As Valentine's Day approaches, you'll be mulling over what to do for your beloved. Based on years of bitter experience with my ever-loving missus, I can offer a few tips:
Don't buy her a bathroom scales. Peggy had been going on about losing weight, and I thought I was being helpful. I got a great bargain at the auction with a set that were previously used to weigh coal - but they were near enough spotless. You could weigh yourself in stones and pounds, or in kilos if you wanted a second opinion. Peggy didn't like them, and being the kind of woman who wears her heart on her sleeve, she let me know.
"Are ya tryin' to be funny?" she asked.
I tried to look hurt, but it must have come out like a smirk.
"Ya can take tha' stupid grin off yer face," she said, "an' get tha' piece o' junk outta here before I brain ya with it."
Another year, I read an article in the Herald about keeping your relationship fresh. It said that the trick was to do something surprising. So I brought her on a romantic weekend away. I don't know if you've ever been in a caravan in Brittas Bay in February? It was fairly brisk and bracing. There was a gale blowing in off the sea, and rain coming down like a waterfall. Penguins were packing up and fecking off somewhere warmer when we got there. I got a loan of the caravan off a fella in Magowan's, and apart from a couple of places where the rain was getting in, it wasn't too bad. Peggy didn't even need to do the cooking, because there was a chipper next to the pub.
But she didn't like it. There was as much chance of kindling romance, as there was of starting a camp-fire. She complained all the way home, until her voice gave out with the laryngitis and the pleurisy.
Last year, I forgot all about it, and it only dawned on me on the 16th. I thought I'd gone deaf, as the only sounds in the happy home for the previous 48 hours were of doors being slammed and crockery being fecked onto the table in what I took to be a meaningful way - although the meaning had been lost on me - and I didn't want to spoil it by asking.
My strong recommendation to you is that you give her a copy of It's a Desperate Life, and to hell with the expense. After she's read it, she might think you're not so bad after all!
The hilarious new comedy novel 'It's a Desperate Life' is now available as a paperback or an e-book from Amazon and all good booksellers or through http://peterhammondauthor.com
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