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Secret Spy Torch

Visited Leaf yesterday in Little Big Smoke. She said, "Bring your electric drill and plumbing tools". I think it's because she doesn't see me that often these days and feels the need to squeeze every last little drop of usefulness out of me.

So the visit to a nice tea shop was exchanged for a traffic laden trip to the DIY store to exchange bulbs and wall fittings she'd bought, which although pretty, were unfortunately completely unsuited for their purpose.

She dangled the promise of a pizza in return for hanging two large wall mirrors and refitting a radiator - Leaf had had a terminal disagreement with her Plumber half way through his work, you see.

The challenge of these little jobs is that Leaf likes to help. Keeping her gainfully occupied while trying to carefully align a water pipe can be tricky but its generally preferable to having an ice cube pinged up my trouser leg or having my scalp examined for imagined infestations.

There was one very interesting little job though. She recently had some of those small ceiling lights fitted in the bathroom - the kind that fit flush with the surface and don't protrude. Unfortunately her Plasterer had short circuited them with his wet gypsum, blowing the bulbs in the process. Replacement means pulling out the unit and disengaging each bulb from its dangling electricity supply wire. It seems either the Plasterer or Leaf - though she denies all involvement - had pushed one of the dangling wires inside the ceiling void and now it was nowhere to be seen.

The holes for these lights are about four inches in diameter so there's hardly enough room to poke your nose in, let alone see up into the dark recesses between the ceiling and the floorboards of the flat above. I tried exploring but could only squeeze three fingers and a pinky through the gap at one time.

This was clearly a job for my secret spy torch - a small reading light with an LED bulb mounted on a thin stem connected to a clip at the other end - the kind that attaches to the side of a book so you can read on a dark bus or train. The kind you buy from one of those revolving wire displays in airport accessory shops.

Anyway, it was perfect for poking up into the hole in the ceiling. I felt like a spy, sneakily poking a miniature camera on a stick through the air conditioning grill at the office of the Kremlin's KGB chief, as he signed his approval for the latest assassination method - ingestion by deadly radioactive toast.

While pressing my cheek and nose to the ceiling - a convoluted exercise involving a ladder and some gymnastics - I poked the torch into the dark void and could just see the loose end of the electric feed wire about a foot in. Luckily, Leaf had a flexible draft excluding strip - the kind that goes round a door frame to stop wintry chills - that could be shaped into a flexible hook. After five minutes of fiddling and getting quite personal with some only recently dried plaster, I hooked the wire and pulled it back out. Voila!

A complex job that would likely have been beyond the capability of your average brain surgeon, completed successfully.

Leaf was over the moon. All her lights now worked and the bathroom was warm again. This meant lots of cuddles for me and the promised pizza, yipee!

Not such a bad night after all.

Listening to: conversations in an Internet Café
Feeling: rushed, sorry I've not had time to reply to comments yet.

Alcohol

Precious and fragile things
need special hand-e-ling
my god, what have we done to you

we always tried to share
the tenderest of care
now look what we have put you through
things get damaged
things get broken
I thought we'd managed
but words left unspoken
left us so brittle
there was so little left to give

Angels with silver wings
shouldn't know suffering
I wish I could take the pain for you

.    .

things get damaged
things get broken
I thought we'd managed
but words left unspoken
left us so brittle
there was so little left to give

I pray you learn to trust

.    .

Depeche Mode, Precious edited

a memory of mountains

Somewhere from within the void of childhood memory, is a vague image: the smell of damp grass, the sound of stream water tinkering over rocks, looking up to see vast mountain sides disappearing into the clouds. I think I'd been let out of the family car and was standing, shorts round my ankles, my wee winkie out in the fresh air peeing into a huge trench. I probably wasn't yet eight years old.

