I am made boss for the day [no, it's not Saturnalia]! Libido?

Monday January 27^th.

Walked the woof and went for the swim as usual this morning. We were able to dodge the spots on the walk but it had started once more when we left the pool. We both managed our 100 lengths again today and felt sufficiently self-righteous about our achievement.

Then it was back to the chalk face, as it were. I had a meeting with our supervisor first thing for updates and progress reports and then I met up with some of my tutees for a mentoring session. One of the guys has apparently dropped out altogether and won’t be coming back to University. His friend did garble some reason to me but I couldn’t quite follow the convoluted tale or logic he was trying to tell me. It is a shame the chap has dropped out but he’ll have paid his student loan for the year so the Uni won’t be out of pocket. I know it is mercenary of me to think this way but his money pays my wages and keeps me in a job [to some extent at least].

Mandy was the last one this morning and she actually gave me a big hug when she entered the office [broom cupboard] which was nice. We had a long old chat about just about everything and she had some good news; she has found herself a BF. It happened last week during the round of student parties to celebrate coming back. [We used to do this too.] He is a second year student doing something connected with Media. She certainly seems much happier than she did at the end of last term. [I will have to get out of the habit of calling the semesters terms, I sound like a school teacher!] I am pleased about Mandy though, it means I won’t have to worry about her having a crush on me!

Lunch with Laura and Felice in the refectory was a nice return to normality and to our daily routine. I told Felice about the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s play being banned in Ireland and she was appalled. She wondered if we could take her to Nottingham when we are going to see them, if she can get a ticket for the show. I agreed we had room in the car for another bod. Failing that we could lend her a rope and a pair of roller blades, to drag her along behind us! She thought this was a good idea and she then asked if I still went roller blading at Meadowhall.  I had to tell her we hadn’t done that since 2011 when Kaybers and I were detained by their mall security and we had to phone Mrs Briggs to get us released. Felice suggested we go there on Sunday morning to blade around the car park and then try to skate in the Mall too. I was a bit sceptical of her seriousness but she assured me she was so stupidly we have arranged to go there on Sunday morning before the shops open to skate round the car parks and maybe go inside too!

I was hoping Laura would poo-poo the idea but she seemed really up for it too. Oh dear. I predict there could be trouble ahead!

The afternoon flew by as we knuckled down with our work. I am really enjoying what we are doing here and it is so much better with Felice as lead than I imagine it would have been with the dour Andrea in charge. We mess about and joke so much, which is something I can’t imagine Andrea would have done at all.

At home time we zoomed off pronto to buy our groceries for the week from our local huge supermarket [Morrison’s] and I took over main cooking duties for the night. We have our menu for the week as usual and we shopped for that. Tonight was salmon fillets; yummy in our tummy!

Laura went off to Dom’s restaurant as usual and I felt quite alone without her. I know the feeling is silly as she is only gone for just over four hours at the most but I still miss her company lots. Even if all we are doing is sitting in the same room reading or studying or sewing or whatever; it is just so companionable to have her presence there with me. I didn’t feel this last week when I was at XXX & Y and she was at University alone, maybe it is because we are together at various points throughout the day again. I am not sure how to explain it.

Tuesday 28^th January.

Arrgghhh! More rain. This time during dog walking time. No, I need to correct that – half way through dog walking time. I took a chance and went out dressed in my short waterproof with Callie, instead of my Stockman’s coat and as a result I was drenched from the bum down. I seriously hate these short cagoules, why don’t they make long ones anymore, like they did when I was a wee lassie? I got back home and had to change out of my jeans, socks and knickers, Laura was keen to help and we were a little late getting to the pool. [OK, very late!]

Today was back to our usual half day Tuesday routine and Laura was back on chef duty for when I got back in – steamed chicken with courgettes.

Nothing much of note happened today really. Mrs Briggs was else where all afternoon and I was delegated as the person in charge. That was a bit of a feather in the cap I guess. All it meant in practice was I did the digital transfers from Mrs Briggs office and stood by on phone answering duty. I handled four phone calls all day and two of those wanted Mrs B specifically so I couldn’t help.

Once again Laura was at the restaurant so I was left on my ownsome lonesome again for the majority of the evening which I coped with extremely well by falling asleep on the hearth rug with Callie snuggled up next to me. She proved herself completely crap as a guard dog as she allowed Laura to sneak back in without a single bark. The first I knew of her arrival was having my ear being nibbled, still it was a very nice way of being woken up. What happened next I will not mention.

Wednesday 29^th January.

Yaay! Way to go England’s women cricket team. Ashes held! That shows the bloody useless men up doesn’t it? I am so chuffed for them. Why isn’t there more coverage of Women’s Sport on TV in general. I guess it’s because men only want to watch women playing sport wearing outfits they can wank over, like beach volleyball, rather than watching a sport for its own sake.

Yet more bloody rain! I am jumping ahead with the chronology but it was so wet today that this evening’s football match at Bramall Lane was cancelled because the pitch was waterlogged! No great loss really. I can’t see the point of watching a set of moronic, overpaid men chasing a bag of wind about for 90 minutes. Watching the grass grow would be infinitely more interesting – or seeing the pitch disappear below the waves! LOL

I was Mrs Briggs’ stand-in again today which proved a bit more intimidating than yesterday. She actually called the office at just before 9 and gave me a huge list of instructions but the main one was to take as detailed notes as I could at the Department Head’s meeting this afternoon! Head of Department’s Meeting? What the hell? She told me not to panic. I simply had to read her report and then sit down. I couldn’t take questions as I was not in a position to be able to answer them. I could write down any questions for Mrs B to answer at a later date.

I had the distinct feeling I was being used as a pawn in some sort of powerplay. [It turns out I was!]

I got on with the digitising during the morning and answering the phone. Far more calls than yesterday. I had a visit from Mr Carr [call me Tim] who sat and talked for ages and ages about how long I had known I was going to be Mrs B’s stand in; had I ever done it before; had she given me detailed instructions? It was quite intimidating until he realised I was just an innocent in all that was going on, then the focus of the conversation turned to more ordinary, mundane, chatty stuff. He asked about Mum, Me & Laura, Dad’s visit to Australia, how I was coping with the attentions of Christopher S in accounts [how did he know about that, I had to wonder?]. I asked him about his Christmas and was treated to a detailed description of crossing the North Sea to Denmark in his yacht. It sounded pretty terrible and I wondered if there isn’t a certain amount of masochism involved in yachting in winter. It was so grotty, apparently, he has paid for temporary mooring on one of the islands and came back to the UK by plane! What you can do if you have money, eh?

Instead of lunchtime I went through Mrs B’s report to make sure I understood it and was able to present it in a way which would sound natural and as though I understood what was being said. It was pretty straightforward and seemed to be a paean to the work done in ARR and how to be more effective more staff needed to be recruited or existing staff encouraged to do more [did she mean me?] . There were massed of statistics and a hand out to distribute as well.

The whole thing went off quite painlessly. I was introduced to everyone in the room and then treated as though I was a “real” staff member. The fact was I did know everyone round the table even if only by name and appearance in some cases. I think they all knew who I was, too. What was scheduled to be a short meeting lasted two hours. I scribbled away for all I was worth recording as much as I possibly could so that Mrs B would have a copy from my point of view and the official minutes of the meeting too.

