A good day

So nice to see M&C.  I got an email this morning from M telling me that C had wheat intolerance, was recovering from a virus and would not each much - also that he hadn't told her of the visit - to give her a surprise.

I was driving to the airport as their plane flew low over the roundabout... it's all very smooth there - only the second time I've been to the airport, the last time was for a protest meeting against night flights last autumn.

Catherine was so surprised to see me that she didn't realise who I was at first, but it had been about 20 years.  She was very quiet, and I thought she might be in pain.  She thinks she may have developed coeliac disease.   Shame, as I'd made really nice foccaccia.   We ate and drank and talked a great deal about university cuts.  M's a prof. at a Scottish university which is about to cut all its language department and classics and archaeology.   His speciality is education/regeneration etc. and I could have got a good deal out of him if I'd been in the mood - but I was on laid back, mellow mode...so didn't interrogate him much.  We gossipped a bit about various friends and just chatted generally.  I don't know what it is about M - but it could have been two days since I saw him last, not 18 years, maybe Facebook does somehow enhance intimacy...or maybe because we're quite similar in some ways.

For various reasons their lift to Folkestone didn't happen, so I drove them there - a 2.hour round trip, but it was fine.  When we got to Dover low cloud, more like fog or smoke was whirling around the town and the cliffs above.   I dropped them at the Grand and turned for home.

Now I am finding the evening rather unsatisfactory.  Why?  Loss of that agreeable feeling of being with one's friends.  Husband being a bit irritating, asks me to look for something on Google and then gets antsy with me...because, guess what, there is nothing on the battle of Vindalium which cites the authorities... actually there is, but he is being a bit dense, and refusing to see it.

The rice and bean soup we had for lunch today was absolutely delicious - I will make it again, could even get the boys to eat it perhaps.  The boys came home and were duly paraded before M&C left, Finn was on Groke mode, and while I was out went on a skateboarding adventure with his chums.

During lunch we had interesting gossip about open relationships: there was something, a laugh or a frisson, between them that I wanted to pursue but we talked about K's interesting love life instead...Husb made some comment about my "boyfriend" didn't realise what he meant - then understood.  Oh, ha-bloody ha! I said "I would like him as my  boyfriend".  One of the awful realisations about my new post-oestrogen life is that I would simply much rather have a boyfriend to go out and have fun with - rather than someone to take responsibility for.   I really envied my ex-husb when we saw him a year or so ago, saying how when he got bored he got on a plane and went to Malaga or Turin so that he could go somewhere nice and eat something interesting.  He does this at the weekends when his wife's away.  I wouldn't mind going with him if he wanted company, but I don't suppose his wife could really cope with it and I wouldn't want to do anything disruptive.  I just want some fun dammnit.

I had fun last night, 10 of us around the table drinking wine and snacking - and throwing out ideas for the festival.  Met a guy who plays the Theramin/Ondes Martineaux or whatever it's called.  Plus the usual suspects, including the friend I now think of as M's "intended" - she asked me how he was with great solicitude - and he was asking about her newly single status with great solicitude..oh-oh!   This was a bit of a joke, but how would I really feel if anything happened?  It would serve me right.  I am just tired of being the support of genius, want to do my own genius thing.

So, needless to say, all this pleasure and pastime has left me with no time to write today.  And the weekends are hopeless for writing - no, not because they are relaxing, but because of the incessant demands of all 3 of them simultaneously present.