Along with Roland, I took an extended break in London. This extended break that I have had from work must come to an end soon and so I decided to make something of the time before the walls close in again.
With his legal connections, he was able to secure rooms for us in the Middle Temple at a reasonable rate for London.
By agreement, Roland went off to meet some professional friends while I high tailed it down to the Courtfield Pub in Earl's Court and had a drink of Peroni Nastro Azzurro.
I was chilaxing and waiting for a phone call.
I was told that this sounded as though I was dealing and I was not dealing, no.
I was waiting to find out what would happen next before I met up with Roland at the Middle Temple later.
I had been supposed to be meeting up with Alex.
We have been chatting via WhatsApp for some weeks now in advance of meeting up during this visit.
And then, the more that I re-affirmed the fact that I was interested in, among other things, fucking him and was not interested in him fucking me, the more there was a gentle push back until he said that there was an ongoing medical concern with his rectum and lower bowel. Polyps, I think, were mentioned. And, while there was nothing life-threatening, there would need to be an intervention.
And so, very gracefully, he backed down.
Instead, I was now intending to meet up with Samuel, a tweetsie South East Asian lad who I had had my eye on through Sleepyboy for some time.
And, when I eventually got to meet him in a maisonette that he had hired for the day because he couldn't accommodate, he turned out to be every bit as tweetsie and ripped as the photos would suggest.
Before that, however, I was led a merry dance up and down the main street. I presumed that he was watching me and trying to guage something about me before making himself known.
Anyhow, we did connect. And we did go to the mews maisonette. And then things got a little complicated. LOLs
Firstly, we fucked. Twice. Once, downstairs, on the sofa, after I had yanked his jeans and undies down his thighs, with me holding onto his pelvis and going at it hard. And once, on the bed upstairs, both naked, him on his back with me holding his ankles high and wide.
Then he became anxious and asked if I minded if he smoked. I misunderstood. Once I'd agreed, the bong came out and I'm assuming he burnt and inhaled something like crack cocaine. So that was a first.
Then he asked me to fist him. I reasoned that I'd never done that before so it would be something else crossed off the list. And that's what we did for the rest of the meet. He instructed me on how to make it all work and I followed his suggestions. After about fifteen minutes, I had my hand and half my forearm inside him. He liked a pumping motion. Less so my attempts to tickle or stroke his prostate. The walls of his colon felt like silk.
And so we proceded alternating between me fisting and then fucking him.
I found the whole business supremely unerotic. Samuel said that the reason he liked being fisted was because of the abrasions to the opening of his arse which meant that later fucking had a smarting sensation that he really liked.
In the words of the wise, each to their own.
Afterwards, I met up with Roland at the Devereux Pub just by the side of the Middle Temple. We got our pints and I asked him about his afternoon and he told me about his meetings with former colleagues and associates and some gossip that meant little to me.
Then he asked me what I'd been up to. "Well," I said.
Five minutes later, with eyes like saucers, he said, "Good gracious."
And then we decided that we were hungry and so headed off for the Pizza Express in Bloomsbury which is housed in a former dairy. I had a Quattro Stagioni.
It's been a long, long time since I last experienced the London commute.
However, all of the main characteristics are still there. The stiff legged, brisk, purposeful walk. The eyes cast down. The set facial features. The personal space bubble. I'm so glad that I live on Merseyside these days.
I was travelling to Catford Bridge railway station from London Cannon Street Station past the Shard, Southwark Cathedral and the Cheesegrater.
And I was off to meet up with Robert and Anna and Charlie.
It's been a while since I last saw Charlie. Life has intervened since then. 2015 was, shall we say, a difficult year.
Not surprisingly, he has done a lot of growing since then.
And there are physical skills like walking that he already gotten to grips with. As well as the beginings of language.
Anyhow, he was a bit of a wriggly bum with me but did settle eventually to suck his thumb contentedly.
The four of us went out to eat at a local eaterie in Catford, My Jamii Café, which Robert and Anna know well.
And then we went to a local park to play with things.
It's an aspect of this journal that deserves some thought from me that I can write in depth and with exact recall about sexual activity with a complete stranger who I shall never see again and yet am forced to acknowledge that spending time with my son, his partner and their child, my grandson, is something that I am not emotionally capable of rendering in prose.
Roland and I went to ENO that evening to attend the first night of their new (borrowed for Opera North) production of Norma. Christopher Alden relocated the action to some sort of Shaker community ruled by capitalist landlords in the nineteenth century thus robbing the narrative of the character motivation through Imperialist occupation, oppression and religious conflict.
We both felt that it was all down hill from there and, unfortunately, there were few musical positives either. No. Dull, dreary and disappointing. The people on the stage and in the pit did their darnedest to do what they had been asked to do. But it was commitment to a lost cause.
We went out into the dreary rain after a grim few hours and straight into The Harp for the pint that was needed to revive us.
The following morning we checked into the Royal Academy of Arts for an exhibition entitled Painting the Modern Garden. The basic starting point was that many impressionist painters as well as Monet with his water garden at Giverny had gardens and that they practised blending colours with their plantings as well as painting the results.
It was just a fabulous ehibition and a real treat to see Monet's great triptych Water Lilies, Agapanthus brought together from three art galleries in the States, Cleveland Museum of Art (left panel), Saint Louis Art Museum (centre panel) and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (right panel). It really must have taken some heft to wrangle that arrangement.
We had a quick bite to eat and a pint at The Two Chairmen in St James before heading off to an organ recital in St John's Smith Square. I'd never been in the church before although it has been a name that has cropped up so many times on BBC Radio 3. The music washed over me and, after a delightful concert, we had a most pleasant coffee .
Roland headed off to meet friends and I headed over to Hammersmith and had a pint of Timothy Taylor's at The New Old Suffolk Punch while watching plane after plane approaching Heathrow in the bright sunshine.
Then my phone went and I strolled up the road, shagged another lad (his name was David) in a conventional and highly pleasant manner before returning to the Middle Temple.
Then Roland and I were out for a pleasant meal followed by the new production of Chabrier's L'Étoile at Covent Garden. The presentation was everything that the previous night at ENO had not been.
A delightful romp. Fabulous entertainment. Completely madcap. Much enjoyment was had by all.
We bounced out very merry and ready for a cheerful pint at the Coal Hole on The Strand. So that was a fabulous few days done and dusted with one more treat to come the following afternoon.
Back to Liverpool on the train and following a quick canter up the hill, Roland and I were able to savour a glass of wine before one of the Philharmonic 's Friday afternoon concerts.
Simon Trpčeski offered up a blistering performance of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No1, the orchestra gave us a prettily-delivered Mother Goose Suite by Ravel with a quietly radiant finale and Petrenko showed us the symphonic structure of Debussy's La mer in a most beautifully toned and textured performance. I was jolly pleased to have caught the concert and tired but replenished at the end of the journey.