Chocolate Milkshake.

Chocolate Milkshake.

I was at my auntie’s Glenda and Uncles Jims house.

Sitting in the kitchen.

I like kitchens and I particularly like to sit at my auntie and uncles round wooden table when typing upon my laptop.

That’s because the table is near the fridge, in fact it’s near everything, the kitchen being too small for a table really, but it all seems to work.

The black and white tiles on the floor are nice. The white ones more inviting to patches of dirt then the dark. I don’t mind patches of dirt, id happily lick an unclean floor if it got a laugh.

The little kitchen sink in between rickety rackety cupboards, a spider left unnoticed to spin webs up in the corner of the ceiling all things said and done my aunties kitchen is a really nice space.

Which is why I choose to sit and write here in the first place.

I also love having the fridge nearby, with its gentle humming carrying on in the corner, and it’s inviting closed door adorned with all manner of magnetic letters shapes, and toys.

I can still remember as a young child playing with the three little pigs upon the fridges door.

Try and imagine them, three little magnetic pigs, fridge magnets, each pig dressed up as a chef, they all have curly tails, white aprons tied at the back with string and on top of their piggy brows a tall white chef’s hat.

To me they look like quite happy pigs; maybe they enjoy getting the chance to do the cooking for a change, instead of just being eaten.

Each pig is magnetic they all have matching aprons and hats, with curly tails sticking out from the back, but each magnetic pig chef is different.

For starters they all have different faces, okay so their eyes are all tiny google eyes, but one pig I think it’s the dish cloth pig has lost an eye, all the pigs have smiles, but one pig has a loony look upon its face with its tongue lolling out of its mouth a bit crazy like.

Another way they pigs are different from each other is the weapons each pig chef holds in its hands.

One pig magnet looks like a pig chef who is running very fast or almost as if it is flying a bit like superman with one arm stuck out in front, this pig’s trotter holds a frying pan.

The frying pan has always been my favourite of the pig’s weapons, it’s a good weapon for people too, I remember at University in London, our window getting shot at with a paintball gun by some guys having a laugh on the other side of the road.

So I grabbed a frying pan and smacked myself in the head with it feigning knocking myself out until I made them laugh and they stopped firing paintballs from their gun,

The frying pan pig chef looks like it is constantly running or flying horizontally from the right side of the fridge to the left.

The next pig is not a running pig or a flying pig, this pig faces the camera of the eye, or if you’d prefer this pigs face gazes out of the fridge door to meet your own gaze directly.

Unless of course the pig falls onto the kitchen floor, in which case it will probably be looking at your hand as you pick it up before sticking it back on the fridge, where it never looks like it wants to be moved at all.

As a little boy when I was around the pigs used to fall on the floor all the time.

This second pig chef has a fork in one hand and a knife in the other, as if it is just about to tuck into some grub in a most civilised human like manner.

I know this isn’t the case and that the fork and knife are really these chef pigs’ magical weapons for use in fighting other fridge magnets and of course its mortal enemies any other pig chefs.

The third pig is the one that gets played with the least, this pig chef holds a dish cloth but its hands and the cloth it holds are moulded on to the top of its stomach, like if you clasped your hands together and put them on your lap, which is rubbish, because it means this pig doesn’t really have a weapon, although it does have one eye missing so redeems itself a little bit there.

When I was a kid I used to play pretend wars with my favourite two pigs, the one with the frying pan and the one with the magic knife and fork.

When attacking the frying pan pigs special move is to fly through the air, well across the fridge, and smash into everything else, all the little wooden rabbit fridge magnets, all the alphabet letters, all the

“Every day is a like a piece of string I keep getting tied up in knots”

Wise proverb fridge magnets.

The frying pan doesn’t rest until every magnet that adorns the fridge is bashed into oblivion.

It makes you wonder if this happy pig chef is really in control of its own destiny, or whether in fact it is lost under the frying pans spell, or possibly some other strange mysterious being controls the pigs’ fate.

