Tuesday 29 January 2008

Vive t'difference

In Halifax on Saturday I felt a bit peckish as I sauntered around the market looking for a lamp. My eyes hurt when I read these days unless I have a bright light and am not trying to read some stupid mini font that papers and books (and students) sometimes use. I didn't find a lamp but I found a stall that sold pies. They didn't have many left but the ones in the glass fronted cabinet didn't look too forlorn so I thought I might give one a go. Yorkshire pies, by and large, tend to be an altogether less life threatening prospect than their southern counterparts. Dog food, for example, isn't the principle ingredient. Neither for that matter is dog. I approached the stall and asked a woman (who, judging by her clothes, must have just rushed from an audition for the regional 'Last of the Summer Wine' extras recruitment drive) whether the pies were hot. I thought: "simple question, simple answer." But no.
" Theyrared."
"I'm sorry?" I said with a slightly puzzled look whilst surreptitiously trying to clean whatever it was in my ears that obviously blocked my hearing.
"Theyeeared."
"I'm sorry, I don't understand."
" THEY ARE AIRED." she bellowed looking at me like I was two ferrets and a pigeon short of a party.
"What does that mean?" I asked. As far as I'm concerned, airing is what you do to sheets and washing, not pies. The woman's clone intervened at this point and, fingering and prodding each of the pies in turn, she said, " They're a bit warm love." No doubt she'd come across this dialect difficulty before and even spoke to me in something less than mocking exasperation. I walked away muttering something about wanting something hot and diseaseless and ended up with a bag of chips. Very well aired.

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