Lou will be in Newcastle tomorrow night. She was in Rotherham last night. But somehow it makes more sense for her to have come home for tonight so I’m writing to you from bed with her to my left and Tessy aggressively colonising the part of the bed where I might need to put my feet later. She went for me when I was drying my foot earlier so I’m gonna have to negotiate this bed thing extremely carefully. She’s a beautiful cat but not if you value your hands.
I picked Lou up in her own car at the coach stop at Old Steine and we drove up to Fiveways to eat a late lunch at a little Italian place – my reward for slamming it down here last night. Then we went for a walk up the hill in Hollingdean wood. It’s a steep wooded path enclosed by housing estates but there’s a bit of history and a bit of nature under all the noise. There’s golf on the top there, and it’s a good place for a course, with so much wind and air and light. It was wild.
“You can see the Isle of Wight from here if it isn’t foggy,” said Lou, making space for a dad joke. ‘I can see it!” “Can you?” “White? Yes.” Aha. Aha ha. Aha haha. You see because it’s white, fog. You see? Sounds like Wight? White?
We somehow managed to get lost even though it is tiny up there. We were happy to schlep around though, plenty of grass, plenty of trees and my body is finally detoxifying having had two weeks off the poison now. I started to feel hungover from all the walking. I think maybe it would be a good thing to take Brian up on his offer of joining him at boxing. I’m getting to the stage now where I’m pissed off enough to find my targets.
Tomorrow morning will be an early start. I’m wearing my good boyfriend hat and driving Lou two hours each way to meet the car to Newcastle tomorrow morning early. Much less faff than a coach for her and it’ll start my day. So we are bedding down early. Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise, my father used to say all too often. I still remember him bellowing “oh what a beautiful morning” every fucking morning at 6 as he went down to put the kettle on at Eyreton. He was probably all three of those things, so I guess he had a point. I’ve got some catching up to do with the last two in particular. Could definitely be fitter as well.