Back home to an awaiting meal. Toad in the hole with butcher’s sausages, not ones bought from the supermarket.

I filled Laura in my day and she was immediately suspicious of what Mrs B might be planning, she is a much less trusting soul than I at times. I can’t see what she may be doing at all, TBH. I just will carry on my own sweet way and hope not to upset anyone.

Laura was at the restaurant again tonight, which is three nights in a row I have missed her company. I know it is selfish of me but I do want her to be here. When she got back we spent ages in the shower together and even longer proving our love for each other. She will be working tomorrow night too. I hope this display of affection will last me long enough or should I claim a top up during the day tomorrow?

Thursday 30^th January.

Not so wet, but quite a bit colder. Walked Callie this morning and had my stockman’s coat on, just in case, which was probably why it didn’t rain on me. I obviously invoked Murphy’s law in reverse by wearing the coat.

Another double hundred for the girl swimmers in the pool this morning and it was nice to be leaving the pool in what almost passes for daylight at this time of year. OK, we were a little late leaving the pool as we shared a cubicle and one thing lead to lots more….

Back home we shared the shower and let the ‘lots more’ continue for quite a while. I wonder if my libido was as high when I was engaged to Richard? Thinking about it, it definitely was; I used to avail myself of his morning glory whenever he had one, for example, so I must have been just as sexed-up with him. I am amazed at how Laura responds to every sexual idea I have and even suggests variations of her own. When you consider she was a virgin when we started dating [technically she still is, I suppose] her libido is certainly keeping pace with mine – in fact at times it outstrips it!

Dad Skyped again this morning; interrupting our sexual shower shenanigans in the process. He has had news of our Caravan on Arran. It is all up and running and waiting for its first use! There are four large gas bottle set up and he has had a local electrician put some sort of heating element cable around the water pipes to prevent them from freezing up during the cold weather when we are staying there and have the water on. All the pipe work has been lagged and insulated, so all we have to do is go and stay. [Oh, and pay for our gas and electricity use during the year too.] We are planning to go at Easter, weather permitting.

Into University together this morning and more work on our translations. I think we are making slow but steady progress through the documents and if we keep going at this sort of speed we should have them all transcribed into modern English well before our three years are up. I mentioned this to Felice who said we could drag our feet a little from time to time and also do some work on our casket research. That may produce a paper in its own right, with all the photographs we have taken of our examples, maybe even a book!

She has signed us in for three days tuition at the Royal School of Needlework during the next semester [there, I did it] to get some insight into Elizabethan and pre-Tudor embroidery. This should prove an interesting diversion. It is based in Hampton Court Palace and we have been looking at places to stay nearby. It is quite exciting. I am not sure which is the most exciting, the thought of our very own static caravan on Arran or going to a needlework course at Hampton Court Palace.

I will be amused to watch Felice during the course as she is too needlework what Daniel lambert would have been to hang gliding [England’s fattest man, who lived in Stamford in Lincolnshire]. She is astounded at the simple pieces which I do so watching her under expert tutelage will be an amusing experience – especially if she displays her renown gallic short temper when things don’t go quite how she wants.

Mrs Briggs called this morning and asked if she could come and share lunch at Uni. Naturally I said “Yes”. She joined Felice, Laura and me in the refectory and had a cooked, subsidised meal with us. She wanted to apologise for dropping me in it on Wednesday but she and the head or HR have had a major spat over who should be her 2-i-c.  Me being her stand in was her way of showing the HR person that she would do things her way and not be dictated to from above! Bloody office politics! I really did think that XXX & Y were above that sort of pettiness, it seems I was wrong [again]. I am obviously a naïve, innocent abroad when it comes to how organisations actually work. She is going to put my name down as her permanent deputy on the days I am in work! It won’t mean any extra money but it will mean she has poked the HR person in the eye big time, as Tim [Mr Carr] has approved her choice so HR can “go and swivel”, to quote her exact words.

When they tried to persuade me to come back, full time, after my MA, that was a carrot which I had dangled before me; viz 2^nd in ARR under Mrs Brigg’s leadership. It was very tempting and if I hadn’t already been offered the Research Assistant post I would probably have bitten their arm off.

Mrs B said she really enjoyed being in the University as it reminded her of her own college days. She was surprised that so little seemed to have changed from her time as a student apart from the electronic gadgets that seemed glued into almost everyone’s hands, that is! She left us with a quick wave and feeling that we still hadn’t quite been told the entire story. I expect all will reveal itself in the fullness of time.

We zoomed home as soon as possible after our final session for the day and had a swift collaborative tea of salad wraps with chicken or beef and cold new potatoes. I was so peckish I had three wraps and a mountain of spuds.

Once again Laura was at Dominic’s for the night so I spent another lonesome evening looking through my Arran books and maps, planning what we’d do at Easter. I walked Callie down to meet her at the restaurant in time for closing and Dom gave Callie a plate of spag bol that had been ordered and left. Thanks Dom, that meant I had to walk her home too or the food would want to leave her system at some ungodly hour in the morning! I was so engrossed in what Laura was telling me about a party in the restaurant I had completely failed to register what Dom was doing until Callie had cleaned the plate! She drove home, alone, and I walked back up the steep hill to our little house; pausing on the way to bag up Callie’s second message of the walk courtesy of Julio’s restaurant!

We decided to abandon the night’s shower and do something much dirtier instead.

Libido? 

A brilliant Comedy of Errors at the Lyceum. Rain didn't prevent 'play'! CENSORED, sorry...

Friday January 24^th.

Good old Dad. Rah, rah, rah!

I will have to send him to more Australia vs England cricket matches. He went to Perth to watch the Aussies thrash England, again! He was there to add more Strine support to his side. The Aussies lost! I have told him if he had gone to some of the test matches he might have made them lose those too. He wasn’t amused. I guess with the gloom of England’s dismal performance out there I needed some cheering up. Peter and Jeff went with him too and all three are sick as the proverbial parrot! In the scheme of things, my gloating over a single victory out of nine is pretty pathetic really but I just couldn’t wait to Skype him and tease him about being a Jinx!

Laura thought I was over-reacting but then she isn’t really a fan of cricket. One of her very few faults. LOL

Another day passed at work. No more from a certain accountant, thank goodness. I had a chat (unrelated) about the theatre with Mrs Briggs. She is going to see Comedy of Errors tomorrow. She didn’t know it was an all-male cast and will be the same for Midsummer Night’s Dream. I can’t really see what all the fuss is about to be honest, when old Bill Waggledagger wrote the damn thing only men were allowed to act anyway, so there is a certain verisimilitude to this production. It will give us something more to chat about next week [only on Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday though as I am back to my normal time at XXX & Y from tonight.

The plays the thing… wherein we’ll catch the conscience of the Sheffield public. It was surprisingly well attended as far as I could see. We almost missed it as I went to the Crucible only to realise we should have been next door at the Lyceum! Durr. Luckily eagled eyed Laura was in charge of the tickets tonight and steered me in the right direction. Mum was already in the bar and had ordered interval drinks for us both, she had prior instructions to do this, she wasn’t acting off her own bat.

