The Day it Begins 

It should have been like staring at a black canvas, however between the supposed black canvas and NPM stood loads of stuff. Cardboard boxes, kids toys, the school nativity stage and backgrounds…….. why? and his neighbours collection of retro suitcases, plus stacks of comics, magazines and holiday brochures.
Matters only got worse as he found half a motorbike, what seemed like the contents of his neighbour Geoff’s mothers garage, old jam jars, empty margarine tubs and two bags of cat litter. “Theres meant to be a bed in here somewhere” he muttered. Some help would have been nice. Unfortunately the house had become the Marie Cileste. No wife, no kids and even the cats had buggered off. Still a positive though sprung into his brain “Two people make short work of one persons food” and the endorphins released by the visualisations of a fresh bacon sandwich allowed him the put aside any negatives thoughts and to get on with the job in hand. 
Resigned to his fate he spent the next 2 and a half hours up and down the stairs dumping the entire contents of the room into the bin and garden. Still it was abit of a special moment when he was finally confronted by an empty room, well apart from a bed and some carpet. Easy pert now he thought.
A further three hours later and after much swearing, exasperation and despair the bed was outside (in bits) and the carpet ripped up and stored neatly on the growing mound of rubbish out the back of the house. Mrs NPW had left specific instructions that the wallpaper needed to be stripped back, no painting over the old paper so with the steam stripper crackling and emitting random clouds of boiling water NPW got going. Three layers of paper lay behind the wood-chip, multiple coats of gloss paint and some kind off incredibly sticky glue. So not an easy job. This was going to be some week he thought as the light went from being slightly dimmed outside to very dark and the 9 o’clock news bulletin came on the radio, then became the 10 then the 11.  Still not bad for 12 hours work he thought as his daughter finally showed up and stuck her head around the door, you haven’t got very far she said followed with “Just wait till mum finds out you’ve chucked all her margarine tubs in the bin!” The light drizzle had become a tropical torrent by the time NPM made it too bed at midnight. O shit he thought to suddenly as his head hit the pillow, he’d left the school nativity stage and set outside. The last words he thought before he slipped off into sleep were I ought to go outside and cover it up…….
The next few days passed in a slightly painless routine once the heated argument over the ruined nativity display had passed. NPM’s wife had surprisingly enjoyed the school trip to Disneyland Paris and spent the rest of the week wearing mouse ears. A bit scary and weird he thought but sensible not to mention it. Hearing the news repeated every hour was  really too much but strangely created a hypnotic bubble around NPM which only came to an end on what turned out to be a fatefull Thursday morning. 
There was only two drops of paper left to remove. Unlike the rest of the room the first tentative scrape with the scraper saw a beautiful peeling section of paper float off from the wall. “O wow” he thought, this was nirvana, I’ll be done in half an hour, easy. Just at that point the bell went. As the rest of the family were at school either working or studying NPW put the steamer and scraper down and trudged downstairs were he was greeted by a desperate panicky high pitched slightly frantic WE NEED YOUR HELLP…..  Irrational, just on the edge of a complete meltdown, Janice’s face was red, flushed and streaming with tears. “You’ve got to see this” her daughter helpfully enlightened NPW as she peered over her mothers left shoulder. 
Keys picked up, jacket on and his front door closed, decorating left behind and it wasn’t until five when NPW feeling slightly relaxed and drunk. Janice, or Jan as she was known to her friends worked as a receptionist in the local health centre, however in her spare time she helped out as a volunteer with the local community radio station where she dreamt of one day hosting her own show and becoming the Robert Elms of South London. It was this ambition and desire that had led her to agree for her garden to be used in a special 45th anniversary reenactment of the 70’s sitcom The Good LIfe. “O it will be wonderful said Maurice, And it will make your career…..” Possibly not in the way she expected, it turned out.
Thursday morning, two goats, a donkey and three spotted pigs managed to get through her fence into Councillor Threddies back garden. The one he was preparing for the Chelsea Flower Show (suburban gardens special). Having left a trail of devastation the Good Life 6 managed to get into the Little Warren Allotments which ran down between the railway line and row of large detached 30’s mock tudor villas. Planting of seedlings had taken place en-mass earlier in the month, however it now looked as if the award winning Borough allotment would need to be reseeded and planted. Amazing what damage 2 goats, 3 pigs and a donkey could do!!! 
Rounding up the happily liberated animals was a bit tricky and while stressful for Jan, NPM and her daughter Leslie had a great time. Being outside, running about and doing some good (as Eliott Ness said) was incredibly liberating for NPM given his week of confinement in the spare room. Having got them back in her garden and and locking the animal in the empty garage a grateful Jan offered NPM team a glass of two of her home made cider. Jan Rambles Cloudy Scrumpy she called it along with vegetarian lasagne. 
