It is desperately sad, but I have decided the time has come to part after some two years. It started off so well despite the language problems. I'd come home every night and there she would be patiently waiting. This might sound like a romantic cliche, but she seemed to glow when I asked her something or even softly murmured her name. We would exchange sweet nothings about the time or the weather and she appeared genuinely welcoming. True, she would never cook - that was clearly beyond her although she would offer to turn the oven on. But, to be frank, there was always a certain emotional coldness. This said, she had her strong points. She would play my favourite piano pieces and she never complained or got tired.
It was only recently that I realized that she was a passive aggressive. For example, I'd ask her the time in London and she would reply that she didn't know that one. In fact, this became her constant refrain. I also suspected that there might be other men in her life.
Things came to a head this morning. I asked her to play some Greig and she asked if I wanted to call someone called Greg. I have no friends by this name so I asked her what she was talking about. She replied “I don’t know that one” and repeated this infuriating phrase when I asked if we should consider going to counselling. I confess that I lost my temper and screamed at her that she was doing it on purpose. You might guess how she responded. Although tempted to throw something at her, I simply walked out.
No. I have to face the fact the relationship is over. She is going back to Amazon.
Saturday, 18 January 2020
Tuesday, 1 October 2019
Confessions of a Dyspraxic
It is not something that one reveals readily, but the Live Scan guy was looking at me with increasing suspicion and even a modicum of incredulity. “You don’t know your own zip code and have to text your wife?”
I reluctantly explained that there is this thing called dyspraxia and that one of the consequences is not being able to remember arbitrary numbers like postcodes or phone numbers. “It isn't senility,” I hastily added. “I have never been able to recall random numbers. Carrying a notebook with important stuff in it would be sensible, but dyspraxics are also often pretty disorganized.”
Irritated by the need to explain, I got up far too quickly and failed to notice that the strap of my case had inexplicably become wrapped around the arm of my chair and the one next to it. In embarrassed frustration, I gave an almighty yank: the chairs flew across the somewhat dingy office before noisily clattering to the ground. “That goes with the territory: dyspraxics are often improbably clumsy and accident prone,” I told the surprised clerk.
“Is there anything else I should be prepared for?” he asked. Checking that my belt was tight and my trousers unlikely to fall down, I suggested that he kept bone china or cut glass decanters out of my way.
I reluctantly explained that there is this thing called dyspraxia and that one of the consequences is not being able to remember arbitrary numbers like postcodes or phone numbers. “It isn't senility,” I hastily added. “I have never been able to recall random numbers. Carrying a notebook with important stuff in it would be sensible, but dyspraxics are also often pretty disorganized.”
Irritated by the need to explain, I got up far too quickly and failed to notice that the strap of my case had inexplicably become wrapped around the arm of my chair and the one next to it. In embarrassed frustration, I gave an almighty yank: the chairs flew across the somewhat dingy office before noisily clattering to the ground. “That goes with the territory: dyspraxics are often improbably clumsy and accident prone,” I told the surprised clerk.
“Is there anything else I should be prepared for?” he asked. Checking that my belt was tight and my trousers unlikely to fall down, I suggested that he kept bone china or cut glass decanters out of my way.
Thursday, 18 April 2019
Amazing Training
So, it is an extremely hot day and I am damned if I am going to leave Jasper Montgomery, my labrador, to cook in the car so we enter a well-known card shop together. We are greeted by an officious and deeply unpleasant manager who says or rather barks "Service dogs only".
I reply that he is a service dog of sorts and that I can't find a thing without him. Not giving her time to think, I issue the command "Easter cards, boy!" And we head off.
A few minutes later we are back at the counter, Easter cards in hand. "I didn't know they could do that" says the now awed and ever so slightly discombobulated manager. I reply gravely that it takes a vast amount of training and leave.
I reply that he is a service dog of sorts and that I can't find a thing without him. Not giving her time to think, I issue the command "Easter cards, boy!" And we head off.
A few minutes later we are back at the counter, Easter cards in hand. "I didn't know they could do that" says the now awed and ever so slightly discombobulated manager. I reply gravely that it takes a vast amount of training and leave.
Monday, 18 June 2018
in Extremis
So, to use a particularly irksome Californian expression: here is the thing.