Some twenty years later I was driving through Glen Shiel and had stopped for a pee by a ditch. As I looked up at the slopes of Sgurr na Ciste Duibhe disppearing into the clouds, I became aware of the smell of grass, damp from recent rain, and I heard the sound of a stream, dropping from the Corrie above. Slowly I realised why the place seemed familiar. On both occasions I'd probably been peeing into an old Jacobite defensive trench from the 1719 Battle of Glen Shiel, the last time that foreign troops would be engaged in battle on mainland British soil.

The memory of these infinitely high mountains, The Five Sisters of Kintail, may be what drew me to the outdoors and eventually to the hills.

Other memories are also hard to retrieve from the void. I do recollect trying to escape a factory job by roughing it, outdoors at weekends. There are flashbacks of walking for long distances along roads, shouldering a heavy backpacking rucksack and camping in fields, completely exhausted. I would pitch an old wet heavyweight-cotton tent, often in rain and often wearing sodden constricting denim jeans. There was no sewn in groundsheet so nights were shivery and damp. These were gruelling tests, so exhausting and painful that it was a relief to be back at work.

I began to hitch-hike around Scotland and before long, knew all the junctions, the best places to catch a lift and most hitching tricks of the trade, skills that would be useful in later years when I hitched lifts to the Lake District, Wales, and even as far off as the Italian Alps.

At some stage I must have progressed from walking along roads to climbing mountain paths. I recall one particular night camping in Glencoe during a gale. Catching odd winks of sleep, sat upright, desperately clutching my one tent pole while powerful veering winds tried to rip it and the sodden tent away into the night. Another occasion camped below Ben Nevis. This time with the luxury of a sewn in groundsheet. Unfortunately lack of waterproofing in the tent outer resulted in a three inch deep puddle of water which had been slowly absorbed by my lightweight summer sleeping bag.

Those desperate early experiences should have killed any enthusiasm. In fact, all the cold shivery nights, the shoulders worn raw from heavy rucksack straps, the blistered feet, these served only as a strange rite of passage. One made complete when, one day during my late teens I stood on the summit of Sgurr nam Fiannaidh, Glencoe, having completed the the Aonach Eagach Ridge, wearing tweed breeches, woollen chequered shirt, ill fitting boots and tartan bunnet. My first true mountaineer's achievement.

On that peak, almost three thousand feet above the Clachaig Inn, I stumbled into a German au pair. A good looking girl with long flowing blonde hair who made breeches look like clothing worth getting into. She was on a hill-walking weekend break from her Summer holiday job - looking after the kids for a family somewhere in Edinburgh. As I found out later, after a few hours of drinking and trying to sing German campfire songs in the Clachaig, looking after kids wasn't the only thing she was good at.

On that day I passed the initiation ceremony, became a man and became a mountaineer.

I'd found something meaningful to do, something to balance out the daily grind of working life. I'd discovered nature, beauty, wild places ... and one or two other things ...

Breaded Cod

Lavender Leaf was doing Sunday lunch and called to invite me. Leaf is someone I have to spend time with every so often. Not more frequently than once a week but at least once every six weeks. These are my time-scales, not hers although she does seem to have tuned into them. On Sunday we were just over the three week mark.

I know Leaf about as well as I can know a person, helped along by the fact that she isn't that hard to know, by which I mean that she's consistent, at least I think that's what I mean. Conversely, Leaf has a much more difficult job.

I'll start again: Lavender Leaf had bought all the ingredients for a Sunday lunch for her family and needed someone to cook it, so she called me. She cooks exactly four things in quite an exact way. Sunday lunch isn't one of those four things. Naturally, the invite also meant 'joining in' with some gardening and DIY.

I went round hoping to get some exercise by trotting struggling up a nearby hill but I made the silly mistake of turning up first, to ask Leaf if she wanted to come along, "We can do that after Lunch but seeing as you're early, you can fit my new letterbox and there's a Butler sink in the garden that I want mounted on some bricks."
I asked where the bricks were, "You can just use the ones from that old wall but you'll have to knock it down first".

