I had one of those drives over to see Robert and Gill that my father, Albert, would have been pleased with. It accorded with Albert's principle of time and motion.
It runs thus. If you are about to undertake a journey, ask yourself how long it will take. If the answer is twenty minutes and you leave five minutes early, then every traffic light will be in your favour, every junction will be clear and your journey will take fifteen minutes. If the answer is twenty minutes and you leave two minutes late, then every traffic light will be against you, every junction will be blocked, obstacles will appear in front of you and the journey will take thirty minutes. I had the clearest of clear, clear journeys because I had left early.
It was nice to spend a little time with them. Robert, particularly, is looking well
and contented. I have put him in contact with, of all people,
James as he, James, may be able to do some
networking for him. Actually, the two of them together feels like a fairly fearsome
combination. I'm glad I shall not be around when they meet or talk.
Driving in the car has been more difficult after the three incidents. There was the scrape. Then, last Monday after yoga, another car bumped me at a set of traffic lights and, although my car was undamaged, theirs lost a set of front side light. Finally, I lost my driver-side rear-view mirror to a passing lorry. So, that's the three done and I've got to start looking round scrap merchants for a replacement mirror.
Still, it's August and I like how quiet it is during August. Walking out of the house at 8.00am to go to work brings me onto quiet streets. None of the rush to school. None of the associated traffic. Just quiet. I've also had the benefit over the past few days of having both sets of neighbours away on holiday so it's been really quiet at night as well.
One of the things I've noticed in this quiet has been the geese honking away. If this is the beginning of their migration, then it's very early this year. Is this a sign of a cold, cold winter to come?
Monday's work passed by. It was followed by two hours of yoga followed closely by
ninety minutes of top sex. And I can tell you that my lower back is considerably looser
these days than it has been for many a year.
Excuse me. Who is David having sex with? you ask. What is this dalliance? Well, it's not as much of a shock as you might imagine. Ross is staying with me whilst he is flat hunting. Oh, Ross, you say. Well, there's no news there then. In fact, when I mentioned to Colin on the phone that Ross was here and that we were having sport nookie, his response was simple.
Hands up all of you who are surprised by that.
No, not many hands there.
Colin has this remarkable talent. He can sound both jovial and acid at one and the
same time. It's a trick if you can do it.
One of the joys of keeping a journal like this is being able, Janus-like, to look backwards and forwards reading earlier postings and seeing how life has or hasn't changed. In the last posting here I mentioned about writing, in a very early posting to this Journal, about being an Armistead Maupin fan. Towards the end of the posting, I talked about Mouse not letting himself be loved. Re-reading that I felt a catch in my throat as to how much I have and haven't moved on from that time. Then, a year ago, I was talking about the maxim of the pennies. Ross and I decided that we had put 200 pennies in the pot during our first year together. We've been trying to work out how many we'd taken out of the pot in the past year and reckon that it's about 100. So, we're half way there and willing to keep going.
Tuesday morning and I journey to work on train. It's a beautiful, bright, clear morning. Travelling across the Lea Valley, the whole welkin was spread above us. Blue, blue skies. And then, round the far ring of the horizon, a full 360° of a dirty brown tidal mark of pollution.
That evening, we curl up on sofa to watch TV - we've not done that for many months and it's what we need most. Then, on a whim, we nip out into the back garden for a bit of al fresco sex. It was OK - nice to see the stars and smell the grass but I felt a wee bit exposed - even if the next-door neighbours were away and we couldn't possibly have been seen. So we whisked ourselves back to bed to finish the job off. And, in the morning, there was lots of grass in the bed and my bum was covered in insect bites.
Wednesday I was on the train again. Apart from being able to see a little landscape, one of the nice things about travelling on the train is seeing some of the same people each morning. There's a couple of boys who intrigue me. They sit opposite each other and share a copy of The Times. The slightly younger one wears a suit and gets off at Liverpool Street and goes off to work - possible in some sort of City institution. The other one, slightly older, say mid 20s, wears jeans. He stays on the train. What is the story? Do they travel together for love. They smile as the pass the newspaper back and forth. Once the younger hesitantly asked the other if he would be back late that night and received a glower for an answer. Are they friends, brothers, lovers, flat sharers?
There's a few nice boys around at the moment. Take, for example, the delectable Dougal, who like James used to be, is back from University to work in the department. Unlike James, he dances far away at the other end of the ballroom. Although, like James, he is a delight to the eye and has, in those immortal words, a cracking arse. Also there's Greg (foreground), one of our trainees at work, who has twinkling eyes and a peachy bum. And the Brazilian boy who works in the healthfood shop who has chocolate brown eyes, skin the colour and tone of warm caramel, a smile to light up the darkest day and buttocks you could bounce pennies off.
Hands up all of you who notice the connection there.
Well, lots of hands that time.
Cyril's been out a lot. Possibly this is a product of the warm weather but may be to do with the mouse's nest that Ross thinks he may have spotted. So there's sport to be had in the garden overnight for cats as well as humans.