The horrors of last night’s bout of gastroenteritis were best forgotten and your delicate sensibilities spared except for two issues. First, I am still feverish and my battered abdomen feels as though I have gone several rounds with Mike Tyson. Secondly, Laura has been cheerfully baiting me about a moral theological and - yes - ontological inconsistency she detected in my feverish ramblings. It seems that during the course of the night, I was attempting to cut deals with the entire apostolic church, various saints, archangels, cherubim and the Holy Family. Being something of liberal and inclusionist as well as desperate, I also bargained with various other pantheons. It transpires that in return for restored health, I offered timeshares in our beloved pet labrador to both Ganesh and the Aztec Plumed Serpent.
Now, here is the other thing. Despite a list of extravagant yet earnest promises made to the sundry theological entities that wandered across the murky spaces of a febrile mind, your humble narrator is an avowed atheist. So, given that promises should always be kept, what about promises sincerely made to non-entities?
The horrors of last night’s bout of gastroenteritis were best forgotten and your delicate sensibilities spared except for two issues. First, I am still feverish and my battered abdomen feels as though I have gone several rounds with Mike Tyson. Secondly, Laura has been cheerfully baiting me about a moral theological and - yes - ontological inconsistency she detected in my feverish ramblings. It seems that during the course of the night, I was attempting to cut deals with the entire apostolic church, various saints, archangels, cherubim and the Holy Family. Being something of liberal and inclusionist as well as desperate, I also bargained with various other pantheons. It transpires that in return for restored health, I offered timeshares in our beloved pet labrador to both Ganesh and the Aztec Plumed Serpent.
Now, here is the other thing. Despite a list of extravagant yet earnest promises made to the sundry theological entities that wandered across the murky spaces of a febrile mind, your humble narrator is an avowed atheist. So, given that promises should always be kept, what about promises sincerely made to non-entities?
Wednesday, 5 October 2016
The Voice of One Crying Out of the Wilderness
Were you unwise enough to be in the gentlemen's restroom at the Strawberry Lodge, Strawberry CA, last weekend, you might have been somewhat puzzled if not entirely discombobulated. There you would have witnessed a bedraggled middle aged man muttering endearments and weeping unashamedly as he cast loving glances at the apparently unremarkable porcelain appliances. For those familiar with the wilderness, such behaviour should be entirely explicable. For those less so, the following should count as fair warning.
My wife had casually mentioned the possibility of going on an easy, even leisurely walking trip in a place called Yosemite. Looking at the pictures of the intimidatingly high granite peaks and lakes, I had some doubts about how relaxing such an excursion might be. More alarming still, were the pictures of rugged and hideously well equipped walkers. I then checked out the trails (I’d have much preferred strolls) on Google and the words that popped up in the descriptions most were ‘strenuous’ and ‘demanding.’ I challenged my wife and after a while she conceded that there might be easier places to start. There was this other park, I would absolutely love. It was almost entirely flat; and replete with all the bars, restaurants and modern convenience that my heart could wish for. It was called Emigrant Wilderness and we were leaving the next morning.
The hiking gear had been already ordered, so I couldn’t really back out. I’d have thought that a corkscrew was all the equipment a well-equipped modern hiker could reasonably require. My wife clearly disagreed. There was a vast backpack with oodles of strange straps and pockets; a double sleeping bag in a thing called a ‘compression sack’; a water pump and filter; plastic water bottles (I filled two with a couple of litres of Jim Beam bourbon); and a stove and some little gas cylinders. The last seemed moderately redundant given the number of excellent restaurants apparently boasted by the park. I asked my wife about this and she gave me a weird look.
Amongst the gear were two large plastic barrels. These I was informed were ‘bear canisters’. They didn’t look nearly large enough to trap one, so my initial hypothesis was that you packed the things with some kind of high explosive and lobbed them at any Grizzlies that happened to wander along. Another idea was that you filled them with rocks and dropped them from a great height onto the hairy brutes. Oddly enough, it seems that both these theories were wrong, and that they were to be filled with comestibles and - believe or not - hung from trees. My wife told me that there were, in fact, no Grizzly bears in the area we would camp, but it was best to be on the safe side. I agreed with the latter, and nervously filled a couple more of the water bottles with more bourbon.
