Sorry, sorry, again

Oh heck, all I seem to be doing on here lately is apologising for not being on here. Sorry, again. Can we take that as a generic sorry for the foreseeable future? For whenever else I get too busy or preoccupied or sick or drunk or on holiday* or whatever to keep up with this? I used to be so good, at the beginning; very nearly managed daily for a while there. I have a good excuse this time, you'll no doubt be delighted to realise. Two, actually.

Excuse one: this is a busy time of year for me, and I have several clients who want work doing the day before yesterday, and I need to make money to feed my children's horse.**

Excuse two, and the only downbeat part of this post: have had a personal crisis to do with my two closest friends. No-one died, and it's not between the LOML and I who are if anything now closer than ever, but there have been many tears and phone calls in the small hours, and no doubt it will continue for a good while yet. And that is all I am prepared to say.

I am, at the time of writing, 40 years and 14 days old. This was an interesting birthday, to say the least. At my party at the local v v posh country hotel, the whirlpool bath was accompanied by a four poster bed (no, duh, in two separate rooms - although I will concede that the alternative is strangely attractive) and later by the surprise of fourteen of my closest friends (poignant pause re excuse two above) turning up all dressed in black tie and evening gown (men in one, women in ... oh, you know what I mean) for a wonderful, drunken dinner in a private room. Games included asking me forty questions which I was required to answer (put these three in order of drunkenness: one: 'What is your greatest achievement?'; two: 'How old were you when you lost your virginity?'; three: 'Rimming or fisting?' Ok, finished? Pencils down. Answers: they are in chronological order, but anyone answering that knowing your friends it doesn't matter, it could be in any order gets bonus points. And I'm so not telling you the answers). Passing a playing card from mouth to mouth just by suction is always a good one, especially when Gilles the maitre d' is inveigled into joining in. I fear that several of my male friends used it as an excuse to snog their friends' partners. I wouldn't do that, of course.

Other highlights: how many creamy cocktails can you drink in a sitting (Mrs Marcus the worm farmer), trying to tell the difference between a £5 glass of port and a £35 one (me - I did try not to order the expensive one on grounds of good taste, but it was out of my hands, honest - and I got it wrong, too), the Ferrari track day they clubbed together to buy for me, and the full english that I was perfectly well enough to enjoy the next morning. Oh, and the amusement of not finding the instructions for the whirlpool bath until after we'd pressed all the buttons and twiddled all the controls, which resulted in the jets squirting so hard water went out the window. The place was saturated. The LOML and I, no doubt partly due to the complimentary decanter of sherry and bottle of pink champagne, were helpless with laughter. It was she, inevitably, who thought of jumping into the bath to cover the jets with water. She's clever like that. Fortunately, there was room for me too. And lots of complimentary Molton Brown smellies.

So, there you go, forty. Nothing more to report, yesterday's news is today's chip wrappers.

I am now officially a Grumpy Old Man. And considering that sort of subject is a prime inspiration for material for this sort of blog, perhaps no bad thing, huh.


*I don't think you can be too on holiday. I suspect that I'd like to try, however.
**I'm sure that this is where all my money is going. I seem to be haemorrhaging (spelling***) cash, generally, and it's as easy to blame something with the genus Equus as a small Homo, or two. Um. I may wish to rephrase that.
***I can spell gonorrhoea without looking in a dictionary, too. Unless you're American, in which case I can't.