If the shoe fits, buy it in every color! Author Unknown

Robbie abandoned me again on Wednesday because he'd had a better offer. How can I possibly compete with  his beloved trains, especially when it is something a bit unusual that can't be put off until another day. It would have been nice to have spent the day with him, but he bribed me with the promise that if I let him go he would take me out for lunch on Thursday. I had a nice time without him, I visited one of my favourite shops (but I didn't spend too much!) then I went to the park with my daughter. We bought an ice cream from the van, Gallone's make the best ice cream in the world! It was lovely in the shade of the big horse chestnut trees, we watched the children in the playground and reminisced about how much better the playground equipment used to be before 'health and safety' spoil the fun. She will be 21 in a couple of weeks, I couldn't help smiling when she said that things were so much better in 'her day'. I wonder how she will feel when she is my age.

Robbie kept his promise and took me out for a carvery lunch, it was lovely. We ate outside in a shady spot in the garden, after all those weeks of rain it is lovely to have some sunshine. I waited until after lunch to break the news to him that the cats had scratched his Dr Marten boots! His initial reaction was calm, especially when I offered to take him to the Doc Shop. He was over the moon with his new purchases, some English made pink shoes and some English made black 1461s with yellow stitching. He was more vocal when he got home and spoke to the cat, he called him a fat, furry, fatherless feline (among other things!).

Second Best

Robbie has been off on another rail tour this weekend. I wasn't keen on him going because his feet have been causing him a lot of pain lately, and of course I would prefer to have him at home at the weekend. He trotted off bright and early on Friday morning clutching his overnight bag and wearing his high visability jacket, he could hardly wait to get away. I got a couple of phone calls and a text or two, but once he gets on a train I come a very poor second. I was expecting him home early on Sunday, but to add insult to injury he stayed behind to clean a train. It is bad enough to be ignored in favour of a train, but when he even prefers a dirty old train to his wife I think it is time to give up!!

What Goes Down Will Not Go Up!

It is surprisingly quiet here Robbie is away on a course and I am feeling abandoned, he forgot to ring me last night.

This morning when I took Sam to school he opened the back passenger window of the car, he attempted to put it up again and it wouldn't do anything. So I am stuck with a window like the Grand Old Duke of York - its neither up nor down! This had to happen on a wet day, so I have had to cover the window with some plastic. I hope it will decide to work later on.

The Friday Blues

From Monday to Thursday I see very little of Robbie, he leaves for work at an indecently early hour so we don't have much to say in the way of meaningful conversation. By the time I get home at about 10.30 Robbie is feeling sleepy, but if I am lucky he manages to stay awake for half an hour or so without nodding off. I look forward to Fridays because I only do my writing work on Fridays, I don't have to work in the evening so Robbie and I can eat together and enjoy a relaxed evening. Well that is the theory anyway, every week Robbie manages to wreck it one way or the other, either he goes out to play trains, works late or he finds some social event or other that he absolutely has to attend. Every time he promises that next week it will be different but every Friday is monotonously similar, Robbie is conspicuous by his absence and I have to rely on the cat for intelligent conversation, he's a lovely cat but he's not very talkative!

Coming Second.

I spent another Saturday without Robbie, he did text a few times, but it doesn't really make up for not being here. I did ordinary things, a trip to the supermarket, housework, my writing work, feeding hungry animals and hungry people and other exciting tasks. Emily was busy packing to go on holiday to Cornwall first thing in the morning, I would love to be in Cornwall again.

Robbie sent me a text asking me if I would like to go to Glasgow on a rail tour, I thanked him but said no. If I go to Glasgow I want to go on a Pendolino, I don't see the point of going on an old train when you could go on a new one. Robbie thinks I am mad, but he is not really in the best position to judge, he is not exactly normality personified! He seemed to take great offense at my lack of good taste when it comes to trains and he tried to get me to change my mind, but in the end he gave up and said he would ring me a bit later on. I waited for his call, but by 2am I gave up and fell asleep.

