He's still got the hots for me! Sleeping with a Frenchwoman.

Monday October 28th.

Quiet day really.
Did the day job.
Kept my head down and got on with stuff.
Walked the dog, swam, drove to work etc etc
Same as always.

Tuesday October 29th.

Was swamped at work this arvo by people wanting to know what Ms Geary’s party was like. It seems she doesn’t usually invite people from work to them. I could have made loads of stuff up but instead I told it like it was. Boring but safer I guess. I can imagine if half-truths or complete lies get back to Ms G I would really be in the brown and smelly.

I thought it was safe to recount the Judge mistaking me for Chrissie B. which tickled some people. Christopher put in an appearance all the way down to here from accounts. He is really just a love-sick puppy! He wanted to know about Peter and the Wolf [really?]. I am getting a bit worried about his attention.
Laura has got her next piece of work already! They don’t hang about in the maths department. It still looks as comprehensible as hieroglyphs to me! As usual I have offered to check the English for her if she wants, the maths? Pah!

Before I zoomed across to XXX & Y Felice told me she had found another casket to look at in York! We are going on Thursday and staying overnight so we can have more time examining it and looking in detail at the stitch work. Now she knows I am a bit of an embroiderer she has gone to town down a sort of tangent with us looking at the development of stitches from the Late mediaeval to the Present Day. We took loads of pictures and she drew a fair number of the stitches from the Brit Mu boxes and she wants to do the same in York. [She says it is a sort of insurance policy for us! I think I get what she means.]

Had a minor disagreement with Dad about Caravans! He liked my suggestion but wasn’t sure about having a lounge that was separate from the kitchen. He’s found another ABI which has a fire place in between the two so you can still see the kitchen from the lounge. My argument was this puts your back to the best view of all, out through the French windows and onto the Firth of Clyde. We agreed to differ until Saturday, when he is taking us all [him, Louisa, Laura and me] to Kendal Caravans to have a look around their stock “in the flesh”.

That has meant the trip to York will be cut short by a half on Friday. So I will have to contact Feli asap to see what can be done. I tried earlier on but her phone just went to voice mail. Ah well.
Wednesday 30th Oct.

The little toad has nailed his colours to the mast. “Can we be just good friends?” Oh, Christopher! How do I tell him, without hurting his feeling, that he is just a boring person? I know I shouldn’t but I can’t keep on just smiling and going along with things the way they are.

I asked Mrs B and she says I have to tell him straight. But I tried that over Concert Companions and look how the drongo managed to twist that round. Why are men such bloody pains at times? Even bloody Mr Carr came down to see if I had been gossiping about Alison’s party. I mean gossiping about what? When I asked him that question he seemed so relieved. I obviously missed something that went on, on Saturday night. I shall have to put my little grey cells onto the case. When I talked to the Lollster about it after our meal she said, “Oh, it was probably something to do with that woman who slapped his face in the utility room when I went to refill our glasses!”

One of the partners in our firm getting slapped in the face by a woman and Laura didn’t think to tell about it until now!!?? She said she had forgotten as it seems quite trivial to her. Trivial? Sounds like it could be serious. I am now more than determined than ever to get to the bottom of what happened on Saturday night. The difficulty, of course, is the fact I am only at XXX & Y one full day and one half day a week. How can I become a junior Miss Marple with only limited time on the case?

Maybe Dad knows something? That will be something to do on the Weekend, Pick his brains. Discretely. [Actually that may be easier said than done. He has pretty good radar for his baby daughter’s subterfuges. Rats and double rats!]

Thursday 31st October.

Laura is stepping up the crease ready to bat her opening innings as dog sitter and temporary house owner. I thought she’d be a bit miffed at our York trip but she’s cool with it.

We didn’t cut the trip short either, we were at the Museum from 1pm to closing today and will be there again from opening to 1pm tomorrow. I just get left in the dark about stuff sometimes! We also travelled across by train (not in Feli’s car!).

This was fun. Laura dropped us off at Midland Station at the crack of dawn and we caught a really early train to York via Wakefield and Leeds. We got to York at about 9.30am and had a good old wander and retail therapy after booking in at our hotel. Again, Feli had arranged an early arrival time for us today as we were departing early tomorrow. We have one room with twin beds. Should be interesting!

I have been to York before but as a toddler, then as a young girl. I think the last time I came I was about 10 or 11. You see things differently with an adult’s eyes. We had an hour in the Minster and I was really over-awed by the place. It is a lot bigger than you think, I suppose that is because it is sort of surrounded by buildings packing in closely for most of the way around it.

It has some wonderful stained glass. I can see why people want Richard III’s remains to be interred here. I am not taking sides on the issue. I think if they pay Leicester University all the costs they incurred in their discovery and excavation of his body then they could have him. I somehow don’t think they’ll be making that sort of offer, though!

Dad said we should go to the Railway Museum to see the A4 Pacifics. I mean, what? To be fair we did walk round to the museum only to be met with a humungous queue, so we gave it a miss. What the hell is an A4 Pacific? [Dad explained when I phoned him a few minutes ago. It’s a steam engine!] He reiterated the fact that I should go if I could, so I lied and said we would before we left on Friday.

The Museum is brilliant. I remember as a child just loving the street section. It was not so common when it was first done but now it is sort of de rigeur for Museum displays. We had a brief chat with the curator of exhibits and then with the person in charge of the casket itself. She was a mine of information, so much so we just recorded her description of the box to transcribe later. It was smaller than the Halifax one but had a lot more care taken over the embroidery. They have dated it to about 1590. However, that was done mainly through the artefacts found inside it, not by any other means that we could establish.

We filmed the box as the collection manager talked about it and then I took lots of close ups of the embroidery itself and macro photo’ed the stitching in several places. Although it was much more detailed and precise in the stitching, the scenes portrayed were very similar to the ones we have viewed already. Hardly surprising I guess, though, is it? We have measure and sketched and snapped and done everything I can think of to add to our records of caskets.

The best part about the afternoon was discovering that the collection manager knew of a casket where the embroideries had not been attached to their box. We have decided we will have to go and see that, however, she thinks it is in Edinburgh. She is going to find out for certain overnight and let us know in the morning.

Our overnight was interesting. We had a meal in a restaurant just along the street from our hotel and then hit the hotel bar. We must have had a bottle and a half of red wine and fended off advances from several Tyke Chancers before hitting the charp at about 11pm. Feli did suggest we select a chap and take him back to our room for sex but I think she was joking. I hope she was.

At about 1pm a small French figure slipped into my bed alongside me. I said NO, in as stern a voice as I could manage but she said It was OK she just wanted to sleep next to someone. It was probably the alcohol. She had emptied all the vodka from our mini bar when we got back. I woke up again at 5am to find my face full of French woman’s hair, she had managed to get her head onto my shoulder and was snuggling down under my chin.

I felt very proud of myself that I resisted the temptation of her slim Gallic body against mine. OK, we were in PJs but they are so easily removed. Plus, I thought back to the time we had almost made love back at her house and how guilty just the thought of cheating had made me feel. Extra brownie points to the silly blonde girl who allowed a weird French woman into her hotel bed.

If it had been a few years ago, I wouldn't even have entertained the thought. How you change as you get older!