troubled diva

Thursday 20th December

Back at work after two days laid up with what convention dictates we call “the flu”. Meet K, OldEngland and NewEngland for a Laguna curry, after they have finished mingling with Nottingham’s great and good at the Trent University vice chancellor’s drinks do (being neither particularly great nor particularly good, I tend to shun such events). Unfortunately, they have been joined by a pompous old bore who has also invited himself along. The POB is clearly pissed as a newt, which makes him even more P and even more B. He sits opposite me at the table and holds forth interminably, all the way through the meal. Any attempts I make to get more than half a sentence in edgeways are talked over, as if I hadn’t said a word in the first place. After a while, I stop listening altogether, and go into nodding and smiling autopilot mode. None of his utterances seem designed to elicit any other response, so this works fine and I can mentally disengage with complete impunity.

The POB’s wife turns up after a bit – also pissed, but she’s a game old bird, who immediately starts quizzing K on what he does for a living. After a while, she exclaims “Oh, so you’re rich!” and starts trying to sell her daughters to him. A bit later, she asks “So who’s Mike?” – maybe in the hope of a double strike.

“Mike is my partner.”

“Oh.” Rueful pause. “So it’s like that, is it?”

K nods. It is indeed.

“So I might as well stop talking about my daughters now?”

Ach, you’ve got to love her for it!

Friday 21st December

Wake up with the most appalling stomach ache. It hurts to the point that I can’t think about anything else. Plus my flu is back. Feel worse than I did on Tuesday and Wednesday. Ring in sick, and stay in bed till 14.00. Three days off sick in Christmas week – what does that look like?

Buni comes round for a natter, in lieu of the lunch I’ve had to cancel. He’s on good form, having emerged at the end of a shit year (broke, jobless, fed up) with a damn good graduate job and justifiably bright hopes for the year ahead. His presence cheers me up immensely, and the fu starts to lift.

Over to the cottage to start the holiday season proper. OldEngland and NewEngland call round, full of apologies for the POB’s presence the previous night. We insist that it’s not their fault, and pour them a drink. A couple of drinks later, I start “zoning out” and develop hot flushes. OldEngland and NewEngland politely take their leave and we spend the rest of the night zombifying in front of the telly.

Saturday 22nd December

One of the major benefits of being away on Christmas Day is that for the first time in living memory, we don’t have to do The Big Christmas Food Shop. So it’s just a quick dash round Sainsburys in Ashbourne, loading up with a few basics. Ashbourne has a lovely atmosphere today: all friendly and Christmassy in a sweet old-fashioned way. Even K starts to experience bursts of seasonal good cheer, which is almost unprecedented.

At the posh deli in the market square, we stock up with loads of gorgeous nibbly things to take with us on our forthcoming travels. Best of all, they have imported Italian rum babas soaking in glass jars, looking like stubby little pickled cocks. We buy an extra jar and gorge ourselves on them later, over coffee. Sheer heaven.

Back to Nottingham for pk’s and dj’s extension warming party. pk is a freelance composer/musician, mainly for television and films. However, last year he wrote a massive UK hit single, which went on to sell very well internationally. This good fortune has enabled them to go for an absolutely top quality architectural transformation of what was already a lovely house. The result is…stunning. Better than I could ever have imagined. I kept expecting Kevin McCloud (of C4’s “Grand Designs”) to pop up and do a eulogy to camera.

The party is full of our “old crowd” – people we’ve known for ten years or more, many of whom have been getting short shrift from us as we’ve been concentrating on establishing our new “weekends in the country” existence. It’s great to all be together in the same place again. Loads of catching up is done. It’s all very civilised. We don’t get trashed and we leave at a sensible time.

