Sucker for Punishment. The cybermen march on....

So, after many moons of no single men on my horizon, this week spat up three at once (rather in the manner of buses). You all know the disastrous results of Wednesday's date. Tonight a friend had lined up a single man for me. There were some caveats mind you. The main one being that she was 90% certain that he is gay. Despite this dubious point it seems she felt that desperate times called for desperate measures so a casual dinner with the four of us was arranged.

I should have known that my luck was not about to change though. It is after all, Friday 13th. I have just had an e mail to say that Gay Date has come up with a limp excuse and dropped out of the evening. It seems that my appeal is not enough to lure him off his chosen path, even to have dinner with me. Darn it.

However, all is not lost. Some of you may remember Pilot Man, another in the ranks of the Cybermen. There was a moment when I wondered if I was accidentally stalking him over the summer and then a long, long drought when I heard nothing from him. Then, early in the winter, he got in touch again. We have now spoken several times and had several failed attempts to meet that have been thwarted by snow, flying schedules, and possibly fate. I have ignored fate though and we have a new date made - for TOMORROW! At the time I had not appreciated that this was valentine's day. I mean valetine's day does not generally have much significance for me. So when we picked Saturday to meet it did not occur to me that we would be surrounded by couples smothered in chocolate and roses and pretending to adore each other. This might make a first meeting a little awkward.

In addition there is an etiquette issue. Should I take some token valentine like gift with me? My instincts are throwing up at the thought and I want to trust them. Advise me readers, advise me....

You'll have to wait until Sunday to find out what happens as I won't be able to get near a computer tomorrow. Perhaps this is the one? Then again, perhaps he too will have a flat cap and a cravat.....

NOT Hugh Grant then......

So, picture the scene. I have had a seven hour meeting and driven two and a half hours and I am nearly at Cheltenham, scene of the Cyberman date. Traffic is lousy and I am running late. It's dark, it's raining. It could be the scene from Scary Movie.

Despite running late I pull into a layby and do a quick change into something not covered in builders dust and slap on whatever makeup I can find on the floor of the car. Then I text the cyberman to say that I am nearly there. Get the encouraging reply 'OK'. I am faithfully following the ludicrous directions but as I get closer to the hotel where we are to meet the directions fail me horribly. This is because they are filled with helpful things like 'there is a street that runs off at right angles - don't take this!'. Ten minutes later I have been swept round the one way system twice and seem to be heading from Edinburgh. Desperate I pull over and ring the cyberman to get new directions.

He doesn't sound remotely sorry that I am having difficulties, in fact he sounds impatient and has that tone in his voice that says I am being stupid and must be an idiot to be lost in a city that I don't know, finding a hotel that I don't even have a street name for. Despite this I finally locate the wretched place. It is the only commercial building in what is otherwise a residential square and it looks as dull as the proverbial ditchwater. Standing outside the doors is the Cyberman.

It's dark and raining hard so he is just a dark outline and I don't get a chance to assess who I am meeting until I am inside. I apologise for being late and don't get a word of apology for the fact that his directions were useless or sympathy for the fact that I have had to come 90 miles to meet him in the middle of a 250 mile journey.

By the light of the lobby I realise to my horror that I am apparently meeting one of my father's school friends. He's tallish, with greying hair swept carefully back from his forehead. He is wearing a tweed jacket with a handkerchief nattily arranged in the pocket, dark jeans, a red and white stripe shirt nd the piece de resistance; a paisley CRAVAT!!!!! Who wears a cravat for god's sake? Tucked into his coat pocket is a flat cap. My heart sinks but I am determined not to judge the evening on the basis of his sartorial approach to life. I give myself the pep talk where I point out that I am not 20 anymore and can't expect the cream of the crop. There is a strange sense of familiarity to him though. It niggles at me and as we walk back to the bar I realise what it is.

For those of you who watched Four Weddings and a Funeral, there is a character in it who has a thing for the Andy Macdowell character. He's the one who is staying at the same pub as her character and Hugh Grant's and she spends her time hiding from him while he calls her 'a damn fine filly'. I think it is his brother that I am meeting. Shit.

The bar is horrible. Reminiscent of a railway bar it is all dark wood, plush red velvet and fake pictures. It is virtually empty with only a depressed looking old woman in it and a bar man who is overcome by having three people to serve at once. This is not going to help with the atmosphere. In fact I wonder if I am going to start hyperventilating. Was there nowhere else in cheltenham that we could have gone? Somewhere with people and life? If this was his idea of a 'suitable' venue then we were already worlds apart.

