Scoffing braadwort in Belgium with Uncle Festa

What exactly is an ironmonger? I’m 61 years old and this word still holds one of the unsolved mysteries in my life. But.....at long last the answer could be at hand.

See, I’m soaking wet as I’ve just raced at Eastway in the rain, so I want to get the bike stuffed into the car so I can scuttled across to the showers and get warmed up. But..... the guy walking away from the next vehicle could well be an ironmonger.

He looks normal though….and young….and that makes it more intriguing still as I thought ironmongers went out with Steptoe and Son. But there on the side of his red-painted open flat-back truck, yes right there on the door is the word Ironmonger.

As a journalist I guess should know these words and what they mean but I struggle. Here’s another. Let me read you this item from a daily paper last week: “There seems to be something furtive and solipsistic about downloading your journey times from National Rail Enquiries online.”

Well I do it and I wouldn't call myself solipsistic because….I’ve never even seen the word before.
Sod the ironmonger, that can wait. I need to get these wet things off. I’m happy as I came third, my best result of the year. The rain slimmed down the field big-time but who cares. Still third.

Mind, last week in Belgium it was totally the opposite. It was hot and sunny and I got a kicking. Dropped with three laps to go and then finishing on my own. I hate that.

There was mass of riders for this one, the best part of 90-100. We were all tucked away from the rest of the world world on minor roads round Bonheiden, all barred off to traffic. The little was as square-shaped as a brick, so that meant four full-on accelerations out of corners per lap…and loads of laps.

Uncle Festa was not best pleased to find me not being there at the end, given that this was a world championship, as me and Dougie were supposed to be riding as his lead-out men for the sprint finish.

As things turned out, he had to look out for himself. He was near enough to the front and anyway he was happy soon enough as, pretending to have something wrong with his finger, he went off to First Aid. He was in there with a Chinese nurse forever…. I’d eaten a braadwort the size of table leg before he got back, onions, mustard and all. And I could have scoffed a second.

Dougie never even rode, he only showed up for the photo afterwards. I knew that would happen. He’d been in Ostende over-night with Lorraine. It’s all fruity and hush-hush. There’s a construction link in this triangle. That can come out later.

Dougie works on a magazine. He’s never heard of solipsistic. That makes me a bit better.

Parents hand out £18,000 to their kids, to give them a start on the property ladder. That's on average. Did you see that? I hope our two did.

Here at work, Tex got an offer-to-go and she took the money and got started. But little brother didn’t. He thought he was saving at such a rapid rate of knots that he could afford to turn his windfall down. That was two years ago. Since then, no matter how fast he coins it in, the goal posts move that much faster. Mum still washes his socks.

You seems to have this insatiable appetite for the nutters I work with and what they do. Well….

You’ll never guess what we found in one of the cupboards here, behind the tins of spam…..a couple of Russian brides. We wondered if they were ordered up by Mr Sorehead before he left, but failed to match up to his expectations. They must have survived on tinned meat for months. Julius took them both home on the train, so that was nice.

I've been up the town drain as I had a call up to meet Mel Zuydam, he the finance director at the Highways Agency. The message was that he wanted to give me two ponies. I thought that if they were Percherons I could give them to Julius. You never know, he might be getting married and that would be the present solved.

Buttons has got frisky. She skips along behind my desk and then does a leap into the air when I can’t see. But I can. She tried to jump right over the security barrier next to the desk by the front door. They’re mending it right now.