The odd thing about me cooking "Leaf's Sunday Lunch", is the meat. Now if I were a meat eater, I might feel dubious about having my food cooked by a fish eating 'vegetarian' who hasn't eaten breast, rump, leg or indeed any other body part, for almost 20 years. Her family however are quite a trusting lot. Leaf had catered for me by buying some fish that I could cook for myself, so in amongst the roast beef, gravy, Yorkshire pudding, crispy roast potatoes, mash, asparagus, carrots and peas ... was a single piece of breaded cod.

So I didn't get up my hill. I did get fed though and I did see Leaf, both of which are quite important really in the big scheme of things, well at the present time anyway.

Look at my eyes, not at my ...

I know what it might seem from a title like that, but I make a point of always looking at the eyes. Ok, sometimes the nose.

It wasn't until Almond Blossom came along, my first true love, a woman with a man's name (but definitely a woman) that I noticed how some people only ever look at your nose. It has been said (gingerly by some) that my nose is distinctive but it probably isn't quite fascinating enough to stare at for long periods. Is it a confidence thing then?

If it had not been for Blossom I might never have realised. One day while thinking of her and how she only ever looked at my nose, I thought, "I'll try this".

I am one for trying things you see, its curiosity. Everything from peanut butter and garlic sandwiches, to shaving my left leg during an experimental phase (?!?), to sex while suspended from the upstairs bannister by a climbing rope. I mean its not until you try things that you find out just how silly or impractical they can be.

Anyhow, back on topic, I thought, "I'll try looking at someone's nose".

So choosing a friend at random (male, avoiding any feminist confrontations) I tried to focus on his nose, and found the strangest thing ... that I was already looking at it!!  What was new was having to force my unwilling eyes upward.

Suddenly the drugs wore off and the horror dawned on me that that this was the first time I had ever looked someone in the eye. I had been going through life looking at people's noses without realising it.

Naturally I have been practising lots since then, and have realised that there are times when it is wise and respectful to look someone directly in the eye, and times when it's really better to look at the frying pan they're holding menacingly in their hand.

How had I managed to go through all those years? Why had no-one told me? But of course it was probably for the same reason I didn't tell Blossom. I didn't want to hurt her feelings.

So now I make a point of always looking at the eyes, ok, sometimes the nose just for old times sake, but usually the eyes.

Wet day at the Fringe

I had booked some tickets for a play at the Smirnoff Underbelly (one of the Fringe venues), starting late afternoon, and arranged to meet Lavender-Leaf and Floppy-Brolly in Edinburgh beforehand. Leaf had forewarned me about the traffic, but I've never been good with timekeeping in recent years and as usual it was all a bit of a panic.

The roads were busy with slow buses and flashing traffic lights, so the driving pace into town was a crawl. Play started at 3:15 and with just an hour to go I had to park, get to the Fringe box office, pick up the tickets and get down to the venue to meet the others.

My normal shortcut (a bit like a game of snakes and ladders around the city centre) wasn't being a shortcut today, but I thought that if I could park in my usual slot, I might just make it. At the usual slot I couldn't even see the yellow 'no parking' lines because of parked cars, so I kept on crawling behind the traffic until I was almost inside the Botanical Gardens. Never seen it this busy before.

2:30 now and of course the rain is tipping it down as I shuffle quickly along and up towards town. I can't run any more these days (ankles are trashed), so I hobble up the hill, continually looking over my shoulder for a taxi, jacket open, getting hot and wet. Must look a sight. Fourth taxi along stops so I dive in.

2:50, phone rings, it's Leaf, "What do you mean you're running late? I told you it was going to be busy!". On the start of the Bridges now and traffic is stationary. I raise my left eyebrow at the Taxi driver (he could tell I was getting frustrated). He said, "I'll try and zip up the bus lane", as we sit stationary waiting for the bus to move. 2 minutes and 20 feet later a car breaks down ahead.