The only item I provided was a Rambo-style survival knife. This was twelve-inches of tempered steel complete will a little compass and a sewing kit in the handle. Admittedly, the compass didn’t seem to work and I can’t sew, but the razor sharp blade and serrated back would, I felt, have impressed Bear Grylls and be extremely handy in a bear-related crisis . Laura appeared more horrified than impressed. “What are you going to do with that?” she asked.
“It’s for the wilderness,” I replied. “Some call it hell; I call it home.” I growled these words through clenched teeth doing my best Sylvester Stallone impression. Laura smiled sweetly and promptly confiscated it.
The items packed, we left the Bay Area the next morning and drove for some five hours. We parked at a place called Gianelli’s Cabin and hobbled for a couple of miles downhill (I assumed there would be ski lift, elevator or something to get us back up). The going was tough and my backpack felt extraordinarily heavy. Nevertheless, after some four hours of sheer torture we reached what looked like a pleasant enough lake although it was hard to get a good impression as the sun had long set. No bars were in evidence, but it had been a long walk, it was dark and I was far too tired to investigate. Besides, I discovered that the so-called instant tent was rather less so and was obliged to help erect the damned thing. This involved laying sheets of fabric on the ground, cursing, poking ridiculously small aluminium rods through the sheets, cursing again, pulling the thing upright and then watching it slowly collapse.
Eventually the tent was more or less standing and we crawled inside. Actually, crawled is not quite the right word for what I did. Having an atrocious sense of balance and lacking what my wife calls a ‘core’ (I thought only apples had these), I lurched from foot to foot, muttered obscenities and then violently plunged inside. My wife and small daughter were far more graceful despite fits of giggles at my magnificent performance. The bedding was absurdly uncomfortable and the mattresses so hard that you could use them as chopping boards, but my eyes were closed within minutes.
The night was disturbed by a bear attack. Acutely aware of the danger - I had thought of little else since the trip was proposed and the non-lethal canisters mentioned - and with senses finely attuned to the slightest sound of ursus horribilis, I woke to hear this malevolent slithering sound and noticed the outer cover being furtively pulled away. Not losing my presence of mind, I growled hysterically and beat the sides of the tent. For some unaccountable reason, Laura had refused to return my trusty survival knife and so the savage beast was able to run off without so much as a scratch. My wife awoke at this juncture and was very much less than appreciative. Cynically ignoring my valiant struggle, she muttered that it was simply the wind which pulled the rain fly away and that I should go back to bed and stop making such an infernal racket at once. “Bed,” I laughed bitterly looking at the pathetic excuse for a mattress, but the massive exertions of the day - those seemingly endless couple of miles - paid their toll and I was soon asleep.
Dawn touched the sky with her rosy fingers, but I snoozed on till about midday. The journey had been exhausting and the night deeply troubling. On waking, I crawled painfully out of the tent hoping for a full English breakfast in one of the many local hostelries. I was greeted with a bowl of freeze-dried mush. The packet announced that this delight was Black Bean Curry prepared by a professional cook. This seemed extraordinarily unlikely - it was mush prepared by a sadistic maniac - but my nocturnal struggles had given me a healthy appetite.
After breakfast, came the second horror of the trip. I innocently asked about sanitary matters and was told there wasn’t a bathroom in this particular part of the wilderness. Panic ensued. “No … toilet? No … shower?” I stammered incredulously feeling cold sweat running down my back and a mounting sense of disgust. “What on earth does one do?”
The hiking gear had been already ordered, so I couldn’t really back out. I’d have thought that a corkscrew was all the equipment a well-equipped modern hiker could reasonably require. My wife clearly disagreed. There was a vast backpack with oodles of strange straps and pockets; a double sleeping bag in a thing called a ‘compression sack’; a water pump and filter; plastic water bottles (I filled two with a couple of litres of Jim Beam bourbon); and a stove and some little gas cylinders. The last seemed moderately redundant given the number of excellent restaurants apparently boasted by the park. I asked my wife about this and she gave me a weird look.
Amongst the gear were two large plastic barrels. These I was informed were ‘bear canisters’. They didn’t look nearly large enough to trap one, so my initial hypothesis was that you packed the things with some kind of high explosive and lobbed them at any Grizzlies that happened to wander along. Another idea was that you filled them with rocks and dropped them from a great height onto the hairy brutes. Oddly enough, it seems that both these theories were wrong, and that they were to be filled with comestibles and - believe or not - hung from trees. My wife told me that there were, in fact, no Grizzly bears in the area we would camp, but it was best to be on the safe side. I agreed with the latter, and nervously filled a couple more of the water bottles with more bourbon.