Roll home, stick the video on, and watch Jessica get booted off Pidol. William is our favourite by miles, but I can’t help also rooting for Darius, the comeback king. I have a soft spot for Darius, and I’m not altogether sure why. Hoping to see the last of Rosie next week. Sorry, but I’ve grown to hate that voice of hers. Every week, she murders an already crap song by warbling like a strangulated, adenoidal cat with Carey-esque delusions of technical brilliance. Every week, the judges inexplicably declare her to have the most thrillingly original talent since, I dunno, Ruby Murray or something. It Has Got To Stop.

Sunday 23rd December

Back to the cottage for a present swap with K’s mum and aunt. Note with amusement that K’s cousin has bought us the exact same Molton Brown gift box that we have bought for her and her girlfriend. Spooky.

We serve up the last of the rum babas. K’s mum and aunt totally flip over them. They HAVE to get some, NOW. Will the posh deli still be open? If they leave right this minute, they can get there by 4.30. They disappear in a flash, in fact with so much haste that they accidentally leave a present behind. We jump in the car and give chase across the Derbyshire countryside, but K’s mum is driving like a woman possessed and there’s no way we can catch her up until we get to Ashbourne. Eventually collar them in the deli, where they are buying the last two jars in the shop, their faces flushed with excitement and relief.

Low key evening with OldEngland and NewEngland, swooning over spongeware crockery which NewEngland has brought back from a recent trip to India. We’ve never seen stuff like it before, and we get terribly excited and twittery about it. Oh Lor, is this to be our next Great Enthusiasm?

Monday 24th December

The start of The Great Driving Marathon. In the next three days, we shall cover 500 miles exactly. First leg: from the cottage in Derbyshire down to Ightham in Kent, where we are visiting my aunt and uncle. My uncle turns 70 on Christmas Day, so there is a family three line whip in his honour.

My sister is exempt, as she has negotiated a month’s extension on her stay in Pakistan, working with Oxfam in Quetta. I know that some people will go to any lengths to avoid a family Christmas, but exiling yourself to an Afghan refugee camp? It really deserves some sort of award.

My cousin joins us, and brings us up to date with all the backstage juice on the recent Elizabeth Filkin affair (she is a Something at the House Of Commons, you see). Well, actually she doesn’t, as she has a good deal more discretion than that, but I just thought it sounded good.

As we have an early start the next day, we re-designate ourselves as Scandinavians for the night and open our presents after dinner. This is great fun, and I recommend it.

K gives me CDs by Susheela Raman, Manu Chao, and the Blind Boys of Alabama. He has been researching via the Radio 3 website, where all three CDs have been nominated for their world music awards. Clever boy! Susheela Raman mixes Indian music with Western influences, including covers of “Trust In Me” from The Jungle Book, and Tim Buckley’s “Song To The Siren” – she was also nominated for this year’s Mercury Music Prize. Manu Chao used to be the leader of the French band Mano Negra (who were rather good in their day), and is now a huge star on the continent who still can’t get arrested in the UK. The Blind Boys of Alabama have been going since 1939, and do great gospel/blues type stuff, including “Run On For A Long Time”, last used by Moby as “Run On”.

In return, I give K a bouquet of prog: three CDs by Yes (Fragile, Close To The Edge, Relayer), plus Camel’s, erm, lost classic “The Snow Goose”. Hmmm. Although K is visibly delighted, I can’t help feeling that I’ve ended up with the better deal here!

Tuesday 25th December

Start the day with a phone call to my sister in Pakistan. She sounds in great spirits – happier than I’ve heard her in many months.

It has been decided that my uncle’s birthday would be best celebrated in a pub in Suffolk, even though my aunt & uncle live in Kent. Don’t ask – just don’t ask. So it’s back in the car at the ungodly hour of 10.30 for another long drive.

Actually, the pub is great – we have a cracking good Christmas dinner there, with top quality food and friendly service. They must have already heard about my stinging reviews of Ashbourne Hall and Claude Bosi’s Hibiscus, in that case. What power I weald!

Back in the car, K and I set off for London, where we will be spending the rest of the day with British Museum and Royal Academy at their gaff in Brixton. We’re looking forward to changing out of our suits, dropping our “best behaviour” family-friendly guard, and getting well and truly plastered with our old friends.