I jump out and start hobbling again, up-down, up-down, like Rolf Harris chasing a Kangaroo. It's usually not very polite to go streaming through the middle of Edinburgh street theatre ... hang on, they think I am Edinburgh Street theatre ... flapping, waving arms "out of the way please, emergency, I'm a doctor". Eventually get to the box office down a thin alleyway, huffing and glowing, only to meet the end of a huge queue. I cheekily barge through and find a sign "Don't wait in the queue if you have pre-booked tickets". Great!

3:05 now, inside and I'm in another queue behind two couples at the ticket desk. Why does it take so long for people to pick up tickets? They've paid for the damn things already! Stop chatting about which card you used, you arse! Eventually it's me. No it's them. Eh, who was here first? OK, you go. DAMN! Why do I have to be so polite. Now I'm kicking myself, tick-tock, tick-tock. Whoosht as I grab the tickets and fly out the door.

Up the road past the police "Where's Victoria Street?"
"Just down there m...", to late, I've gone already.

3:14 trotting ... stumbling ... flying, I hit the front entrance of the Underbelly at a zooming 5mph trundle and unable to stop, career down the stairs. Luckily there's a bend with a wall half way down so I smash into this rather than end up flat out and bruised.

Leaf sees me and lets rip "WHAT TIME DO YOU CALL THIS!!", but what do I care. Shoulder's sore and I'm squelching water, but I've made it now. Phew!

I blogged about the play here, but didn't mention that I was the one glowing with all that steam and heat in the second row.

Amazingly, Leaf and Floppy-Brolly enjoyed it so much that we only spent 20 minutes squeaking about how I'm always late and how we almost didn't get in (this bit usually lasts much longer). Instead, we spent the next 20 minutes arguing about where we'd eat since I was so 'fussy' (they all call me a vegetarian, but it's just that I don't eat meat).

It was still tipping it down, so we found an Indian restaurant called Khushi's just along from the Underbelly. The place looked quite new and it was half-empty (or is it half-full?). Just up the stairs is one of those polished marble floors that makes walking with wet shoes treacherous. I collided with the "Danger, wet floor" sign but managed to stay upright.

Lovely meal. The young woman making doing the coffee's might have been new since she made her first ever Cappuccino for Leaf.

These two were then asking me all kinds of questions about blogs and blogging and who these people were, that were in the play, and what kinds of crazy people write blogs, and how they could write so openly about their lives like this, and how they found the play interesting, but that these blogs must surely all be made up.

... ummm, "I don't know, yes it must be a bit strange, I guess", erm, moves one hand under the table to slide pad marked "Bunnyman's Blog Notebook", slowly and quietly into my deep jacket pocket.

Hmmm, so, what kinds of crazy people write blogs then?

Bloggers: Real Internet Diaries

Over the weekend I went to see Bloggers at the Edinburgh Fringe, a play by Oliver Mann which is based entirely on British blogs. This is only the second play I've ever seen, so what follows is just my own impression and not a 'review'.

Two actors and three actresses played out overlapping excerpts from (I thought it was ten, but it seems it was eleven) blogs, some quite well known, for just over an hour. It was very lively and interesting to watch, slow in parts and incredibly funny in others.

I think there were two ways to approach this play. If you see it without having read any of the blogs, you'll see a great show about some amusing, quirky, sometimes boisterous and sometimes vulnerable characters. If instead, you have read and certainly if you've commented on any of these blogs, then you may find you're a little biased and critical of the performances.

I went there with very high expectations and probably a little scepticism, so I found I had quite mixed feelings by the end, but I was also lucky enough to go with two less biased Bunny companions. I'll tell you what they thought in a minute.

Having read some of these blog entries myself, including some of the actual excerpts used in the script, I have to say that the casts' portrayal of the characters didn't quite reflect my own glimpsed insights. I've read a courageous mix of personal and lively experiences, written by intelligent and witty people.

The play shows actors choosing (and emphasising) quirky, eccentric, vulnerable and exuberant qualities, playing out what are sometimes very personal passages, sometimes unrestricted sexual exploits. Quite a lesson in just what artistic license can achieve. The material was reported to be unchanged from the original sources and I didn't hear anything to contradict this. But of course facial and body gestures and use of verbal emphasis can give quite differing interpretations.

