Peas

15th February 2007

“Why are you sat there holding a tin of peas to your arm?” I said, not unreasonably, to The Trouble on entering the living room and discovering her in this bizarre pose.
She gave me her frostiest look, which is pretty frosty. Penguins toes have been known to drop off when subjected to lesser frosty looks. “You’ve no idea?”
I thought about it for a moment and said: “You’ve lost your marbles? You couldn’t find a tin of carrots? We’ve had the gas cut off and you’re warming them through with the heat of your body? Any of those?”
“Do you remember me asking you to bring a bag of frozen peas in with you from the corner shop?”
“Of course. But as I explained to you, Mr Ahmed had run out, had a run on frozen pea curry probably, so I got a tin of peas instead. The very tin that you are now holding to your arm, unless I’m very much mistaken my precious, marrowfat I believe.”
“And you think that will work, do you?”
“Work? What do you mean, work?”
“I knew you weren’t listening properly. The trouble with you is that you never do when I’m talking to you.” *
“I do.”
“No you don’t. If you’d been listening properly you’d know that I wanted the bag of frozen peas so I could hold it on my arm to reduce the swelling caused when I ruptured my bicep yesterday. In which case you wouldn’t, on discovering that Mr Ahmed was out of frozen peas, bought a tin of bloody peas instead!”
“Yes I would. That’s why I bought it.”
“What?” This said with utter disbelief. That made two of us who didn’t believe it but I had to say something.
“That’s why I got the tin of peas instead,” I said smoothly.
The Trouble shook her head as if to clear it. “I think I must be missing something here.”
“You are. You’re missing the knowledge that it is a well known fact that holding a tin of marrowfat peas to a ruptured bicep is a sure fire way of bringing the swelling down. Florence Nightingale swore by it.”
The Trouble was immediately apologetic. “And there was me, thinking I was being sarcastic,” she said sheepishly.
“Is it working?” I inquired solicitously. “Has it brought the swelling down any yet?”
The Trouble drew back her arm and threw the tin of peas at me. She yelped out loudly in distress, the act of throwing the tin obviously causing her great pain. I yelped out even more loudly as the tin caught me a nasty crack on the knee. In no time it became swollen. The Trouble suggested I should hold a tin of peas to it to bring down the swelling. She’s getting as bad as I am.

* A reminder for late comes to Razzamatazz. I call my wife The Trouble not because it is rhyming slang for wife, trouble and strife, wife, but because she is in the habit, especially when I have done something to anger her, of starting off a sentence with the words ‘The trouble with you is…..’

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You can write to me at –

Terry Ravenscroft, 19 Ventura Court, Ollersett Avenue, New Mills, High Peak, SK22 4LL

Dear Air 2000

Football Crazy

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Razzamatazz

Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.) This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000…. My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas. A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road. I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things. Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.) This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000…. My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas. A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road. I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things.

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