Winter Draws On
21 November
There was a whole list of things I could have done with my week off, people to see, places to go.
In the event I stayed put and enjoyed my own company - which is a triumph really. Not many years ago, the thought of a week of spending time with me would have driven me completely loopy.
Of course it's been completely cold. The central heating's been belting away like a mad thing and I've donned me winter draws for the first time this year. Actually, it's been lovely out in the back garden. I've done lost of work tidying up at the year's end cutting out the dead stuff and bedding down that which will sleep and return. I've planted some tulip bulbs which should produce a good show in the spring.
I managed a couple of trips out.
Tuesday night I want to see a play in a pub. The pub was called the Finborough and the play was called The Davids. It had a gay theme and was labelled a romantic comedy. The blurb tells you all you need to know about the plot.
During a summer's night on Hamstead Heath, 45 year old David meets Mike after a gap of twenty years. When later he meets Paul, the young lead singer of a boy band, David is unable to decide between youth and experience. His best friend, Diana, knows more than she should but she is preoccupied with her Mother and a sexy Greek guy. Which man will get which man...?
Well, to put you out of his misery, he chooses experience. But at the very end the
young lad asks the two of them if they do threesomes. So, that's not very true to
life then. 
It was a pleasant way to spend an evening. Some very funny one liners. We were entertained but we did not plumb the depths of our souls. The cast took their clothes of with gratifying frequency. Jolyon Bateman who played the young lad was pleasingly cute in the buff. I was sat on the font row and had his buttocks quivering some two feet from my face as he pulled on his underwear in one scene. However, he did not have the lithe and rippling body that boy band members are normally drilled into having.
I also met a couple of visiting Americans who would be 5 maybe 10 years older than me. They were amused by my name (given the title of the play) and enjoyed my ability to talk intelligently about many of the theatrical shows they had seen on their trips to London over the past 30 years. They were engaging, witty, wealthy company (staying in a very swank hotel) and good for a couple of drinks.
I met up with Colin for lunch on the Wednesday. We nattered about all sorts of things apart from the possibility of his leaving London soon. And we shopped throughout the record stores of London.
My cold's a little better this week. Not quite so streaming. But it still gives Connie something to work on with the cranial osteopathy. My sinuses certainly got a thorough working out.
I baby sat with Mary on Friday. She's growing fast. We played all sorts of games with building blocks and hiding behind hands to go Boo! and rolling balls back and forth and reading stories and funnelling the food down the big black tunnel like a choo choo train and all sorts of wonders before sleep.
I had a marvellous time whilst Linda and Ian went off to the pub for a meal and a chat together. Ian has the Star Wars trilogy special new addition on video in widescreen. I borrowed it.
Saturday, I went round to Ross's and we travelled into town by taxi to see La Bohème together. I love this opera and I like this production. I've already seen it a few times but this time was special, being with Ross and also sitting in the stalls as he gets cheap tickets there on account of his disability.
It was a good evening out, definite eye moistening at the right moments. Two of my favourite singers, Julian Gavin and Sandra Ford, performed well as Rodolfo and Mimi. Ashley Holland and Elizabeth Woollett were less good as Marcello and Mimi. David Kempster as the playwright Schaunard was very good. Not the best performance I've attended but one good enough to feel fine about attending with someone special.
The reference to the earlier visit to La Bohème took me back. I no longer see anything of Vincent, Darren or Anna. Mutas mutandis
Sunday was a wallowing day. We watched The Empire Strikes Back and enjoyed it. It's Gill's birthday. I didn't get to see her. But my card reached her. Ross couldn't get into his flat because he'd left his keys at college and so we were dependent on his friend Chris and one thing led to another and it was eight o' clock before it was sorted.
I must confess I'm not happy with Ross at present. Not out of love just not happy. I seem to be doing a lot without much coming my way. I've told him that I need to hear a lot more from him. We should talk - but he doesn't.
I don't get any sense that he knows how unhappy I've been for some time now. I've fallen behind with the EJ. I'm not contacting friends. I owe a lot of people some communication - Colin and Chris and Eva in Köln and Rod and Dale and John Patrick in San Francisco. But frankly, I feel almost autistic in my unwillingness to communicate with anyone unless it's like at work where it's all a complete act anyway. So, bugger it.