In The Dark

Coming second in favour of a train in Robbie's affections wasn't such a big surprise, but last night I found that I came second to Network Rail - now that was a surprise! He'd promised to be home by 8pm but there was no sign of Robbie, just a text to say he wouldn't be too late; it's a good thing that the cat is good company or I would start to feel neglected! I lost track of time and when I looked at the clock it was well past 11pm, so I expect him to ring fairly soon asking for a lift from the station. Some time later the phone rang, it was Robbie, but he was totally incoherent, I couldn't make sense of anything he was saying. When I had calmed him down and reminded him of the need to take a breath it became clear that he was lost. He had set out to walk to Birmingham International Station, but the route he knew was locked and in the course of searching for another way into the station he had got lost. I gave him some practical things to do and when he rang me back he had got to the station but by then he had missed his last train. There was one last train to Coventry due soon after midnight, so we agreed that he would get that and then get a taxi from Coventry to Rugby.

While the intrepid traveller was tackling the next stage of his journey, I set out for Rugby in the car. It was a very strange journey, familiar routes seem so different in the dark. I got to Rugby just before 1am and I didn't have to wait too long for Robbie to turn up. He seemed very subdued, maybe he expected me to be angry, but it seemed pointless to be cross, after all he didn't do it on purpose. We saw two foxes on the way back as well as other assorted wildlife, but the only thing I was interested in seeing was my bed. It was almost 2am when we finally got home, Robbie made me a cup of tea, but I was so tired that I was asleep before the tea arrived.

When the alarm clock went off at 5am I was so sleepy that I really didn't want to get up, but Robbie was determined not to be late for his meeting - with Network Rail. After last night I think they must be extending their sphere of influence, I have become accustomed to their various strategies to delay trains and inconvenience passengers, but they managed to delay Robbie before he even got to the train!

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.!

Home Again - Briefly

Robbie arrived home just after 8pm and talked about trains. How does he do that, he seems to be able to talk for hours without ever pausing for breath. He didn't take the hint when I gave him a warning stare so I told him loud and clear NO TRAINS - so he talked about railway people instead!

I really wanted to be cross with him because he only phoned me a couple of times while he was away, but it is really hard to be cross with him for very long. It would have been nice if he had managed to tell me that he had missed me, to be fair he did mention it, but it only took up half a sentence compared with his long and detailed account of being presented with the wrong brand of Marmalade at breakfast!

Almost as soon as he got home Robbie was busy getting his clothes and 'stuff' ready for his trip away this weekend. It was one of those days where everything seems to get in the way and stop you getting on with things so we were both still up when the news of Michael Jackson's death was announced. It is sad when anyone dies before their time especially when they leave young children. It is probably because I am not very interested in music that his career has more or less passed me by, I knew who he was of course, but I couldn't name any of his songs, but I know that he has many fans who will be devastated by his untimely death. It is sad, I suspect that for all his money and fame he has not had a happy life.

Robbie went off to work this morning loaded with his luggage for the weekend, I will not see him again until sometime on Sunday, so I will just have to enjoy my own company until then!

A Quiet Life - I Wish!

I love animals and I couldn't imagine not having pets, but I am starting to think that they are giving me a hard time this week. With Robbie away I intended to enjoy the peace and quiet and make the most of being able to get up a little later, unfortunately when it comes to being noisy early in the morning Robbie has some rivals. At about 5.15am every morning a group of Canada geese fly over on there way from one lake to another and they honk loudly. It is nice that we have two beautiful parks within walking distance and it is nice that they attract wildlife, but why do they need to get up so early! Yesterday it was so loud that I am sure each bird looked into the open window and hooted extra loud as they went past. At least the geese go away, the crow that hangs out in the tree opposite my bedroom window stays there for hours on end making the most dreadful noise, leaving me in bed wide awake thinking of ways to silence a crow!

When I went out to put the bins out early in the morning a bird flew into my face as I walked back towards the house. It really hurt, I hope the bird was OK, I think it was a starling or something of that size, it flew off before I could get a good look at it.

The cats have been causing trouble too, Oreo jumped out of Laura's bedroom window onto the paved area of the garden below. I was terrified, I expected him to be badly injured or dead and I raced downstairs to get to him. I opened the back door and he strolled in looking completely untroubled by his adventure. Not to be outdone by the cats Megan also made her presence felt, she rolled in something unspeakable and she stank. When I mentioned the 'B' word she looked pathetic, I washed the offending area, but I decided to postpone her bath until Sunday - Robbie can do it!

Signal Failure?

He really is a slow learner! There was absolute silence all day yesterday, no texts, no phone calls, nothing. I went to bed at a few minutes to midnight and I was sound asleep when the phone rang. It was Robbie, totally oblivious of the time. I had a moan about the lack of contact and he said that there is no signal downstairs, but higher up in the building he can get a signal. On a believability scale that is poor, so poor that it is almost Network Rail rail standard! I was too sleepy to want to talk much especially when there was a danger of straying onto the subject of trains at any moment. I ended the conversation and settled down to sleep again with a crazy image in my mind of all the people at Robbie's meeting wandering around waving their phones in the air trying to get a signal!