The only item I provided was a Rambo-style survival knife. This was twelve-inches of tempered steel complete will a little compass and a sewing kit in the handle. Admittedly, the compass didn’t seem to work and I can’t sew, but the razor sharp blade and serrated back would, I felt, have impressed Bear Grylls and be extremely handy in a bear-related crisis . Laura appeared more horrified than impressed. “What are you going to do with that?” she asked.
“It’s for the wilderness,” I replied. “Some call it hell; I call it home.” I growled these words through clenched teeth doing my best Sylvester Stallone impression. Laura smiled sweetly and promptly confiscated it.
The items packed, we left the Bay Area the next morning and drove for some five hours. We parked at a place called Gianelli’s Cabin and hobbled for a couple of miles downhill (I assumed there would be ski lift, elevator or something to get us back up). The going was tough and my backpack felt extraordinarily heavy. Nevertheless, after some four hours of sheer torture we reached what looked like a pleasant enough lake although it was hard to get a good impression as the sun had long set. No bars were in evidence, but it had been a long walk, it was dark and I was far too tired to investigate. Besides, I discovered that the so-called instant tent was rather less so and was obliged to help erect the damned thing. This involved laying sheets of fabric on the ground, cursing, poking ridiculously small aluminium rods through the sheets, cursing again, pulling the thing upright and then watching it slowly collapse.
Eventually the tent was more or less standing and we crawled inside. Actually, crawled is not quite the right word for what I did. Having an atrocious sense of balance and lacking what my wife calls a ‘core’ (I thought only apples had these), I lurched from foot to foot, muttered obscenities and then violently plunged inside. My wife and small daughter were far more graceful despite fits of giggles at my magnificent performance. The bedding was absurdly uncomfortable and the mattresses so hard that you could use them as chopping boards, but my eyes were closed within minutes.
The night was disturbed by a bear attack. Acutely aware of the danger - I had thought of little else since the trip was proposed and the non-lethal canisters mentioned - and with senses finely attuned to the slightest sound of ursus horribilis, I woke to hear this malevolent slithering sound and noticed the outer cover being furtively pulled away. Not losing my presence of mind, I growled hysterically and beat the sides of the tent. For some unaccountable reason, Laura had refused to return my trusty survival knife and so the savage beast was able to run off without so much as a scratch. My wife awoke at this juncture and was very much less than appreciative. Cynically ignoring my valiant struggle, she muttered that it was simply the wind which pulled the rain fly away and that I should go back to bed and stop making such an infernal racket at once. “Bed,” I laughed bitterly looking at the pathetic excuse for a mattress, but the massive exertions of the day - those seemingly endless couple of miles - paid their toll and I was soon asleep.
Dawn touched the sky with her rosy fingers, but I snoozed on till about midday. The journey had been exhausting and the night deeply troubling. On waking, I crawled painfully out of the tent hoping for a full English breakfast in one of the many local hostelries. I was greeted with a bowl of freeze-dried mush. The packet announced that this delight was Black Bean Curry prepared by a professional cook. This seemed extraordinarily unlikely - it was mush prepared by a sadistic maniac - but my nocturnal struggles had given me a healthy appetite.
After breakfast, came the second horror of the trip. I innocently asked about sanitary matters and was told there wasn’t a bathroom in this particular part of the wilderness. Panic ensued. “No … toilet? No … shower?” I stammered incredulously feeling cold sweat running down my back and a mounting sense of disgust. “What on earth does one do?”
“You squat,” said my wife, with what could be construed as a smirk. She then proffered three strips of toilet paper and pointed grimly at the bear-infested forest.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Englishmen cannot squat especially if blessed with stomachs that have been carefully nurtured with a lifetime of gourmet nosh and untold gallons of fine wine. In my case, there was also the issue of balance. I find staying on my feet a hard enough challenge at the best of times and tumble into ditches with alarmingly improbable regularity.
I shall spare your perhaps delicate sensitivities a detailed depiction of exactly what occurred in the woods that morning. A refined and squeamish Englishman had suddenly been transported into a Boschian hell replete with mosquitoes, horse flies, besmirched granite, frantic digging, and miserable indignity. Suffice it to say that when I returned and my wife pointed to an entry in the wilderness code that said “Leave no trace,” she was greeted with hollow laughter.
