by Swan, Tarn
I think I'll suggest to Twinkles that we go out for dinner this evening, somewhere nice and quiet. He deserves a treat and it might help ease the strains of the day. Besides, with work being stressful for him, he's taking it out on me at home in various ways. Not that he means to, but we all do it. We get crabby with those we love when the going gets hard elsewhere. For example I made fish pie for dinner last evening and he said it looked and smelled like I'd vomited into a pie dish, put cheese on top and bunged it in the oven. He then criticised my abilities in all domestic areas. Yep, dinner out is definitely an attractive alternative to staying in and having my skills as a househusband brought into doubt.
8th April 2006: Tempus Fugit
We had a rather cutting little note from our admirer on Thursday and I mean that literally. There was a tiny sliver of razorblade concealed in the envelope seal. It sliced into my thumb when I opened it, not seriously, but all the same it was a nasty shock. The note itself must have taken ages to cut out and paste. The sender obviously had a few hours to kill. It read: when God takes vengeance upon the ungodly, he will smite in such a manner as to make them feel His almightiness in every stroke. All His power shall be exercised in punishing, and none in pitying. O that every obstinate sinner would think of this and consider his foolishness in thinking himself able to grapple with Omnipotence!
Twinks reckoned that grappling with omnipotence might potentially be fun, especially if you’d had a shot of Viagra beforehand and could take the pace.
Joking aside he was upset and also afraid that the blade might have been laced with poison. As a result Thursday night was less than restful because he kept waking me up at intervals to make sure I was still alive. While I appreciated his concern I did not appreciate being shaken awake every hour or so. I firmly told him I was fine and if he woke me up just once more I would tan his backside. He heeded me to the letter and consequently I slept through the alarm and we were both late for work. I was not pleased. He was unrepentant and virtuously pointed out that he'd been instructed not to wake me and was simply fulfilling his duty of obedience. For the first time ever I spanked him for doing as he was told. He was not pleased. I was unrepentant, virtuously pointing out that he was simply naughty and I was bloody annoyed with him.
We've had a bit of a tumultuous time lately, which I'll have to journal up later as I'm due to meet Twinks for lunch. We're going Easter egg shopping and no doubt he'll let me know which chocolate goodies have particularly taken his fancy this year. I can hardly believe that Easter is almost upon us again. It doesn't seem five minutes since we were attending Dominic's christening last Easter. Oh well, as the old saying runs - tempus fugit and all that.
8th April 2006: D.I.Whine
The lunchtime Easter egg shopping trip went well. Shopping list as follows:
Nestle Milky Bar Buttons Easter egg...Dominic and Twinkles. (He loves white chocolate)
Cadbury's Mini Eggs Easter egg...Gabby and Twinkles. (He loves mini eggs)
Cadbury's Milk Tray Easter egg...Lulu and Twinkles. (He loves anything that Lulu has)
Thornton's Continental Truffles Easter egg...Mum and Twinkles. (He adores continental truffles)
China Chicken egg cup complete with chocolate Easter egg and big fluffy chick...Janet and Twinkles (he loved the egg cup and chick)
Catnip Easter Bunny...Shirley the cat (Twinks passed on that one, catnip might inflame Shirl's passions, but it does nothing for him)
No Easter eggs, a quarter of Everton mints and just about bankrupted...Tarn.
I'm going to have to put off journaling our recent tumult for a bit longer. The shower tray in the bathroom isn't draining away properly, there's obviously a blockage and when I got home this afternoon I noticed that it's beginning to smell. I’ll have to sort it out. I'm not a big fan of DIY work, especially as nine times out of ten I end up calling mum to give me a hand. She comes round and sorts out in ten minutes something I've struggled with for hours. It's humiliating. She's one of those women blessed with a natural affinity for all things physically creative, from sewing and knitting to wallpapering and bricklaying. She’s even better at DIY than my dad is. It drove him mad, treading as it did on the toes of his masculinity, especially as she often did it without referring to plans and instructions.
