Galoot In The House

Hey, so sorry about all the non-posting over the last few weeks. As mentioned, I've been having some technical difficulties which have now been resolved. (And thanks also to all of you who sent messages saying you were missing househusbandnot. My favourite was "write your blog you big galoot".)

So since we last spoke I've been:

1) camping with mrs househusbandnot
2) to Scotland
3) 41

On the way to Scotland, mrs househusbandnot and I went camping in the Lake District, which was surprisingly mellow. We had visions of turning up at the campsite, and being watched in the rain by seasoned campers as we bolloxed around with the ropes and pegs before giving up and retiring to the nearest hotel. But we got the tent up, and the seasoned campers left us alone (all too busy having sex with their children). And it didn't rain.

The last time I was in the Lake District was when I was about 12, but my mum had invited some freaky friend of hers who wandered around the countryside quoting Wordsworth, which - aged 12 - I found more embarrassing than anything that had ever happened to me ever. Almost as embarrassing as I would find it today I guess.

I remember from school that Wordworth's big gig was to show the link between human experience and the natural world. (This is a lie. I looked it up on the web. I don't remember anything about Wordsworth from school other than the fact he married his sister or always wore a cape or something. And anyway I go with the Martin Amis thing about poets just being wannabe authors but who don't drive so have not seen enough to write a book.) I'm not sure how much of the human experience/natural world thing mrs househusbandnot and I achieved, but we went for walks and laughed at sheep and got stared at by sullen cows, which was a nice break from our human experiences in London where you get laughed at by sheep and stared at by sullen bulls and where the only walking getting done is to offices and the supermarket and the off licence.

Then we headed up to Loch Lomond in Scotland, which is kinda cool in a run down Scottish way. And then over to Edinburgh. On the Wordsworth ticket, I was keen to show mrs househusbandnot some picturesque Scottish countryside, but the route we took from Glasgow to Edinburgh through West Lothian was just town upon grey run down town of people waiting around on the streets for something to happen - a sociologist's paradise, each day repeats. Lots of boys pushing their tired looking children around in second-hand prams and huge billboards encouraging people not to smoke heroin. We ended up eating Tesco's sandwiches in a layby, staring at rusting farming equipment and listening to threatening dogs bark at us from over the hill. Not the romantic loch-side idyll I had hoped for. Her stomach rumbling from a lack of fresh food, mrs househusbandnot made me promise to never make her move to Scotland. She said she would take up smoking heroin if she had to live anywhere we had driven through that day.

Edinburgh was quite a contrast, where we stayed in my cousin's achingly comfortable and lovely apartment on Drummond Place. We managed to avoid any Edinburgh Festival events by going to see Miami Vice at the cinema and hanging out with my cousins. On our final day in Scotland, we went on a cruise on my cousin's power boat around the West Coast, about as close a Miami Vice an experience as I have ever had north of the border.

Back in London, not sure what all the nature we took in on our holiday has taught us. Maybe to spend more time working so that we can go on more holidays. And that two days of camping is about as post-modern as any couple needs to get. And that Scotland is like the USA, with great places on the west and east coasts but not that much in the middle.

Incidentally, went to blokewhohaslotsofjobs' new exhibition last night. And saw all our urban(e) friends again, but was feeling rather divorced from the whole London thing. I guess Wordsworth was onto something. Or maybe it's the 41 blues?