The play was costumed in modern dress and set in somewhere that could have been Spain rather than Syracuse. The actors were brilliant, several of them played instruments throughout the performance and the patent absurdity of the story was handled extremely well. Often I have seen this play performed where it is anything but a comedy [in reality] but tonight’s production was an absolute delight. I had more than several laugh out loud moments and for once it wasn’t just me laughing at stuff [always embarrassing I feel].

I hope as many people as possible go and see this lot because they are brilliant. They sort of make you feel that the Bard would be laughing along from his cloud, watching it.

Theatre news. Before we set off we discovered that the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s production of “The Bible” has been banned in Ireland. What a set of fucking dickheads religious people are at times. I bet none of the cretinous tossers who are bleating about the show have any idea what it is about.  None of them will have seen it at all I’ll bet. I saw it when I was in Cambridge, years ago and it is hilarious! Laura, Mum and I are off to see it in Nottingham sometime in March [it isn’t playing in Sheffield for some reason, maybe all this Irish ban publicity may bring it to our doors].

We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and Mum, in particular, is looking forward to seeing MND next Saturday. She has directed school productions of it at every school she has taught in. Once she cast me as Helena! Her casting dilemma when I was Helena was the fact she was producing the play in an all-girls school. In fact she I remember her saying she has only ever produced it in a mixed school once in her teaching career, all the rest of the time she has taught in single sex schools!

I thought my Helena was brilliant, although I am biased. The girl playing Demetrius and I worked out an incredibly realistic stage slap for one point in the woodland scenes; the audience gasped every time we did it. OK Mum showed us how the thing worked but it was testament to Julie’s acting that the slap was a wow every night. I have digressed.

Owing to us being out tonight, Laura has booked herself in for tomorrow night and Sunday night at the restaurant which could make those two evening a little lonely without her. Ho hum.

Saturday January 25^th.

We had our usual swim after I had walked Callie this morning and then a cooked full English breakfast as a treat. My throat is now 100% fit and well and ready to do battle with all the food I can shovel down it.

The weather continues to be horrid. We drove over to Bradfield for our lunch today, meeting a certain mad Frenchwoman at the Plough Inn. She was already there enthusing about a beer brewed in the village called Belgian Blue. She said it was wonderful and against my better judgement I asked for a half a pint. It was dreadful. I don’t know why I even bothered. It is a lovely colour [deep purple – because it is made using bilberries] but it is still beer! Therefore it was totally unpalatable in my eyes. Feli had my half pint. Laura stuck with hers to the bitter end; no pun intended and then went onto wine like I had.

Feli was all full of beans and invigorated and ready to start the new semester on Monday. She was also full of beans because she’d been getting a good old rodgering from a new man she has met in France called Guy. According to her they f*cked like rabbits all over the Christmas Holidays. She has given up the idea of Mr Radford from Lancaster [until he calls her I bet and then she’ll no doubt be heading to his place to play hide the sausage with him too!] I am going to stop attempting to keep up with Feli’s love life.  She is obviously enjoying herself and who am I to stand in the way of that?

Driving back over the top from Bradfield there was still snow lying in the fields and under the edges of walls. It has obviously had more nasty weather the higher up the fells you go. I phoned Phil in Horsforth and they’d had snow for a few days where they are. Lucky buggers.

The rest of the day was spent doing fairly mundane stuff, house cleaning, cooking an evening meal trying new methods of using our Rampant Rabbit! It was a shame Laura had to go off to work, we were having so much fun.

Luckily she wasn’t too tired when she got back for us to continue where we left off.

Sunday January 26^th.

It has been like the Biblical flood out there today. I cannot remember having weather like this before here in Sheffield. Up in Cumbria it is sort of the norm but not usually this far south and east. It has put paid to us doing anything today. We have hibernated for the day. Richard and I did this a few times but it is the first time Laura and I have spent the whole day together in bed. Even poor old Callie was merely shoved out into the back field to answer her calls of nature rather than go out in the torrents which were bucketing down.

As a result I can either give a step by step, detailed and intimate account of every little thing we did with each other’s bodies or I can call it a day now.

OK. It’s a day.

Wear something bright at work. A declaration of love and Snow! Yes, snow!

Monday January 20^th.

Swimming in your own local pool is so much nicer than guesting in an unfamiliar one; even if it is a Cumbrian one. The scenery may be nicer but the weather certainly isn’t! Sarah was pleased to see us back and ready for a new semester. [I tried to explain it was still the old one but the sheer illogicality of it hit home even as I was attempting an explanation.]

Only 75 lengths today. I am taking it steady. Plus the pool seemed busier than it was before Christmas, Sarah’s explanation is the fact lots of fogeys have made New Year’s resolutions to get fit and swimming is the easiest. She thinks the numbers will be back to normal by about March.

We had “Beat the Blues on Monday” day at work. Everyone was encouraged to wear something bright on what has been claimed is the most depressing Monday of the year. Luckily Mrs B gave me a heads up about this last week, so I went in wearing my Art on my sleeve [and chest and legs and round my bum]. I have a pair of leggings inspired by Mondrian and a matching sweater, so coupled with a black mini skirt I wore those today. I put the mini skirt on to preserve my modesty. Without something there the leggings do reveal rather too much of my important little places to the world.

Mrs Briggs herself was in full Barbara Cartland mode with the pinkest two piece suit you have ever seen. I thing it must have been issued with sunglasses when it was new. She found it in a charity shop near where she lives [that comes as no surprise] and thought it would be ideal. Imagine day-glo Barbie pink magnified to the power of infinity! That just about describes the colour.

Lots of the guys had obviously discussed what they were going to do and they came in loud waistcoats. That was a really clever idea. What was perhaps a bit childish was the way they went around with their jackets buttoned and asked people if they wanted a flash? Then they’d undo their jacket and dazzle us with their waistcoats. The first time this happened I thought it was funny, by lunchtime I was armed with my staple gun and was threatening to zap anybody who flashed me. Rather unsurprisingly, lots of the guys came to get stapled. I did behave a little naughtily to Christopher, in accounts; I went up there on some spurious pretext and stapled his tie to his desk! [That may have been a mistake in retrospect as a few of the accounts people came down asking for their ties to be stapled too.] 

We were like a set of big kids really.

Even Mr Carr had joined in the spirit of the thing with a waistcoat which looked like he had been sick down his shirt! Well, that’s what I told him it looked like. Hey, he has dated my Mum, I can afford to be cheeky to him – within reason.

Back home dinner was ready and waiting and Laura all scrubbed and ready to zoom off to the restaurant. This will be her first day this year. She drove herself down in Quokka as I was feeling whacked. I guess it is the first day back syndrome. It certainly affected Lollster. She came in after work, sat in the recliner, and was asleep before her cup of tea was made. It was at a moment like this I wished I was stronger, I would then have lifted her up and carried her upstairs into our bedroom where I could have undressed her at my leisure before tucking her into bed for the night.