13th April 2006: Frankentwink’s Bride
I've taken a few days off work over the Easter period. I need them. I'm knackered. Dad and Gill are having a new kitchen put in, so I've been round there most evenings this week helping dad take out all the old units and get the groundwork done ready for the new kitchen to be fitted on Saturday.
Twinks has been busy working on his costume for the Miss Springtime Queen Easter event at the PP. He's hoping to win for the second year in a row so he doesn't have to give up the precious crown. I've warned him about his corsetry and told him he won't be able to sit down for a month of Sundays if he repeats last years stunt or anything similar. He took refuge in silence, which was a novelty I enjoyed.
On the whole it's been a quiet week, though Twinks and I received a shock in the early hours of last Sunday morning. We awoke to find that a naked person had climbed into bed with us. Twinkles became aware of the intruder first. He rolled over to cuddle what he thought was me and found a lesser person. He woke me by screaming something about me developing anorexia. Heart pounding I snapped on the bedside lamp to discover Lulu slumbering peacefully between us. I thought I was hallucinating at first, but seeing as Twinkles could see him and had felt him I dismissed the idea.
The fumes rolling from our bed-crasher told a simple story...he'd gotten rat-arsed drunk somewhere. Instead of going home to mama and papa some instinct had told him to head for Tarn and Twinks abode, for which he still had the keys. Once in the house the silly sod's navigation system had broken down and instead of taking him to the guestroom where he had slept during his occupation it had navigated him to our bedroom instead.
I crossly hauled him out of our bed and carried him to the guestroom and put him to bed there, propping the door open so I could hear if he was sick in his sleep. It's perhaps all to the good that he couldn't hear some of the dark things I was muttering under my breath.
He finally regained consciousness late that morning and after putting us off our breakfast by noisily hawking and borking into the toilet bowl, he staggered downstairs looking like death on an outward-bound course. Plonking himself on Twinkles' lap he wound his arms around his neck and pitiably implored him to carry out a mercy killing. Twinks icily informed the chunder queen that if he ever climbed uninvited into our bed again, there'd be a killing all right and there'd be nothing merciful about it.
Lulu sheepishly apologised and explained he'd been to a celebratory Grand National party at Teddy and Maurice's place. Maurice had backed the winner of the race and raked in a tidy profit. It was a win made all the more sweet because usually the horses he backs perform like three legged donkeys and end up having to be carried over the finishing line by their jockeys. The beer, wine, Campari and Babycham had been flowing like water and once Lulu had sampled everything on offer his legs were also flowing like water down a bank and he couldn't keep track of them. Some small functioning part of his brain told him that his mother would be upset if he turned up at home in the state he was in and his dad would be even more upset at him for upsetting his mother when she was still in fragile health. He instructed the taxi driver to pour him out at our address. He would have called us to ask if we minded, but he was so plastered he couldn't get his phone out of his pocket let alone manage to operate it. He then happily chuntered on about what a great night it had been and how it had more than made up for the PP being closed on account of being rewired (it failed a safety check)
I inwardly groaned and made plans to pack my belongings and take up residence with my mother, as I observed the ominous cloud that rolled over my pretty one's face as he digested the news that Lulu et al had gotten legless at a soiree that he had not been invited to attend. He cut off the chunter
queen mid sentence to demand why he hadn't been invited into the winner's enclosure? Lulu looked genuinely puzzled and said he had been invited, we both had. In fact Teddy was hurt about us not turning up and not letting him know why. He'd called a few times on Saturday evening, but there was no reply. He assumed we had a prior engagement.
Lu suddenly found himself sprawling on the floor as Twinkles abruptly stood up and stalked out of the kitchen. I stepped over Lu, told him to help himself to breakfast and hurried after Twinks who was ascending the stairs like a righteous prophet riding a cloud up to heaven with his feather trimmed robe billowing out behind him.
Once in the bedroom he folded his arms, angrily glared at me and demanded to know how I dared to conceal an invitation from him in order to ensure he accompanied me on a tedious babysitting tour of duty for my half sister. I coldly informed him that I had done no such thing. The party was as much news to me as it was to him. I hadn't spoken to Teddy or Maurice in days.