Not having Robbie around has it's compensations, it is much quieter and I get to do as I like. I had liver and bacon yesterday, it is my favourite meal but I hardly ever have it because Robbie doesn't like it. I also got two extra hours in bed this morning, I didn't need to get up until 7am, I could get used to that!

Only a Man Would ......................

I drove home yesterday evening, swung round and reversed my car onto the drive; a manoeuvre that I have done so often that I could almost do it in my sleep. I was surprised to find that I was at least a foot away from the hedge, someone had widened the drive while I was out! I looked again, Robbie had cut the hedge (at long last) and it made the drive so much wider. It was a relief to get the hedge cut but if he thought that would get him out of the doghouse he was sadly mistaken. Even if he had cut every hedge in the county it would not have been enough, I am absolutely furious with him. He didn't tell me that he was disappearing for almost a week because he knew I wouldn't be happy about it. Only a man would think it was better to let me find out by accident at the last minute, and only Robbie would think that doing a job that he should have done weeks ago was an acceptable apology!

When I say he has cut the hedge, he has cut the side next to the drive and he has cut the top of the hedge on drive side, but the other side of the hedge is in serious need of attention and the way he has cut the top has left it looking very odd, as if it has a Mohican hair style! He could have finished cutting it at the weekend if he'd been at home, but by the time he gets around to it, the top will be so high that it will probably require a scaffolding platform to reach it!

Oh well, he has gone now and I will only see him once between now and Sunday night, that should give me plenty of time to get rid of all his railway magazines and stash all his model trains in the loft. I have a few other things in mind too ...................... but he will have to wait and see!

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.

Coming Second

Robbie is going to dump me again, I know it and he knows that I know, but I am not going to make it easy for him. It all started when he opened his post yesterday evening, I could see him getting twitchy and I knew he had something to say, but Robbie is not to good at getting to the point. The next couple of hours were spent with him edging around the subject and not actually finding the courage to come right out with it. I was busy filling in student finance forms for Laura, not exactly fun at the best of times and it involved me trawling through a load of old income records so I was becoming increasingly frustrated. It wasn't the ideal time for Robbie to try his luck.

First he mentioned that our holiday dates clashed with a diesel gala again and when I didn't respond he told me how much he loved going to Barrow Hill. Then the word Deltic seemed to crop up in every other sentence, and when he still got no response he plodded across the room to show me the leaflet for the diesel gala at Barrow Hill. Once again he told me what bad timing it was because it was the day we go on holiday to Norfolk. When I glanced at the leaflet and told him not to worry because once you have seen one diesel you have seen them all, I thought he would burst. After a few more heavy hints he gave up and fell asleep with his nose on the keyboard of the laptop, but you can be sure that the same subject will crop up again and again. He has set his heart on going to Barrow Hill, so one way or another that will involve me going on holiday without a husband (again!). Maybe I will have to find a replacement for when the real Robbie isn't available!

Confession Time

Yesterday Robbie rang me at about 8.30am, he usually phones at around that time. He said that he was in London and he wanted to say hello before dashing off to his meeting in Cambridge. I asked him how long his journey to Cambridge would take in total, it was an innocent enough question but t elicited some interesting confessions from Robbie. First came the rather sheepish question "What, including breakfast and meeting friends?" He had been to visit his old friends at Euston, and apparently his three Weetabix wasn't sufficient to sustain him until lunch so he had to have a second breakfast! Then came the confession, he made me get up in the middle of the night and miss the end of my dream because he wanted to go on a Voyager! He could have travelled over an hour later but the lure of the diesel apparently justified the early start! In an attempt to distract me he told me what we could have for breakfast when we go on a Pendolino. That man, if he isn't thinking about trains he is thinking about food!!

Lost for Words!

I was cross when Robbie woke me up this morning, I am never to keen to get up but today I was annoyed because I was having a dream about moving house and he made me miss the ending. I don't know where I was moving too or why I was moving, but I was angry with one of the removal men and I was just in the middle of telling him that I had employed him for his muscle power not for his oppinions and if he couldn't conduct himself properly he could take his spurs and leave because there are plenty of other cowboys who would be glad to get the work. That is when Robbie woke me, just as I was starting to enjoy it! I have no idea why I had that dream, I haven't moved house for 18 years and I have no plans to move. When I stopped to think about it, I realised it was 18 years almost to the day since we moved, but I hadn't thought about that before the dream. Spooky!

Anyway Robbie was very organised this morning because he is going to Cambridge via London today. I upset him by suggesting that it would probably be much easier to travel by coach instead, he was horrified by the suggestion and he informed me in no uncertain terms that people who work for train companies do not travel by coach. I could have reminded him that thanks to Network Rail, most regular rail travellers frequently find themselves travelling by coach. I didn't say any of that because my composure crumbled and all my attention was focussed on trying not to laugh. Robbie was standing there hands on hips looking deeply indignant wearing only a pair of socks and a tie! It was only later that I wondered why anyone would put on their tie before their shirt!