Matilda's Illusion

"It's Coming Home
It's Coming Home
Football's coming home" was blaring out of the pub speakers, the noise was becoming deafening.

One month of fluffing football and it had all come down to this.

One last football match...

Whilst most sane people were out shopping for Christmas presents, we were stuck.

Stuck you might ask!
Yes, fluffing stuck.

Stuck fully trapped in a mass of sweaty seething bodies in The Puss in Boots pub down by the canal in Macclesfield, in North West England.

It had all started on the twentieth of November 2022 when the England men's football team won their opening match in the World Cup of that year, thrashing Iran by six goals to two.

Matilda, bless her soul, had decided that she wanted a trip home.

So we got the guest room on the narrow boat ready, which included doing some special grocery shopping just to satisfy Matilda's needs.

A crate of sloe gin was bought for Matilda. She does enjoy her Friday gin and tonic. She is also very particular and it has to be sloe gin. For the uninitiated in gin, sloe gin is made from sloe berries, and as we would be cruising the canals for a month with Matlida, there was no guarantee we would find a village shop that sold sloe gin.

Matildas Illusion.jpg

^{^{Source Image by Hans from Pixabay modified by me in pixlr.com}}

If you dare to ask Matilda why is it that she will only drink sloe gin.

You will be met with the following response:

How dare you , you nincompoop, question why I drink my sloe gin!
Buttttt If you must know, I am a 82 years young lady who has a touch of arthritis in my young hips.

Andddd if you must know something else, on Friday I put on my dancing shoes and go dancing, you do know that one MUST always dance the tango on a Friday, tengo.

My feet swell up with my arthritis tengo but and this is the really great thing, the sloe berries in the sloe gin seem to have anti-inflammatory effects by reducing plasma fibrinogen and IL-1alpha levels. Gosh that's a mouthful, try saying that when you your mouth is stuffed full of something!

Which means in simple terms that my feet are not as swollen so I can put on my dancing shoes and dance the night away! hahaha dance dance baby!

And that is what you are told by Matilda!

So here we were stuck in this godforsaken pub full of English people watching the World Cup football final between England and France.

It had all kicked off with a stunning win by Saudi Arabia against Argentina on Tuesday November 22nd and the shocks just kept coming and coming all month long.

BUT perhaps the biggest shock of all was that Matilda HAD NOT run out of tonic for her gin!

When I say a Shock, I was hugely thankful for that, because Matilda did not drink any old normal tonic with her sloe gin. Oh no Matilda had to drink Skinny Tonic British Raspberry Tonic Water.

Now you try and find let alone buy Skinny Tonic British Raspberry Tonic Water when you are cruising on a canal in the English countryside towards Macclesfield where Matilda is from.

Now speaking of Macclesfield, it is where Matilda is from. However it transpired that:

As you know I am 82 years young and when I was a toddler and living in Macclesfield, that is in Cheshire you know in the North West of a country called England well they are saying Engerland now, can you hear them, the football fans, I mean Come on Engerrland!! Look Look they are winning, they are winning, Les Roast Beef are beating the French!!!

Oh Yes well as you know I am 82 years young and when I was a toddler and living in Macclesfield, that is in Cheshire you know, of course you know that, I just told you that. Oh dear me I seem to be forgetting my memory.

What were we talking about. Oh yes when we were living in Macclesfield it was during the blitz you know so in 1942 my family moved us children upto Scotland, so I have been here ever since 1942. Goodness me that is 80 years ago, no wonder I got home sick and wanted to come home.

That was a long time, turns out Matilda had not been back to Macclesfield since she left as a toddler in 1942.

Yet here we were, watching her Engerland win the World Cup Final!

knock knock knock

Oh gosh, who is that!

Hello tengo, can I come in.

Oh Matilda what are you doing here, in fact what the fluff are we doing here in the house. We were in The Puss in Boots in Macclesfield watching the football final.

Oh don't be so silly tengo, It's an illusion, just an illusion.

It's 11.42 on the 22nd of November, the World Cup Final is not until the 18th of December silly.
It's an illusion, just an illusion now pour me a gin and tonic, I had a fluffing nightmare of a day.

You did Matilda! haha yours was nothing.