I shook her awake and told her this so she said OK and leapt into my arms wrapping her legs round my waist and locking her ankles behind my back. She is only 8 stones but I am not an amazon! My knees buckled a bit and I had to say that I didn’t think trying to carry her upstairs was a good idea.

“Wussy wuss wuss!” Was her reply. 

So I bit the bullet and had a go. I couldn’t quite make it all the way up the stairs [they are quite steep] so I sat her down on the top step. She lay back onto the landing and said, “If you backed down about three steps you’d be at the perfect height to nibble my love bump.”

I called her a dirty little trollop but backed down and did as she suggested. First through her tights and undies and then at the unclothed spot after I had removed the restricting garments. We didn’t actually tumble into bed for at least 40 minutes!

Tuesday January 21^st.

Walked the puppy and swam as usual this morning.

Up to my usual 100 lengths today as I was feeling invigorated after our evening entertainment.

Work was much calmer to day and far less silly than Monday.

I met up with Laura in town for lunch and we had a window shop too. It was quite sunny for a while and the Winter Gardens were beautiful as always. I love the fact that the new Market  is now at this end of the town centre so we had a stroll in there too. I told Laura how much she would enjoy going to Fremantle market in the summer. It is a brilliant spot, even though it is relatively small.

Back home to another waiting dinner. This is something I could get used to every night. After the meal Laura rushed off to the restaurant again. This time I fell asleep in the recliner.

All in all a much quieter day today than Monday. Thank goodness.

Wednesday January 22^nd.

Usual morning routine slips into place as though we’d never been away. Had a Skype call from Dad saying he and Louisa are coming back on the 8^th of February not the weekend before and could I be an angel and collect them from the airport? I knew he’d rope me into doing it. He sort of pressured me into house sitting in a way, and I guess he does look after Callie for me when I am away so it’s not too onerous.

Jill told me Annabelle had got a boyfriend! I am not sure how I feel about this to be honest. I had a horrible knotty feeling in the pit of my stomach when she told me but then she went on to explain he wasn’t really a BF just a guy she had been paired with in Science and he’d been round to work on their presentation for the class. Annabelle was scathing as hell about Jill calling him her boyfriend and was quite catty about Jill’s ex going with someone else while he was still supposed to be going out with her. This is a side to the girls I haven’t seen before and it is not very nice. I told them both that I didn’t want a pair of Tasmanian devils as nieces. I threatened to hang up if they continued to be unpleasant to each other. Suze appeared and told me that I was seeing a warts and all view of them. I think she was annoyed too, I have lived with them for a couple of years and I know what the warts and all reality is like. It isn’t what they were doing. Suze said she’d send me an e-mail.[This is code for something has happened and she can’t talk about it in front of the kids.

I am sort of dreading getting the e-mail.

Work was the same as yesterday. Which means it is back to normal. Christopher came to ARR during the lunch hour and sat on my desk and told me that he really, really liked me. [I don’t need this.] He knows he has no hope while I am involved with Laura but if we ever split up would I consider giving him a chance? I suppose it must have taken a lot of guts to come down and spill something like that out to me. I guess I am also party to blame for behaving like a silly schoolgirl on Monday and pranking him with the staple gun. If I hadn’t done that I bet he wouldn’t have been sitting on my desk this lunchtime.

He went on about how he knew I had dated guys in the past. He referred to Alan and how we’d been together for almost a year. How he’d been really happy when we broke up [thanks a bunch] and then really sad when I “came out” and told everyone about Laura. All the time he was talking I was thinking, “I don’t deserve this rubbish. Why is he forcing me to listen to his bleating? “and “Oh, just shut up and go away!” Part of the problem is I need to tell him to just shut up and go away but I can’t because I don’t want to upset him. It is not because I secretly fancy him or something, because I know I don’t. [I have known this for as long as I have known him.]

I sat with Mrs Briggs during the afternoon and she told me that I had to do what I found difficult. That is, tell him to shut up and go away. I am going to avoid him all the time and not ever go up to accounts again behaving like a stupid school girl. If he says anything again I will try my best to tell him where to get off.

Laura was waiting with the meal again. Rah rah rah. Why would I want to exchange what I have for something unpredictable and unreliable and whom I don’t fancy at all? Sadly Christopher can’t see beyond his own desires. If he could walk in my shoes for even a minute he would understand.

I drove Laura to the restaurant after dinner and collected her at just after 11pm. Dominic and I had a chat about life and love and relationships. He claims that because she is so happy at work that makes her a better waitress, which is why people give her so many tips. He also thinks it is our relationship which makes her so happy. He is sort of dreading what will happen when she finishes her degree and he will lose her for good. He has over a year before that happens so he’ll cope. It sort of makes me wonder too. Will there be work for her specialisation in the South Yorkshire area? Will I find that I lose her too, if she has to move to where the work is? That is what graduates have done since time immemorial [moved around the country / planet for work]. I was just lucky to find something on a plate in Sheffield. I think I may have a guardian angel, sometimes.

Thursday 23^rd January.

Snow! We have had some snow! Not all that much and it cleared pretty quickly. The town itself seemed untouched [that is nothing new] but up her in the foothills of the Pennines, the white stuff has fallen. The first of the year.

Callie and I encountered spiky rain on our walk this morning [Callie’s name for hail] and she was not a happy puppy walking through rain which hurt her. After swimming [which was also snowless] our back yard, between the conservatory and the Odessa Steps to the garden had a centimetre or so of covering. 

By the time I had showered again and had breakfast the lovely whiteness had gone to be replaced by more rain. Our weather has become very wet lately. I don’t think I’ve been singing too much to make it happen!

Laura is pretty excited about some statistical analysis they are doing as part of her course. It is all about medicine and drug effectiveness and sounds fascinating. She is looking forward to the probability aspect of it as this is where it gets really “wild” [her words]. When she goes on about her work she gets as excited as I do talking about books I have read. [They are my real passion.] Quite often though what she is saying goes right over my head. At these times she will stop and try to explain to me in terms I can understand; she says this is a brilliant way of cementing the ideas in her own head too. It is good for me to be a dunce at something, I suppose.

At work we had a visit from the High Class escort whom we defended successfully against her tax evasion case. She was her to see her solicitor on another unrelated matter. If you didn’t know what she did for a living you could quite easily think she was one of the law staff who work at XXX & Y. She was in the lift as I was heading up to one of the high offices to deliver some case notes. I bit the bullet and spoke to her. She is very ordinary really. She may look a million dollars but she sounds as down to earth as you and I. I asked her if would be possible to have a chat with her at some time about something which had been on my mind for a while. She gave me a business card and told me to call anytime to make an appointment. I think she may have thought I was employing a euphemism to disguise the fact I wanted lesbian sex with her! Little does she know.

After work another meal was waiting and Laura was happy as Larry [whoever he was] as she has a placement in her next term doing stat. analysis at the Hospital just down the road from the University. I knew the placements were in the offing but she hasn’t really talked about it much, so I assumed she wasn’t too bothered. It seems the placement will be doing more of what she was talking about this morning. How weird a coincidence is that? It is going to be one day a week from the start of February until the end of June. She will be told which day of the week when she goes to the next meeting about it.