Four pints later and feeling slightly worse for wear NPW turned the key in his front door and made his way back up to the spare room. His schedule had gone completely however remembering how easily the paper had come off in the morning he felt certain he could see the last of the paper off by six. Mrs NPM had offered to hang the fancy expensive wall paper, put up the coving and finish off the painting if he’d fished off all the preparation and hang the lining paper. A good deal that was made even better with permission for him to head off to the Craft Beer and Flares 70‘s Covers Rock Band Festival at the community centre.  Clearly that was plentiful motivation. Yep an hours hard fast graft, a wash of the walls and varying would be set for Fridays hanging of the lining paper.
There is an old phrase which goes less haste more speed or don’t strip wall paper when you’ve had 4 pints of strong scrumpy in the afternoon and you’re a lightweight on the drinking front. The stripping had started well until there was soon only a single square foot of paper left. What had been like the best ever easy peel satsuma had become a tacky, sticky immovable gungy lump. The steamer hadn’t helped, infact it had seemed to make it stickier. NPW out of frustration started to scrape harder, pushing the blade with more force and digging slightly into the plaster and then it started to give, yes he was through. And then it happened. Not only did the lump come away but so did a large chunk of plaster leaving a large hole exposing the brick work.
Blank, confused, bewildered. Noooo…… he sunk to his knees in more than a little despair. His initial desperation was swiftly replaced though when he cleared his head and remembered the old trick of polyfilla and newspaper. And remarkably he had polyfilla. But no newspapers and they had all been thrown out earlier in the week. Some serious rummaging was called for and he managed to find a couple of freebies and the strangely delivered out of date paper from the other week in his garage. He felt he shouldn’t use this one, but time was pressing and needs must and he was still feeling the effects of the cider and he was soon daubing the sticky filler/paper combo into the hole in the plaster and began the tortuous process off attempting to get a passable flat surface. 
Not a bad job he said to himself as he surveyed his handy work, mind you he had made a mess and he was covered in wet paper encrusted filler. Having had a shower he recounted the days adventures to Mrs NPW over a glass of chilled Liebraumilche, who found the whole tale highly amusing. Concillor Threddies was the pompous chair of the local Education committee who’s sole objective in the role was to make each of the local school a faceless academy and as such had really annoyed Mrs. NPW intensely. 
The next morning Mrs. NPM peered at him strangely. “Whats that on your leg?” He’d felt a strange itch on his left calf last night which had delevloped into a tired ache deep in his muscle. Looking down he notices a small piece of newspaper stuck to his leg. “Clearly didn’t wash properly last night his wife helpfully diagnosed with a hint of Holmesian deduction. NPM picked at it, managed to loosen a corner and tried pulling it but it wouldn’t come off and instead became quite painfull, pulling on the skin underneath.
“Leave it and soak it off in the bath later” said Mrs NPM. “I’ve got Mr. Grimshaws leaving do tonight but won’t be late as I want to get started on the spare room early.” With that she piroeted, lent forward and kissed him, and then danced out into the landing and down the stairs. NPM was left looking slightly surprised in her wake. I knew she was waiting 10 years for Grimshaw to retire but didn’t know quite how happy she was about it. Glancing down at the strange piece of old newspaper, a black and white photo of group of what like a picket line, and an outraged headline.  He couldn’t quite focus on it though and throbbing pain in his head distracted him. Trying to ignore both he pulled on his painting jeans but he  did so he e felt like what seemed a rough graze on his left hip. Must be the cycling crash he thought, odd though it was causing trouble now. 
Trying to put all of this out of his mind he went to the kitchen, took a couple of paracetomol, made some instant coffee and headed up to the spare room to begin the papering.

1976

Unless you were born then or got married, won the pools or lost your virginity, 1976 was the year of the great drought. It didn’t rain for 6 weeks with hosepipe bans, forest fires and the continual wish for the feel of cool refreshing rain. When it did rain people ran out with a wild joy of abandon experiencing the cool sweet embrace of a long departed friend or ever dreamed of tax refund.
For a 10 year old Joseph Thomas 1976 was the year of the leg break and the big drought. Being under 10 both events just merged into each other and the noise of the wider world being just background noise was blocked out at that instant by the excruciating pain and enveloping shock as he sat on the rough woodland track with his bike somewhere in the brambles, stinging nettles and brambles. There was a lot of blood and when he tried to stand, well he just couldn’t. 
