Impromptu Garden Party & DIY. Mum's Friend Dies. Laura's 1st Exams. Tewkesbury.

Monday May 26^th. Bank Holiday Monday.

I was all set for a “laze about alone day” as I mistakenly assumed that Laura would like to spend the time revising at home. Wrong. She wanted to ‘do’ the garden (not really a high priority on my list) so I was persuaded to get my arse into gear and my pink romper suit on (boiler suit) and join in with my blonde buddy in getting the vegetable beds sorted out and the lawn cut and other garden-like tasks which I only do when dragged screaming and kicking away from my books.

We removed the dead growth from the lavender plants; weed picked the veggie plot and I cut the grass with our wonder floating lawn mower. There were also a surprising number of ‘sneaky little bugger’ plants growing through small chinks in the pathway and from the base of the raised beds, which needed rehoming in the composter behind the redundant greenhouse.

There is something quite satisfying about cutting the grass so that it looks like a billiard table again. Sadly I had only just cut the damn thing when Callie decided to christen it with a cable of pooh that only needed a cherry on top! I installed a dog pooh septic tank behind the greenhouse when I first moved in to cope with such an eventuality (Dad advised me to just fling any pooh into the huge field behind the house but I couldn’t bring myself to do that, especially as I sometimes walk her in that field if the weather is too grotty for a proper walk) so I was able to dispose of her present in there.

We had finished in a surprising short time so we pulled the cover from our table and chairs and sat with a bottle of cheap pink wine (Footprint) and a few dishes of nibbles. We hadn’t been sat there very long when Julie and Andrew popped their heads over the fence and asked if they could join us. We agreed so they came through the back gate of my garden armed with a couple of bottles of wine and several large bags of nibbles; including doritos and two different jars of dip. Yummy.

We had barely started to munch our way through the dips when we were hailed by Arthur and Simone from the other direction who also asked if the party had started. They came and joined us too, with more plonk and nibbles (and two more chairs).

We sat and scoffed and quaffed for a good couple of hours until Muriel and Ken arrived back at their house. They had zoomed off in the morning to visit their grandchildren. Ken said we ought to get a barbeque going and have a proper tea. We had a discussion about this and discovered between us we had enough grub at our houses to feed everyone (and the five thousand) so we rushed indoors to grab some comestibles while Ken dug his Barbie from the shed and set light to some charcoal.

We reconvened with two packets of sausage, several chicken pieces, I had made some beef burgers from mince we had in the fridge and onions and herbs and the like. There was a plate of lamb chops and a mini mountain of bread rolls (these were from Muriel). Laura and Julie scoured our two respective fridges and devised some salads to go round. Then Steve and Ann appeared, they asked to join and brought an unopened wine box, Gallo – White Zinfandel and some more beef burgers.

By now Ken’s coals had burned down and were white so we appointed him as head cook and with Steve and Ann's collapsible table and some more chairs we had an impromptu barbeque party on our back garden. Ours is a good space as there are no low level flower beds to accidentally walk on. There is a large patio space at the top of the Odessa steps (which lead down to the small back yard and my conservatory). The lawn is compact and bijou and had just been cut, plus the raised bed walls are at just a convenient height for us to sit on if we wished.

A smashing time was had by all, scoffing the barbequed meats and then swigging the vast array of wine. We had a good old giggly, silly, bantering gossip and related each other’s news, stories and plans. It felt really lovely to get together like this, so impromptu and informal.

We sat outside in the evening until about 8.30pm when we seemed to arrive at an unspoken consensus that we should go back to our own houses for the rest of the night.

Laura said she thought what had just happened was just brilliant and I agreed 100%. I suppose it is only possible like this, in our situation, where there is a small row of terraced houses whose gardens don’t have huge, ‘keep out’ type fences separating them from each other. Plus everyone seems to know each other reasonably well and we all get along so amicably. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t fit in when I first moved here. A single woman with her dog among all the couples might have been out of joint, but once I showed my mettle by demolishing the old wall at the end of my yard and having the Odessa steps put in (with which I helped with the labouring) the folks in our little enclave rallied round to help this feisty female newcomer.

I was even lent a lawn mower to cut my newly laid grass when I realised that, in all my planning, buying a device to cut the aforementioned green stuff had been forgotten. They were totally amazed when I converted half the existing shed into a dog kennel: I boxed out one end, lined it with 3/8^th inch plywood and insulated it with polystyrene pieces. I put a tube heater inside and an old sofa Mum was throwing away. I bought a cheap radio and rewired the whole thing too. (The last owner had installed electricity to both the shed and the greenhouse.)

