I was reading a thread on a forum the other day about the things that people are anal about, it made me laugh out loud because the very first post could have been describing Robbie.
"....he emerges from the bathroom holding the toothpaste asking who has failed to squeeze from the bottom of the tube!"
As I read on I realised that so many of the posts could have been describing Robbie. Someone wrote about their partner driving them mad by constant checking and commenting on railway and bus timetables. Surely there can't be anyone else as bad as Robbie for doing that - or do all train planners take their quail maps to bed with them?
Another common theme was having to have tea or coffee made in exactly the right way. Robbie is impossible about the way his coffee has to be made and he criticises me every time I make coffee for him, so I find it easier to let him make it himself.
Robbie even has strong opinions about the loo roll! According to him it unrolls more efficiently if the end is on top rather than underneath. I don't think I even notice which way round it is, why would anyone obsess about anything so trivial?
In the interest of fairness I should perhaps admit to the one thing mentioned that I am obsessive about - black ink! Blue ink should never ever be used, black
looks so much nicer. Robbie is into pens in a big way, especially Parker pens, he could talk forever about all the different designs - and if anyone borrows his pens it is a hanging offence!
When I first met Robbie I thought it was odd that he counted the stairs every time he went up or down, but I soon realised that was mild, Robbie counts everything. This evening I caught him counting the increasing revs on the washing machine spin cycle, he could tell the speed just by listening to it and when it reached the maximum speed of 1400 he got so excited - seriously weird and more than a little autistic!
Robbie has been a bit challenging recently. In fact he was so challenging yesterday that I asked him if he liked the idea of having red hair – because if he carried on like that I would be seriously tempted to bury an axe in his head! Network Rail has been annoying him again and when they start messing around with his timetables it always makes him like this. I had to ban him from talking about Network Rail in the end because his language was far from moderate. I guess I should have just introduced a swear box, he would have been bankrupt within an hour. It must be very frustrating to have to deal with Network Rail every day, but when he gets home he needs to learn to forget about it. On the subject of frustration, he gets really cross with himself because his legs have been very painful lately and it makes everything just a bit more difficult. I guess my job is to help him to keep everything in perspective.
Having decided against the axe, I was left with only one way to silence Robbie – to feed him! I made him some Rice Crispy Cakes (one of his favourites) because a couple of weeks ago he had mentioned that he would like some. I also made him some rice pudding because he and Sam like it; we don’t usually have a dessert so he needn’t think I’m going to make a habit of making puddings. He was too cross with himself to be appreciative, the rice pudding was too dry and the Rice Crispy cakes didn’t have enough chocolate – when did Robbie become Jamie Oliver! A frank exchange of views became necessary and afterwards he was considerably more appreciative.
This morning he was running late and he got himself into a mega strop. His world stopped because someone had stolen his pants – why would anyone want them! He was just looking in the wrong place, but that put his whole morning routine out and things went from bad to worse, he spilled coffee on his tie, lost his travel mug - and his temper! I gave him a lift to the station to help him to catch up with himself and he gradually calmed down. He admitted that there is another cause to his frustration – his Model Rail magazine has not been delivered on time! It sounds trivial, but to Robbie it really is a big deal, you should hear him going on about it. I got a smile out of him in the end when he admitted that he has found his own way of cheering himself up – he’s going to a diesel gala at the week end. Well, at least he’s predictable!
It has been a strange morning. Long before 6am Robbie came to sit on the bed to chat about trains. Apparently he has been offered the chance to be involved with another charter trip, he rambled on about tractors, but I'm fairly sure he was talking about engines rather than Massey Ferguson's or John Deere's. He wanted his pass signed and he obviously thought he would need to grovel, but at that time of the morning I wasn't too interested in what he was planning to do, it was the free 'respite' that attracted my attention. I readily agreed, in fact I even asked if he could stay a bit longer!
I took Emily to Kettering station at just after 6am and Robbie came with us as he was heading for a meeting in London. He talked non stop about train timetables all the way to Kettering and every attempt to shut him up proved futile. Just before I dropped them off at Kettering Robbie announced that it was his 10th anniversary, ten years since he started working for CrossCountry. The journey to Kettering was OK but the journey back was more challenging because thick fog had developed in the short time since I drove there, I don't enjoy driving in fog.
I received an excited phone call from Robbie when he got to St Pancras. Believe it or not he actually rang just to tell me that the toilets at the station were now free!! He obviously took full advantage of the facilities because he described them in great detail. My week will be so much better for knowing that!
It was Robbie's turn to make me feel old this morning. I had an itch on my back and was directing him to the right spot with 'up a bit, left a bit, down a fraction, fire' and the inevitable reference to the Golden Shot. He claimed that he had never heard of the Golden Shot and asked if it was a ship! How can he possibly have no childhood memories of numerically challenged Anne Aston and the mysterious 'Bernie the Bolt'. OK having checked, I admit that Robbie was only 3 when the last series was screened, I suppose it is a bit much to expect him to remember it!
http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/tv/variety/goldenshot.htm
It turned out that Robbie had a cunning plan. In a devilish strategy worthy of Baldrick he told me about a recent conversation with an acquaintance of his who seems to think that enjoyment can only be achieved by a night on the razzle and is disdainful of people who find more enjoyable ways to fill their free time. We were just pondering on the inevitable consequences of his behaviour - brewers droop, and we agreed that he needed to grow up and find some less anti social interests. Quick as a flash Robbie seized his opportunity and requested a 'day pass' to go to Barrow Hill to the I had to laugh, his planning was incredible. He then lost the plot and gave me a minute by minute account of his proposed travel arrangements (including a time allowance for breakfast!). My interest had waned before he had travelled beyond Wellingborough, honestly, Saturday morning with my husband and we have to have a monologue on the intricacies of train timetables! He gradually became aware of my frustration, maybe the fact that I was ready to batter him gave him a clue! In an attempt to redeem himself he suggested an overnight trip to Newquay. I was quite tempted, but I was mystified by his desire to break the return journey with lunch and shopping in Plymouth. I know Plymouth well but the shops are nothing special and we wouldn't have time to get to the Barbican and back. It didn't make sense until he admitted that it would enable him to travel on a more 'interesting' train back to Birmingham! He's impossible.
This afternoon found us heading off in the car to see my mum. Robbie sat in the passenger seat engrossed in the National Rail Timetable which he had decided to bring out for a ride. Kids have teddy bears and security blankets, Robbie has Quail maps and timetables! His excuse for reading it on this occasion was to work out the best route to Leicester because Emily has to go for a university visit in a couple of weeks. He could easily have looked it up at work tomorrow, but he uses any excuse to drag that massive timetable around with him. The good news was that we don't have to go via the dreaded Birmingham New Street, the bad news was that Robbie plunged himself into despair when he recalled that he will soon have to survive without his beloved timetable in book form, as in future it will only be available online. I had not thought of Robbie as a Luddite before, but he is certainly not happy with this particular manifestation of progress.
