Cock magnet

No idea; 6.5 units of alcohol yesterday evening; 1,273; Chester in the blackout.

Is there any more lowering moment than hopping out of bed to answer a call of nature, looking forward to returning for a further refreshing kip, and discovering that it is 5.59 a.m. and the alarm clock is set for 6? That was how my day started.

After writing my newspaper column and taking the dog for a walk, I downloaded some photographs from my camera onto the computer, a chore which I had not performed for some time. I was much struck by the contrast between the LTCB’s radiantly happy expression at Glyndebourne last weekend, and the extremely stern face she was wearing when I snapped her by the river yesterday. Strangely enough, it was only this which really brought home to me what a total berk I have been over the last week or so.

She looked much happier when she returned from work this evening. But then she had been to work, and leaving it is calculated to cheer most people up, in my experience. She went for a run then cooked me a delicious supper before taking me out for a drink in a nearby pub with a couple of her friends. The embarrassing part of this for me was that one of said friends had been present shortly after I departed on Saturday and had been invited to answer the tricky question of “Why am I such a cock magnet?” I being that cock, and not in any good sense. Still, we got through the evening somehow. I had left the dog at home, even though I was told that the pub admitted them, as I did not think he would relish an evening in the company of a large and boisterous brown Labrador bitch. Nor did the bloke at the next table, who made it clear that he had a pathological fear of dogs and deeply resented her presence. If I had not been on my best behaviour I would have asked why the hell he had chosen to sit there, then, given that the dog was there first. But as it was I just smiled benignly and tried not to put my foot in it.

Just as the LTCB and I returned to her house from the pub every light in the neighbourhood went out. They stayed out for some time. Could the Russians have bombed the National Grid, or has the homemade meltdown of UK power supply started rather earlier than expected? We took the dog for a walk in the moonlight, listening to an impromptu symphony for burglar alarms that was actually rather more tuneful than most of the newly commissioned works I have heard lately, and used a couple of candles to light our way to bed. That was how my day ended.