Feeling all white

My back aches, my arms ache, my legs ache. My Winter workouts have begun.

No, I haven't had an aberration and joined a gym, or given in to temptation, dug my PJs out and joined in with the kids' judo class (that's next week).

It snowed.

And at our house, before we can get all excited about sledging and stuffing snowballs all over Boy-Next-Door, snow can only mean one thing - clearing the driveway. Ouch-a-rooney. Just staying upright is hard enough on the crazy slopes, let alone shovelling 15cm of snow out of the way. It's not so bad if the snow is fresh, but Tiggy and Dog-Next-Door like to come and dance around on it while we're working, compacting it down nicely and making it much harder to shift.

Is that doggy irony? Even though half the drive is snow-free they have to play on the bit we're still trying to clear?

Anyway, its a much quicker job with many hands and the neighbours, despite spending most of their lives in Lisbon and rarely seeing white fluffy stuff except on the head of their beer, are quite the dab hand at snow-ploughing. Nobby, however, was no help, but he did have a sick note.

Earlier in the week he had an invite from that British Father's Group to go out for a bevvie or two and a curry Friday night.
'I'm not sure I'll go this time,' he says, 'not with that football tournament the next day.'
'You could always go for the meal and then clock off and come home early,' says I in all innocence. 'You could do with a night out. Treat yourself!'
'Yeah, I suppose,' he said. So off he went.

I had a call at 10pm asking for the phone number of the taxi firm, which I took as a good sign after the last time (see previous posts) and he called in person at 11pm in reply to my text telling him it was snowing to discuss whether he should make a run for it before the stuff got too deep.
'We're just leaving the curry house and we're off to a bar. I'll just go and have one...'

That was the last I heard until he crept loudly through the front door sometime later and woke me up. I have a rule never to look at the time if I wake up in the night so it wasn't until Saturday morning that he confessed it was 3.30am when he finally rolled in.

Well, I thought, good for him. Bad for the football tournament but at least he had a good time. Why is there a green wristband on his arm? What does it say on it?... Mar___.co.uk??

I approached him with a pair of scissors.
'Let me cut that thing off your wrist,' I said.
He let me, but then snatched it off me and screwed it up in his hand!
'You don't need to know,' he said.
'I've already worked out you must have been clubbing,' says I, 'which one was it? I might like to go there myself.'
'Er, no you wouldn't.'
'Why not?'
'Forget it'
'Come on, what does it say? What's 'Marilyns'?'
'Well, what sort of club do I like the least and where I would definitely not take my wife?'
'I dunno, a rave?'

Yeah, I am dumb first thing on a Saturday morning.

It took me a while but I got there in the end. He meant one of those very warm places where the ladies don't wear very much and they'll let you watch them dance... for the benefit of my more innocent readers it was a flower arranging club.

So off he went to football with a bit of a hangover, and no sympathy from me. And I cleared the way for him to get his car out. Which one of us is the bigger mug?