They had watched in complete surprise as I then constructed a 6’ x 6’ run at the side of the shed made from one 6x6 fence panel; 2” square timber; tongue and grooved planking and heavy duty kennel mesh. I did this all from scratch having drawn up a rough plan. I made a 2 foot 6 wide door for the front of the run and covered the roof with sloping (30 degree) corrugated plastic sheeting. I call it Callie’s Palace. A later project was to tap into the water supply in the green house and put a mini, self-filling dog water bowl system in the run too.

I think it was my willingness to have a go at DIY things, and not make a bad fist of them either, which finally got me accepted into our little community. Last year I lined and insulated my cellar, which got them all interested again. The only thing I couldn’t manage was to lay the large stone slabs which make up my Odessa steps. There are seven steps altogether, which run the full width of my garden and once I had the ground work dug out and the footings all concreted and ready, I hit a snag; a major snag. I just couldn’t move the bloody slabs at all. They were far too heavy for me alone and almost too much for me and Dad to try and shift. I had to admit defeat and hire a little man to help out. (Two little men, as it happened, who weren’t so little!) They did all the lugging about and concreting into place while Yours Truly was the person who made the concrete. They found that really helpful and we got the whole thing completed in a day and a half.

I have digressed.

We decided that we had just spent the day in the most productive way possible and we ought to try and do it again over the summer months (when we aren’t in Australia).

Tuesday 27^th May.

Mum had some awful news today, her friend Karen had died suddenly over the weekend. She was a few months younger than Mum and worked as a Doctor in Norwich for quite a while before going down with ME. 

Karen was one of Mums’s oldest friends, they met at University (Glasgow) and discovered that while Mum was from Hawick, Karen was from Melrose, just up the road a bit! Despite the fact they were on different courses; medicine and education, they became great friends. A friendship that continued into their professional lives as they both pitched up in Norwich. Mum marrying a University lecturer and Karen marrying a pharmacist. I remember Karen and Hamish and their two kids Gregory and Rowena very well. They were older than me (more of an age with my sister and brother).

Karen’s ME eventually put paid to her work at the hospital and her medication made her get increasingly bad tempered and irascible. This was something Mum found very hard to deal with. She told me once that Karen was turning into a different person – one she didn’t know and didn’t like. It seems that she must have had complications with her illness because she died, unexpectedly last Saturday afternoon. Mum shot across to Norwich, and is still there now, when she found out. She only heard the news on Sunday evening which upset her, too. The kids have all returned to the family home with their spouses and children, so there is a house full at Woodbastwick. Mum is staying nearby.

She’ll be returning home during the week and then is going back to Norwich for the funeral and wake afterwards. She called Dad to let him know too, but he was a bit “offish”, so they had an argument down the phone and she hung up on him after calling him a pillock! I have spoken to her each night and have tried to feel, and express, sympathy but it is hard when the person who has died is a relative stranger to you after all this time.

On a weirder note, at the solicitors’ this afternoon, I bumped into Adi again (the escort) and she not only remembered me but asked if I had done any work yet! I had to confess I hadn’t. The thought is still there at the back of my mind but it seems like a fundamental betrayal of Laura if I do. I guess I won’t actually get around to having sex for money with strangers at all. Finding out the practicalities made it seem more like a possibility but I know I will never actually go through with it. There is more chance of me fcuking Christopher (in accounts) than becoming an escort.

Back home Laura was in full study mode in preparation for tomorrow. I was a bit concerned that last minute revision might have been the wrong thing, but it seems she was merely testing herself with old questions which is an excellent idea on the eve of an exam. She had even cooked the meal during the 'revision'. I asked her if we could perform a sex act after each successfully answered question as a reward but she refused, saying that she wouldn’t be able to stop at just one and once we started 'revision' would fly out of the window.

At around 10 pm I informed her that the sex act delivery system had just brought her a mouth in need of exercise and she agreed that all work and no play would make Jill a dull girl. We did spend rather a long time exploring each other’s important little places.  Callie got chucked out on to the back garden instead of her last walk and we continued to be naughty with each other in the kitchen until she came back in. We finally went to sleep at about midnight.