I drove her to work again and was surprised to find Dominic wasn’t there. He has rushed over to Italy, today, where his Grandmother is dangerously ill. His Grandmother? She must be amazingly old as I am sure Dom is in his fifties! Maybe she gave birth to his Mum when she was just a bambino herself? The staff seemed to be coping as usual in his absence, which is probably not a bad thing.

The white stuff of this morning had been replaced by nastier white stuff as we pulled back onto our lane after Laura had finished. The crazy paving has become a psychopath as it is covered in a sheet of ice. 

When I took Callie for her final walk of the day I stole a bucket full of salt from the salt bin and sprinkled it all over the path as we made our way back to my house. I suppose people in the rest of my row will be pleased it has been done, unless it warms up overnight and gets washed away in the rain which is bound to follow! Then they will be none the wiser. Ho Hum.

Unexpectedly sexed up weekend!

Friday January 17^th.

Yet another day of throat pain; how long will I be paying for my stupidity? To be fair, it was a little easier this morning and I managed a puppy dog’s breakfast [Weetabix and gallons of milk]. That did ease my hunger somewhat because I had four! Before you criticise, I have hardly eaten all week so I am allowed this. I have only pooed once too, since Monday perhaps it will set the system back to default.

We didn’t swim and I left Laura packing the Quokka while I took Dad’s dogs to Aspatria, to their kennels, in his Land Rover. I felt a bit guilty about using his car so much so I put £50 of diesel in it which took the edge of my guilt, and probably my bank balance.

Back in the village Laura had loaded up, been to see her Mum and was all ready for the off, so at 9.45am precisely we sallied forth and headed for the wilds of the South Yorkshire Pennines. As planned we drove across the A66 to Scotch Corner and then down the A1 and M1 almost to our door. The bit around Leeds was busy as usual, otherwise it was a straightforward drive and we pulled onto our front garden at just past 12.15.

There was a whole machine full of messages again on the answer machine, once more they were mainly stupid tele-sales or hang ups. Mum had left one, so had Mrs Briggs (!) and Felice. I called Mum first and pleaded injury to avoid driving all the way across to Holmesfield before going to the theatre. She was cool with that and even agreed to come over to ours for her meal and then, depending on how she felt, either drive her car into town as well or share ours and spend the night. [I honestly can’t remember the last time she stayed over at my house.]

Mrs Briggs had phoned to say me being back for a week was fine and did I want paying or time in lieu. I phoned her back and we had a long gossip [I guess when you are the boss you can take time for personal calls at work]. I have opted for time off in lieu instead of dosh, that way I will be saving up time for our trip to Australia in the summer. She told me she is going to the theatre tonight to see Oliver again [we went there for XXX & Y’s Christmas do] she enjoyed it so much she has managed to get tickets for a performance tonight. It was a brilliant show. Fagin was magnificent and Bill Skyes was the nastiest villain I have seen portrayed on a stage. He was positively evil personified. No wonder she wanted to see it again. I have said we could meet up in the bar but I think our show starts later and doesn’t have an interval so that may be a non-starter.

Felice is back! She has invited herself to tea tomorrow. How that happened I am not quite sure, vocal legerdemain I expect. She had a whale of a time back home [near Bordeaux] despite the weather. She didn’t mention Mr Radford, so I didn’t either. I will hear everything tomorrow, she is about as secretive as a loudspeaker!

Our mail was still mainly junk. It is amazing how much has collected in just five days. Julie popped round with a huge parcel that had been delivered to her by the postie as our conservatory was locked so it couldn’t be left there. Naturally she and Laura were curious so I opened the box and then presented Laura with the contents. It is a Sydney Oilskin Co. coat just like mine for Laura. She has been envious of it for ages so I got Peter to buy one from Warnbro and post it on surface/air as an extra, late Christmas present.

I am not given to couples wearing matching items of clothing. I think it looks sad, to be honest, so in this case I had arranged that Peter buy a blue one rather than the traditional oilskin colour so we are slightly different. It will mean fewer double drenching on rainy dog walks from home, probably.

Julie stayed for a cuppa and gossip. There was no more news on the arson attack but there have been reports of several more arson incidents around the city, she has noticed, in the local paper. [Whether that is because she is now primed to look for these things or not she couldn’t be sure.] She was sort of sympathetic to my scalded gullet escapade although she did think it was funny too! Funny? Please….

Mum turned up at about 5pm and we scoffed some butternut squash and parsnip soup I made from the left over veggies we’d brought down from Dad’s. I did have a couple of pieces of freshly baked bread [from our machine] which proved silly as the crust irritated my bloody throat again! Still I have a full sheet of dequacaine tablets left to see me through.

The play.

It was weird. It was two hander where they didn’t actually speak to each other for ages. It was all about modern technology and loss and love and loss again. It was quite thought-provoking and occasionally funny. It certainly got you thinking about the way we disconnect from other people in our society. In places it seemed almost like Pinter. I was disappointed the couple didn’t stay a couple but my throat prevented me from shedding a tear for them!

We saw the Nutcracker couple in the bar afterwards and they came across, probably to chat with my Mum rather than have social interaction with a pair of deviants. [Perhaps I am being unkind.] I wasn’t dressed as a deviant though, I had on my Max-studio dress which is absolutely stunning. I did turn a few heads in it, even if I say so myself. I think it is because the bodice and chiffon skirt are lined with nude fabric so people looking at it can’t tell if what they are seeing is me below or not! Coupled with black tights and my zip up stiletto ankle boots I thought I looked a million dollars. I guess the grey “detective mac” top coat wasn’t quite the thing to go with it though!

Laura had kept it simple with a red dress which emphasised just how slim she is. I sometimes look at her and just can’t believe how beautiful she is especially wearing something as stunning as that red dress. The only down side is the skirt section is a tight fitting pencil cut and it is impossible to inveigle your naughty fingers underneath it in public. Mine, however, lends itself to that activity quite easily, but the tights proved a barrier insurmountable.

We hung around in the bar for a while but the Oliver interval must have been and gone before our show finished so we didn’t meet up with Mrs B. Never mind, we’ll catch up on Monday.

Back home I walked the dog in my outfit, not deeming it necessary to change for such a short stroll. When I got back Mum had retired for the night and Laura was sitting in her dressing gown on the sofa. “Guess what I have on under here?” she asked me when I joined her in the lounge.

“I think I will have to investigate to find out,” I replied. Sure enough, she didn’t have her PJs or anything else on under the dressing gown. I nibbled and licked her love bump until she pushed my head away. “Not here, in case we disturb your Mum…” We continued our linguistic dexterities in the comfort and security of our bedroom.

Saturday 18^th January.

Mum was up before both of us this morning. I guess it may be sleeping in a different place made her restless. She was clattering about in the kitchen at around 7am. So much so that Callie hadn’t made her usual trek upstairs to sniff my ear like she usually does when we are at home.

She knows I am an early riser so I guess she thought it was OK. She had made herself an omelette for breakfast. It smelled so good when she asked if I wanted one I naturally said yes. I ate it very slowly and carefully but my precautions seemed unnecessary as it slid down a treat and didn’t offend the injured gullet at all in its passing.

