The adventures of Miss Despina

I am available to be emailed on

miss_despina@yahoo.com

So if you can think of a reason, go ahead!

I intend to include this somewhere in my info when I get time, but my web design skills are not what they should be…

Activities for today:

• Washing
• Ironing
• Crying
• Losing
• Finding
• Cuddling
• Packing
• Cleaning
  
• Cooking
• Booking
  
• Forgetting
• Remembering
• Emailing
• Studying
• Organising
  
• Reading
• Planning
  
• Gazing
• Loving
  

We stand in the kitchen, me washing dishes, him preparing "pasta and miscellaneous stuff". I’m smiling at him and shuffling my feet. I know I have to say something.

"Honey, have you noticed that I keep making oblique references to something recently?"

"Maybe…" he says, a smile creeping up his left cheek. "Kids?"

So he has noticed. Done with being subtle, I splash suds everywhere in a passionate underwater gesture of the hands:

"I want to have your babies dammit!"

Miscellaneous stuff is chopped and put in a pan. Dishes are scrubbed.

"Oh god, I can’t believe I just said that. I’m so sorry! But it’s true, one thing I want in my future is to have babies and another thing I want is to be with you so - well, it’s better to come out with these things directly than to -"

Sometimes it’s better just to shut up.

I wonder if he’ll move house without telling me while I’m away, or just content himself with new locks and a restraining order?

With only six days til I fly out to Prague, I’m compiling a list of things that need to be done. And happily, I’m catching up with friends before I go - tomorrow involves lunch with my high-school best friend who has just turned 21 and whom I adore, and then a 70s and 80s night in a gay club with a very good friend of mine.

I’ve told Catherine to meet me at St Peter’s Square so that we have an Italian bistro, Tai Wu, and the fabulous Cornerhouse all within walking distance. Then we’ll go to Big Hands or Temple or Kro2 or somewhere and get gigglesome over hot chocolate. I’ve bought her a giant space hopper, which she’s sure to love, and have finally put my photos of our holiday last year to Rome and Florence onto a CD. Catherine is very different from me, but I’ve known her forever and I love her to bits. She’s just finished her third year of a medicine degree, which means she already has a BSc, but is spending this summer working doing hospital placements, with two weeks’ holiday - some of which I sincerely hope she’ll spend with me in Prague. I’ve never met a stronger or more dedicated person. We have done everything together, from ballet lessons, to the obligatory school trip to France, working in Boots warehouse, a ride in a hot air balloon, running the Christian Union, countless picnics and meals out, disasterous teenage makeovers, and one of the best holidays I’ve ever had. She’s much more rational than I am but has steadfastly supported me through all my crazy phases and I’m happy to say that we even survived my religious "reverse St Paul moment" without a scratch on our friendship - now that takes some doing.

David is the best accompanist I’ve ever had, a great musician, and an altogether lovely person. He often gathers anything between four and twenty of us together in an organ loft in a central Manchester catholic church, where we spend an hour looking through the music and then sing mass by anyone from Palestrina to Louis Vierne. I’m happy that my friendship with him deepened when I started going to Hollywood Lounge (now sadly closed) where he played piano in his dickie bow - cue the innuendo - and kept up banter and sing-songing all night, with our wonderful friend Kate singing just how a gay icon should, and some bizarre drag acts. I’ll never forget the night he saw me dressed as a kinky schoolteacher - those friends had only ever seen me in a choir robe before!

Or the night David accompanied me in a full-blown classical recital, involving Schubert, Mozart, Handl, Puccini and all that crowd, and then went off to play the piano at Hollywood. I received a plaintive phone call whilst at home celebrating with family and friends.

"I’m here on my own. None of the singers have turned up. Could you possibly…"

And of course I could. J even came with me, bless him, bought everyone beers, took great photos, and even listened to me singing some Andrew Lloyd Whatsit without letting on that his ears were bleeding.

So, I’m very excited to be meeting up with the lovely David and Catherine tomorrow. And even more excited about my party on Tuesday night. Lots of us meeting in Czech Bar - where else? - for 2 for 1 cocktails (which means no-one has an excuse not to buy me a drink) and then hopefully either kareoke in Scu2, because it’s got to be done, another trip down Canal St (the gay village, for you non-Mancunians), or a curry in Rusholme. There’s no way I’m leaving Manchester for three months without a visit to the Curry Mile!

But there’s one goodbye I’m really not looking forward to. Even though he’ll be in Prague and with me again in two or three weeks’ time, I’m not looking forward to that goodbye. I told him this last night, as he cuddled me concernedly and told me not to cry.

