1. This morning, bloggers, it's ALL HAIL THE NEW BOILER! Warmth and high spirits have been restored, hair has been washed properly.The cat doesn't want to kill me anymore, arguing that the staff (me) doesn't take care of him properly.
I am watching the winter rain drip pathetically outside my bedroom window and I don't even care - I'm warm and there is brioche to be had with my tea.


2. Friday night was mandate night, and my mandate was Stuart.
Mandatestuart was shy at first but I am fairly good at breaking the ice if I sense there might be some chemistry - and boy, was there chemistry.
Mandatestuart has a big brain and is passionate about what he does and if I used his real name you could google him and you would be impressed too.

Mandatestuart has an open, sensual face, a big smile and bitable lips.
Mandatestuart has wide shoulders under the white shirt, and strong hands.
Mandatestuart is seriously sexy, in a slightly guarded kind of way.

As a child, Mandatestuart was probably a secretive insect collector.
I suspect that Mandatestuart doesn't know how sexy he is.

Mandastuart is probably too romantic, too deep and too easily hurt for me.


We drank wine, walked in the rain, had tapas in a suitably overcrowded bar, walked in the rain some more and stopped and looked at the view from the Jubilee bridge. We talked about what you talk about when there is chemistry with someone you hardly know.


At the end of the evening, Mandatestuart said I was 'everything I was hoping you would be'.*
I am still glowing from that, blogfolks. And yes I would love to see him again, and I'll try to not hurt the romantic, secretive insect collector inside if anything does develop.



*Not to self: Must write it down and keep it for future use when ego deflates life a soufflé.*

1. Bloggers, it's still friggin' cold in the House of Y; George the plumber harrumphed and aaahed and sort of promised to 'get onto it' by Wednesday.
Fingerless gloves and a fluffy Peruvian hat are being worn. To bed too, yes.

I'm surprising myself by how stoic I am about the whole thing.

2. Added to the niggling matter of discomfort of the cold, brain-numbing variety, I have to find a new place to live within the next few weeks. A place not too far from work; a place I can afford. There aren't many of those in London.

3. On the dating front.... yes I do have a couple of dates lined up for the end of the week. As it happens,  two of my potential dates have the same surname.
I certainly hope they're not related; they kind of look alike, too...

Stoically and hopefully yours.

1. Blogfolks, I am cold.
My boiler has died again; the end of the world feels pretty fucking nigh: I am currently under two itchy camel pube blankets, typing with fingerless gloves and not looking forward to more cold showers - how very Dickensian.
I'm considering having watery porridge for dinner just to stretch out the theme a little.

2. Just when I was having a non-date weekend, eyeing up that ever growing pile of DVDs. I should have gone out tonight, really I should have, and warmed myself to the flame of casual banter and light flirting with a stranger - don't you think? I do. Instead, I'll put on a woolly hat and watch 'let's talk about the rain' ,  feel slightly sorry for myself and polish off the rest of the brownies. Aha, not feeling so flirty now, Y, are we?
No, we're not. Meh.

3. I find myself somehow addicted to the constant stream of attention that comes from all this hectic dating I have been doing. 
Blogpeople, I check my email three hundred times a day, give or take a few.
I shake my phone just to make sure it's still working.

4. I saw Mandatearnold again yesterday. In fact, I went round to his place for tea and cake.
Tea and cake, blogcitizens!! That is far too civilised.
I should be ashamed of myself.
We just...chatted. Then had tea, and cake.

This is going horribly wrong, isn't it.

1. Quick! before my daily life plunges back into autumn, work and all things grim, I am trying to develop an addiction to yoga. More precisely Bikram - the kind where they cook you for 90 minutes. Logically, I should come out of there looking and feeling like a limp leek, but no!

2. J, the Scot who can't function above 22°C, now joins me in this communal sweating, muscle-stretching venture.

3. Today our teacher is Francesca.
'I think she explains stuff really well' J declares, 'but my judgement may be biased since she is a total dream.'
How so? I ask, still in a daze myself.
'As soon as she walks into the studio, I hear the last movement of Tchaikovksy's Symphony No. 6.'