The end result does mean that you feel a real connection with the characters (difficult not to given such penetrating performances). I'm not sure quite how I would have reacted had any of it been me.

I was sitting very close to the front and one actress caught me, chin in hand, with my critical-eye-look, peering intently at her, a large black and white notice scrawled across my forehead saying "now you and I both know it doesn't read that way ... hm!" (I'm new to this eye-to-eye audience-actress feedback thing). Oh dear, I'm laughing now but I do hope I didn't put her off.

My companions (an ex-bunnygirl and her step mother) surprisingly loved it. These women are very straight, family oriented Scots and neither have enjoyed theatre in the past. They think bloggers have green skin, six legs, and breathe noxious fumes and they truly can't believe why anyone would want to talk about themselves in public. They have absolutely no idea that I blog. They also have a quite traditional attitude to sex.

It was a relief for me. I half expected "ye flamin' pervert twit, ye took us tae see a play aboot porny sex!", but phew! they both genuinely liked it (as did the rest of the audience, place was packed). They thought it was interesting and funny and just a set of entertaining sketches about unusual people. Now they want to go see more plays.

The end result was I think, a very good play, but I am left feeling nothing but respect for those who agreed to having their blogs used as source material. I am also very relieved that my own blog is far too dreary to have any risk of ever being the target of theatre, but there again, dreary sometimes makes good material for satire and ridicule. OK, I'm kind of relieved but with a lingering sense of paranoia.

This is one thing I can check off my 43things, hooray!

Listening to: David Bowie, "Oh You Pretty Things"
Feeling: like a goldfish in a bowl ...

43 Stitches

I've been 'tagged'! This is new, another little stitch in a small life.

This particular 'tagging' is for 43things and seems to have been started by Reej at pcstuff.co.za and come to me via Acidicice and Sketches, so it's been across 2 continents and pretty much half way around the world.

So what's it about?

43things seems to be a very simple site where you can make a list of things that are important to you and that you'd like to do. These can be small things, big things, fun things or challenges. Some interesting examples are:

• Learn to do the Thriller dance.
• Be kissed on the top of a ferris wheel.
• Sponsor at least one child's education. (one of Sketches things)

Basically anything you want, but whatever you choose has to be achievable. It's quite flexible, allowing you to add and remove things easily and it optionally lets you chat to other people who might have the same interest. It came to me in the form of the following challenge:

1. The list has to be a minimum of 5 entries long but you can add as many items as you want. Anything added to the list should be achieved within a year of adding it to the list.

2. Things such as: "I want to change the world", or "Save a rain forest" do not count. The list is for personal goals or things you have always wanted to do such as watch the entire 10 season of Friends in a month (if that sort of will make you feel good) or better yet, Learn how to paint a self-portrait.

3. The website 43things is a great resource if you need help, most things you would like to achieve has already been attempted and there are people to help you.

4. You can/should tag at least 1 other Blogger.

I don't usually fare well with lists of tasks, life already being quite cluttered, but I've decided to give this a try for two reasons. One, Sketches tagged me, and two, I initially found it difficult to come up with a list of things that I wanted to do. Well difficult things are like waving a red rag at this bull, so I've decided to give it a go.

These are the guidelines I've set myself:

• Where new things are concerned, small starts are best, so I've chosen 4 things to begin
• They should be doable.
• Personal evolution is about making mistakes to learn more about ourselves. So it's OK it I can't do one or some of my 'things'. I shouldn't consider it a failure, but simply learn from the experience and move on.
• We live in a throw away society but that doesn't mean we have throw away lives. Each one of these 'things' involves a process, an experience, no matter how small. I should learn something from each 'thing'.

So, what's going on my list?

