Monday 31st March.
We had the talk in the early hours of the morning. I cannot
remember ever feeling so scared. I have been in physically tricky situations
while rock climbing but the mental anguish I was feeling when we broached the
subject of marriage was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Losing Richard
was traumatic but at least there was a certainty there; he was dead. There was
nothing else to do or say really. This gave a degree of certainty to my life
and situation. Talking with Laura about our future was the most frightening
thing I have done recently.
We were both awake at about five am so I asked if we could
talk about Sunday’s comment. Laura agreed that we should. It would be hard to
paraphrase everything but here is an overview:
Yes, she was tipsy but what she said was the thought she was
having at time and which she has been feeling for quite a while now. She knows
I may not feel able to commit myself in such a definite and concrete manner
plus the uncertainty of our future professional lives after our degrees does
create a huge amount of unknown variables. She just wanted to let me be
absolutely sure that if she was asked if she wanted to marry me the answer
would be an unequivocal yes.
I told her that I loved her as much as I had loved Richard
and the feelings were a surprise but nevertheless true and honest. My concern
was that she had only ever been involved in a physical relationship with me and
then for only 18 months. I didn’t want to restrict her from wanting to fly the
coop and experience new things. I would be heartbroken if she left me but maybe
her emotional development might need that to happen, in the future, and if it
did I would fully understand. I wouldn’t like it but I wouldn’t stand in her
way. The arrival of baby Sophie has made me realise that being a mother is
still something I would like someday and that is a factor which needs taking
into account.
Obviously there was much more than this mere summation but
that is the gist.
We agreed that we were a wonderful working unit and for the
foreseeable future we couldn’t see any reasons why we shouldn’t be together. If
any of our friends or family ask us about same sex marriage we are going to say
that we are thinking about it but the variables in our lives mean we haven’t
arrived at a decision yet But… Don’t rule it out!
We had the most intense lovemaking after our chat than I can
remember. Probably as intense as our first time ever.
After that our day at Uni was fairly ordinary and
predictable.
Laura was at Dominic’s again tonight and I did more sewing.
The semester is almost over and we are off to Arran on the 12th. I
am so looking forward to being in our new holiday home. I had been thinking of
saving for a camper van but this departure into static caravan owning has put
that on hold for a while. Dad says it is brilliant and I am just so excited.
Laura did a cost benefit analysis and it seems we will get far more out of the
venture than Dad just by merely being so much younger. I have thirty three
years more time to enjoy our new toy than he does for a start. His book of
ferry tickets was a nice surprise but I have noticed that they are for a car
and driver only. Anyone else who crosses in my vehicle has to buy their own
ticket. I actually phoned CalMac to see if I hadn’t got it wrong, I hadn’t.
Roll on April 12th.
The phone call to CalMac was actually a god send as they
told me that as it was the start of the Easter week that week I would be well
advised to book a crossing time in advance. I booked a mid-afternoon one as we
are going straight to Ardrossan from Sheffield (I wanted to see how bad a drive
it would be.) We are going to split the drive with Laura doing Sheffield to Penrith
and then me doing the Penrith to Ardrossan section. We’ll swap on the services
on the M6 just north of Penrith. I am allowing about six hours to get there but
we should be quicker.
Tuesday April 1st.
Good poisson d’avril
in today’s ‘the i’, about 30p coins. I thought it was pretty clever
until they wandered into the realms of the unbelievable with £4.99 coins and
the like. The Author’s name was also a giveaway being an anagram of April Fool.
I have to admit I had forgotten all about it being April
Fool’s day until someone at XXX & Y mentioned it this afternoon. They had
pranked another member of their department who hadn’t been amused.
I spoke to Mrs Briggs for the first time since the Runrig
concert, she said her ears had taken a whole day to recover! I am not
surprised, they were really loud. She said she is looking forward to a more sensible
noise level when she goes to the City Hall on Saturday. I will be there too;
the programme has some Berlioz, Beethoven PC3 and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony.
I expect it will quieter than the Gaelic rockers. She informed me she is also
going to see the Magic Flute on the following Saturday. Guess what? We are too.
The ‘we’ in question is Laura, Mum and me. That is the reason we aren’t zooming
up to Arran immediately after the Halle Orchestra this weekend.
Another night at the restaurant for Laura and more sewing
and reflection for yours truly.
Wednesday April 2nd.
Mum called early to arrange a bite of lunch together for
Laura, Her, Me and Gran. She was planning on driving her back up to Hawick
after lunch and was using the opportunity for us to bid her a fond farewell
before they left. Mum is going to stay for a couple of days which could prove
interesting if you were a fly on the wall!
Gran doesn’t live in the house Mum was born in but it is
still the same town and will hold lots of memories for her I expect.
