The Boys Are Back In Town

Well, maybe we were at the publishers working on a book deal, or perhaps we were trying out some stand-up material at the Edinburgh Festival? We could have been mixing with stars of stage and screen (The Krankies are still big aren’t they?) making preparations for the release of our first film.

Or perhaps we were abducted by aliens?

All, any or none of these may be true but, what really matters is, we’re back and – by the look of things – just in the nick of time.

Something has been going on. Yes, right here, in St Albans, under your noses and frankly we’re a bit surprised and a little bit disappointed you haven’t done anything about it!

Admittedly, you couldn’t have done much about the first “change”.

You see, we arrived back at AL3 Towers and the very first thing we noticed was that we’d been “unburgled”!

For those of you not familiar with this phenomenon, this is when you arrive back home to a place that’s cleaner and tidier than when you left. So startling was the transformation that I had to go outside to check both the colour and number on the front door were correct.

At first we let it go. We figured, that as we had left in a hurry under the cover of darkness, that we’d actually left the place a lot tidier than we initially thought.

But paranoia is a powerful thing and it had a disturbing effect for the rest of the day until it casually cropped up in a conversation with “The Perp”. 
I say “casually” but it’s difficult to use the phrase “Have you noticed your cutlery tray is clean” in a casual fashion.  

It was the mother-in-law. 

We hadn’t noticed but, as soon as we got back to HQ, we checked the aforementioned tray and it was indeed spotless. We also noticed we had 29 teaspoons. The tray has never had that many teaspoons in it! What was going on, that’s one for every cup with leftovers for ramekins and still some to spare?

That night, in an attempt to relax and put the “unburgling” behind us, we sat down to watch some TV. Now remember, we’d “been away” so hadn’t seen anything for a while.

The adverts were on. Nothing strange there you’d think and, to start with, there wasn’t. Shiny hair because she’s “worth it”, “been involved in an accident at work?” then, wait a moment, rewind, play. What did he just say?

There he was, our (third) favourite Barry, emerging from a slide on primetime TV saying “Wow, I’ve never been through a pipe quicker!” Really? (Apart from the fact he probably has) WTF?!

As if that wasn’t enough, before we’d recovered, a toy monkey with a vajazzle then tried to sell us tea!

Seriously, we thought that maybe the “unburgular” had used a cleaning product that contained some hallucinogenic chemicals (maybe the sort that 3rd fave Bazza tries to flog?).

We needed some fresh air to clear our heads. A walk, surely that would help and bring some normality back. So off we went, we even took some sandwiches with us wrapped in some newspaper.

First signs were good, very good. The grass verges were still too long but that was good, that was “normal”.

We headed towards the park. It was a mistake, how long had we been away?

There it was. The Lake. How could this be? What had happened? Why had nothing been done?

The air was no longer fresh, we peered at stagnant liquid that was now fit only for The Creature of The Black Lagoon.

Anyway, hopes were fading, we thought we would manage to find a small morsel of normality in the shape of a letter in the newspaper from our (second) favourite Barry.Yes, it was written in the style of one who is inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, but actually it was quite sensible and not likely to wind anyone up.

Nothing, not even Bazza 2,  was normal. We were fading fast. 
We had been away and everything was different. This isn’t what it was meant to be like.

Wandering into town, we are ashamed to admit, we had given up. Nothing would ever be the same.

Then it happened, we arrived at the market. The market! Of course! Why didn’t we think of it sooner? But wait, what if it had changed? That would truly be the end.

Well, it was busy – that was normal.

There was the smell of fish and fromage – that was normal (nicer than the whiff of the lake!)

But what about the real test?

Were they there?

The litmus test. The Grumpies. Were they there selling their wares?

Holding our breath, hardly daring to look through the fingers of our hands covering our eyes we peeked.

There they were. Grumpy 1. Arguing with a customer who had handled his wares. Grumpy 2. Moaning about people standing by her stall.

We were back and we felt good.

So we went to The Boot (other pubs are available) for a welcome home pint.

And, on the way, one of the stalls near the end of the market was playing music. 
Did our ears deceive us? Could it be magic?  No. it was our (1st) favourite Barry singing.