4. Fine; for the time being, this, with or without Tchaikovksy, will have to make up for our respective lack of a sex life, then.

Eliza

1. For six years, War raged on between us.

2. I would never live up to her gardening standards, she knew it and despised me for it.
In spring, in summer, I would try to hide from her, cower, sneak back in at the mere flicker of net curtains - in order to avoid her heavily accented monologues about her garden and its roses, about my pile of mud and its weeds. She made me feel like a horticultural deliquent.

3. She liked her giant old lady knickers to dry out in the West London breeze; sometimes, in-between washing loads, we would get to see the sun setting on the horizon.

4. And now, people of Blogland! it is with some sadness that I must report the following: Eliza is no more. A professionally grim faced policeman knocked on our door, late at night, that week it was so cold in London, you remember? and no we didn't have any contact details for her family.

5. Eliza's giant knickers will not grace our living room view ever again. Elvis and Sid, her vicious cat, will never kick our very own Pancho's ass ever again. There will be no more heavily accented monologues about my incompetence.

6. I'm sad, because I'm projecting. Perhaps, like Eliza, one day I won't die alone in a country that isn't mine, and the police won't find any contact details.

7. Read Tieg Larsson's 'The girl with the dragon tattoo'. Really.

The Chelsea flower show is for amateurs

Blogfolks, my emotional world being a rollercoaster, what do I have left but to retreat to the haven that is the Garden At the House of Y? Let me take you for a guided tour.

Careful as you step down; aaaah, here's our Chlamydia. This picture clearly doesn't do justice to its blossoms.

A little further on, let me introduce you to Laurel and Hardy, rose bushes; one is short and fat, the other, etc. Latin name : catus pissus, because it's where the cat, etc.

Of our Our neighbour on the left I can say very little, except that she often laughs, alone in her kitchen, late at night.A little like in a gothic novel, if it were not spoilt by the color and the size of her pyjama bottoms out to dry in the garden. (baby pink, 28).

On the other hand, we are well acquainted with the Neighbour on the right;, Elisa..Mostly, I am, because J cowers. I shall never even dream of reaching Eliza's gardening standards, and she knows it, and despises me for it. Eliza hailed from Naples three decades ago, and proudly displays her banner over my humble plot of land as a clear sign of domination. Sometimes, when her pants are dry, we get to see the sun.

Eliza's minion, Sid – he's probably not really called Sid, it's only what we call him because he's vicious. Sid wants us all dead, starting with our very own PanchoCat. It's just envy, really.

Blogfoks, this is all for today, because I'm either hungry or depressed; sometimes I can't tell the difference. Be well!

The Practice Easter Egg season has started again in the House of Y.

Every year around the end of January, J sits me down for a serious chat – mostly to remind me that

1. Easter is just round the corner.
2. When it comes to chocolate, it’s not Quality, it’s Quantity.
3. to make sure he gets to live his Easter Experience to the fullest, he needs, in chronological order:

a. a Practice Egg about three (3) weeks prior to the actual event.

b. A second egg just to make sure he is getting it right.
c. Another practice egg purchased by me to show my support in his endeavour.
d. The Proper Easter Egg (again , hint: quantity, not quality)
e. Any other egg I might be receiving in the course of my professional activity (I've been known to come home with seven)
f. The post- Easter egg(s), on sale at Woolworth’s.

Yesterday at sainsberries', you could get 3 crap eggs for a measly £3.75! You should have seen the glint in his eyes.

March, I think

Hello, blogfolks, do you know what day it is today? I do. It's freezing and geeting hailed on day. It's also give up all plans about going into town day, because of Sudden Grumpiness. It's also Wear a Wooly Hat at Home day; because I won't turn the heating on before 7pm. I don't want to talk to anybody, nor do anything constructive or useful, so I might book myself a flight to Madrid instead. Hope you're well.