K’s mobile rings. It’s British Museum. There’s been a cock-up on the social arrangements front. They have been invited out for Christmas dinner, but taxis are scarce and they haven’t left Brixton yet. Could we take down this address, and come and pick them up when we get to London?

Our hearts sink. We’re only an hour and a half away, so the chances of the boys being ready to leave when we get there are slim indeed. Plus we’ll have to stay sober until we get back to Brixton. And we’ll have to sit there smiling politely while everybody else gets trashed around us. This is the final straw. We are not happy bunnies. We vow to spend next Christmas doing our own thing, without making any arrangements with anyone else.

We get to the address in Waterloo. This turns out to be a very, very swish duplex loft conversion, all open spaces, natural wood, big windows and big art. It is owned by an impossibly handsome young man who is a big cheese with an impeccably fashionable retail/restaurant group. How can someone be so handsome and so successful at such a young age? It beggars belief. Big Beautiful Cheese has also lovingly prepared a gorgeous looking roast guinea fowl dinner for the five equally handsome, almost as successful, gay men in attendance. K and I politely sit down and watch them eat it, trying not to get indigestion at the sight of our second Christmas dinner of the day.

British Museum and Royal Academy, when they manage to draw us aside, are hugely apologetic about all this. Long story, crossed wires, mis-communications, organisational cock-up. They know we want to ditch the car and get some booze inside us more than anything else. And so, heroically, they get us to whisk them away as soon as dinner is over, with an invitation to the remaining three guys to join us back in Brixton.

And so it comes to pass that the remainder of the day is spent in a lovely flat, full of sexy, affluent gay men, with loads of booze etc., getting royally twatted and playing silly games all night. Result!

Actually, not quite. I make my excuses around 2.30 and go to bed, tired and wired, having had an OK time, but not having totally got into the spirit of things. This is not like me at all. Maybe I’m just exhausted by everything. Conversely, K – who I know found the family Christmas and all the driving enormously stressful – is having a great time, fully relaxed at last.

Wednesday 26th December

The inevitable hangover induced “lost” day. Leave Brixton late afternoon, for the final drive back up to Derbyshire. As we pull into the village, the mileage counter clocks up precisely 500 miles in the past three days. Sweet Jesus….never, ever again!

Thursday 27th December

A day of total and utter inactivity. The aunt and uncle have given me a boxed set of the Harry Potter books, so I make a start on “Philosopher’s Stone”. Hey, it’s ace!

Friday 28th December

Back to Nottingham and over to Hippowhore (retired) and Hockeyjock (retired) for the latter stages of their at home all-dayer. On our arrival, anxious parents start gathering up their little ones and beating a retreat. It’s grown-ups time!

It’s a low-key, relaxed, conversational evening, with several of the “old crowd” from pk’s and dj’s party once again in attendance. Having had a perfectly lovely evening, we cab it back into town, and – f**k it, why not? – K and I pile into NG1 (Nottingham’s gay superclub).

The evening immediately jacks up several notches in intensity. NG1 is full of old faces, and after some catching up, I decide that it’s high time I made a concerted effort to reactivate my Inner Disco Bunny. End up larging it on the floor for God knows how long – ah yes, I can still shake me bits after all!

The evening has an unexpected, wholly delightful, and definitely unpublishable conclusion – for both of us, as it turns out!

Saturday 29th December

One “lost day” in a holiday is acceptable. Two “lost days” is…naughty. K is really suffering. Make it back to the cottage early evening. Light the fire, telly, oblivion.

Sunday 30th December

Health health health darlings! We are dragged out for a serious walk by four of our city friends, starting at Hartington and going via Sheen, tramping through fresh snowfields in glorious afternoon sunlight. It’s absolutely what we needed. All remaining cobwebs are duly blown away. Back to the cottage, soak in the bath, light the fire, telly, you get the general routine. God, I love this house. We are such lucky, lucky sons of bitches.