Wednesday 6th January 2010
Happy Epiphany.
Here we are again, a new year and a new decade and a new page of the diary. Wishing everyone the best.
A big ta very much to those of you who spared the time to send me Christmas and New Year greetings. :)
I’m feeling a bit ticked off at the moment. I’m getting a lot of headaches. I suffered an episode while we were away at Christmas and it’s probably sensitised my brain. It might also be that all this snow is having an effect on my neurological system. I have to wear my Polaroid’s to even look out of the window. The snowy weather also makes it difficult for me to get out for a run. I’ve come a cropper a time or two on icy pavements and roads. I’d probably fare better if I swapped my running shoes for a pair of ice skates. I’ve been going to the gym with Shane instead, but I much prefer to exercise outside in the fresh air.
Christmas was eventful and not in the best of ways. For starters I found a little pal of mine dead in very bizarre circumstances and of course it was the first year without a Christmas card from my mother. I’m glad the whole event is over. More later. Shane just called to say he’s on his way home. There are severe weather warnings out so he’s closing his offices so that staff can get safely home. He won’t be chuffed if he gets home and finds an idle houseboy.
Sunday 10th January 2010
So there I was yesterday morning, half naked in the artic waste of our front garden screaming for Dick. I could imagine what our neighbour’s were thinking: those gay boys, sex mad they are, even in the midst of a blizzard. But it wasn’t like that at all. I wasn’t screaming for dick in a carnal sense. I was screaming for Dick the man and not with lustful intentions.
Let me explain. Being a houseboy I know stuff, important stuff, like when the bin men are due and the day to put out bottles and cans etc for the recycling people to collect. Such mundane, but oddly important, things are the province of houseboys everywhere, they’re part of our duty.
Yesterday, for example, I knew that the Christmas tree people were due. They only come once a year and I didn’t want to miss them. The Christmas tree people are not some strange species from another planet who have pine needles in lieu of skin. They’re the people who collect the defunct fir trees that played a part in the festivities just passed and turn them into mulch. Our tree, stripped of its ornaments, had lain forlorn in the garden since the day after New Year’s Day. I’d tried to hang onto it for a bit longer, but Shane said that if I didn’t take it down and put it out he was going to take my jeans down and wear out my backside with his hand. I was persuaded by his honeyed words. It was time for the tree to be taken down.
Anyway, after breakfast yesterday morning Shane departed for a session at the gym. Dick was still in bed and I was clearing the breakfast table when I remembered that it was the day for the Christmas tree people. They don’t break into your garden on the off chance that there might be a fir tree lying around for them to recycle. You have to put it out for them on the pavement where they can see it. On the notice of collection it stated that the trees needed to be out from seven o clock. I had a bit of a panic at that point as it was already heading for quarter to nine. If I’d missed the collection Shane would not be pleased because he’d have to stick the tree in his car and take it to the tip. Dick would never agree to take it in his precious car. Just the thought of pine needles scratching his paintwork would be enough to send him into a tizz. I could hardly take it on my bike.
I ran upstairs and had a quick peep out of the bedroom window. Goody, I hadn’t missed the collection. There were several fir trees littering the avenue pavement. They looked beautiful in a surreal kind of way because it had snowed heavily overnight and they were mantled with sparkling robes. My admiration was cut short as I detected a truck slowly inching into the avenue. It was the Christmas tree people. Dick surfaced from beneath the duvet at that point and made a sleepy request for me to play with him. I declined, saying I had important business to be getting on with and he’d have to play with himself for a while.
Time was of the essence. Dashing downstairs I launched myself out of the back door and hasted to where our tree lay in the snow. Grasping the bottom of the trunk I dragged it round the side of the house and down the front drive and out through the gates where I dumped it on the pavement. The houseboy had triumphed. Operation Christmas tree had been a complete success.