1. It started like this: I've been trying to find something to write with, and it got me thinking:

2. Blogfolks, do you know what the STASI used to do to break people psychologically? This : they would break into their house, remove one type of household items, then leave without trace. Sponges; lightbulbs. Something. A week or so later, they would break in again, remove some other item. Spoons. Then disappear without trace. And finally, a week later, one last time, shoe laces, or corkscrews. They knew that by then the house owners , no matter how close, no matter how trusting, would have turned against each other and started to disintegrate. Of course that could work because no-one in East Germany knew that that's what their police was up to. Clever, huh?

3. I really wonder where the biros go in this house.

I don't know why, blogfolks, but i'm interestingly hight tonight, and I can't explain that by the mash potato diet I've been on for the past three weeks. Oh no.

Still.

I just wanted to say:

I love my favourite J, housemate and best friend extraordinaire, because when watches Question Time on TV, he feels empathy for the Members Of The Public (the ones on the panel which is meant to throw questions at politicians) who can't get a sentence right and end up embarrassiong themselves. Yup, empathy;instead of feeling superior and confident that he would do a better job.

I love my Special Lady Friend because when I suggest she comes over tomorrow night, she always says yes like she means it. Yay!

I love the vet, because the new flea product she sold me (for which I'll have to sell my first new born, I think) got the cat high, which is always entertaining; and killed off the fleas, too. I've been busy picking them off my bed.

That's all I wanted to say. Look at me, all full of love. And mash potato. Be well, don't let February get you down.

Blogfolk, I'm being up to my neck in things I can't relate on here, because they're too important, so I might make myself scarce on here for a while. Just because I can't multitask too well.

Be well!

This should really be an Ode to my blender

1. Ah, blogfolks, do you kow what I have been doing with my time? I do. I have been devising creative ways of producing healthy, yet tasty meals that I won't have to chew, because chew I cannot do without feeling like I've been hit in the teeth with a sack full of pebbles. At this moment in time, there are four categories of foodstuff in my world: 1. edible because liquid 2 edible because puréed or mashed, but who in their right mind would want a cup of fish? 3. edible with a copious amount of work and an interesting element of pain 4. torturous or impossible. Most foodstuff including the Best Things in the world fall neatly into category 4 and will remain there for a while, methinks.

2. When I'm not planning, swallowing or digesting mash, or maybe also when I'm doing all of those things, I am becoming addicted to a Spanish TV series that, should it be in English or French, I would never dream of watching sober. Looks like my brain as well as my chewing ability are on standby. I have watched two episodes today and all this vicarious living is starting to make me hungry.

3. Other plans include taking my Special lady Friend to France for a day, mostly so that she can have a nice lunch and perhaps stock up on pâtisseries, whilst I can order for her then mostly watch her eat.

4. Tonight, I let the cat out at night for the first time ever. I feel like an anxious parent whose 15 year old daughter has gone out on her first date. Yes, I'll be waiting up. There are foxes around, and they're not wearing braces.

5. Be well!

J's infallible guide to getting a free dinner, tip #1

Book table for two in restaurant on Valentine's night. Turn up with one rose and a watch. Place rose on table, check watch at regular intervals and sigh. Sigh some more. After a sufficient amount of time, shake head in resignation and order meal. With some luck and in an ideal world,* they shouldn't charge you for the meal. Or pour you a glass of wine on the house. Or at the very least feel sorry for you.

*being reasonably attractive might help, too.

I didn't check, I put the earpiece thing right in, without pausing to think that this damn cat of mine sees mouse tails everywhere. It was very wet.

Apart from that, I've mostly been working a lot and coming home late. The cat needs to keep itself entertained somehow, pobrecito.

1. When I was eight I read a Russian children story whose morale was that people who insisted on telling their dreams should be shot because they were boring fucks. I think that's what it said anyway. Still, let me tell you that last night I dreamt that I was kissing my shrink. He didn't have a beard in the dream, either, so it was quite nice; I was smiling when I woke up.

