The day after counselling

Shutdown

I lay curled up on the rug for perhaps an hour, before I became aware of my cold feet and feeling hungry. I made pizza and write the blog for yesterday.

I played mindless games on the tablet while Beetlejuice played unheeded on the television.

Despite taking a helper, sleep evaded me for some time, and when it came it, was disturbed. I eventually woke just after eight.

There were some messages from my husband.

I played more mindless games on the tablet and drank coffee for a little while, before going for a run.

Quiet time in Winchester

Surprisingly, I did slightly better than usual. Whether that is the little bit of testosterone or just the natural ebb and flow in my ability to run, is too early to say.

I decided to go to Winchester for the day to look at some things there. The city walls are impressive, however the runs weren’t that good really – a lot of it was closed due to instability in the structure. And I needed a pee, which was a shame because it was at least quiet there and I could otherwise have happily lay on the grass and just breathed for a while. So I had to go on the hunt for a toilet.

Bookshops!

Winchester has a a higher than usual number of bookshops, both for new and second hand books. I got distracted by two such places on the way to the loo. One has a beautiful bound sweet of nineteenth century chemistry books; I’m not a chemist but have I any interest in chemist, but the books really were beautiful. I didn’t succumb.

Having had a leak, I sat on the grass outside the cathedral and read for an hour. It was a busy area and one thing about my brain is that I really can’t deal with noisy people when I’m stressed, so I had to wear my nose cancelling headphones. They are very good, but the weather was hot and my ears got sweaty.

In the end I did buy a couple of books, one was an autobiography of Miriam Margolyes, the other is a book which promises to contain “simple stories in Spanish” to help me learn the language. I also bought several DVDs (four cartoons and one fantasy film).

Still scrambled

I bought open return tickets that meant I could catch any train to Southampton, this was so that I could avoid feeling rushed and stressed.

I had about a twenty minute wait for my train home. I found a seat, and put the carrier bag containing the books and DVDs down on the bench bedside me. I played a game on my phone until the train arrived.

There wasn’t much room on the train, so I had to stand. It was only a fifteen minute journey, so that was no hardship really,, although my feet were a bit achy after walking much of the day. I moved to adjust the carrier bag which had been on my shoulder … I’d left it on the platform!

This really isn’t like me. I am usually very good at not forgetting things like my bags, phone, keys, etc. It just shows how scrambled my brain still was.

Fortunately, this was a short journey and we’d not gone far. There was one stop before Southampton, so I switched trains there and returned to Winchester. My bag was in lost property. It seems that nobody is interested in stealing second year books and DVDs.

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Husband comes to tea again

Morning glory

Yesterday was my third testosterone pump. This morning I awoke with a stonking hard-on! I think I can safely say that the exercises I kept at while I was without hormones have kept erectile dysfunction at bay!

Yo hago paella

I didn’t have the recipe to have, so I made it up. Two and half chicken chicken thighs, a load of chorizo, freshwater prawns, king prawns, some salad peppers, some mini corn on the cob, some shallots, some mange tout, paprika, a little ginger (it needed something, and I didn’t have saffron), tomato puree, garlic, salt and pepper, chicken stock, and about 400g of risotto rice. It takes ages … but not as long as I’d like: the husband arrived not long after I started, but it was another hour before it was ready. Paella requires constant stirring sand topping up with water.

I had the cartoon version of Jungle Book on the telly while I cooked and was just dancing around to The Bear Necessities was he arrived. I let him in and went on mincing around like Baloo and singing the song. My favourite from the movie is I Wanna Be Like You.

He gave me a box containing something I’d ordered. He guessed what it contained.

We chatted a bit while we ate. Afterwards, I suggested that we went for a walk.

An intimate discussion about the sauna

I’m not going to break any confidences here by saying what we talked about exactly, however he felt a pang of jealousy, I felt glad that he’d had a good time. We both intend to do it again.

What is significant is that we are now an open relationship.

Or something.

We really need to decide if we’re a “thing” still or not. I believe that we are, but there needs to be that conversation, I’ve been thinking and writing about it a lot over the last few weeks – maybe months – longer than this “deadline” has existed for.

This weekend … actually on the anniversary of our meeting … is the date he say for making our minds up.

We danced around it a little this evening. I didn’t want to talk about it tonight because I simply wasn’t prepared: I will need to work from my notes while we talk. And make notes also. I cannot risk our discussion disappearing into thin air because my brain won’t hold it.

There was some if the usual reiteration of our history. He has a lot to get off his chest. I do listen, and where I can I indicate understanding. The issue of betrayal came up again. Some days I get it, some days I don’t. Today I was getting it.

Ice-cream and snuggles

Before we settled for a movie and dessert, I went into the bedroom and opened the box. I took out the contents and pulled it over my head.. then I ran into the lounge on all fours, jumped onto my husband’s lap and preceded to lick his salty face.

He wasn’t quite as shocked as the first time.

Then we snuggled up to watch some atrocious thing on Netflix.