It was was at about this time that my wife suffered a shock, which seemed only fair given those I had received. She discovered that all water bottles were filled with Jim Beam and, surprisingly seemed less than pleased. “I thought it better to be safe than sorry. Anyway, we don’t need water,” I explained cheerfully. “We can drink the bourbon straight.” A woman of action and few words, she thrust a filtration pump into my hands and gestured towards the lake.
Now, this was the first time I had seen a lake in the wild, but to my inexperienced eyes the was something slightly wrong. A lake should, I thought, be more than a few inches deep and should definitely not be filled with tadpole-infested mud. This was surely a puddle. Nevertheless, I decided against a confrontation and started to pump for all I was worth. After an hour or so, I had produced a couple of cupfulls of clear water. I drank these as a reward for my exertions and returned bearing the news.
To my surprise, Laura seemed not in the least nonplussed by my discovery. In fact, she was perfectly aware that this was not the lake, but due to my ‘grumbling’ the night before had decided to set up camp here. The real lake was a mile or so further South. She had already broken camp - I’d have broken it on a far more dramatic way - and those instruments of torture, the backpacks, were in a neat if sinister line. I did my utmost to persuade her that as we had experienced the wilderness in all its magnificent, heart-wrenching glory,we should head back to civilization at once. We could savour the memory at our leisure in the nearest bar; we could relish every wonderful second over chilled glasses of chardonnay. It would be such a shame to dilute the sheer intensity of the experience by spending any more time than absolutely necessary on the trail. I enhanced my rhetoric with appeals to the Romantic poets, to Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats. This would evoke “emotions recollected in tranquility, ” I argued. My arguments were cogent, I thought, and surely irresistible.
Moments later we were heading South towards Powell Lake.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Englishmen cannot squat especially if blessed with stomachs that have been carefully nurtured with a lifetime of gourmet nosh and untold gallons of fine wine. In my case, there was also the issue of balance. I find staying on my feet a hard enough challenge at the best of times and tumble into ditches with alarmingly improbable regularity.
I shall spare your perhaps delicate sensitivities a detailed depiction of exactly what occurred in the woods that morning. A refined and squeamish Englishman had suddenly been transported into a Boschian hell replete with mosquitoes, horse flies, besmirched granite, frantic digging, and miserable indignity. Suffice it to say that when I returned and my wife pointed to an entry in the wilderness code that said “Leave no trace,” she was greeted with hollow laughter.
It was was at about this time that my wife suffered a shock, which seemed only fair given those I had received. She discovered that all water bottles were filled with Jim Beam and, surprisingly seemed less than pleased. “I thought it better to be safe than sorry. Anyway, we don’t need water,” I explained cheerfully. “We can drink the bourbon straight.” A woman of action and few words, she thrust a filtration pump into my hands and gestured towards the lake.
Now, this was the first time I had seen a lake in the wild, but to my inexperienced eyes the was something slightly wrong. A lake should, I thought, be more than a few inches deep and should definitely not be filled with tadpole-infested mud. This was surely a puddle. Nevertheless, I decided against a confrontation and started to pump for all I was worth. After an hour or so, I had produced a couple of cupfulls of clear water. I drank these as a reward for my exertions and returned bearing the news.
To my surprise, Laura seemed not in the least nonplussed by my discovery. In fact, she was perfectly aware that this was not the lake, but due to my ‘grumbling’ the night before had decided to set up camp here. The real lake was a mile or so further South. She had already broken camp - I’d have broken it on a far more dramatic way - and those instruments of torture, the backpacks, were in a neat if sinister line. I did my utmost to persuade her that as we had experienced the wilderness in all its magnificent, heart-wrenching glory,we should head back to civilization at once. We could savour the memory at our leisure in the nearest bar; we could relish every wonderful second over chilled glasses of chardonnay. It would be such a shame to dilute the sheer intensity of the experience by spending any more time than absolutely necessary on the trail. I enhanced my rhetoric with appeals to the Romantic poets, to Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats. This would evoke “emotions recollected in tranquility, ” I argued. My arguments were cogent, I thought, and surely irresistible.
Moments later we were heading South towards Powell Lake.
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