It’s a Sixer!

The Baaamy farmers were chatting away, except for Arthur who had his head in a newspaper puzzle, “I’m stuck”, he said, “I could do with some help, my grandson’s never here when I need him – he’s at uni and there’s a crossword club in his lodgings, two floors down and three doors across he told me; the other day he asked if I fancied a go at sudoku, I said I never liked the idea of martial arts then he laughed and said it was numbers game, so I said count me in!”

“I used to love quizzes”, said Ted, “but the ole memory aint what it used to be, I thought it would be a good idea to write down my daily chores in a book so I wouldn’t forget to do them, Monday washing machine, Tuesday pop to the shops, Wednesday, something or other, Thursday, erm, well, never mind, you get the drift” ; “is it helping?” asked Barb, “it probably would if I could remember where I left it” Ted replied.

Over at the knitting circle Polly was talking about her piano, “I’m thinking of getting rid of it”, she said, “it’s taking up too much room and I’m no good at getting a tune out of it, I can’t even eat with chopsticks let alone play it, anyway, someone appeared at my door yesterday, she said ‘hello, my name’s Dee Sharp and I’m a piano teacher’, I said I didn’t ask for her to come round and she said, ‘I know, your neighbour did’ “.

You may remember I told you that Bert was getting a new bull, well, he went to liveskock market the other day and got himself one, “he’s a big beast” said Bert, “I watched him lick his lips whenener he saw an attractive cow and I thought, yes he’s the one, I’ve called him Big Boy because he’s not just huge, he’s big his busineess department too if you get my meaning – tomorrow I’ve set him and one of my cows up on a blind date, I’m looking forward to seeing how he gets on”, “if he’s that big he’ll probably flatten her when he does” quipped Colin – “OY”, shouted Landlord Len, “I’ll have none of that bulloney in my pub”!

That was all Colin needed to get him going, “crosswords upset me, I try not to get too down – the clue was 7 letters starting O and meaning easly understood, it should have been obvious – ‘assist’ has 3 letter S’s, the others are just there to help – I asked the shop worker if she could recommend something that gets rid of germs and she said ‘ammonia cleaner’, and I said I know you are‘ – I asked the book shop assistant ‘do you keep stationary here?’ and she said ‘no, I walk about’ – I asked the toy shop assistant where the Schwarzenegger dolls were and he pointed and said ‘Aisle B, back’ – when I need help adding up I ask Tommy, Hilfiger it out – accupuncturists have lots of assistants, they needle all the help they can get – pianist have knives because they like Chopin – when they to the mall they take a Chopin Liszt……”

All that talk about crosswords reminded Len of how his dearly departed Maggie used to start each day by turning to the back of the newpaper where the puzzles were, she often got angry with herself when she was stuck for an answer to an easy clue, “I used to help you”, muttered Len – ‘and there was never a cross word between us’ , she whispered.