Whatever the case that frying pan pig sure did seem to like sliding across the fridge sideways frying pan first, to smash into the other pigs ears and bash them repeatedly with frying pan, clang clang clang, until they’d squeal in submission or go death.

Of course each pig’s chef’s mortal enemy is another pig chef, in retaliation to its ear bashing the knife and fork pig flew, or slid as it were less sideways along the fridge but more up and down.

If the knife and fork pig got lucky it would sort of get below the frying pan pig and then rush upwards, up the fridge stabbing repeatedly with fork and knife moves, bash bash bash.

Who knows if I was an octopus id probably would have been able to play with six pigs on that fridge at the same time.

That’s if octopuses can breathe outside of water.

Losing my mum and dad at a young age meant whilst growing up I had to go and live with my Aunty Glenda and Uncle Jim.

Who whilst lovely were never wealthy enough to afford a Sega or a Nintendo to keep my thumbs busy, no matter with the pigs on the fridge I made do, but I only had two hands and only two sets of thumbs, so to my shame the one eyed dish cloth pig did get left out quite a fair bit.


Eventually though it would be the dish cloth pigs turn to play. You’d think that the dish cloth pig really wouldn’t have been much use seeing as the way it was moulded meant it had no weapon or that its weapon was just a dish cloth. Wrong.

Dish cloth pigs move only came out on special occasions.

Dish cloth pigs move was to blast round the fridge like a rocket, exhaust fumes and propulsion power shooting out past its curly tail out of the back of the apron, presumably out of dish cloth pig’s bum cakes.

Speedy dish cloth pig fly’s chef hat first, flying head butting anything in its way, kapow kapow, until once again most of all the fridge magnets would litter the black and white chequered tiles that line the kitchen floor.

Which would then leave me to pick them up and stick them back on the fridge so that the whole merry business could start over again.

It’s nice to remember what games the magnets on that fridge and I used to get up to, it was another time a different world in another universe. Back then all the fun of the fridge was on the outside.


You know what?

Sometimes those pesky wooden rabbits would be put to good use, once in a while with their magnets they’d be holding onto the fridge a picture that I had drawn with my own fair hands.

In fact my Aunties fridge is the only known gallery in this world that any of my artistic endeavours have ever been exhibited in, I mean on; unless you count the cheese I left to turn green as an artistic endeavour.

Now I’m older I’m content to let magnets on fridges stay where they are, well at least the pigs.

I’ll still try and make alphabet letters into funny words whenever I get the opportunity and for old times’ sake maybe the chef pigs will wage their war again.

I don’t even know if the pigs still exist ill have to look at the door properly again sometime soon.

Today the fun for me is on the inside of my Aunties fridge, a chocolate milkshake that I put in there about half an hour ago to chill out prior to writing these words, which I think I will go take out and drink now,

Oh right look here comes my Auntie Glenda, who is looking very well, much younger than the last time I saw her, she peeps over my shoulder,

“Your writing about chocolate milkshake” She says out loud, her voice sounds better today,

“Hey Shazz, Harry is writing about Chocolate milkshake again”

My auntie calls out to her daughter Shazz who is my cousin.

“Harry loves Chocolate milkshake” Shazz sings mockingly over and over, is this an attempt to wind me up or maybe a great song she’s just thought off I’m not sure which,

Never mind I admit the genius of Shazz's song which she’s just invented is that its true, I do love chocolate milkshake, and I tell both my auntie and my cousin that,

“I’m off to drink my chocolate milkshake in the garden”,

And ask whether they would you like to join me.

My cousin Shazz is a big girl she’s aged 30, and when I say big girl I mean that if she got into your car she'd be likely to make the axel go way down and your cars undercarriage would probably almost be scrapping the road, so know you now.

Anyhow Shazz decided to join me as did her thin, quite attractive but seemingly moody blonde haired friend Sam who I had never met before.