A few days ago when I had objected to him going on this rail tour he reassured me that he would be home early on the Sunday morning, in time to make me a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich. I woke early on Sunday morning and I was looking forward to seeing Robbie again after almost a week away. I listened to the radio thinking that it wouldn't be long before he got home, time went on, I had my bath, made my own cup of tea and listened to the Archers, but still there was no sign of him. There were no texts, no phone calls, and no reply when I tried to contact him. Lunch time came and went and I got on with my ordinary routine, but I was increasingly worried and annoyed about the lack of contact. Finally sometime after 3.30pm Robbie phoned me with the usual set of excuses. He was too tired to phone last night, he overslept, his phone was dead, there are no payphones in Birmingham, he forgot to ring me.

What annoyed me most was that he thought I would be OK about it - I wasn't! I reminded him that he had been put on a final warning the last time he did this. He seemed to think it was all very trivial - I didn't! Everyone has their limits and he was about to discover mine! At just after 6pm I picked him up from the station.

I had plenty to say, but it resulted in me offering him a choice, me or the rail tours. When put like that it only took him a few minutes to decide - in favour of the rail tours! So he packed his things and I took him back to the station, with him telling me that I had given him an impossible choice. He didn't seem to understand that I found it deeply hurtful (but not surprising) to come second to a train! He plodded off to the platform feeling very hard done by. I waited in the car park and about ten minutes later I got a text saying "OK, you win!" and shortly afterwards he plodded back to the car. The silly thing is I don't want to 'win' I just want a lot more consideration.!

In the Dark

Words fail me. I am absolutely furious with Robbie. He went out yesterday and he came back with such a bad back that he didn't know what to do with himself, but he insisted on going to work today despite being in agony. I told him that one day of now to deal with the pain may prevent a longer absence later if he tries to keep going and does further damage. I should have saved my breath, I have had more meaningful conversations with with a goldfish!

In the course of conversation this morning he let slip that he was going away tomorrow until Thursday! I was really cross, he should have told me about it well in advance. He promised me that he would do all sorts of outstanding jobs if I let him go out this weekend, I let him go out but none of the jobs got done. So now he will go away tomorrow, turn up late on Thursday, go away again on Friday and not return until Sunday. He needs to watch out or he may find that I can manage without him! Mostly I am cross because he didn't tell me about his plans, I am not a mushroom and I don't appreciate being kept in the dark.

A Big Let Down

When I finish work on a Thursday evening I look forward to the weekend, I don't have work again until Monday so if Robbie gets home at a reasonable hour on Friday we can enjoy the evening together and we have Saturday and Sunday to look forward to. The problem is that one way or another Robbie always manages to snatch defeat fro the jaws of victory and our weekends often turn out to be miserable. But this weekend Robbie had promised not to be late home from work and I knew he had a dental appointment on Saturday so I hoped that this would turn out to be a nice couple of days. On Friday lunchtime when I went to Morrisons I was anticipating a good weekend - until I got a phone call from Robbie. He said he'd had an email offeringhim the chance to 'play trains' the following day, so he was ringing to ask me if he could go. For the first time ever I said no, not this time, because I wanted to spend some time with him.

He told me that he would be home on an earlier train and when I saw him I knew instantly that he had ignored me and agreed to go out to play. It took a bit of prodding but eventually he admitted it. It didn't create a very harmonious evening, he was gone before I woke on Saturday morning and I had no contact from him all day. I waited up until well past midnight because I thought he would be home and I didn't want to lock him out. In the end I gave up and went to bed, when I woke up he still wasn't home and there was no contact from him all day. I didn't know where they had gone on, but I thought he had mentioned going north, either the north had been annexed by a foreign power that was blocking phone signals or Robbie was avoiding me. I decided not to worry about it, I knew he would be home when people stopped feeding him! I was right, after two days of silence I had a series of texts as he summoned the courage to ask for a lift from the station. I'm still not overjoyed with him, more about the lack of communication than anything else. I have another week stretching ahead of me and I'm not going to bother looking forward to the weekends!

Men!

I have been abandoned for the weekend again because Robbie is off on another rail tour, he is going from somewhere in the north to somewhere else in the extreme north and back again. He left early this morning and he will be gone until Sunday evening. By that time 'as if by magic' the food shopping will have been done, the washing will be done and all the boring weekend tasks will have been delt with – and Robbie will get home and tell me how tired he feels! Men!!