It’s been very nostalgic so far this week. There I am washing paint brushes again as normal when there is a knock on the back door. Christine opens the door to find George on the doorstep. Apart from one brief meeting in Beverley about seven years ago we hadn’t seen George for nearly forty years.


He brings his wife, Christine in and we have a very good couple of hours reminiscing about how we grew up as kids on the same ten-foot and he fills me in on lots of ‘what’s happened to whom’ type of things from the ‘gang’ of the fifties. When he leaves we make tentative arrangements to keep in touch and I feel sure I will get down to the Star in Willerby some Wednesday night for a re-union with a few of them of who still meet each week for a game of dominoes.


Then last Tuesday Kev rings me to say that the Cornerhouse guys are meeting in Hull this week as one of the guys who has not been well is out this week so I’m off to the Manor Club. Now just to keep the nostalgia going Manor Club is at the top of the ten-foot George and I grew up in so on my way there I decide to take a drive down our old street and pass the house where I grew up.


I know things have to change but I remember the street as a football pitch with jackets for goal posts and perhaps a dozen kids, maybe more playing football but now all there are is cars parked half on the pavement on both sides of the street. Looking at it now it is a good job computer games were invented because the kids can’t play outside on streets like this.


When I get to the club I mention to Kev about living round the corner and the old gang still meeting every week after all these years, he of course sees nothing unusual about this as this same crowd has been meeting every week for years, probably not for forty years as they aren’t quite my age yet but looking around they could be getting near..........!


Mind you the Manor Club was a good alternative to the Cornerhouse this week, two ladies darts teams and a big screen to watch Chelsea humiliated, but best of all the supper laid on for the darts players is open to everyone when they have finished. So that’s plenty of chips, sausages, curry and bread and butter to share, not that I had any as I had had my lentil and bean casserole for tea served with an excess of vegetables, delicious! Christine is determined we have a long and healthy retirement.


Well maybe I had just the odd chip butty with perhaps a sausage but no curry because that had all gone before I got back for seconds but I did notice Dom was still eating after everyone else had finished with the odd bit of curry sauce showing at the corner of his mouth.


So couple all that with me still trying to clear out the sheds and Christine saying “no we can’t get rid of that” as I bring out the little wooden cart that Amber and Joe our grand kids both used when first learning to walk. The same wooden cart that Amber used to move all the heavy York Stone paving stone by stone to the end of the garden before we started the extension. Some of these stones must have been nearly as heavy as herself and I remember the next two days she struggled to move her arms but she was a great help. Joe, the grandson on the other hand, whilst still a big help was obviously taking lessons from his dad in how to avoid any physical work at all and busied himself with grandma snipping and pruning.


The large petrol lawnmower also reached the end of its life. This is the one that Dave bought many years ago when they lived in York, and it had to be a good one because his Dad was getting on a bit in years and wouldn’t have been able to cut the grass with a small push and pull one. Dave naturally would not be able to cut the grass himself having made an art of 'being able to do nothing' in the house or garden maintenance department. So with no lawnmower any more we need to decide if we need a lawn in our revamped garden or go for the large patio and plastic grass. This seems a good idea to me but I am guessing I will be out looking for a new mower quite soon.


So there you have it. Nostalgia, is it what it used to be? Must get on we are having people for dinner this week end and Christine’s pink Black Book has lots of entries with my name next to them. I might just get back to the sheds, lots of photographs from years ago to go through