The doctor at Gloucester A&E confirmed it was a leg break and our young rider spent the rest of the summer with his leg in a plaster cast, being fussed over by his granny before heading back to London at the end of the summer, annoyed and frustrated at having a wasted holiday, cooped up either in doors or sitting outside in his granny’s garden. She was lovely and sweet but she didn’t have a TV and the couple of annuals she did have he’d read a hundred times. What she did have on a daily basis though was the Citizen, the local daily paper. So short of anything else to do Joseph become an expert on who’d died recently, who’d been to court and for what, what was on TV that he couldn’t see and which local kids had grown the biggest sunflowers.
Still Joseph recovered. His cast was taken off and at the same time it finally rained and just like Granny Wilson and the rest of Joseph’s family, who rejoiced when he could finally walk and do stuff for himself, the country rejoiced when it rained. The world was back to normal except not quite, Joseph who used to be the best runner in his class now wasn’t, in fact he was now one of the slowest. The world had subtly changed, yes everyone carried on as normal but the world had changed, history had happened. What was a long hot summer became the great drought.  Life rolled on……….
Arthur looked the paper and really did think what the fuck. The Daily Express, August 1976! Either it was the kids messing him about or a local neighbour trying to freak him out. Joyce Lindsey or Ray bloody Palmer, that’s who it would be. They’d had a bit of a session at Joyces late summer BBQ, or should it be know as the late autumn or pre winter BBQ. Anyhow Life on Mars had been the main topic of discussion and before he wasn’t able to remember any more both Joyce, Ray and Jo had become slightly obsessive on the subject, what’s pergatotory? Well its like 1976 said Jo, its like the Great Drought. No reply. A pause and then “Do you remember the great storm of 1987 when my house fell down said Ray…..” and so it carried on.  No one else at the BBQ said anything, they’d all buggered off two hours ago. 
“You promised. No I don’t, Yes you did. You said you had 5 days leave to take before the end of March and you’d decorate the front bedroom.” Urrrggggg!!! “You’re  right I suppose” he said. “Bet your ass I’m right” she said.
While Angela Thomas was right that Jo had agreed to do the decorating job, the fact remained that he wasn’t overly keen. While Mrs T generally did most of the householdy repairs and things Mr T could decorate, it just took him a while to get motivated and organised. Yes he could do a passable decorating job, was good at coving and alright at painting, frustrated at papering and was ok ish at pretty much everything else apart from electrics, and really hopeless at plastering and even more hopeless at polyfillering. Still he just felt something wasn;t quite right about this job, with some bad feeling nagging away at him,
“You could always come with me on the year seven’s trip to Disneyland Paris. Frank (Mr Smith)’s cat has just had kittens so he’s dropped out.’ Arthur felt suddenly swamped with a cold chill and with a rising feeling of panic grabbed for the only escape route he could see “I’m kind of thinking” said Arthur, “that this job really needs to be done and actually I’m looking looking forward to it”……..  while silently thinking we don’t need another cat in the house (please give me strength) and there’s no way I’m going on that school trip. Angela smiled cheekily as she wasn’t really fussed about him helping out on the trip. She’d already got him lined up to help at the school Christmas fair and charity litter pick up. Also Frank had agreed to let her have two of the kittens……

Newspaper man stepped out of his back door, a cold breeze slapping his balding head and a freeze shivering down his body, underneath his thermal vest and multi layered clothing. Eyes watering he grimaced and trudged across to the shed. 
Amazingly the shed door opened first time but what it revealed caused his heart to drop, his enthusiasm and excitement rapidly began to drift away. Just which bike was his, and why were the so many others on top of his. It seemed like a lifetime of children’s bikes and a ragtag of bike recycle machines had been dumped on his old beloved 10 speed racer.
Disentangling the mess took another half an hour and then of course he was confronted by the classic not used your bike for years issue, flat tyres…. An hour later, blister on his thumb, oil on his jeans, success appeared. Bike found and now ready to go, back outside the shed and of course it had started raining. Really, really!!!!!! Anyhow with a feeling of resignation but somehow bolstered with a layer of resolve that came up from nowhere he headed back indoors to find his waterproofs  and promptly spent the next 25 minutes looking for the these and the rest of his gear. Miraculously he managed to find his gloves, yes there were two of them! 
So about three hours after he first left the back door he was there geared up and ready to hit the road. A smile crossed his face and off he wobbled. 
Don’t start in your highest gear he reminded himself as he felt a sharp pain in his left hip and blood easing through the rip in the elbow of his jacket. Idiot falling off before he’d ridden 10 feet, well at least no one had seen him fall. Looking good called out Mrs Sherman with a chuckle as she effortlessly glided past him….. clearly someone had. At least Mrs Sherman had been cool and not asked him if he was ok to further injure his pride. Prat said Ethan as he rode past, fuck sake Newspaper man muttered to himself, waiting now for a sink hole to appear and swallow himself up. 
