Life's a Beach

Dear Browsers and Browserettes,

tonight I sit in rather splendid isolation in the pasting room. Teenygoth has long since retired to bed to practice her presence, whilst Cook tucks into a freshly cut Mills & Boon, a half-drained litre of the finest super-strength continental lager close to hand.

Up in the servants' quarters Fetlock is, for some reason best known to himself, exploring the arcane mysteries of a Slovenian wonderweb search engine. The last I heard, he was attempting a translation of "my pomegranate is richly vibrant", which I feel sure will go down a treat, come the morn, when he tries out his best English on the unsuspecting burghers of Little Wittering.

Silence abounds

For her part, mrs electrofried is quilting a cover for her trusty Victrola. We plan an approach to certain well-known music magazines for a sponsorship deal and, keep this under your hats dear readers, we're quietly confident of a major bidding war between the likes of "Kerrang" and "Q" for the privilege of plying their wares before the massed crowds of the Little Wittering branch of the WI. Mrs electrofried has a stencilled motif prepared in readiness.

Even the nether regions of the House have fallen silent. The Black Dowager remains several feet beneath the basement, her ears trained, as ever, upon the sound of a laughing young girl up in the attic. One day, God willing, they may be re-united.

Picture this

But enough of such light banter. Now we are alone, I feel it's time to tell you a little more of the beginnings of the current line of electrofried. Picture if you will a classroom of hormonally charged Fifth Form boys.

Sitting at the back is a particularly unprepossessing specimen. In his mind's eye, he attempts to piece together some loosely worded descriptions from the well-thumbed pages of "Virgin Soldiers" to create a technicolour picture of womanhood. All the while he pretends to pay attention to the teacher.

Enter the Headmaster

His thoughts are rudely interrupted by the arrival of the Headmaster. The boy listens half-heartedly to his request for volunteers to help out at an evening club for the mentally disadvantaged - a place of respite for their long-suffering parents.

No volunteers are forthcoming until the Headmaster adds these few vital words, "And there's girls ... "

One hand is raised swiftly, and the rest is history, for this is young master electrofried we see before us.

Fast forward

And now we're at that very same evening club. Master electrofried spies at the other end of the room a shy, and rather beautiful, young lady who's repeated glances in his direction cannot be ignored. The two gravitate gently toward the table-tennis equipment and play out a game, oblivious to the general mayhem around.

Eight weeks on they're an item, six years later they are mr and mrs electrofried, and thirteen years from when they first met they cradle their newborn second child. Little do they realise that reallyfried, their son, will take them right back to nights at the club ... for he too, it will shortly be revealed to them, is mentally disadvantaged.

And now ... the beach

So why, may you ask, is there a crudely rendered photograph of a beach at the beginning of this increasingly tedious pasting? It's because it's the place that holds the very deepest of memories for mr and mrs electrofried - most happy, just a few that are sad.

For it was here we courted, holding hands to explore rock pools and things that would make teenygoth blush beetroot red. It was here we walked on the first night of our married life. All the way to the fish and chip shop at the far end to purchase supper with the few shillings left in our newly conjugal purse.

It was here, too, that Dr Phlegm, the electrofried family physician, splashed in the waves with his newly christened Godson, the baby reallyfried. Just a few months later it would fall to him to break the news that all was not well.

Bittersweet memories

Scroll up for a second, if you will, to the photograph. How does it speak to you? If you have bittersweet memories of a place in time then spare a moment to add a comment in the Visitors' Book before you leave the House.


yours as ever

electrofried (mr)