We've not said much to each other at this point. The cyberman wonders if I would like a 'snack' as he thinks they do them here. I picture a tiny pack of peanuts such as you find on aeroplanes and realise that this might extend the date so hurriedly say that I am not hungry. The drinks are ordered. I've gone for a soft drink due to driving, despite the fact that a bottle of tequila suddenly feels like the only way through the night. I then realise that cyberman is taking an awfully long time to produce any money. I hadn't really thought about the paying thing much. To be honest, I didn't think the £1.20 my drink cost would leave me indebted to him and having done the bulk of the work to get to the date then one drink would be the least he could do. It seems I was wrong. I fumble in my bag and pull out my wallet at which point he grandiosely says 'Oh no, don't worry I'll get this' as though he is doing me the world's greatest favour. I wonder how soon I can leave.

We move through to the front of the hotel where he says there is, and I quote, 'rather a marvellous regency portrait'. Why would I care? However I dutifully follow him and we stare at a portrait of a bewigged man in brown velvet. It could be my date. I hurriedly sit down at a nearby table and cheerily ask him if he has had to travel far to get to the hotel. With the air of a man who has been greatly put out he announces that he has had to come at least '400 yards'. I start to boil over. All his insistence that this was the only place we could possibly meet, despite me pointing out that it took me out of my way, and he WALKED HERE. Could he be more self centred? Apparently yes.

The next hour dragged by as he told me of the biography he had written on Le Clerc (a french general). I vainly tried to make this interesting by saying how lovely it must have been to go and see all the places he had been. The crushing response was that 'he couldn't possibly allow a £20 - 30,000 budget for travel expenses'. Where the hell was Le Clerc fighting? on the moon? No. Morrocco and France. What is this man's idea of suitable travel? I am then informed of the difficulties of finding an agent, the cruel monopoly that history professors have on publishing historical books (odd that!). I change the subject.

"So, do you manage to get away from cheltenham much?". Instantly the autocratic mother is brought up. Apparently he can't leave her though further investigations reveal that she is in the peak of health. The poor woman is probably desperate to have him leave the house once in a while but he just won't go.

Every conversational avenue I try is quashed and I want to run away / weep / stab him through the eye with a cocktail stick. The few questions he asks me, he kindly answers for me and the rest of the time is spent telling me about how vast his family is, how they all hate each other and are constantly falling out with each other bickering over inheritances. I point out that I wouldn't fall out with a sister over heirlooms if I could possibly help it. He points out that heirlooms are more important than family. The cocktail stick route is starting to look really appealing.

After what feels like a lifetime, but is only an hour, I brightly announce that I must get back on the road as I have at least another three hour's driving to do. It is seven thirty. He says 'so you'll be home by nine then.' WHAT??? I resist the urge to explain the maths to him and gaily laugh in a brittle way that I despise about myself but has to be better than the bloodbath that such falseness is preventing.

As we go through the doors back onto the street he pulls on his flat cap and says 'well, I'll be off then'. Not a word about my journey, or how to get out of Cheltenham. I call out to him as he walks off. 'How do I get out of Cheltenham?' and I can see the look of exasperation on his face under the glare of the streetlight as he comes back to tell me how to get out. He doesn't see me to my car or say anything further. I can see he is disappointed but I couldn't care less.

As I pull out and drive around the corner I see a lovely wine bar not 50 yards away. It is the perfect venue for a blind date. I wish I had gone there instead and left him on his own in his flat cap with his Georgian ancestor portrait.

Cybermen - the story continues

So, I am just packing to walk through yet another blizzard with my suitcase and the loyal hound. We are off to Dorset for work. But, not just work. I am meeting one of the Cybermen.....

Now this one I'm fairly underwhelmed by. In fact I think I might be meeting the ultimate early old fogey. Things to worry about:

1) He lives with his mother! She is apparently 86 and autocratic. They live together in a vast and draughty pile in Glouctershire that he is slowly refurbishing.
2) He lives with his mother. I think this point is worth re-iterating.
3) He writes historical books. Not Bernard Cornwell type novels but esoteric tomes on odd bits of history I think. I am worried I will be lectured to.
4) He is fairly inflexible. Considering I am driving from Dorset to North Wales - a five hour journey at the best of times, he is still making me come 30 minutes off the motorway to meet him as he says there is nowhere between Cheltenham and the motorway that would be 'suitable'.
5) He can't give directions for toffee, let alone a hotel. The directions he gave me were so convoluted that I doubt we will ever actually manage to meet. They included helpful things like 'go past my bank' 'there is a street that goes off at right angles' 'Go north here' (this last one when you are in a town with no helpful compass to hand).
6) When he sent me his telephone number he asked me to text him before I rang. This annoyed me and made me wonder if he was worried that one of his wives would answer the phone otherwise. Am I meeting Bluebeard?
7) When I didn't ring him he get marking me as his favourite on the website every day, twice a day for a week. This verges on stalking.

