Boyfriend on a Short Fuse was still snoozing; he has
enough Prozac, Dequacaine, Valium and Night Nurse in his system to fell an
army. Prozac, Dequacaine and Valium are OK but the Night Nurse has really done
him in.
He still has a bad cold and I am desperately trying
to keep him upright and functioning so he can fulfil his daily duties, the most
important of which are taking the dogs out three
times a day.
`You’re no use to me if you get ill!’ I shout sympathetically
as I dole out his drugs.
`I never thought I would end up fifty-six and an
unpaid dog walker’; he constantly grumbles as he assembles Nutty’s pram and
clips on the two Tinies (bichon frises) leads.
Because of my early morning guest surge there was no
time to feed the dogs. Nutty is rarely hungry first thing but the tinies are
always starving. They are such lovely little dogs and accept that Nutty must
come first when it comes to first dibs of the best food. They are still being
fed well on Lily’s tinned food, the odd bit of raw chicken, eggs and
left-overs. They will eat fresh apple and raw carrot as well as any cooked
vegetable. I would like to give them a completely raw meat diet but it’s hard
to get enough raw meat because it doesn’t go very far.
So, unlike Nutty, they will eat nearly everything,
which is such a relief as poor Nutty does need quite a bit of coaxing and
hand-feeding. I buy whole chickens from Daylesford and after they are roasted
or poached I mix up with Lily’s chicken and spelt pouches. He prefers the
latter to be honest, like Teflon-dad he was raised on tinned rubbish and turns
his nose up at anything a bit new always going for anything processed.
……………………….
I had a strange email from an editor at The Daily Mail a few days ago.
Had I read about the engagement between Millie from
Made in Chelsea and the Hackney rapper, Professor Green?
No I hadn’t, I didn’t admit. These luminaries only
exist on the distant perimeters of my consciousness. (Shades of the judge who asked;
`who are the Beatles?’ But we only have Freeview on the telly so I only watch
news and property programmes and I only listen to Radio Two so I never hear rap
music, only the rubbish that Jeremy Vine plays).
She went on to ask if I could write an article about
the class differences between this happy pair, (I have in the past written
endlessly about the thrill of dating a working-class boyfriend, aka Boyfriend
on a Short Fuse).
My heart sank; I had a stinking cold and was trying
to tempt Nutty with his chicken medley, so I really didn’t want to write about
the same old, same old. And this Rapper from Hackney sounds quite posh, he
probably went to Radley or something. And he is by all accounts very successful
and not short of a few bob. So really the story of posh girl marries rich, successful
man is as old as the hills. It doesn’t matter what class a man is, if he is
rich these days all doors are open.
Unlike poor old Teflon-dad who in the fifties was refused
an army commission because he wasn’t posh enough and made to feel lowest of the
low by my baronet Grandfather because he was from the wrong side of the tracks.
But saying that, I know more mixed race couples than I know mixed class
couples. So class is still important when it comes to relationships.
Here's an excerpt from one of my articles about the delights
of dating a working-class boyfriend.
`When the Sex in the City
TV series first hit our screens in the late 1990s, like many of us I thought
the gorgeous, powerful but ultimately unavailable Mr Big was the ideal
man. But he and all those other romantic leads are nothing more than characters
in a fantasy. It’s a great disappointment that Carrie ends up with Mr Big in
the film—in the real world of course he would have ditched her for an
18-year-old Russian hooker/model. But maddeningly the myth is thus perpetuated
for another generation.
It is a universal truth that men who are ‘good on
paper’ just don’t live up to the promise in the flesh. Why aren’t girls taught
essential facts like this in schools, along with how to wire a plug?
This is why I am so very appreciative that I am dating
a builder with his treasure chest of vital life skills. Years of exposure to
effete and impractical old Etonians, bankers and aristocrats have left me with
breathless appreciation of his practical skills. What use is it to me if
my beau owns a county? It’s far more useful if he can, like Boyfriend on
a Short Fuse, assemble my flat pack filing cabinets from IKEA in under an
hour.
And while I don’t share his interest in football,
the grunts and shrieks from the sofa when Arsenal play are far easier on the
ear than the terrible shrieks one must endure at Glyndebourne.
Luckily Boyfriend on a Short Fuse’s relatives are all
in the building trade, so I now have access to tilers, wooden floor
specialists, roofers, master carpenters - at sister-in-law rates.
And these days I get driven around in style in a
spacious white van rather than a cramped, jealousy-inspiring Porsche.
It’s all win, win, win.
With the benefit of hindsight, I advise ladies
looking for love this year to follow the example of a well-known soap star who
whenever she was single reached for her Yellow Pages and organised for a
series of quotes from builders, plasterers and plumbers, several of whom she
went on to form lasting relationships with. Nobody seems to use the Yellow Pages
any more but maybe it should stage a comeback as a lonely hearts directory.