Mum started to talk about last night at the theatre and got a bit embarrassing going on about my dress and how beautiful her baby looked. She then said she thought Laura looked stunning too. She said she thought she could be a model. I made a joke about me not being good enough to be a model, then, and her eyes filled up! 

Oh shit, you stupid little cow.

She seemed to recover her composure and instead of letting a tear spill came out with, “Why do you joke about everything?”

I couldn’t answer. So I fired up my tablet and showed her the two sets of modelling sessions that Laura had done when she was younger. In one she was 15 and was modelling a series of different dresses and costume jewellery; in the other she was just 18 and was in ordinary clothes and modelling a range of bags. They had been taken through an agency but they had been the only two she has ever done.

Mum was very impressed because they are impressive. I had to admit that I wouldn’t have been selected to model for anything. I might have a face that could pass muster when made up to be glamorous but I was just too big otherwise.

I could sort of sense we might be heading towards dangerous ground with our conversation so I prompted anything with a swift, “I do love her so much, you know? It is obviously different to what I had with Rick but I feel just as happy and safe with her as I did with him.”

I was expecting to wander down the cul-de-sac of ‘what about the future’ but we didn’t go that way. Perhaps I am being oversensitive?

The former model appeared out of the blue a few minutes later asking if the gorgeous smell wafting upstairs was omelette? So Mum made her one too.

We decided to make a foray into town together and so, after a swift stroll for the woofie, we drove off in convoy for the town centre. It seemed strange in the town centre with all the Christmas stuff gone and just a huddled mass of people shuffling about, dodging the rain. We didn’t really need anything and just messed about window shopping and browsing and generally killing time in each other’s company I suppose. After a cup of tea and sticky bun in Lewis’s café we our separate ways with Mum heading south and Laura and I heading north.

Felice arrived at about 3.30 pm with a few bottles of very palatable local wine [local for her that is in south west France]. The tea became a mega salad with prawns and other sea food items she’d brought with her, too. My throat seemed to be coping quite well with the salad although I do chop everything up very small and then smother it in mayonnaise so it was well lubricated on its passage through my gullet.

We were pretty well lubricated by about 8 o’clock and had giggled our way through all of our gossips, rumour and scandal [OK, there was no scandal]. Laura whispered to me, while we were in the kitchen opening another bottle of Bordeaux wine, “She’ll have to stay the night. She is too pissed to drive anywhere!” This was true. She was several sheets more than three to the wind!

In fact at about 10 we started on a round of silly toasts. Felice gave one to Laura and me: “To my favourite Lesbians. If I was to have sex with a woman I would definitely like it to be with you two!” Heart stopping moment to say the least. Luckily she didn’t go on to allude to our fumbled attempt at “getting it on” last year. Phew.

I think Laura was a bit annoyed by that toast to be honest, because she went all business like and formal saying, “Alright then… Let’s do it… “ She sat herself down on the sofa next to Felice and attempted to kiss her. She removed the glass from Feli’s hand and turned her head and smacked a huge kiss on her lips. It was a waste of time. From the moment Feli had the glass removed I could see she was gone. Laura realised this too and turned to me saying, “I don’t believe it, she’s fast asleep!”

We wobbled her head about a bit and gently tapped her cheeks, but there was no doubt, our French friend was dead to the world. We decided it would be easier to leave her where she was and cover her with a quilt. That is what we did. We carefully undressed her down to her underwear; tucked one edge of the quilt under the cushions on the sofa so that it wouldn’t fall off in the night and left her having dreams about kissing lesbians, no doubt. We decamped to the kitchen and finished off the bottle.

“Were you serious?”

“No. Of course not. I was calling her bluff. I thought she’d push me away. I wasn’t expecting her to fall asleep on me!” We had a giggle at the idea that lesbian kisses were so boring they put heterosexual women to sleep.

Walking Callie for the last one of the day, I reflected on what would have happened if Felice had responded to Laura’s attentions. I guess I would have had to join in too and we could’ve had our very own mini orgy. I have had sex with two people at the same time, but they were both guys and I was pretty drunk so I don’t really remember much about it. I recall their desire had been to spit roast me and I had no idea what that meant. I do now!

I expected Laura to be pushing the zeds like Felice was when I got back but no, she was raring to have sex with a woman who knew exactly how to respond when she was kissed.

Can you have too much of a good thing?

Sunday January 19^th.

Two lots of good news today; the most important being my throat has stopped feeling as though there is something sticking into the damned thing blocking my eating and hurting when I swallow, the second I ate a proper full cooked lunch and felt no ill-effects at all. Hurrah! I can now go back to being a little pig in its tough instead of being a bird feeding! I weighed myself this morning and I was 119lbs (that’s eight and a half stones) this is the lightest I have been for a while. You can’t really spot any differences as far as I could tell when I stood and examined myself in front of the mirror in the wardrobe.

I was looking a bit on the hairy side though, so I used the epilator to make my bikini line a bit more restrained and trimmed the top of my furry bit into a heart shape again. OK, I also used the trimmer to make it look less like Sherwood Forest and more like a woodland glade. It is the neatest thing about Richard’s old beard trimmer, it can cut hair to any length. Plus, it is a very kind blade. I remember when I bought it for him, for his birthday, he commented on how it didn’t made his skin feel ‘traumatised’ like his old one did.

To be honest, Laura woke up while I was using the epilator and it was she who trimmed the heart shape and shortened the length of my pubis. It was also she who noticed I was, sort of, involuntarily opening and closing slightly and decided that I needed help to make my mind up. She has noticed this before when I start to get aroused. The opening of my labia seems to take on a life of its own as though attempting to entice the adventurous traveller inside. 

Obviously you can’t see it yourself, but you can feel what is happening. Richard used to tell me it was her talking, saying “Get a move on, I’m ready…”

He used to massage my back a lot, I really enjoyed that and, after a while, he would see the movement of my little rosebud and know he could enter me completely as I would be so ready for him inside me. The first time he did it I was so taken by surprise every muscle I had seemed to tighten involuntary and I milked him in under a minute! [Writing about this and thinking about it has made me so wet again. Where is that girl?]

Slight hiatus. [Some context, I am typing this at about 5.30am on the 20^th of January]

Sorry about that.

God, I have had so much sex this weekend I think I may go blind. Fortunately [or not depending on how you look at it] none of the sex was with the Lead Researcher on our PhD project and French nymphomaniac Mlle Felice [surname removed for security reasons].

I don’t think she is a nymphomaniac really. She was not looking like one when I had finished 

dog walking this morning. She was just a sleepy young woman who looked the worse for drink. Callie gave her ear a sniff and I went and kissed her on the forehead, which caused her to wake and ask for a barrel full of water. I brought her a huge glassful which she downed in one and then asked for another. She sent that one the same way.

She asked if she had done anything too silly last night. I told her she had run naked down the village High Street shouting out in French that the English were lousy lovers. She just said, 

“Oui, c’est moi!”

I offered her some breakfast and she went for the bacon buttie option. By the time hers was cooked I had an order from the sexiest slimmest blonde I know for another one. We ended up having two each and I was pleased my throat was up to it. OK, I hardly cook my bacon so it isn’t likely to irritate my throat I suppose.