I know, I know - why am I doing this? As a warm up I suppose. As an effort at showing willing in this dating game and so that nobody can say of me that I am not trying. I'll let you know how it goes. So sorry, I know this is a muddled entry but it is snowing hard and I need to get moving. Not only do I have a meeting to go to but a cyberman to meet. I wonder if he will bring his mother?

Dare I say the word 'Thaw'

Although my world is still white I am silently dancing with glee because there just may be a thaw in the air. For the first time today, my footprints in the snow have turned transluscent, giving a glimpse of the ground beneath. In fact, the whole texture of the snow has changed. The top is a frozen crust that rattles when you walk through it but beneath this icy top the snow is wet and rotten.

You wouldn't know this to look out across the valley. The world is monochromatic still. White with black hedges and woods scratched across the glare and not a hint of green to be seen yet. But I have hope.

Yesterday, before the two hour blizzard that blotted out the world once more, I managed to get my car off the mountain. This involved getting friends with a tank like four wheel drive to cautiously edge their way down my track, before leading me on a towrope back out. There were a couple of hairy moments. One where i slid down a gully with no steering control or brakes, straight towards an outcrop of granite, and a couple of times where my wheels spun uselessly on the snow as I went nowhere. However, we succeeded. An hour later my car was parked safely in the village. So now, though I still have to walk in and out, I can at least then drive myself wherever I want to go, whenever I want and for as long as I want!

The long walk back up the hill does not encourage road trips just for the hell of it but it is a taste of freedom and not soon enough for me. This means that my work trips can now be safely rescheduled so tomorrow it is off to Dorset and back again on Wednesday night. If the thaw does come then I might even be able to drive all the way to the hovel by then. If instead we have another foot of snow as they are forecasting then I will be knocking on doors in the valley to beg a bed for the night. I don't fancy walking a mile up the mountain carrying my suitcase after a five hour drive. I'm a lightweight like that!

Day Six - silver lining on snow clouds.

After the excitment of seeing actual people yesterday, and shops and everything I was on a high! I mean the town I went to had not one, but two greengrocers, and a Barnardos and a mad knitting shop. I went into all of them just because I could! Coming home later that night, pulling my groceries along on my toboggan with the loyal hound diving into the snow around me, I decided that I would make the most of this situation. That plan lasted all of ten minutes.

You can tell how bad it is by the fact that I am in the office on a Saturday when I don't have to be. This is entirely due to the fact that I am bored of being in the house, and I have been for three walks today just to pass the time and needed a newish horizon to make my return to the hovel more exciting.

I keep thinking the snow will go, but each morning I wake to find that yesterday's tracks and footprints have been eradicated in another snowfall and I am back to square one. I rescheduled last weeks meetings to next week and honestly, I'm not sure that I will be out by then.

By the time the snow does finally go I will have the tidiest house in Britain, the best organised office and the crazed look of Tom Hanks in Castaway. If I had a football I would instantly name it and start talking to it.

Watching the news / forecasts it is fascinating to see the presenters skate over (scuse the pun) the fact that every day they forecast more snow for North Wales. Because it is just 'small showers' then it doesn't count as anything much, but small showers (for which read several hours of snow) add up to multiple inches of snow on the ground and massive annoyance for me. But watching the news it is as if it is uninhabited up here and so snow falling in the mountains isn't relevant. Nothing like as relevant as a couple of days of inconvenience elsewhere in the country anyway. Currently we are getting the edge of the weather front that is in the South West, and the one travelling down the Irish Sea. This means I have had snow coming in from both ends of the valley. Sorry, enough of a whinge about national forecasting.

However there is an upside to the snow. The light. This time of year is normally so grey and drained of colour but the snow casts such wonderful light everywhere. Yesterday the hound and I went for a walk at 10 at night because the snow made it so light that you could see for miles. I guess that is my silver lining. Every snow cloud has one.