Wednesday 28^th May.

Laura decided we needed to continue our usual routine this morning and every exam morning, so I walked the dog, we went swimming and then, after a big breakfast, I dropped the mathematical genius off at the door of the exam hall about twenty minutes before kick-off. I arranged to have lunch with her in the refec a bit earlier than usual and then she’d come up to XXX & Y after her second exam to wait in our office at work. 

Lunch with Laura was quite fraught as she thought her first paper was a bit tougher than she had anticipated and was worried that the second one would be too. She needn’t have worried.

If her sun had been behind a cloud at lunch time, when she arrived in ARR at work, this afternoon, it was definitely out again. Everyone had thought the first paper was hard but she had been told that was usually the case. The afternoon paper was much easier, according to her, and she was quite bouncy about her prospects of having done well. I roped her into helping to photocopy some of the case law I was searching for during the afternoon and that seemed to make her relax even more.

Back in Archives proper she made all of us a cup of tea, that’s the four regular archivists and Mrs B, and we had a long gossip over the brew about what she was doing. Once again they were gobsmacked by the fact she was doing Pure and Applied Maths! Well, Mrs Briggs wasn’t but she and Laura have met several times already, at the theatre or concerts, so she knows all about my GF’s maths brain.

She sat at my desk and read her text book for the next hour and a bit until we finished for the day and then she said that we ought to have a bite out rather than eating in, so we called the Yorkshire Bridge and booked a table for 8 o’ clock. We zoomed home and picked up the woof diddly docious to have a stroll before we ate.

Mistake. It started to rain on us just as we’d drawn level with Ladybower Dam wall and its plug holes! Luckily I’d had the foresight to pick up a rucksack with our waterproofs in before we strode out so our top halves were dry when we got back to pub; the hems of our skirts were rather sodden and our shoes were soaked through, however! I squelched up to the bar to announce our arrival and our feet made squeaky noises as we walked through the pub to our table. It made me have the giggles as we sat down!

The meal was excellent, as usual, despite our shoes being rather damp. The car, however, when we got out to the car park, was thoroughly steamed up and reeked of wet dog. At the end of the lane from Bradfield, I got Laura to drop me and the woofie off and she drove home. I then squelched my way down through Onseacre to home.

Callie loved being towelled dry when we got in (not) and Laura said we ought to have a shower to get ourselves and our feet warmed up. So we did. We tried something different tonight. We washed each other as usual but didn’t do anything too sexual, we then dried each other off (just as we normally do) then we laid a bath sheet on the bed and applied talc to each other’s bodies, massaging it in as we went. This got us both incredibly horny but we held back until the last little bit of powder was applied. I thought I would explode before Laura said I could touch her properly. Variety is the spice of life. 

We’ll have to try that again; maybe with body butter or baby oil. The only rule we had tonight was we couldn’t do anything sexual during the application of the talc. Mmmm…. I was positively dripping before Laura’s fingers got anywhere near my labia! 

Thursday May 29^th.

Compared to the last few days, today was virtually another Radio Star’s Song day.

Laura stayed at home revising and I whizzed off to Uni to meet up with Feli and sort out what we were doing on our casket journey this afternoon. We arranged to set off at around five pm, that way we’d arrive at our hotel about seven (Felice is driving in her car!). The room will sleep three but Laura has decided that she’ll stay put in Sheffield and look after Callie instead of coming with us.

I came home early and packed a bag then Feli arrived at about 4.30. We set off straight away, leaving a revising Laura and a sad looking Callie behind. We made excellent time down the M1, A42, M42 and M5 and we were surprised to find the Tewkesbury Travelodge was really close to the motorway junction so we had no trouble getting there. An extra useful find was the fact it had a bar / café thing attached so we bought ourselves some fast food for tea and then had a swift snorterino or three in the bar afterwards.

I skyped the Lollster before bed time and she had just returned from Callie’s last walk of the day. I tried speaking to my woofie over the internet, as well, but she didn’t respond to my voice at all. I guess it doesn’t sound the same to her once it has been rendered electronically. I was hoping she’d at least do that really cute head twizzle, which she does when she is listening to what I say. It felt weird not having a dog to walk before I hit the charp and even weirder to be sharing a bed with Felice. Remembering how we had almost got it on together some time ago, I was prepared to respond if she decided to make a move while we were in bed together.  

She didn’t, we just slept. Phew!