Gift is a four-letter word
The cake in the picture marked the end of Dr B.'s week-long birthday celebrations tonight. And I finally get to write about all the presents I got him! They are all four-letter words, and I think it's clever (you'll think it's sad):
- food for his birthday party. Dr B. was not thinking of having any: after all, when you invite twenty gay men, all you need to provide is plenty of booze and diet mixers. However, I thought it would be a nice touch to have home-made finger food so I spent the couple of nights before it baking pizzas (turned out not so nice, the yeast was best before Apr04) and cheese straws (from now on known as 'Lulu's cheesy bits) and asparagus finger food thingies (a huge success, probably because they oozed Atkins-friendliness). If you think that's a lousy present, read on;
- a tiny ceramic bowl to place on his bed side table, ideally destined to contain Dr B.'s collection of earplugs;
- something else that I'd rather not mention here. The idea was to turn one of Dr B.'s favourity party remarks into reality, albeit on a small scale;
- a guide book on Venice, and the promise that on our upcoming trip (we are leaving tomorrow morning) we will actuall make a point of visiting something, rather than just walking around it idly simply because it is within driving distance when we go see my mother;
- a pictorial travel phrase book and vocabulary, to be able to point at pictures to express anything from 'This is not snake's meat is it?' to 'The toilet is broken and I'm afraid I've had a tiny accident'. See trip to Italy above;
- an Airswitch lamp to add to his collection of Mathmos gadgets. This one you switch on and off by moving a hand sideways above it, turn it up and dim it by raising or lowering the hand above it;
- a Bedlam cube. 20,000 possible solutions, and yet extremely difficult to solve. He's already thinking of writing a computer programme to generate them and then eBay them at one pound each. My sweet little entrepreneur;
- tickets for The Woman in Black. No, not The Woman in White. The other play. This one is supposed to be so scary, but turned out to be rather dull and relying too much on cheap technical tricks to give you chills. It's too easy when an actor whispers for five minutes, then a regulations-defyingly loud high-pitched scream is played right behind the audience, and repeat several times during the performance. Well, at least that woke me up. Dr B. enjoyed it just like I knew he would because he had seen it already. Also, last year we went to see the Mousetrap for his birthday, and it could become a regular yearly tradition – only we've already run out of scary long-running West End mystery plays;
- a pre-theatre meal of M&S wraps and drinks and desserts whipped out of my backpack just as we approached the theatre for the above play. Dr B. thought I was taking him out for dinner, the play was a surprise.
- and the chocolate and walnuts cake above, hastily mixed together last night with stuff I found in the rarely-opened far-right kitchen cabinet (the one with the stuff that makes you fat) when I realised that: a) a birthday had to have a cake, and b) cake is a four-letter word, exactly like all the other presents I had got him (it started out as a coincidence and continued as a challenge). When he realised, Dr B. requested an additional very personal four-letter present that I could give him there and then without spending a penny: a TRIM of my beard back to the goatee he prefers me with. – Oi! What exactly were you thinking?