Mini-break

It is a bank holiday here in the UK, but I really should be going to work to finish a job which was supposed to have been delivered about 9 months ago, but seems to have been cursed since conception. Instead, I am finally going to do what my mother had been nagging me to do since I was about 7 - tidy my room.

I have long since given up listing the series of unfortunate sets of circumstances which have prevented me from completing the simple (but large) items made from Sherborne Stone, but if I tell you that I left a substantial part of it with another stonemason to complete whilst I went to Germany, and that he did not do the work I asked him to do, you would not be surprised.

Given what I have already told you about the universal belligerence of British stonemasons (and I guess all stonemasons, but I cannot be sure), you ought not to be surprised to learn that - last week - he was convicted of G.B.H. and now (I also guess, since he hasn't answered any of my phone messages), languishes in Her Majesty's Prison, somewhere in the county of Somerset. The huge lumps of stone lie unfinished in his yard, and on tuesday I have to formulate a plan to get them finished/out/delivered, without having the luxury of a key to let myself in, but - as I say - this is going to wait until tomorrow before I tackle the problem. Today I am tidying my room.

20 Years before I moved in with H.I., this room was referred to as 'the box room', because it was where everything was thrown that did not have a daily function (but was too good, intrinsically/emotionally valuable to throw away, or just plain rubbish which the council refused to collect), then I turned it into 'an office' by putting up shelves and installing a separate phone-line into which was plugged a modem which, in turn, was plugged into a classic 'Toilet Seat' style iBook which (by the time I had installed the latest 'OS 9' system in it) boasted a staggering 3.5 gigabytes of RAM.

Then they invented WiFi, and we bought an iMac which boasts an equally staggering (if I knew what it meant) 2.4 Ghz with potentially triple that in up-grades (you could edit feature-films on this thing - some people do), installed it downstairs so we could watch DVDs, and the office slowly started to turn into a box room again, 20 years after I had moved in.

I am about to turn it back into it's original function of about 250 years ago - a servant's bedroom (which doubles-up as a library, since we have no servants).

Thomas - who you have been hearing rather a lot of recently - is coming over from Germany later in September, and is bringing another old friend, Tobias. I first met Tobias in Hamburg, where he was acting as a general helper for us when I worked with a traveling theatre company almost 30 years ago. He was (and still is) a gay graphic artist who helped out with Hamburg's cultural scene every summer, but these days he helps out with Hamburg's Christian scene, all year round. He has turned from a Marxist into a Catholic Lay-Worker in a comparatively short space of time - not exactly 'road to Damascus' stuff, but quickly nevertheless. Every spare moment he has is spent at his church, helping to serve nutritious food to a multitude of ungrateful alcoholics and dossers, but - I am pleased to say - has not lost his wicked sense of humour.

This time, they are both arriving in Thomas's newly restored MGB (he's an utter, anglophilic petrol-head), and NOT the Mini shown in the photo above, as they did last time. Thomas reserved the Mini for our last two trips to Bremerhaven, and this was our prime method of transport between airport and town, plus every other bloody sight-seeing trip in between - my knees are still blue from bashing against the dashboard whilst traversing the cobbled streets of Northern Germany, and both H.I. and I still feel slightly queasy from the smell of partially burned exhaust fumes that came from the engine a few inches in front of my blue knees.

The first time I met Thomas (over 25 years ago when he was training to be a dentist) he came with Tobias too, and - assuming that he was Tobias's latest boyfriend - I put them in the same bed together for the first night. After a sleepless night for them (due to my 250 decibel snoring in the same room), Thomas took me to one side and explained that they were just good friends, and ever since, we both affectionately refer to Tobias as 'Auntie'.

So, not wishing to commit another ham-fisted and misplaced attempt at same-sex match-making, I am about to clear out the room so that one can have my room, the other can have the 'office' and I will sleep on the couch downstairs - always assuming that the MGB makes it any further than Dover.