I was sort of expecting us all to have throbbing heads and be the worse for wear but surprisingly we all declared ourselves un-hungover! Feli swears it is the Bordeaux wine which doesn’t leave a hangover. I will reserve judgement on that. We invited her to stay for lunch but she declined saying she had things she needed to do before tomorrow. By 10.30 the house had lost its Gallic influence and was once again good old down to earth, reliable British again.

I had thawed out a beef joint from the freezer for our lunch so we bunged that in the oven and drove into the Peak to exercise the dog. She told us she wanted a long walk with not too many climbs, please. [She did, honestly!] We went to the start of the Stanage Edge walk on the A57, Snake Road. From there we walked all along the edges, where we climb in the warmer months, to Higger Tor. Here we had our snap and cup of tea from our flask before turning tail and walking back to the car.

There were hardly any people at the Snake end of the walk but by the time we had made it to Burbage there were masses. The walk back was something of a procession as everyone’s dog had told their owners they needed to go on a longish walk with not too many climbs that morning.

Lunch at about 3pm was not the torture I expected [as already mentioned] and we spent a lazy remainder of the day getting Laura organised for the morning at Uni and me at work. The plan is to drive in together but then Laura will take public transport home, like she does on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, she’ll prepare and cook tea every night this week. That’s nice isn’t it?

We toddled down to Julio’s [which is the name of Dominic’s restaurant, confusingly] and he welcomed Laura like his long lost daughter (again). She was checking if it was Ok to start work again on Monday night, he was delighted she was back and said she had been sorely missed. He is an old charmer really. The wine he had from Dad was a Wow with his customers and he has kept some back for himself too. I told him we were probably going to visit the Akkermanns in Germany sometime this year and when we did we’d bring him some more back. We couldn’t guarantee what price it might be though.

I explained about Hilmar phoning to have a hinge about not producing any eiswein this year as the weather had been too mild and he wanted to know what eiswein was. I had to go through all the German wine label notations for him, from Tafelwein, through QbA to Qualitatswein mit Pradikat and its subdivisions. He was astounded that German bureaucracy extended in their wine growing. I was even able to explain how the Amtliche Prüfungsnummer system worked using a bottle of his ordinary German wine.

We wandered back home in time for a relatively normal turning in hour after I had walked the woofie. To be honest I think Callie was a bit whacked out by this morning excursions on Stanage Edge, although it was a walk with not too much climbing she had chased about like a little puppy for most of the walk. She just padded along beside me in growing frostiness, did what she needed and was back down the lane faster than I would have expected. We hit the charp at about 10.30.

What an interesting and unexpected weekend, really. 

Be careful what you put in your mouth!

Monday January 13^th.

OMG. I am a stupid, stupid cow. 

I am supposedly an intelligent woman and yet I have just gone and done the most idiotic and painful thing imaginable. I have no excuses. I can offer no defence. If I wasn’t a cook of over 20 years’ experience [I started when I was a little girl] there may be some mitigation. As it stands there is none at all.

I mean, I know the one thing you never ever do with a freshly baked apple pie, for example, is attempt to eat it straight from the oven. It is gastronomic suicide to stuff scalding hot fruit into in to your mouth. Yet I have done exactly that. OK it wasn’t apple but I should have known and been more circumspect. Now I am in agony because of it and I look like being so for days. It actually serves me right.

The background to all this is Monday night’s meal at Dad’s. We raided the freezer and found some frozen pork loin so I decided to do a casserole of pork with prunes and apricots. I had eaten it somewhere once before and the combination of tastes is very pleasing to the palate. No problem there then.

Using Dad’s Aga I slowly cooked the pork and fruit mix and prepared all the other veggies; creamed parsnips, baked potatoes, carrot and peas, broccoli so they were all hitting the kitchen table at 6pm so we could listen to the BBC Radio 4 News and scoff our scran at the same time. We used to do this all the time when I was a child, we don’t so much now as my work at the solicitors’ doesn’t finish until 6 so we are usually listening to the Radio 4 comedy slot at 6.30 when we eat.

I digress.

We piled our plates with veggies and then I brought the offending casserole straight from the hot oven onto the trivet. The colour is unprepossessing but it makes up for it in the taste, trust me on this. I scooped out a ladle and a half each and we ploughed in. Normally I eat methodically round my plate; veggies first: meat last. [I blame my Mum for this…] Anyway after a taste of each vegetable I decided to give the meat a try. The pork was totally delicious; it was moist, tender, quite juicy and with a definite taste of the fruit to it. The key thing to stress here is that it didn’t appear to be over warm, it wasn’t tepid, naturally, it was probably like Goldilocks’ favourite porridge – just right.

Having chewed through this tasty morsel of stewed pork, I primed the tines of my fork with another piece and also a piece of prune and apricot. They slipped off my fork into my gob with no problem but the apricot just seemed to slide straight down towards my stomach without waiting to be chewed. I don’t normally do this with food, it is a waste. I could sense it was fairly hot and the bloody lump seemed to lodge itself by my vocal chords and sear away at the lining of my oesophagus.

You know how you can feel something is too hot in your mouth and you try to spit it out? This was the feeling I had with the apricot, except, with it being so far down my gullet, I couldn’t spit it out. It tried to swallow some more to make it go down which it didn’t so I ran to the sink and swooshed gallons of cold water down my neck. The pain where it had lodged was awful and even worse was the feeling in my throat that was a large lump blocking my oesophagus. Laura thought I was messing about at first but she soon realised I was serious when I started crying.

I left the rest of my meal, obviously. I made the Lollster finish hers because it was too nice not to, and I drank a pint of milk straight from the fridge. The swallow reflex was really horrible. It felt as though I had something sticking into my throat. I had a bit of a panic as I wondered whether the whole thing would close up and stop me breathing, so I showed Laura how to do an emergency tracheotomy, should that happen. She went as white as a ghost and tried to reassure me that it wouldn’t.

Eventually, after about an hour I summoned up the courage to call Robert [one of Dad’s friends who is a doctor, locally] to ask him what I needed to do to get an appointment at his surgery tomorrow. He was very nice on the phone and asked me what I’d done and how serious I thought it was. I am sorry to say I started sobbing down the phone to him, so he said, “Hang on I’ll come round and see you.” I tried to put him off but he insisted.

He lives in the next village along and was at Dad’s in minutes. He was calm and confident and reassuring. All the things I wanted to have in my doctor. I was still a bit tearful. OK, a lot tearful. He calmed me down and told me that I had given myself oesophagitis. It often happened in children [thanks for that Robert] who hadn’t learned about hot food properly. There would be inflammation and scarring for a few days and it would eventually recede by the end of the week. Swallowing would feel difficult for the next 24 to 48 hours but it should start to get easier after that. He suggested I ate things which would be easy to swallow, like I would be told to do if I’d had my tonsils out. [I haven’t but I understood what he meant.]

