Christmas, Sorted

Xfe and I just returned from a pleasant weekend at his in-laws (my parents). I don't think that he believed me in advance, but it was the first time ever that I'd brought a boyfriend/lover/partner to my parents house-ever-in my life.


the view from the top of Cairn O'Mount, looking directly over my parents' house and to the North Sea

It has been a long journey for my parents. My being gay was very difficult for them at first. Eventually, they would visit my home with my partner. First my mother, then my father. It meant many Christmases apart. Me apart from my parents. Me apart from my partner. One parent apart from another.


Here comes the rain again...you see the wall of rain, coming in sheets...

Eventually my parents were able to come and visit us, our house-mine and my partner's. And a few years ago, Christmas was spent here in London. My parents, my partner and I.


yet, here, protected by Lochnagar, the rain is partitioned...

I'd been with Xfe for over a year before my parents knew about him. They met him in February, at my party in Paris, for the very first time. It was even better that I thought-my brother, my parents and I had all been out, touring. They went back to the hotel, and I went to get some medicine from the chemist for my brother's partner who had been resting at the hotel under the weather (I think she had too much by way of celebration the evening before). Mon C had been working in Paris that day, but had finished early. By the time I got back, he was in the Georges V bar with my parents, the introductions done, without me.

Long story short....we all needed to realise we were family. On the back of that weekend's happy vibe I asked (knowing it would be fine) my mother if I could bring mon C home. She realised herself that it was about time. So this was our weekend for it. We had a lovely time. We did all the things I asked. My father took us all the highland places I'd asked him to take us to. In short, they treated him like my partner*.


Mon C and Fern, with Loch Muick behind (pronounced Loch Mick).

When we were in the Alps a couple of weeks ago, visiting my in-laws, I did hear Xfe start mentioning Christmas to gauge his mother's reaction. Cut to this weekend I asked mon C if it was a runner, and he said it was sorted his end.


And so, the rain arrives...

So, this year it's Christmas with my parents (at theirs). Next year with his...and so on. Now, none of us loose out.


*small steps. We still slept in separate beds, albeit in the same room.

plus ça change...

Well, in between I got a little bored of not tapping on something.

So, I wrote some other blogs. Stuff that wasn't me. But I really missed having a record of what happened when, my journal as it were.

And, OK, I admit it-I missed my blogging buddies (even though they had a night out it seems, and chose not to invite me).

It seemed silly to start the same thing again. Besides, I bought a spanking new camera and a spanking silly-super new Mac, with nothing better to do...

So, I decided that it was better to come back home, rather than start anew. But, remember, I am a new man. So demand the new (though expect the same old...)

Oh, and on the subject of the new Mac, don't we make the handsome married couple? just like the gay Posh and Becks.

By The Water, For The Heat

Yes, Summer in the City has arived. And, so, it's time to cool off elsewhere. To seek refuge. By the lake...



We're back in France. In Annecy for Bastille Day.

...boat, non obligé...



..in the mountains, of course...



A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there

Embankment

Summer in the city, at last!



Some joggers enjoying the lunchtime sun.

Sombrero

Last night we went to Sadler's Wells to see Phillipe Decouflé’s latest work Sombrero.

...Sombrero - in which the choreographer himself dances - sees him playing with images of light and shadow, with the intense heat of the sun employed as a central theme. Decouflé creates captivating and magical images using a blend of both old-fashioned theatricality and high-tech video trickery.

Sombrero is a funny, entertaining, moving and magical experience that looks set to be a real treat for Decouflé fans and newcomers alike...

from sadlerswells.com

Technically, the dancing was competent to good, though the idea and execution was the real gem. Dancers, dancing with their shadow-sometimes other dancers, digital or video projection. So very well done that, on occasion, the viewer wasn't really sure if the shadow was genuine or false-be it dancer or digital.

There was clever use of shadow trickery. On the whole the production was fairly satisfying.

However the French actress and actor (who was the worse of the two) pigeon English, heavily accented (so that it was incomprehensible most of the time) who delivered the prologue, and some commentary throughout should have done so in French. Xfe couldn't understand their English because of the accent. That probably went for the rest of the French people in the audience.

Dinner@The Fish Shop

After the show (which finished at 9pm) we went for dinner at The Fish Shop on St John St.

That was rather disappointing. We had a lovely table in a fine loking restaurant. We were served pretty quickly. We had pre-starter platters of whelks and of marinated mussels. The whelks had been cooked some time before and left in a warm over, or under a heat lamp. Those parts exposed from the shell were dry and rubber, with the eye baked on to the end. The mussels weren't much better.

For starter we each had soup. I had the fish chowder, which I thought was going to be smoked haddock and salmon-though I might have imagined that. When it came it was more disintegrated parts of salmon than haddock, and certainly there was no smokiness about it. No corn certainly, and a watery consistency, certainly not creamy. Bland and disappointing.

My main was the monkfish in bacon. Once again, it was tough and rubbery. Overcooked, left under a heat lamp. And we had to wait about 45 minutes for our main!

The cost was £88 for the two of us which included a bottle of rose (well, it is summer, and service-12.5% optional.