Twinks immediately called Teddy and demanded to know why he hadn't invited us to his party and then lied about it to our friends (he'll never make a diplomat) was he trying to steal our friends away from us, was that it? Did he want them for himself, was he trying to sideline us for some reason and had he forgotten that they were OUR friend's before they were his? Teddy denied all charges saying he'd called on Saturday afternoon to make the invitation and had spoken to a man who had promised to pass the message on. Twinks immediately went on red alert...man! What man? What had this man sounded like? Did he sound tall and mechanical?
At that point I plucked the phone from Twinkles' hand and told Teddy we were very sorry to have missed the party. There had been a mix up and Twinks would call him back later. I then turned to Twinks and told him to stop before he even started, or there would be trouble. If he said one damn word about Stuart Cramer, regardless of Lulu's presence in the house, I would smack and then paddle his bare bottom so hard he wouldn't be able to sit down for a week. We'd been down that path once we were not going down it again, was that clear? He slipped his arms possessively around my waist and tearfully demanded to know who had been with me and why hadn't I answered the phone. What had I been doing?
Putting my arms round him I told him that if he ever actually bothered to listen to a word I said he would have worked out that I was on my way to pick him up from work around the time Teddy phoned. He would have known it was Frank who answered the phone and I certainly wasn't having an affair with him, just as I wasn't having one with Stuart Cramer. I would have babysat Janet on my own if I’d known Twinks had been invited out to a party.
What happened was that Frank had called in to beg use of the television on Saturday afternoon, as he wanted to watch the Grand National without being nagged by Katie about what a waste of money gambling was. I readily agreed in exchange for a hand in fixing the shower. The drainage pipe in the shower unit turned out to be clogged with a great tangled, greasy plug of hairs. No doubt most of which came from Miss Stardust's wigs, which she insisted on shampooing and grooming in there. We had to dismantle the entire pipe to clear it. It was revolting.
The race started before we'd quite finished the job and we went down to watch it. Most of Frank's horses fell at the first jump, though one did manage to hang on until the final fence. By the time it was all over I was due to set off to collect Twinkles from work. Frank said he'd finish the shower job and let himself out. I'd told Twinks all this in the car on the way home, but he was too busy flicking through his new wedding magazine and exclaiming over the frocks to take in a word of what I was saying.
It transpired that Frank had indeed taken Teddy’s call and then forgotten to pass the message on. He was mortified and very apologetic saying he'd been so busy dwelling on the dismal performance of his gee-gees that it had slipped his mind. I told him not to worry about it while Twinks told him he owed him the cost of the counselling it would take to help him get over the trauma of missing out on a party.
Frank redeemed himself by calling round on Sunday evening with a 'compensatory mini party' comprising a couple of packs of beer, a bottle of vodka, a large bag of crisps, a hotdog sausage on a stick and a box of party poppers. Twinkles took the opportunity to turn it into a looking through bridal magazines party and utilised Frank as his audience. Poor Frank, he was more than a bit nonplussed at first. However, as the booze flowed he relaxed and even began to show some enthusiasm. The more he drinks the stronger his accent becomes:
“I like this one, Twinks man, it's luvly. I like that glittery stuff all ower it, mind she's showing a bit of chest there like. If you went for that one you'd have to be careful not to let your bosoms drop oot.”
Twinks grabbed the opportunity to do a bit of straight man baiting.
“Would you catch my bosoms if they tumbled loose from their moorings, Frank. In fact would you like to hold one now, they're quite tame. They won't bite you.”
“Tarn, man, I divn't knaw how you put up with this bugger, you deserve a medal.”
They ended up cutting out bits and bobs from different magazines and pasting them together to create their own perfect bride, not so much Frankenstein's bride as Frankentwinks' bride.
“What do you think of these shoes, Frankie, divine or what?”
“Aye, they're canny like, Twinks, very canny, but I'll be honest and say ah don't think they compliment that particular dress particularly well. Ah think they'll go much better with that dress in that other magazine. That one with the big bow on the back, remember? The bride was standin' next to that gadgie in the dodgy velvet suit.”
