Pulling My Pudding

The young lady's eyes widened with incredulity as she gasped But you have been pulling your pudding for donkeys years and i've been so looking forward to seeing it again, you know...i do so love to see your pudding being pulled.

I fear i cannot, young lady, i murmured at length in reply to Miss Frottinglady's enquiry regarding my participation at the local Spring Pudding Pulling contest, for my Pudding Pulling days are sadly behind me and i mean to politely absent myself from the occasion to spare myself painful reminders of that which unhappily transpired only a twelvemonth since.

I sadly pondered upon the fateful day of the last such event when i'd over-stretched myself to quite an alarming extent...a champion i may have been in my youth but the advancement of time had since got the better of me and i had vowed never again to pull my pudding, neither for fun nor charity.

It was formerly a great success but on this occasion i had rashly attempted to pull a steaming seven-stone plum pudding all the way from Slackbottom Hump to Mutton Dagger Meadow and had plainly bitten off more than even i could chew, leaving me to finish the course in last place, hours behind younger and fitter men who were handicapped with far less cumbersome puddings than my own but who mocked my prowess and stamina nevertheless.

Poor Miss Frottinglady now appeared quite crestfallen and turned to leave but with a sudden gush of emotion that wrung my heart exclaimed, It just wouldn't be the same if you were to leave it standing idle when all about you are heaving with manful exertion and straining themselves to the limit with their own! Oh, i implore you Sir, please do pull your pudding once again, do it for me!

© Sean Barrett - March 2010