Well the mad, mad world of football and the World Cup is almost upon us and already the chat is turning Laddish. “yer bring it on”! So I thought all you ladies and gents of a more intellectual bent might like to have a post of a more subtle nature so here’s a little story of my trip to the National Poultry Show last year for your amusement.
Well I guess there’s always one in every local area. You know the type I mean, someone who knows it all and can’t resist telling you about it, but enough about me because this story concerns Jones another local chicken keeper. Well Jones, I’m going to call him Jones for the sake of anonymity, is a local keeper whose chickens are never ill and lay world record numbers of extra large eggs throughout the year when mine were either broody or in permanent moult. The worst thing was he would pop up when least expected with a breezy “Hello small world itsn’t it” and proceed to tell you all about it.
I used to work in London and caught the train at the local village station and unfortunately Jones often got on at the next station. I’d just be settling down to my book when there’d be a “Well hello! fancy seeing you. Small world isn’t it”, and Jones would plonk himself down in the seat next to me. The rest of the journey I would hear about the latest exploits of his birds who if weren’t breaking laying records, were winning showing prizes at county shows! I’d be in the village shop when “Small world!” would ring out behind me and I’d be regaled with the latest news of his chickens hatchings with high ratios of pullets to cockerels he’d always achieve while I had to struggle with entire broods of cockerels. Wherever I went he’d pop up with his “Small world”, greeting such that I’d dread a visit to the feed merchants or local farm shop.
Well I’d never been to the National before and when I heard Joy and the Lincolnshire poultry mafia would be going I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet up and see what all the showing fuss was about that Jones had often boasted his chickens starred in. Clare my daughter decided she’d like to go too, so offered to drive. We secretly made our plans to go.
About a week before the event Clare suddenly warned me that Jones had small worlded her in the equine supplies store and asked if I was going to the National, could he get a lift. A whole day of Jones was too much to contemplate so we decided that we’d go in her little MX5 roadster and being a two seater there was no room to offer a lift.
The day of the show arrived and thankfully Jones had not made a direct approach. Heaving a sigh of relief we were just about to jump in the MX5 when we heard “Small world!” ring out and there stood Jones. “ I wondered if you were going to the National could I beg a lift”, he said. “Oh ever so sorry”, I thankfully replied “but we were going in the roadster so there’s no room”, and with that we jumped in the car and roared off the drive leaving Jones dumb founded in a cloud of dust.
The sun shone and the roads were quiet and the little MX5 flew along eating up the miles as we happy joked about narrowly avoiding a fate worse than death. Soon, in record time, we arrived at Stoneleigh where we were immediately directed into a parking space right next to the exhibition hall. Wasting no time we were ushered into the show barely stopping to pay our entry fee. Still ecstatic at having confounded the dreaded Jones we turned the corner in the hall only to see .............JONES! ............................................................................No! Only hundreds of milling chicken fanciers. Complete strangers we’d never seen before............!
”Big World!” said Clare.
With my apologies too Flan O’Brien and the Irish Times!
Now i’ve got that out of the way where’s the Radio Times and the beer. ” Come on ENGLAND!!!”
HF
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August 09, 2012, 15:59