Showered with Distraction

With the week that’s in it, one year older and more confused, I’m writing this diary a bit backwards; it’s Monday and a lovely drive to Ashford to look at a gate lodge for Annie Oakley and her husband. It was so pretty with Tudor-Gothic windows and a vegetable garden, like a fairytale, I’d be tempted to rent out the entire landlady house and decamp to the country with a horse and some chickens.

Later that day, there was the matter of Absentee Boyfriend getting out of the doghouse, apparently I was in it too, but we never know that, do we? His was a bigger doghouse than mine, as far as I was concerned. Suffice to say, he arrived on Monday evening holding a very fine bouquet aloft and laughing his head off at the ‘You Again?’ door mat. At least he spotted it and thought it was just for him.

It’s hard to turn away a man with flowers, especially when he did a quick rebound to retrieve the champagne and chocolates from the car. It was early evening, the fire was lighting and he was on a roll. Next came books he’d carefully chosen. It was a well organised assault. ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’ came to mind. Only thing to do was get out for dinner before further recriminations occurred.

One of the books was Hilary Mantel's latest Booker winner, I'm not sure about her. I took Wolf Hall to Haiti in 2009 while I was working on a building site, I would have left it behind if the Haitians were interested, it became a door stop.

I loved the QI book he gave me, with 1227 random fascinating facts – Did you know there are enough diamonds in existence to give everyone on the planet a handful?

Where are mine?

And under extreme high pressure, diamonds can be made from peanut butter (stupidly, it doesn’t give the recipe).

OK, just one more: One in ten European babies is conceived in an IKEA bed.

Annie Oakley recommended a place for dinner I thought had closed down years ago, La Cave. With not too many restaurants open on Mondays and even less people in them, we gave it a whirl. Like stepping back in time in Paris, it did the trick; you can’t but be happy with cosy candlelight, a bottle of red, a juicy fillet and a jolly good man for company.

That night the house was replete with people. The logistics dictate that six of us will need a shower in the morning. I know my tank isn’t big enough for that, let alone figuring out the timer to come on at 5am, so Lodger No. 1 can get his early flight. I’ve had a few less than warm showers lately, but ABF says they’re not so bad.

What am I going to do when the water charges come in? While I have this romantic thought, I hear the man whose by-word is ‘no complaints’ groan wearily, ‘I’m dreading getting into that shower.’