In my enthusiasm to fulfil my duty and get the tree out for recycling I had abandoned several things…footwear for example and a warm coat. Yep, I was dressed in a pair of long jammie bottoms and a short-sleeved t-shirt, and that was it. I didn’t really notice the cold on the outward journey, as I was too fired up with getting the bloody tree out. However, as soon as the bizz was done I became aware of just how bitter cold it was and hastened back to the warm safety of the house.
I got to the back door, only to find it had swung closed and idiot that I was I hadn’t taken the sneck off. It was locked. I was absolutely frozen. My bare feet were beginning to hurt with the cold. I banged on the door and yelled for Daddy Dick, getting only silence in reply. He’d probably gone back to sleep. Our bedroom is at the front of the house so I decided to dash back round and ring on the doorbell, figuring that there would be more chance of Dick hearing me. By then it was beginning to snow again, and fast. Great, a fucking blizzard, just what I needed.
I pressed frantically on the doorbell and banged on the door yelling for Dick to open up. I even resorted to chucking snowballs at the bedroom window, all to no avail. I was in a real panic. I was turning blue and shivering violently from head to foot. My feet were numb and I was getting a headache because of the brightness of the snow. I was convinced that I was going to have an episode slip over in the snow and die of hypothermia. Shane would be really annoyed to come home from the gym and find a dead houseboy in the garden. Who would make lunch? I redoubled my efforts, assaulting the door as best I could with frozen extremities and screaming for Dick to wake up and let me in.
At long last my frantic calls were heard and a very startled Dick, damp haired and clad in a bathrobe, flung open the door and I staggered inside. He demanded to know what the fuck I thought I was playing at? Through chattering teeth I angrily demanded to know WTF he’d been doing.
He’d been in the shower with the bathroom door shut and the CD player on and hadn’t heard me.
I made a snarky comment about almost freezing to death while he spanked the monkey in the shower, cos knowing him that’s what he’d been doing. He crisply retorted that he wasn’t to know that I was cavorting barefoot in the snow like a bloody lunatic.
He helped me change and put some warm clothing on and made me a hot drink. My hands and feet were useless; they were so numbed with cold. It took me ages to stop shivering and get properly warm again. The pain and itchy burn as my circulation returned was horrendous and I complained vigorously. Dick sharply told me to stop moaning, as I had no one but myself to blame for my predicament. He said that sometimes my willingness to abandon commonsense in favour of being a reckless idiot defied believe. He was really rather cross with me. I think he also felt a bit guilty about having not heard my frantic calls straightaway.
Shane wasn’t too impressed when Dick told him about my snow adventure. I got another ear bashing for what he termed an act of jaw dropping irrationality. I also got a good spanking. He turned me over his knee and used his hand to deliver a lecture about how it wouldn’t have taken a moment to slip on shoes and a coat or pick up my Polaroid’s from the hall table or make sure the lock was off the door. I needed to think before I acted. So, my hands and feet weren’t the only things suffering from an unpleasant tingling sensation yesterday.
There’s still a fair amount of snow on the ground this morning and more on the way according to the forecast. I have no intention of dancing barefoot on ice again, never let it be said that this houseboy doesn’t learn from his mistakes.
We’re Sunday lunching at home today, just the three of us. I’m cooking a joint of beef and I must go attend to it.
Saturday 16th January 2010
Refilling the bird feeders in the garden this morning made me feel sad, because at some point when I’m outside I usually catch a sken of my pal robin, the thuggish scourge of the garden. Poor cock robin is no more. He’s dead. I found him lying in the avenue before Christmas. I know it sounds daft, but it really upset me. I was heading to the shops when I discovered his body. It was lying by the roots of a tree, and this is the bizarre bit, it was in a mousetrap. I couldn’t believe my eyes. How the heck he managed to get ensnared in a mousetrap is beyond me. The poor thing was in a sorry state. The trap had broken his neck, but a cat had also mauled him about, it had probably found him in some garden and dragged him, trap and all, onto the street. I suppose I’ll never know the exact circumstances of his demise. Perhaps the other birds in the garden got sick of his thuggish ways and hired a hit man to lure him into the trap.