We trooped outside, I enjoy drinking my chocolate milkshake in the garden, there’s nothing better when it’s a lovely day and I don’t why but I don’t use a straw.

The two girls who were sat to my left were enjoying the relaxing feeling that comes of lying down on sun loungers and chatting. Whilst I sat to their right on an upright garden chair.

Suddenly out of the blue my cousin’s blonde friend Sam asks me what Jobs had I been looking for since leaving the record store.

I didn’t even know she knew that I had worked in a record store, let alone left my job.

I reply that well I hadn’t really been looking for any other work, as it hadn’t been such a long time,

“How long has it been” Sam asked with a look in her eyes I couldn’t read.

Hmmm not long I thought, but then I realised that it would be coming up to six months, half a year, wow that time sure had flown by, to me it felt more like only a couple of fortnights and the feeling was a little bit odd.

“About six months” I said in answer to Sam’s question, and she and Shazz shared a look together.

The subject of work and my cousins and her friends looks were making me a bit uncomfortable so I decided to change the subject, but what would I talk about,

I had to think of something that lay on neutral ground , ah I thought got it. I’d have a look towards the end of the garden and talk about what I could see.

Gardens were easy.

I thought.

Little did my eyes know the treat they were in for.


At the end of my Aunties Garden, it appeared as if there was some sort of giant super bar.

The Carlsberg beer company once upon a time brought out a series of award winning beer commercials, the gist of each was that whatever venture Carlsberg lent its hand to would probably be the best in the world.

For example one story revolved around flat mates, and revealed Carlsberg’s interpretation of the perfect flat mate, the advert ended with the slogan

“So Carlsberg don't do flatmates, but if we did, they would probably be the best flatmates in the world".

Well bearing that in mind, if Carlsberg did bars then they probably were in charge of the bar that was at the end of my Auntie Glendas garden.

It looked fantastic.

There was a giant outdoor TV which appeared to be carved into rock.

There was a futuristic looking and classy overhanging balcony all decked out in black and looking to my eyes like it was made from the same materials as a flashy monitor screen.

The bar had possible water features or at least elements of water features.

The whole look of the place had real appeal, I wanted to get up out of my chair and head to the bar right away, it just looked so truly awesome.

Id only recently come back from teaching English of all languages at an orphanage in Kathmandu I had first heard something around two years ago about a bar being built at the back of my Aunty Glendas and Uncle Jims, but this was the first time I had seen it for myself.

I turned to Sam and Shazz and said,

“Wow that Bar at the end of the garden is amazing”

I was wondering why there was no fence, to separate the end of the garden with the beginning of the bar, instead there was a series of rocks a bit like a mini mountain which led up to the bars balcony.

So essentially if you wanted to you could run down the garden and climb the mountain all the way up to the bar.

I was really thinking about it.

I was also thinking that it meant that if anyone wanted to they could head down from the bar and climb into the garden.

Another thing that caught me as strange was that the garden had both fences on either of its sides, just not on the end, I suppose the mini-mountain counted as a sort of fence, even so I still thought it a bit odd.

If someone told me they had a train track at the end of their garden then fair enough Id believe it, but who has a mini mountain and a bar, well I guess my Aunty Glenda and my Uncle Jim.

“Yeah it’s quite nice” Shazz replied with a yawn, Sam and her both shared another look this time of the exasperated kind, I could tell they weren’t at all interested.

Still the bar held me in rapturous awe, and I continued to talk,

“Yeah but look closer, look they have speakers and amps, it’s a really rocking bar.”

I noticed that at the top of the mini mountain, sitting in front of the balcony on chairs made out of stone were a pair of statues.

One was a man all green and covered in leafs, he looked like a man of the forest he had a beard, two little horns poking out of from the top of his head.

I thought it might have been a statue of the green man himself.

This green mans partner sat beside him on the other chair and was also cloaked in green leafs, she wore a crown and had furry legs which ended in hooves like a Mr Tumus, or if you’ve never met a Mr Tumnus you’d call her a fawn.