BANG!

Still, I do wonder what it means.

2. I furiously feel like dancing salsa, but my Special Lady Friend has broken her toe kicking bricks! What are we to do? While she is mending and trying to pretend it's nothing, I'll sway about in the kitchen. Off I go. Be well!

1. Is it too late, bloglanders? If it is, nevermind, a happy shiny new 2007 to you anyway. I was considering joining the above demonstration against 2007 (apparently it stinks of old socks) but decided it was futile. Weren't calendars printed already? So I have given in.

2. I suppose things have got back to normal -that is to say, fairly chaotic- in the House of Y since NYE. That night I tried to get my Special Lady Friend to salsa with me ; she clearly didn't find that normal at all, but she complied with her usual good humour. Yay! I am indeed very lucky, even if she really can't salsa. Yet.
   

3. One of my presents this Christmas was a bottle of what must be my favourite wine in the world. A golden coloured, fragrant, delicate nectar, it was waiting to be packed at the bottom of the staircase. I was planning to take it back to London with me as a salsa aid, you see. Later I found a golden, fragrant puddle and a very puzzled cat with an equally fragrant front paw. What was left to do but laugh? I didn't wipe the cat's paw; who slept late the next morning.

4. In other news, all is well. Be well!
   

Blogfolk, I'm away.

Normal service will probably resume on my return, when I choose to ignore the eve of the new year too. In the meantime, happy Winter solstice, Christmas, whatever it is you celebrate. Or don't. I'll be here drinking wine by the fire and reading old books. Be well, and don't eat too much.

Surprisingly, things are really not Like They Used To Be

1. Look, bloggers, at the mess that is Soho and especially the once-upon-a-time gay microcosm that is Old Compton Street; as if the weekly hen parties from South Bromley weren’t enough to cope with! At this time of year the place is heaving with herds of very straight, very clueless people out on their Christmas work do, gawking at the gay homosexuals like they’re in a gay safari. And the jokes they crack! Are not funny.
My Special lady Friend and I didn’t stick around for too long; it was a clear, crisp night, perfect for walking away from the very full bars.

2. this cat of mine is a disgrace, a renegade, a taint on the name of felines everywhere. Or is my education?
-Pancho, look, here’s bits of real chicken for you.
-Miaow.
-What, is it too hot still?
-Miaow!
-Not enough salt?
-Miaow..
-It needs to be cut into smaller bits?
-Miaow.
-What do you mean, sushi? You’ve never even seen sushi.
-Miaoow!
-Fine. I’m taking the remote control away from you., that’s too much daytime tv, missy. And anyway, what happened to the gratitude cats owed their masters?
-Miaow!
- I’m not making it up at all. In my days, cats dreamt of sucking on a dry chicken bone. So eat up.
- Miaow!
- I know you were abandoned at birth….Sure, I’ll hold it up for you so that you don’t get your whiskers dirty.

Christmas presents suggestions- #1

A pair of goggles for when I need to cut up an onion. Or a shallot. Or anything else that’s violenty tear-inducing. My eyes are still smarting from tonight's dinner; my big mistake was to start cooking before my SLF turned up. She usually carries out the shallot-cutting chore with grace and without tears.

Barely 70 % cocoa

Every year around the end of January, J sits me down for a serious chat – mostly to remind me that

1. Easter is just round the corner.
2. When it comes to chocolate, it’s not Quality, it’s Quantity.
3. to make sure he gets to live his Easter Experience to the fullest, he needs, in chronological order:

a. a practice egg about three (3) weeks prior to the actual event.
b. Another practice egg purchased by me to show my support.
c. The Proper Easter Egg (hint: quantity, not quality)
d. Any other egg I might be receiving in the course of my professional activity
e. The post- Easter egg(s), on sale at Woolworth’s.

The yearly Easter experience has now begun in the House of Y.