Anyway, I released him from the horrible contraption and took the body home and buried it in the garden. I just couldn’t leave it lying around. Part of me hoped that it wasn’t my robin, but I instinctively knew it was. I haven’t seen sight or sign of a robin in the garden since then. I do feel like I’ve lost a friend in a way, something that was part of my life. I know I joked about his brutality, but I actually did enjoy seeing him hop about his territory. That was a horrible day and it heralded another unpleasant surprise, which I shall write as a chapter for my memoir.
Shane has something on his mind at the moment and has been rather distracted since coming home from work on Thursday evening. I don’t like it when he gets like this, not because he’s mean or anything, or at least no meaner than he usually is. It’s just that I miss his focus. When he’s distracted it’s like the energy level in the house dissipates a little and it makes me feel slightly anxious. It can’t be to do with his health because he had the results of the biopsy he had done before Christmas and it was fine, nothing sinister there. It has to be something else.
Mind you, Shane being distracted didn’t stop him tearing a strip off Dick this morning for practicing his putting technique in the hall. Poor Dick, he hasn’t been able to get in his usual quota of golf lately due to the terrible weather conditions. Shane made it clear that he did not want balls of the golf variety rolling around the hall floor scuffing the polish, thank you very much.
I spent most of this afternoon over at Eileen’s house helping her ice and decorate a multitude of fairy cakes and biscuits that she’d baked. The church she attends is having an after service coffee morning and cake sale tomorrow in order to raise funds for Haiti relief. Those poor people, it knocks your own troubles into perspective when you see such suffering. Mother Nature can be a cruel bitch.
We’re scheduled to go out for dinner this evening. I’ve booked the table, but to be honest I don’t feel like going. It’s been steadily pissing down since lunchtime and it’s dark and cold and what I’d really like to do is curl up in front of the fire and watch the telly.
Sunday 24th January 2010
Shane has been away on business most of the week. He went on Wednesday. He was due back on Friday evening, but called to say that he’d been invited to extend his stay and conclude business with leisure, so he was staying the weekend. He’s due to return this evening.
I feel he’s been rather distant with me lately and that his kisses have been automatic, part of the morning and evening ritual with nothing much in between. He hasn’t wanted sex with me. He says he’s tired, but he’s not too tired to have sex with Dick.
It was his birthday on the 18th January and we usually host a party, but he didn’t want one this year. He said he was getting too old and birthdays are something to ignore not celebrate.
I still tried to make an occasion of it. I made a special dinner…cue disaster. It was ruined when I managed to break a beautiful antique crystal bowl that I’d used as a container for a fresh fruit salad. I thought it would look nice to serve at the table. It had been in the fridge chilling and I brought it out and placed it on the worktop while I prepared some Chantilly cream.
By the time I came to pick the bowl up to carry into the dining room, condensation had formed on the outside and it just slipped out of my hands and smashed on the kitchen floor. I was dismayed to say the least. The bowl was a gift from Dick’s mother. She gave it to Dick and Shane to mark their Civil Partnership. I felt like killing myself.
Dick said it didn’t matter, accidents happened and I wasn’t to beat myself up over it. It was insured and when all was said and done it was just a bit of old glass.
Shane was less sympathetic. He said I should have been more careful with it. I’d had no business putting such an item in the fridge, as any idiot knew that glass formed condensation when it was exposed to different temperatures. I was crying by then because I was so mortified by what I’d done and he sharply told me to pull myself together.
Before he left on Wednesday morning I tentatively asked if there was anything wrong, you know, between him and me. He said no, adding somewhat irritably: “you always want to be the centre of the universe, Gilli, and hard as it is for you to accept, there are other things that require my time and attention. Things like work and contracts and whether I’ve got to lay more men off this year.” He gave me a rough kiss and then he was gone, leaving me wishing I’d kept my mouth shut.
Relationships, eh! They’re never easy.