My eyes focused on one of the bars speakers, it was plain and black and looked just like a typical speaker that you could find in any music store but to me it was sending out so much energy.

It made me say out loud to my cousin and her blonde friend Sam

“Wow that place is really Rock and Roll”

As I said these words instantly the sound of thunder rolled out of the distance. It rumbled away for a while before disappearing into silence.

It was as if I had just said the exact magic words that the bar at the end of garden had been waiting to hear.

Words which when said at the right time had the ability to unpick the locks that constrained the world and kick start some sort of revolution within reality.

I really could not believe it, now the statues in the chairs were coming to life.

Sam and Shazz still weren’t impressed and were happy to continue with their relaxing and chatting upon the sun loungers.

Had they even noticed the thunder, couldn’t they see the statues coming to life?

I looked at the statues, they were definitely moving, in fact the one that reminded me of the green man was now grinning very cheekily and had some sort of tropical cocktail drink in his hand, its tall glass complete with miniature flamingo and umbrella.

“Now that’s Rock and Roll” he said to his partner, who had no drink at all, and then he laughed deep and rich, whilst smiling right at me.

Just to the left of the statues suddenly some fairy girls popped out into existence. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief but they were still there, this is amazing I thought, and I shouted out to Shazz and her moody friend Sam,

“Hey wow check it out fairy girls”,

“But it looks like there a bit too young for me”

Shazz and Sam paid little attention, but I could see for myself that all the fairy girls seemed to be very little.

Not as small as ladybirds or as your thumb but small like children around the age of four.

They were dressed in, well I have no idea, but their clothes appeared to be the usual sort of fairy garb as depicted in illustration, you know, like dresses made of leafs or dew drops or dragon fly wings, anyway each girl was in fairy dress.

As soon as I had said that they were too young for me, another fairy girl appeared, she looked like she was the same age and size as myself, amazing, what luck, I was very excited,

Turning to my cousin and Sam who still were chatting away on their sun loungers I said,

“I hope they come down from the mountain to visit the garden”

My cousin and her friend Sam stopped there chat for just enough time to state that they hated this idea, but my eyes had clouded over, and I did not care for their opinion,

“Yes”, I declared in triumph, “look they are coming down from the mountain, whey.”

Sure enough like rushing people hand in hand reminiscent of a people powered wood-stock chain, the fairy girls swept down the mountain in a flowing zig zag way.

All the while the tall older fairy played a flute almost as if she was leading the little fairy girls trance like or hypnotically with her song.

The fairy girls arrived into the garden, with glows and colours flashing across them like lightning as they danced and twirled round and round.

All the while the tall fairy girl was playing a tribal tune upon her flute faster and faster, she had long black hair which fell down her back, and tender arms and legs with skin that appeared soft.

I fell in love with her on sight, and knocked over my chair because I stood up so quickly, my cousin and her friend Sam were disgusted with my behaviour but I didn’t care, I was oblivious, I sent a couple of plant plots flying as well in my rush, all I wanted to do was go meet and then dance with the tall beautiful fairy girl.

Well what do you know, my Nephew Geoffrey sped out of my Aunties house and joined me in the garden and together we and the fairies danced.

We twirled together for how long I don’t know, I became in a trance as did Geoffrey who was the same size as the little fairy girls, my nephew Geoffrey by the way was aged four.

The tall fairy girl playing her pipe stopped the dance and led the fairies quickly back up the mountain.

The two statues the green man and his partner got up out of their chairs and moved gracefully like walking boulders into the bar at the top.

I thought to myself that I would see if my nephew Geoffrey would like to climb to the top of the mountain so we could visit the bar together.

Geoffrey was already one step ahead, as I was thinking it, Geoffrey was doing it; off he went climbing on all fours up the mountain.