1. See a play at the Edi(n)burgh Fringe Festival (it seems I'm the first to choose this combination)
   It’s been 7 years since I went to see a play and I’ve never been to the Fringe. This particular little aim is more than it seems and I'm going to have to blog about it soon.
   
   
2. Improve my photography (shared with 224 other people)
   I'd like to know my camera better so I can spend more time observing and less time fumbling while taking photographs. I'd also like to have a better understanding of light and contrast.
   I've seen so much inspiring amateur photography recently, that I feel inspired.
   
   
3. Create a mosaic (shared with 1 other person)
   I'm struggling with painting (having set my goals too high) but ceramic/glass mosaic seems much more practical so I'm going to have a try in the medium term.
   Art is a particular bugbear of mine so this is a small part of a larger struggle.
   
   
4. Find the courage to blog (I'm alone here although 1128 other people would like to 'Be a better blogger')
   I have read a number of blogs where the writers show courage in talking about their own lives.
   I on the other hand, am struggling to blog what I feel. I haven't found my courage yet.
   This is a complex 'thing', so I'm putting a year on it. I don't know quite how it's going to work out, and I can see that it's stretching my guidelines, but it's gotta be here.

"You can/should tag at least 1 other Blogger". I've tagged 3 other people on their own blogs, but not as a challenge, simply as an interesting idea. You can find my 43things here

I had better mention that someone else has claimed my name on 43things, the same person as did this on Blogspot, I'm guessing. So http://www.43things.com/person/bunnyman is not me.

A working break

I sometimes do decoration and renovation work. It's far more interesting than 'other stuff' and it's relatively free of work politics. This does not mean that I'm trendy designer extraordinaire, Laurence Llewelyn Bowen although its true that his nose is modelled after mine. No of course, I'm much more handsome :P

In reality, it's all just an excuse to exhibit my nice round builder's bum

This particular job was all the way down to London town to 'refresh' a flat for a friend. I was late starting out because of the previous night's insomnia. 8 army trucks, 2 pink Cadillacs, 7 ambulances and 4 serious (engine off) accidents later, a journey that should have taken 6 hours took 10 but thanks to my MP3 player, Laura Nyro, Morrissey, Enya and AC/DC, I stayed sane.

It is so strange going back, alone and unencumbered after a long break. I have history with London. It's where I was brought into this life, within the sound of Bow Bells in fact, making me a C-Co-Coc-Cock... erm from the East end. It's also been my Nemesis, twice now. The last time I should have died. I'm living on borrowed time.

But you're from 'up North', how can you have been born down there?? Erm ... time warp ... rupture in the time-space continuum ... shhhht or I'll never get back across the border post!!

The place has changed a little. A new sparkly big bookshop up the road and some whizzy high street renovation, but other than that, the same leafy suburb. I arrived late after the driving marathon and by the time I'd unloaded my kit, I was knackered.

I spent two and a bit days fixing, decorating and gardening, oh and shopping for bits. I'm not sure why this always takes so long in London. By the time you've been to the rubbish tip, the DIY store, IKEA and the Internet café's that have gone out of business by the time you get there, you've lost a day. Luckily for me, PC World have a free internet café now and I found out that if you smile nicely and make house buying noises, a property agent might just lend you his desk and PC for half an hour.

Last morning was spent in the kitchen with a suspicious musty smell that I had been noticing and that I traced to the washing machine. Opened the powder drawer and I kid you not, black slime and things crawling. Now this is a nice shiny spaceship kind of washing machine on the outside. If I washed my sweaty t-shirts in here I'd have to throw them out afterwards.
?? How can people live like this ??
Disinfectant, grime remover and an hour's graft got rid of most of the nastiness.

I must remember that after fixing the hot water tap, if there's no water flow then there's no point in dismantling the entire mechanism and sticking a barbecue skewer down the pipe to find the blockage. It actually helps much more to remember to turn the stop cock back on. Oh yes, and it helps to turn it on after re-assembling the tap, not before. What a mess!

