helpfully answered Nicktor.
“Don’t mention the Swedish,” insisted Frank. “Or Mucky Jane. Or the Swedish for Mucky Jane.”
“Don’t let Frank do his seal impression, even in your blog,” begged Nicktor.

Given I have no idea what the suicide whippets is a reference to (presumably a conversation I wasn’t involved in) it would be difficult to include it…though I have now. Actually I have three, thank you Nicktor. It’s smutsig flicka, Frank.

The last request from Nicktor is a reference to Frank’s appalling animal impressions except for his piglet which sounds just like a wiener going to meet it’s maker. His seal has to be the worst of the lot though his horse comes a close second. It is one of the many reasons why Frank was banished to the back seat for the trip home. It seems I am a much better behaved front seat person.

Frank was very pleased as was Nicktor until Frank started playing with his precious Sainsbury’s bags all neatly folded in the pocket of the seat. At least, they were. I’m not sure what state he left them in. He is a bit unpredictable.

The trip home was actually quite traumatic. Originally Nicktor had suggested we pop into the Huddersfield v Southampton game but, of course, there were no tickets so we decided to get to Aldershot in time to see them beat Chester.

For this reason, we left Colin, after numerous goodbyes and promises to never visit the curry house again, by 9:30, heading for the M1. Unfortunately there’d been a massive collision between two lorries and a minibus on the M1 and traffic was being diverted via various other roads in order to skirt the accident which had closed the motorway.

We kept close eyes on the clock as we moved closer to home. Mind you, though we added a few miles and a bit of time, we easily made both up so Nicktor allowed us to have a stop for coffee. The fact that he wanted the loo may also have had something to do with it.

It was at the garage that Frank purchased coffees (for the two of us) and a three course meal. I bought peanuts. Nicktor was not best pleased that Frank intended to eat a three course meal and cradle a full cup of coffee on the back seat. When Frank suggested using one of Nicktor’s precious Sainsbury’s shopping bags as a sort of table cloth, Nicktor’s head almost exploded.

He managed to keep his head and we pulled into the Aldershot multi-storey car park with ages to spare…though not quite enough to go for a beer with Steve from number 11. It was one of those times where it would have been easy to walk to the pub then the ground except that it’s in opposite directions and would have meant a rushed pint. I told Nicktor he could go if he wanted but I was heading straight for the ground.

And boy were we early. In fact, we were so early we watched the teams warming up. That’s never happened before.

The game started brightly enough. Steve from number 11 had joined us before the off and we all started singing, “Oooo it’s a corner!” whenever appropriate. And it rang out from four mighty throats. Okay, it was a bit of a let down after the mighty chorus at the cricket but given there’s often just Nicktor on his own, four is pretty good.

Aldershot had most of the first half of the game, scoring once. Chester didn’t look like scoring anything, let alone winning. The second half, things seemed to be going along the same sort road but then, out of nowhere, a Chester player suddenly fell over when nowhere near any other player and the referee signalled for a penalty. The score stood at 1-1 for ages but then the linesman on the North side missed a couple of clear offsides and Chester bundled in the winning goal.

It was a sad old result and finale to a great end of week boys trip north. We went home a bit miserable. Though I think Nicktor was the most miserable because he had Frank to himself for the trip home. And he was in the front seat again.