By the time I caught up with him, his hands appeared scratched from all the scrabbling involved in climbing the mini mountain, my hands were scratched to bits too, and underneath my finger nails stung.

Both mine and Geoffrey’s skin had turned the colour of grey from all of the rock dust that now covered us.

We were climbing at a manic rate, as if we thought that we had a time limit in which to get to the top, and if we took too long we wouldn’t make it.

What it was we were trying to make I still don’t know.

On the way up the mountain I kept consciously making sure that I was climbing behind Geoffrey in case he slipped or fell.

Unfortunately he did slip, but instead of falling down the mountain he managed to fall to the side knocking his head into the next door neighbour’s high wooden fence.

It looked painful, but in his fever to reach the top, Geoffrey didn’t cry or stop he just kept climbing.

At this higher part of the mountain someone who had climbed before us, had left some handy foot holes and hand holes, as well as handy tips stuck to the mountain and written on card, such as

“Don’t look down”,

Which as I’m quite weak when it comes to mind tricks made me look down,

For some reason the garden looked like it was far far away, even though from the ground I was sure it was just a mini mountain it appeared Geoffrey and I had climbed higher than the clouds, a voice echoed in my mind, told you not to look down.

As the voices echo faded away, oddly enough I noticed that the next hand hold up the mountain was shaped like a bicycle saddle very strange.

After what seemed an age Geoffrey finally reached the top of the mountain, and I joined him on what was a flat part of rock, a nice place to rest and enjoy the view; however there was no time for that as Geoffrey suddenly became woozy possibly from his earlier collision with the fence.

He swayed left and right and with no control of his footing nearly fell to his death right off the top of the mountain, luckily I grabbed him before he could slip to his doom, and I clutched him tight to my chest.

“Can we go down please” Geoffrey asked, he had a very scared look in his eyes, which sobered me at once from the call of the fairy girl and the bar on top of the mountain.

“Yes” I said, quite fearful of having to hold my nephew whilst attempting a climb down what was a very precarious mountain, nevertheless I endeavoured to hide my fear from Geoffrey and set about keeping him safe as we begun the descent down.

Somehow I was able to keep hold of him in one crooked arm, whilst using my other arm and free hand to drop down from each hand hold to the next.

In fact it was not long before we reached the bicycle saddle shaped hand hold which marked about the half way point of the mountain.

A father and his son passed us on our way down and on their way up to the top of the mountain and its mystical bar.

“Not long now” I said whilst looking at Geoffrey,

To my shock he was unconscious, and had stopped breathing.

This was not the place to panic, but in my mind I was panicking, I thought he was dead.

I placed my hand above his mouth, phew; I could just about feel a faint breath.

Geoffrey’s lips pursed out in an expression that made him almost look less like a little boy and more like an shrimp, he was still in a bad way, but at least he was alive.

He appeared smaller to me somehow, maybe because of his distress.

I noticed that his mouth was full of water,

“Geoffrey are you awake, can you hear me” I asked, to see if he had come back to consciousness, he murmured a response, so I commanded

“Spit”

Geoffrey spat with a great pursing noise like the spitting out a peaches pip, and some of the water that was stuck in his mouth spurted out.

I continued to climb down the mountain with Geoffrey in my arm, every so often
issuing the command,

“Spit”

After about twenty spits or so Geoffrey seemed better, his expression was more like a boys and less like an shrimps, and his eyes which I realised had been slightly closed were now fully open.

“Is that better” I asked

Geoffrey replied in a gargle

“Yes that’s much better” it was like he was talking whilst underwater,

Hmm that’s not so good I thought to myself, and decided that Geoffrey must still have some water trapped inside his body somewhere.

Seeing as we were very near the bottom of the mountain I decided to hold him by his ankles and dangle him upside down to let the water out.

As I held Geoffrey upside down water rushed out of his eyes mouth and nose and well everywhere, for some reason I felt in the pit of my stomach that the chances were Geoffrey’s face, his mouth, eyes, nose, indeed his whole face was likely to go rushing off along with the water.