"But the more I cry now, the less I’ll cry at the airport!" I said through my tears. He stroked my hair softly, and I detected a sigh of relief. Only when he reads this blog post will he learn that I was, in fact, lying through my teeth.

Advice on how to say a temporary goodbye to the love of your life is welcome from all quarters! 

So, I resigned from Superdrug, and yesterday as I chased my last ever shop lifter, I had to pretend I was all emotional and keeping it all inside. Truth is I didn’t really give a feck. I was more bothered about getting home to J who, despite being very brave, was in a lot of pain from his second wisdom tooth extraction and needed moral support and soft food. I’ll see all my friends again at the byebye party I’m having on Tues, and subsequently when I return from Prague. And I can earn better money more easily from my singing, so the money isn’t an issue. Superdrug is definitely the worst company I have ever worked for.

I think the most fun I had all day involved saying "pardon?" to a Liverpudlian couple a record five times (naughty habit I know, but the voices make me want to rip my ears off), being stroppy to the 13 year olds trying on all the makeup, and then adopting a rich eastern European accent - getting away with it beautifully, may I add. "Is-a for youw? Is veery nice!"

One observation I have made from working there, is that boys are considerably more embarrassed than girls when it comes to buying condoms. (Maybe this is because many girls know how much more embarrassing it can be to buy a pregnancy test!) The boys shuffle up to the till, eyes down, and quickly shove the little box onto the counter.

"Do you want a bag?" I ask brightly.

*Grunt*

"Two pounds sixty-nine please." (Cringe! Why did I have to say sixty-nine? Of all the numbers… He knows how much they are!)

It’s worse when they’re paying by card.

"Can you enter your pin and then press enter please?" (Could I have said the word enter with less nuance? Why did I say it twice?)

And even worse if the card machine’s playing up.

"Don’t worry, it’s taking a while today. Don’t know what the problem is. It’s me, not you. Sorry love." 

We had a rather impromptu dinner party last night, involving 3 couples, a lot of beer, a lot of wine, and the most enormous paella in the world! Be warned, I am going to go into lots of detail here - this is food porn of the raciest variety.
Unlike the all-day jobs when I hosted dinner parties with my mother, I spent most of yesterday handing in my notice at superdrug (but I couldn’t tell my amazing boss Cathy what the letter was about otherwise I would have cried) and going shopping for sexy new clothes. (By the way ladies, don’t shun New Look for jeans. I dislike a lot of the stuff in there - my look is rather distinctive, I’d describe it at best as a funky homage to Audrey Hepburn - but they have a great choice of jeans for about £12 a pop, and they fit girls with short legs and big bottoms!)

3pm: Meet J at the wonderful Bury market, buy loads of meat, seafood and vegetables, and wine and beer on the way home.
4.30: We get home. The guests are due at 7.
4.32: J takes three bags of bottles to be recycled.
4:33: I set about cleaning the kitchen and bathroom, and am making the pastry for tarte tatin when I realise I don’t have a flan dish.
5.00: Dispach J off on a quest to find me one.
5.30. J returns with a flan dish.
5.31 - 6: J clears up the lounge and the kitchen.
6 - 6.30: J makes Italian bean salad. It smells orgasmic. I roll out my pastry and bake it, and caramelise my apples. The clock is ticking.
6.31: We freak out. We cuddle. All is well.
6.32: I ring up more friends and invite them round - there is so much food.
6.33: J goes to the corner shop in the middle of the road to buy more wine and beer.
6.35: J returns with 10 cans of Polish beer and finally, begins to make Paella.
7.00: Elvira and Mark arrive. At least we have a starter and a dessert.
7.05: We make them help us with chopping etc. Or else they get no food.
7.15: The paella begins to look like a paella.
7.30: Katerina and Adam arrive. I’ve not seen her for ages, it’s so lovely to see them.
8: Finally, we sit down to eat.

And it is beautiful! I should have taken photos but I was having such a great time I just forgot - and also some people think my food photographing habit is odd.

Starter
In Budapest we first encountered the loveliness of shmaltz (pork fat) on bread. We were so happy to find some in the wonderful Katsouris’ delicatessen in Bury - an amazing deli that has to be seen to be believed, so photos coming soon. We spent nearly £20 in there yesterday, on fresh bread, balsamic vinegar, squid, octopus, and various other lovely things. So we had bread and shmaltz with a salad that consisted of green beans, red onion, red pepper, asparagus and fresh mint, with a gorgeous dressing. And octopus.