Induced trauma, value for money

Here in Barton, there was drama earlier. An alien cat entered the house and was dining at Delia’s expense. Fortunately, Delia is going blind and is already quite deaf, thus, she didn’t notice. However, Liz is neither of these things, and she did notice. And she did chase that alien cat with noise and much bravery. It was like a scene from an action movie - only with a slipper instead of a big gun. Anyway…

Following Friday’s news from Emma of real relationship turmoil it was no surprise that further news dribbled forth across the weekend:-

Saturday early evening: Despite the light ‘I’m getting ready to go out’ tone of the text message, there was a non-specific reference to “heavy talk with Ed this afternoon”. ‘Hmm’ thought I.
Mid Saturday evening: Emma texts to say that she’s stopped drinking as she is on solo looking-after-Alex-duty on Sunday. Siobhan (and family) turn out to be noisy heavy drinkers. The message ends “Wd hv bn good 2 c u. Em.x” That was the first casual ‘x’ that had been added to a message of any kind from her, thus I replied with an equally casual “Glad u r entertained by pro’s. If u & boy fancy look out tmw I’m in Barton 2pm-. Shane. And a ‘x’ 2 u 2”. I think that took the edge off the x.

Received a further message 1:30pm Sunday advising that Emma would land alone at 4pm (no ‘x’ this time). Ed had returned to London, maternal grand-parents had come to the afternoon rescue. Thus, Emma was surprised to land for a very well-organised afternoon tea. As shitty timing would have it, she’d been here for all of five minutes when I got a call from chum Cornish Ian – we’d been missing each other’s calls for about a fortnight (he hates mobiles), didn’t feel I could let him go. I got a nod from Emma to take the call. Thus, for most of the next hour Marie and Pete faced a gentle afternoon grilling from Emma - she asks a lot of questions. They all got on, as I knew they would. I finished my call just in time to say “ta ta” to an amused Emma. My parting gambit was a simple “You must call round again some time - it’s always good to ignore you”. And that was that. Probably good that we didn’t do heavy talk - I suspect a breather from that was what she needed most. Later, I commented to Pete and Marie that she hadn’t struck me as someone who was having an awful time. The response from Pete: “That’s cos she wasn’t”, followed quickly by Marie’s “We’re fucking good value for money thank you very much - and you can tell your blog that too”. And so I have.

Other than that, the main event from the weekend was taking in the football match Aston Villa v Arsenal on Saturday evening. First time I’d been to Villa Park. Arsenal well worth the 3-1 win. My sidekick that evening proved to be the forthcoming work project that I’d hoped he’d be – I am installed as a personal advisor (‘life-coach’ to you and I) for a period of 6 months. We will meet once per month until August. More please!

I hear the cry of a traumatised cat.