It would almost be like when having a bath you pulled the plug out, and off your face would go swirling down the plug hole leaving you with a faceless head upon your neck.

I hoped in my heart that Geoffrey’s face wouldn’t go rushing of with the cascade of water, how would I explain his lack of a face to my family.

Thankfully it didn’t, and after an age the water stopped, I turned Geoffrey back the right way and asked him how he felt now,

“Oh much better”

He replied his normal voice very clear and very crisp not a trace of gargle.

Good finally all was well and we could return to my Aunties Garden, I didn’t want my sister Geoffrey’s mum to know about how close we came to disaster, or how Geoffrey,

Wait a minute, his voice might have been ok, but as I stepped back into the garden I looked down at Geoffrey and he wasn’t there anymore,

“Hello”, said a strange thing in my hand.

It was like a clear plastic box, the same size and shape as an old cassette tape box it wasn’t empty well it kinda was apart from what looked like one of those sticks you get in a pot of bubble mixture you know the stick for blowing the bubbles with.

“Hello I’m in here” the top of the stick which was inside the plastic box moved as if it was speaking.

It was speaking! And it wasn’t an it. That was my nephew speaking inside the plastic box.

Geoffrey after I tipped all the water out of him had somehow turned into a bubble mixture stick that was trapped in a plastic box.

Oh no, I had no idea how I was going to explain this, too late, my Aunties garden wasn’t very big and my sister had already seen me.

“Hey Harry where’s Geoffrey”

“He’s right here” I said to my sister

And handed Geoffrey in his plastic box over to her.

“Very funny wise guy” my sister said, “No really where is he”.

I gulped in some air.

This was going to be tricky, in fact I became quite sad, I had lost Geoffrey and there was nothing I could do to get him back.

I didn’t know what to say, so I decided to stick with the facts.

As tears streaked down my face I began to tell all the family that had gathered round, my sister, my cousin Shazz, her friend Sam, my uncle Jim and auntie Glen what had happened to Geoffrey.

“Everything I’m going to tell you is the truth, but you’re not going to believe a word I say” I told my family whilst sobbing unashamedly in grief.

I relayed for them the events prior to Geoffrey’s change, the green man coming to life, the fairies dance, at this point my Uncle Jim chipped in and said in his chirpy brogue,

“That’s right I saw the fairies come down of the mountain, they was a dancing round and round, than young Geoffy raced up and started climbing that mountain like the world was going to end all the while with Harry here chasing away like a blue tit right behind him”

Relieved at last that someone else had noticed the fairies even though it was only my Uncle Jim who more often than not was on the sauce, I continued with my story.

I told of our climb up, how Geoffrey had slipped and hit his head on the fence and then the climb back down with all of Geoffrey’s spitting, the abundance of water and Geoffrey’s subsequent change.

“So where’s Geoffrey now” my sister asked again.

I couldn’t believe it; id just told her that when I tipped all the water out of him how her son, my nephew, our sweet Geoffrey, had turned into a bubble mixture stick that was trapped inside of a plastic box.

She hadn’t really been listening to a word I was saying.

None of my family had, apart from the slightly sozzled Uncle Jim who although drunk you could always rely on.

“Geoffrey”, I shouted out, “say something”,

I thought if they all heard him talk then they could see and know for themselves exactly what had happened, but Geoffrey did not shout out.

I looked down at my sister’s hands where I expected to see Geoffrey inside of the plastic box, but whilst she hadn’t been paying any attention to my story she had been absentmindedly playing with the box.

My sister had somehow managed to turn it a miniature ticktacktoe board.

All the while I had been telling her the grim events of the day my sister had been playing herself at noughts and crosses, and now all that remained of my nephew Geoffrey sat in my sister’s hands.

Silent. Completely surrounded by a bunch of circles, was a row of three crosses with a line drawn straight through the middle.