Gran enjoyed the meal and I asked if Laura and I could come
and drop in on the way down from Arran. She said she’d be delighted to have us
stay a night or tow as well if we wanted. I can guess she is itching to
introduce us both to her cronies (whom I met last year). I think she’ll just
love being able to introduce her Grand-daughter and girlfriend and sound so
liberated and update! Is that unkind of me? Maybe so.
I arranged three days extra at XXX & Y to make up for my
time off in Arran although there is the bank holiday to be taken into account
too. I still get days in lieu of those even though I am part time and am not
really affected by them. It is because I started there in 2010 and have had the
correct length of service to qualify for them, apparently. Maybe it is because
the Head Honcho and Dad are old school and University chums?
During my week at work Laura says she has plans to do some
proper planting in the garden… Mmm… I will hold fire on commenting on that
until I see what she’s done. Currently my garden is a flight of garden wide
steps up to the garden level proper (it’s about four feet higher than the
house); at the top of the steps is a paved area where the whirly-gig is; it has
a long, narrow lawn edged with gravel and raised beds made from bricks and filled
with lavender plants. There is a bare bed at the end of the garden before the
greenhouse and the dog shed/kennel/palace and the secret space between the dog
shed and the garden wall. To the left, as you look, is a long concrete path
running down the garden to sheds etc at the end, with a brick wall separating
Julie and Andrew’s garden and to the right is another brick wall separating Ken
and Muriel’s garden. All the brickwork was done by the previous owner. I wait
with baited breath to see what she has in mind.
I came home to a feast tonight, Laura had found the last of
the venison in the freezer and it’s date on the bag (I am an organised soul)
said eat by April 20th. She decided we should eat it now, so she had
cooked it really well and done a pile of veggies to go with it. I love the
taste of venison, Laura hadn’t had it until she moved in with me and has slowly
acquired the taste. This was followed by half a lemon meringue pie I had made
for Mothers’ Day but not taken across with me as we had enough stuff planned
already. We had been eating it with our food parcel from the same event on
Monday and Tuesday nights.
Laura was at work again this evening and I fielded a phone
call from Feli who was zooming off to France early and wanted me to square it
with our supervisor. Thanks for that.
Our pillow talk tonight was about babies. Laura is still
young enough to think she doesn’t want one ever. I repeated the idea that I
would probably want one at some stage. We then had a hysterical conversation about
how I should go about getting pregnant. We have decided we will find out which
student graduates with the highest marks when I am suitably broody. We will
attack him with a stun gun and while he is out for the count I will make use of
his manhood (which as we all know doesn’t require a brain to function
properly). That way when he recovers he’ll be none-the-wiser and I should have
imported a set of really intelligent genes for my future offspring.
Thursday April 3rd.
I went to see our supervisor to make Felice’s excuses for
skiving off and she already knew. What was Feli playing at? Were my initial
thoughts. She then embarked on a series of long winded and perambulating
remarks which had me lost completely. (She can take a geographical age to reach
the end of a sentence sometimes, by which point you have gnawed your own leg
off in frustration!) She concluded with, “So if you’re happy with all that we’ll
go and find your mentor today and you can spend some time getting to know each
other.”
Oh F*cking shite. What had I done? Was I in serious doo doo?
Why had I not listened properly to what she was say? I felt about as fretful as
a naughty school girl on her way to the Headmistress’s office for a “Talking To”.
I needn’t have worried. The person I was introduced to was a
member of the English faculty and they had agreed to steer me through the
process of becoming a junior lecturer! Rah! Rah! Rah! When my supervisor was
out of the room I had to explain that her glacier speed delivery of important
information had made me a little distracted so could she please explain again
what was going on? It seems the powers that be (whoever they are) had decided
that I should be allowed to spread my knowledge and expertise among the student
body in a way more than just being a Personal Tutor.
Someone had examined my BA work and the stuff I had done for
my Masters coupled with the reports of what was going on with the PhD research
and had come to the conclusion that it could be worth taking a chance on
letting me loose on a few students in the teaching arena! I thought I had been
promised this when I was offered the RA post and it seems I was but someone had
then got cold feet about it, which was why I was shunted sideways into being a
PT.
I won’t get the five hours a week that was mentioned last
September but I will be getting something. We talked for a couple of hours
altogether and my new mentor (Madelaine) will work with me on the areas I will
be covering for my teaching and then off we’ll go into the ether together!
I texted Laura, Dad, Mum immediately and sent copies to
loads of other people who I knew would be delighted. I got a reply from Felice
who simply said, “I already knew… Congratulations.” She wasn’t wanting me to
apologise for her leaving early it was just a ruse.
Major celebrations ensued at home this evening and even
Laura working at the restaurant could dampen my spirits.
Woo Hoo! I believe it the common method of communicating one’s
unbridled joy. Woo Hoo!
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