JTX and his partner set up a business to deliver special services to ladies of a certain age. I was astonished (yet delighted) that a couple of gay guys would be so expert in their new metier.
My only criticism was that they should have closed the conservatory door when in action. I wondered if this display of their talents to the neighbours was part of their marketing strategy.
Now that I had more time to myself I was determined to improve our living arrangements.
First I would find a long antique dining table for the unused space in the inner hall. Then I was going to stop our neighbours using our downstairs television room as their local cinema.
I interviewed grown-up members of a boy band (established High Hall, University of Birmingham c 1983), took photos of the beautiful Hebridean beaches, and swam in the warm sea.
When KA and I emerged from the water a tourist took us to be a couple. ‘That’s perhaps not a bad idea’, I thought.
TPR and I were staying with KLX at his London flat while the rest of his family spent the summer in Ireland. KLX admitted that he wasn’t the best of housekeepers and asked me to help make up the beds using a random selection of linen from the 1970s.
When this was all done KLX collapsed on top of his own bed and invited me to join him. I declined in favour of looking for TPR. I found him on the sofa, book in hand, next to a small boy who was watching television.
‘I’ll make you a cup of tea’ I said, and walked into the kitchen.
I hunted high and low, but could not find a kettle. It was only when the mother of the small boy returned with his two tiny brothers that I was pointed to a grasping stick and a set of kitchen appliances perched up high on top of a brand new set of off-yellow kitchen units. How ridiculous, I thought, to make something that you use so frequently so inaccessible.
Our other shocking discovery was that RA intended to give KLX’s son £1000 for his 21st birthday.
JC brought her Japanese Akita down the steps.
GC followed with carrying the components of an entire children’s fairground.
We set up everything in the yard. Then GC and I climbed into the front seats of the mini Rolls Royce on the carousel to enjoy a quick spin.
The eldest sibling (or at least the one that I took to be the eldest) took me downstairs to meet the rest of the family.
There was an awkward moment when neither I nor my mother knew how to greet one another. We ended up bumping faces and sharing a weak hug, each of us sizing up the other, seeking out the family likeness.
I was so tired that I fell asleep in the company of my lost family. When I woke up they had all disappeared – presumably to take the train south again.
Despite having had a vascectomy, T the (male) dog was pregnant. Not only was he keeping quiet about who the (other) father was, he had also taken to lying down in bed with the curtains drawn and a flannel on his forehead.
The waves surged higher and higher and I feared that they would come crashing through the house. I’d never seen so high a tide, nor one that brought in with it such an exotic harvest. The latest marine animal to be dumped at the point where the sea met the river was a dead whale.
I needed an reason for failing to meet CI, and not turning up for my medical appointment at 10:40. I took that advice of my old colleagues. I would ring the hospital and use the storm as my excuse.
Before she came home for her tea, I was trying to remember the name of Kylie Minogue’s husband. Wikipedia was no help at all. The entry simply read:
Kylie Minogue’s husband is an internationally famous recluse.
Tom Hiddlestone burst into the room and pressed me up against the marble mantelpiece, where we engaged in some vigorous, hilarious, and highly enjoyable sex. NOW I remembered. We were international spy partners – in the office AND in the bedroom!
Dreamaticus 