When the perfect bride had been assembled Frank, who by then had moved from drinking beer to drinking Twinkle size vodka cocktails, was totally overcome with inebriated teary-eyed emotion, claiming she reminded him of Katie on their wedding day (or worlass as he calls her). He set us laughing with a colourful description of how he got drunk at the reception and had to be helped up to the hotel bridal suite by Katie, his Best Man and the Chief Bridesmaid, none of who were completely sober themselves. Poor Katie had to sleep in her wedding dress as it had tiny buttons all down the back and he was too drunk to undo them for her.
He's a nice man and just how nice was for me exemplified when he cleared his throat and tentatively asked about the possibility of Gabby, or ‘worbairn’ as he calls her, being a bridesmaid at our ceremony. He said she had been hankering after being a bridesmaid for a while and kept coming home talking about the bonny dresses in Twinkles’ magazines. He even offered to pay for her dress and flowers. The thing is, Twinks and I had talked about asking Gabby to be a bridesmaid, but had felt uncertain about broaching the subject with her parents, fearful of putting them in an awkward and embarrassing position. The truth is that not many are comfortable with the idea of a gay wedding. Relatively few people seem willing to acknowledge the rights of two people of the same sex to make a declaration of love and commitment before witnesses and have it recognised in law, along with all the 'privileges' that go with it.
We were touched by his request on his daughter's behalf, which also seemed like an acknowledgement and acceptance of our right to marry. We explained the reason we hadn't asked and Frank was genuinely upset that we had feared he would object to his daughter being a bridesmaid because we were homosexuals. Only with Frank being three sheets to the wind and his accent on full power, it came out as ‘hyemasexwalls.’ Twinks put a hand on Frank's shoulder and solemnly asked him to say it again. Frank told him to bugger off and then we all collapsed laughing (you had to be there)
Before he staggered homewards Frank made me solemnly swear that I would never let on what he had been up to that evening. “Tarn man, if it ever got oot that I'd been lookin' at women's dresses with a fella that likes to wear them, ah'd never live it doon.”
I promised that my lips would remain sealed.
I suppose now is as good a time as any to announce that Twinkles and I have set a date for our Civil Partnership ceremony. We're getting hitched on the third of June. S
etting the date was the end result of the tumult I mentioned many moons ago, or so it feels. I still haven't got time to relate the details as I'm off to get my hair cut now, then it'll be time to go pick up Twinks from work. We're then going out for a meal with Karen and Paul this evening by way of celebrating Karen's birthday.
14th April 2006: Spring Has Slung
The weather on this Good Friday has been lovely, very bright if still a bit on the chilly side. While Twinks was yet abed this morning I gave the lawns their first mowing of the year and also tidied the borders. The bulbs I planted last autumn are making a good show and glamming up the garden with their bright colours.
I was feeling very self-satisfied with my productive morning and enjoying a well-earned coffee when himself staggered out of bed and came trundling into the kitchen wearing nothing but pink mules, a purple boa and a grumpy expression. He sneezed and promptly accused me off setting off his hay fever with my obsessive gardening. He then demanded I make him some breakfast.
I suggested the feathers in his boa were responsible for the sneezing. I demanded recognition and praise for my efforts in the garden, requested a more civil greeting plus a kiss and suggested he go and put some clothes on in case Gabby climbed over the wall to pay us a visit, her being off school for the Easter holidays. He complied very sweetly, so I made him a late breakfast and me an early lunch. He then went off shopping with Lulu and Kevin leaving me to enjoy some peace and quiet.
I'm lying on our bed writing this while he gets ready for the PP. He likes me to be on hand in case he requires the services of a valet well versed in handling buttons, bows laces etc and of course to dole out compliments on demand. Judging from the look on his face and some of his comments, he's working up to a tantrum with regard to the new dress he bought today. It isn't teaming as well as it ought with some of the accessories he bought it to team with, which is very unsporting of it. Yes that does mean he has financial freedom and charge of his bank account once again. It was another end result of our recent tumult, which I will tell of eventually, I promise, but not now because the new frock has just been unzipped, dropped and is about to be slung. It’s time to do some bud nipping.