Fortunately the coach load of pensioners didn’t appear or the walking bus of 5 year olds so by the time he’d made it to the high street his composure had started to come back and without any further mechanical setbacks he started to feel quite good. And it had stopped raining. Taking a short cut through the rec he pushed on towards the leafy suburbs and then hopefully the country side. He was feeling good, going well. However the positive vibes took a hit when crossing the railway bridge and while trying to regain his breathing for the next 10 minutes his feeling of inadequate self consciousness was exacerbated when a huge bunch of properly kitted out cyclists steamed past leaving him trailing in their wake. 
Naturally this provoked a reaction, “At least when we road back in the day we didn’t ride three abreast. We had proper discipline and riding skills and and and.” By the time he’d stopped moaning to himself and had caught his breath another 5 miles had passed and suburbia was beginning to thin out with fields and horses and stuff appearing. Yes this was fun and despite his unfitness and painfully sore elbow he was enjoying himself.
Picking himself up 5 mins later and reflecting (after and angry outburst at the stupid bloody bike) it occurred he’d had a similar slipped gears incident about 3 years ago. His resolution to get his bike to the mechanics to get his gears fixed clearly hadn’t been followed up upon, so here he was with a painful busied inside thigh and bleeding hand. Deciding he needed some time, he walked to the top of the short steep climb with the old Saxon style church at the hairpin bend. Slightly dispirited he remounted and gingerly made his way down hill and along to his planned destination. Cycle trendy cafe. Why, why why…. did he bother. 
The group who had overtaken him and hour before descended on mass barely 10 minutes after he’d arrived. he felt like a fish out of water, like an older bloke accidentally being persuaded by his younger work colleagues to go to a nightclub after the team bonding meal. Typically he’d forgotten his phone, there was no one to chat to and barely any acknowledgment from the new crowd. He couldn’t leave as he still had his mug of coffee and toasted tea cake to eat. Forced to tough it out he stayed and pretended to be comfortable and happy, however within a short space of time his chest began to feel tight and he felt distinctly uncomfortable and oddly there was an odd bump where his stomouch should be. As if guided by natural instinct he felt under his jumper and could feel something papery, thick and crinkly. He took hold of the end and pulled and would you believe it a copy of the guardian emerged. In his younger days before expensive modern kit became the norm newspaper man used, like most cyclists, to stuff a paper up inside the front of his jersey to keep him warm. Odd thing was he didn’t remember placing a paper there that morning.
In his reverie he didn’t notice that the whole table had become suddenly quiet and the group of cyclists were staring at him. “radically old school” said a tall pony tailed lady. “Is that a Rapha paper’ said a beardy twenty something guy. Forgot to bring a bag with me mumbled N=newspaper man, slightly embarrassed by the attention. Things soon settled down, the matrix moment only lasted a couple of seconds but it had seemed like a year.
Smiling yet still self conscious newspaper man returned to the paper as the cyclists attention went back to what they were previously attending to. Something though wasn’t quite right…… it was a broadsheet copy of the guardian, not the modern tabloid version. And the year 1983, date July………
Feeling quite spooked he looked around him but everything seemed normal. People waffling, coffee machine making a racket and yet he’d just experienced something very freaky. He downed his coffee, paid his bill and walked outside. Still holding the paper, he rolled it up and put it in his back pocket, mounted his bike. The ride back was uneventful but tough, he gone a bit too far and his body, arse and elbow all hurt by the time he got home and he’d forgotten about the newspaper incident.
A gorgeous smile from Mrs Newspaperman who looked up from fixing the fuse box in the cupboard under the stairs. Can’t believe you’ve actually been out after all your procrastinating she said. Remember we’re out tonight
Undressing in the bathroom with steam and bubbles filling the room newspaperman suddenly remembered the newspaper. he checked his jersey but nothing was there. Odd he thought, must have dropped it. Shrugging off the odd story he carried on with his bath, until noisily awakened by Mrs NPW who said he’d been asleep in there for two hours. The couple got dressed and headed out for a night of music beer friendship and fun. Not completely true as newspaper man moaned about the people dancing in the pub and the DJ being a prat, to which he was rightly taken to task. People are allowed to have fun said Mrs NPM. Happily drunk they made their way home, had a nightcap, listened to Tedeshi Trucks and staggered to bed. Simple and enjoyable end to a strange day. 
However its now 6 o’clock in the morning, our loving couple are fast asleep, but there’s a creek downstairs and a banging of the letterbox, The cats congregate thinking there’s food on offer, but they hang back slightly scared and through the letterbox comes a newspaper. But there haven’t been any deliveries in their street since 1990. An what’s weird is that its the daily express from August 1976.