As usual for any day of the week I woke at five in the morning, swore, rolled over and drifted off to sleep again. At some point my iPhone ting tinged to announce a message on Facebook. Wondering who the fuck should want to wake me on a Sunday morning I tried getting back to sleep by counting the voices in my head. After a while of dozing on and off I decided this was no good and rose from the Pit of Doom to face the day. I took the various medications and injections that keep me alive and prepared to spend another few hours on Planet Earth.

Then I remembered the message. Who would want to contact me that early on a Sunday? If the kids were in trouble they’d phone me, the Divine Ms B would’ve texted first and everyone else I know would still be drunk and comatose at that time of the week.

My curiosity got the better of me. It was a young friend of mine, Amanda. How come I have four Amandas on my friends list but no Johns I mused as I opened the message with a smile on my face. Always a pleasure to hear from her, her beautiful smile brightens up the darkest day. As I read the content my mood darkened and my heart sank. It was news concerning her grandfather and another dear friend of mine. Dave. A former neighbour of mine, a drinking buddy, a colleague in sport, an all round good guy and legend. I’ve known Dave for over thirty years. One time President of the Middlesex FA and also of Harefield United Football Club. I went to his seventy fifth birthday party where he refused to sing unless I joined him. We both knocked out My Way together on the stage at the footy club and I think the world of him. Now eighty five, Dave was visited by the evil Dr. Alzheimer a few years ago and now lives in a nursing home in his beloved Harefield.

Amanda was letting me know that Dave had been re admitted to hospital the previous evening. He’d been poorly a while ago and was in trouble again. Without going into too much detail of his medical history it was plainly not good news. He had pneumonia, couldn’t take in fluids without them going straight to his lungs and was on a drip being pumped full of antibiotics. They had decided a feeding tube wasn’t an option but were hoping to stabilise him enough to return him to the home for some palliative care in familiar surroundings. I was gutted. I replied to the message saying all the appropriate things whilst knowing my words were as useful as tits on a nun. With this grim news in mind I headed out for the day. First stop the Village Cafe for breakfast.

My Facebook friends seem to think I spend most of my spare time in the cafe because my weekend statuses are usually from there. The truth is to use their free wifi you have to check in on Facebook, thus giving them free advertising. Not daft is our Isa. A light breakfast was my intention, as soon as I walk in the smiling waitress brings me my mug of hot chocolate before taking my order. The rain outside was hammering down and I was tempted to linger over a second cup but I had things to do. I was going to do what all dads love to do. I was going to watch my son play football.

Tom is a talented footballer who is quite capable of playing at a higher standard than he does. Due to work and family commitments he cannot guarantee being able to train midweek so he has done the sensible thing and captains his local senior football team on a Saturday. Still a good level of football, he is usually the best player on the pitch. Twenty eight years old now, he could play in that position at his club for another ten years. Currently serving a one match man for a two yellow card sending off he didn’t play yesterday so he was getting some minutes under his belt with his old Sunday League mates from Harefield Cricket Club FC.

The game was at Taylor’s Meadow, a local rec where generations of young Harefield footballers have cut their teeth in the game. With the news about old Dave and the circle of life on my mind I realised that fifty years ago this was where I used to watch my father play, in the same centre back position wearing the same number five shirt. Tom’s three year old son Ben is a promising footballer having been moved up an age group at his classes the week before. Although I played a bit in my youth the footballing gene must’ve skipped a generation with me. Then again no other fucker in the family can sing like I can.

The morning was all the more poignant as I watched with two mates of mine whose sons were also both in the team. Anecdotes of past glories were related while we watched our younger selves battle it out in the mud and freezing rain. The lads won seven four and Tom got on the scoresheet at the right end for once. Drenched through and covered in mud it was time to warm up in my favourite time of the week, the Sunday lunchtime pub session.

I gave up drinking in August 2012 but that would never stop me going in pubs. I love nothing better than talking the toot with a few like minded buddies at a bar, especially after the nine o clock watershed when blokes are legally allowed to talk bollocks. My local is exactly the kind of place where that is possible. No jukebox or telly, no pool table or other gimmicks just good food and ale and a roaring fire. In some circles it’s known as Bob Marley’s Bar – no women no Sky. So it was that I spent a happy couple of hours quaffing pints of orange squash with my beer drinking mates, let’s call them, say, Geordie, Shifter, Smudger and Hoover because those are their names. Today’s main item on the agenda was 1970s comedy which involved more than a few Tommy Cooper impersonations.

After a couple of rounds each I left them to it, the cordial was sloshing around inside me and I had some more soft drinking to do that evening, it was time for some rock n roll. Two friends of mine, Phil and Stan aka The Philistans, were holding an open mic night at The Swan in Iver and I was taking along the old geetar to strum a few tunes.

It was the first time I’d been to this pub and it was a quiet Sunday evening. Phil and Stan played a short set then my old songwriting partner Dave Ford arrived. Dave and I have been in a band called The Chevrons since 1978, our personnel has varied but nowadays we are a duo. We also played a short set of original songs, well they may not be very original but we wrote them. The pub got gradually busier and we finished the evening with me performing two songs with The Philistans, Bob Dylan’s You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere and Gram Parsons’ Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man.

With it all winding up by nine o clock I was in no mood to go straight home so I spent the last hour back in my local The Harefield. By now it was well past the watershed and plenty of bollocks were spoken. Paul the scaffolder was well oiled and insisted on demonstrating his new harness by attaching himself to the beer pumps. He gave us a lecture on health and safety on building sites full of slurred technical terms so nobody had a fucking clue what he was talking about. The two landlords kept having “One more for the stairs” and I was quite glad to be going home sober. A Chinese takeaway on the way home, I live a hundred yards from the pub and the Chinese is right opposite, and I was left to reflect on an eventful Sunday.

Footnote.

On Monday night the darts team were at home so I went across the road for some company. Sitting at the bar ting ting went my iPhone again. It was Amanda. Fearing the worst I nervously opened the message. Good news! The antibiotics had kicked in and Dave was recovering. He was sitting up holding her hand and blowing kisses. He was able to sip water and they were trying him on those yoghurt type drinks that I remember so well from my spell in the sick house. Although the end is inevitable for Dave, so it is for all of us eventually. But for now both he and I live to fight another day.