Monday 24th April 2006

Today’s morning cocktail was the same Pillow Cooler that I made yesterday, because I’d not been shopping and didn’t have any other ingredients about, but I did add some honey which had a pleasing effect. The serious blending will start tomorrow. To that end, I went into town today and bought some fruit in readiness. Nothing too outrageous – we’re going to take this a step at a time. But a decent blend of flavours I hope. Tune in tomorrow to see what became of it all.

Perhaps, if I practice for years, I’ll become some sort of master blender, a little like master whiskey makers in Scotland, and will have a special certificate I could put in my kitchen to prove to guests that when it comes to blending up fruit into a refreshing drink, I’m a bona fide expert in the field. Then their faces will look impressed. I wonder who would judge such a bold claim? Perhaps there’s some sort of smoothie university you can go to and take a course. There probably is in Australia, the spiritual home of the smoothie. That’s what they study out there, not science or literature. Such things mean nothing to an Australian. All they want to know about is surfing and smoothies, the only two subjects taught in Australian schools. And criminology, which is their version of ‘history’. Ha-Ha. I made a joke.

So after I’d bought my fruit I was walking through Williamson Square and saw quite a few people sat around on the new, funky wooden benches that have been installed at a cost of £97,000,000,000. I was headed for the taxi rank but thought ‘no, these people are right. It’s nice to just sit in a square, even a drab and in desperate need of further regeneration square, and just watch the world go by for a few minutes’. So I did the same.

The fountains in Williamson Square have been a big hit and it is quite pleasant to idly watch them. The individual fountains alternate in height and shape and so you can happily watch them go through their different cycles – it’s nice enough. It’s not Rome, you understand. It’s not the calming and charming water feature you might find in a Venetian courtyard, but it’s North West England’s version and it’s good enough for us.

As I sat there, a lad on a bike cycled up to the fountains and rode a path straight through them, along the Moses-like dry bit down the middle. There was no look of enjoyment on his face as he did this, but it was clear he was only doing it for enjoyment. He was enjoying the fountain, but was too surly to allow this enjoyment to register on his pinched face. When he’d ridden through the fountain, he turned his bike around and faced them again, still looking quite miserable. He was enjoying the fountain in a very British way.

I had my camera on me so I took a photo of him looking at the water, wanting to cycle through it all again but feeling reserved about doing so because to do it more than once would be regarded as play, and he didn’t want to be seen playing. So he just sat and looked at the path that led through the fountain, knowing that he would definitely like to cycle along it again, but very wary of what other people might think. They might think him childish and that’s the last thing he wanted, even though he was a child, and it would be quite natural for him to be playing in a fountain.

Here is the photo.

I was interested now because I knew he was definitely going to ride through it again, but I wanted to know how long he was going to take about it. He looked around to see if there were any other teenagers (probably specifically female teenagers) who might make fun of him playing in a fountain.

And then waited some more.

Eventually though, he gave in to his child-like temptation to cycle through the fountain and did so.

But was extra careful to make sure nobody could be in any doubt that he was getting no pleasure out of this behaviour at all.

And another afternoon ends in an English city.

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