I won't bore you with the 'paint on my bits' experience. It was hot, I had to wear shorts and there were splashes, OK? Luckily it was emulsion.

Shifting across town a bit now ... just before I moved away the last time, I briefly got to know a couple of new neighbours, so a really nice surprise was meeting them again and being invited for dinner. They'd finished some work on their flat and it was looking grand and full of really interesting character, windows stripped back to original wood frames.

Well what a fascinating pair of ladies. One a Londoner and one German, a travel consultant and a biologist. Intriguing, challenging, interesting and contentious conversation. I won't repeat the discussion here, far too controversial and politically incorrect, but it bounced between current events in the middle east, Baader Meinhof and growing up in the late 60's and 70's. So interesting to hear an honest German perspective on Lebanon. Oh yes, very intelligent people and darned good looking too.

I was wondering if I'd nudged the evil love queen awake again, but irony of ironies, these girls were, how can I put it, 'partners'. AAAaaaaaargh!!! Fiddlesticks and frazzled carrots!

Yes I have to tell myself it's all for the best really :-/ Still, it was a small but valuable stitch to add to my little list of fascinating experiences on this world.

Listening to: Janis Joplin, "Combination of the Two"
Wishing: I was a Bunnygirl

Little Stitches

Following on from I wish, a few things tried and found to be rewarding ...

(a responsible person might say this post contains things that you shouldn't do at home kiddies.)

Smoked something I possibly shouldn't have with a bunch of music loving hippies.

Loved wonderful people.

Stood in a place no man had stood before.

Smooched under moonlight and slept on a bench below Pont Neuf, Île de la Cité, Paris.

Started a blog.

Made love in a mountain hut boot cupboard (no, no, not to a boot silly!).

Teetered on the utmost edge of a high mountain precipice on a blustery day.

Not met Bjork which means I'm still madly in love with her.

Taken part in mountain rescue.

Eaten a peanut butter and garlic sandwich as a rite of passage to share love with a beautiful mind.

Hitch-hiked.

There's something else I'd like to say as simply but because our world is complex and difficult, that can't be done. Sadly then I have to explain in wordy fashion that the next piece has absolutely nothing to do with America, terrorism or propaganda.

Stood atop the World Trade centre.

To end on a brighter note
Ridden behind a banshee on a 500cc OHV Twin Cylinder BSA

The danger of falling asleep at parties

Just occasionally the unexpected happens and whisky causes brain to engage even if it makes typing difficult. A memory has just flown in. I guess its mine and it sounds like mine, I'm just surprised to have it pop back so clearly after so long.

I have to get it down here else it'll disappear for another 30 years.

...

Prospective Bunnypartner and I were at a party (a friend of a friend), As the night wore on and people were starting to flag, we took the opportunity to pop into a spare bedroom. You know, for a "chat" on the bed.

I guess drink took its toll and we were both feeling tired, so we fell asleep.

Well I woke up sometime later and I could hear voices, just behind me in the same room. As I slowly took stock of our 'predicament', I realised I had my hand inside bunnypartner's pants. You know, wedged in that front bit. And bunnypartner had her hand firmly attached in mine. And our clothes were still on, just, but kind of all unbuttoned to make access easier.

Slow dawning horror, eased only marginally when I realised the voices must have been sitting on the floor and chatting.

Now I realised that it probably wasn't a good idea to pop right up, with bunnypartner's hand round my toothpaste tube and say "Hi", so I had to slowly wake bunny, hand over her mouth making a silent shushing gesture. At first she was groggy, then puzzled, then that unmistakeable expression of panic ...

Have you ever tried to pull clothes back on, button up in extremely slow motion while trying to make it seem as if you were in noddy land?

Ten minutes later, we were just about presentable enough to start making pretend waking up noises. I thought we might have gotten off the hook but when I turned, there was the party's host and 3 housemates sat around a Cluedo board, "If you two have finished playing Doctors and Nurses up there, we've been waiting to start a game and Mrs. Peacock and Professor Plum are still free."