Lou is off to India soon and her parents are up in Birmingham. I’m glad we found space for her to go and see them today.
First we stopped in Bakewell so she could see her cousins. They have a brilliant whisky shop there. We bought a couple of bottles – I got two and Lou got one for her dad. Why not tick over her cousin’s business? It’s a great shop.
Then down to her parents. We couldn’t hang with her parents too long though as we needed to be back in Brighton for her cat. It was good to see them though. Carpe Diem and all that.
The sun fell on two people who had enjoyed a lovely day together, and covered a lot of ground. “One day at this time in summer we’ll be in a car together in a beautiful place and it’ll still be light,” said Lou at ten past seven. “We’ll have to remember this cold dark evening and realise how lucky we are,” I smiled back as the M25 rattled past underneath us. It was about to get a lot colder and darker.
It started raining. Visibility dropped. Google maps sent us up a funny slip road because of debris reports. About five minutes later we were both being absolute arseholes to each other for no discernable reason, and since then, for hours now, we haven’t been able to get the atmosphere back to anything approaching peaceable and it’s bedtime. Apparently now I have to have a bath. It’ll probably help to scrub some of the negativity off, frankly, but the immersion takes an hour to heat the water. I very nearly just went back to London while I still had the energy, and I wish I had, really, because the fact I didn’t make good on that instinct means I’m “being dramatic” (I’m an actor you see) rather than just wanting to get out of a toxic atmosphere and being too tired to drive two hours. I keep on writing/deleting about details but honestly it’s pointless so I’m gonna splash warm water on myself and then turn in and see if we can sleep next to each other with all this bad adrenaline. I think Tessy might be in my place too. I’m not sure I’d fit in her little heated circle so I might have to turf her out.
AlBarclay 