I almost made a joke about blowjobs but luckily common sense prevailed. It was just a shame it hadn’t prevailed while I was eating the bloody casserole! He was gone in what seemed like a flash, cluthing two bottles of Uncle Hilmar’s wine [last year’s still hasn’t all gone] as a thank you, and I felt doubly awful. The pain in my throat was dreadful and I knew I was a complete idiot too! I had a brainwave after a bowlful of ice-cream with yogurt poured over it. I remembered there was some ‘Dequacaine’ in the cabinet in my en-suite. This is for sore throats and has an antibiotic and a local anaesthetic. I spent the rest of the evening numbing my entire mouth with these throat sweets.

I made the blowjob joke to Laura who told me to shut up! I had given her quite a scare and had worried her beyond belief with my talk of cutting open my throat and stuffing a tube into it. I guess my sense of humour can be pretty weird at times.

The rest of the day leading up to this event was spectacularly uneventful. It was grey and raining; par for the course. We went to the pool, pottered about in Cockermouth and did not a lot of anything much really. We exchanged bodily fluids a few times and spent a large part of the afternoon experimenting with different ways to bring each other to Orgasm. I am pleased to say we actually do this a lot. I will not go into details.

We both walked the dogs up Tall Hill in the drizzle and then hit the charp feeling whacked out [me] and stressed out [Laura]. I was surprised that I actually managed to sleep. I thought my throat may prevent it. But no, I zed pushed with the best of them.

Tuesday January 14^th to Thursday January 17^th.

What a few days this has been.

I am starving and still in pain. This is the shortest entry to the blog I have made to date because I have done so little. Swallowing was almost impossible for most of Monday night and Tuesday. Even water proved a major challenge. The Dequacaine idea seemed to afford some relief so I have spent the last few days steadily going through a whole packet of them one after the other. The saliva has probably lubricated the site of the scald and given it some relief too.

I Skyped Susannah on Tuesday morning and she had a major laugh at my expense until I started crying and she realised I was seriously in pain. I told her what Robert had said and she agreed with his diagnosis. She also recommended lots more liquids to prevent dehydration and to keep on doing what I am doing. Maybe cut back on the ice cream a little and try soup without lumps in which has been allowed to cool down. Mmmm, really sounds appetising. She did mention there were some steroidal tablets I could have been prescribed but as Robert had not done so he must have thought they were unlikely to have helped.

Dad and Louisa have gone up to Geraldton for a few days to see a long distant cousin [even I didn’t know about him] so they weren’t on hand to make jokes about my predicament. Dad is going to have a field day with this, I can tell. Annabelle was out with some of her friends.  Jeff was playing cricket on the local oval with some school friends. The school holidays have another two and a half weeks to run yet and she and the others have been out and about all over the place.

Jill was in and she and I had a long chat when her Mum went off to do something in the kitchen. She has split up from the guy she was thinking of having sex with as he has gone with another girl! The other girl has been boasting about how they had “it” and “it” was lovely.  Jill was a bit down and all for killing the girl, I pointed out it was the guy she needed to be angry at. He was obviously just trying to use her and when she’d proved reluctant he had showed his true colours. Apparently that is what her friends have been telling her so maybe Mad Aunt Vicki saying the same thing may carry some weight.

I am sort of pleased in a way and sort of saddened for her too. She is obviously more upset than she is letting on but it is a valuable lesson learned I hope. Guys are not to be trusted when sex is concerned. Ian and I were different, in that I was the predatory one and Ian the innocent. He must have thought all his birthdays had come at once when I persuaded him that sex would be a good idea for both of us. I didn’t tell Jill this. She knows Ian was my first “real” boyfriend but she doesn’t know the details. When she is older, maybe I’ll share the wisdom. [Wisdom? Ha!]

On a more positive note they went and collected my Ashes Bet winnings on the weekend and Dad is bringing the cash home with him when he returns to England in a fortnight. Jill is really happy that I will be coming over during their winter for a month and that I am bringing Laura with me. Obviously we have chatted over the internet together so they know what she is like but the real thing will knock their cotton socks off.

After the call I tried various different foods but yogurt is still the best one. Even watching Death in Paradise offered no relief. I liked this programme but killing off Ben Miller was a bit drastic. Dramatically it made a lot of sense, so the script writers had obviously thought about it.

Wednesday proved equally as frustrating and painful as Tuesday. Plus with an added dimension, I haven’t had a poo since the yogurt inspired one on Monday evening. I guess it is the fact I have had nothing inside me [apart from a tongue and some very naughty fingers trying to take my mind off things!] which means there is nothing there to get rid of. I expect I may end up losing some weight as a result of all this. It is a rather drastic method of weight reduction though. I don’t think I would make a fortune if I marketed it!

The Lollster surprised me today by bringing home bunches and bunches of flowers to cheer me up. She knows I love white flowers and she brought as many as she could find. I have tulips, roses, carnations, chrysanthemums, lillies and even freesias! They are absolutely gorgeous. It was a lovely surprise.

As a physical thank you, I showed her the ‘using a Rose as a sex aid technique’ that Richard used to use with me, which proved a very distracting couple of hours.

I had a minor relapse this evening. We had baked some fresh bread using Dad’s machine and because it smelt so wonderful I decided to try a piece. Stupid bloody idiot! Even despite chewing the thing until it must have been reduced to the size of its constituent atoms in my mouth, it still hurt like buggery when I swallowed the stuff and a whole pint of iced water couldn’t stop it hurting for quite a time afterwards.

Thursday proved a little better, despite the bread set back of the previous day. I was still eating only things which had no lumps or roughness about them and, on the whole, eating very little indeed really. I was keeping my fluid intake up so that I was peeing a river for most of the day. Laura fetched a second packet of Dequcaine and they have been a godsend really.

The dogs have only had local strolls for their calls of nature or even have just been shooed out into the paddock for a while to attend to their business. The weather hasn’t made me want to venture out on to the fells anyway, which would have been awfully frustrating.

Mum called and apparently the “Blink” thing we are going to see at the Crucible on Friday has had brilliant reviews in both Sheffield papers and in the Guardian. [My Mum has always been a Guardian reader. I rebelled in my youth and went with the Times, which I still read even though it has just gone up 20%!]  We should be in for a treat, if my throat can stand the stress. She thinks I am a very silly but very lucky girl. I could have burned my oesophagus much more than I have done and so I should be thankful for that. It is hard to feel thankful at the moment but I understand what she meant. She has even said we can come and stay at hers for a few days if we want rather than coping at home. Will I be expected to play the role of her little girl again while she plays my doting mumsy wumsy? Am I an ungrateful bitch for thinking such a thought? Probably so.

In answer the Beckett question [How’s your bowels?] The answer is still the same; barren! There is a prize if you know what the hell that Beckett reference is! ROFL.

Why the hell didn’t I exercise my normal caution with hot food? I have certainly learned my lesson. Can I have my throat back now please? This is proving much worse than when I did my ankle in, at least then I could eat what I wanted, even if I had to hop everywhere.

We haven’t swum since Monday, which is no surprise really. Tomorrow the plan is for me to take the Dog’s to the kennels, near Aspatria, while Laura loads up the Quokka. Then we’ll just swap cars at Dad’s, lock everything up and head south. Lollster will drive us back and we are going to take the A66 to Scotch Corner route again, so Laura can have a feel for the route as a driver instead of as a passenger.

I just have to be careful what I put in my mouth in future, won’t I? LOL.