Wet and Squishy

Yep - it must be the middle of the summer, because it's grey and yucky and cold. We have had, it seems, an endless parade of rainy shitty days lately. A few days it has rained all day, and lately, it's been alternating between clear and absolutely pissing it down with giant buckets of rain. On the plus side, it's very green out - all the nasty crunchy deadness of spring seems to have washed away. It does kind of make cycling a bit difficult though. I was supposed to gym today after work, but got caught in an enormous downpour. I was so wet I actually had to dump out my shoes. Not surprisingly, I went home so I could take a hot shower - nothing like shivering in the middle of July. Oh well - better than drought.

Speaking of bike, I recently bought two new "puncture resistant" tires (tyres). Yeah right. The first one blew out the sidewall when I got it to about 60 psi. The second one lasted a bit longer. I decided to suffer through having two different tires on my bike until I could decide what to do. Fortunately, I didn't have to suffer long. The second one (on the back) hit some invisible object in the middle of a very busy intersection and deflated over the course of about two secondds, leaving me with the great pleasure of walking home, through a bad neigbhborhood, in the increasing dark. I did try returning the first one to the bike store. I still had the label but not the receipt. The nice older guy who first helped me was going to do the return, but the pimple faced jackass store manager wouldn't allow it, because there was no receipt. So, I just dropped the tire on the floor and walked out. Little pimply faced shit. Hmph!

Oh, in a sure indication that David and I are becoming way too domesticated, we went to the Hampton Court Flower Show. Talk about middle class Middle England! We played a fun game of "spot the ethnic minority" and had a lovely time ooing and ahhing over the show gardens and displays of flowers. Now, if we could only get our tiny garden to look like that.

Hmm- I'm sure there is something else exciting going on, but my brain seems to be tapioca at the moment and I can't think of what it is.

I suppose, in other world shattering news, we are going to actually get a dining table tomorrow, and maybe even some chairs to go with it! We still don't have any curtains on the downstairs front window, and God only knows when we'll actually get anything painted. Manana manana...

Oh, I know - vaguely amusing to me... Last weekend Robin's friend Mike was over here from Munich. Mike is an absolute sweety who owns a sex store. Last weekend was Fetish Weekend in London (I'm sure it made all the newspapers). I thought about going out - getting all dressed up in tiny little rubber shorts and big black boots (I am either proud or embarrassed to admit that I own a tiny little pair of rubber shorts, but that's another story). ANYWAY, it was Fetish Weekend, with a number of clubs and bars having big events (lots of men and some women, mostly in leather or rubber, some uniforms... Many of them take it just a little too seriously, but really - it's all grownups playing dressup - I think it's fun). So, Robin and Mike went out, but I was feeling boring, so I did not. I'm sure our street was amused at Mike's hairy ass peeking out of his leather chaps as they walked down the road, but then, this is a pretty gay neighborhood - I'm sure they have seen worse. What a fun little weird gay household I live in... :-)

Not much else - I've got some recent pics, including flower show (not Fetish Weekend), but I'm too lazy to upload them at the moment.

Oh oh oh, I know the other thing... We all went to listen to Gillian Weir play the organ at St Paul's Cathedral. There were also several choirs and the Birmingham Symphony (I think it was the Birmingham Symphony - there were a lot of people playing a lot of instruments and it sounded vaguely classical... ;-) They packed St Paul's (and that's a lot of people), and we got to sit up under the dome, which was pretty fantastic. The audience - old people and gay men. It's funny how often those two groups will be together. And we just paid a shitload of money to go see Dolly Parton in September. Apparently it's her last concert, and it is selling very quickly. I absolutely can't wait - I've never seen Dolly in concert, though I have been to Dollywood... I can't even begin to imagine what that audience will be like, but it will also, most likely, be absolutely crammed to the rafters with gay men. We're everywhere.

How fabulous.