So today it was back to normality. I had work to do. I must admit though, yesterday I was on a bit go a high. Jamie cooked and it was nice, we went to bed, watched some telly and then did a cross word. One of those is a lie. Anyway, breakfast for three, Sasha kept up her caffeine habit. Then I was on a bit of a time limit, as we had a dinner appointment. Out with the Artex stripper, piled it all on within an hour. Walked the dogs, picked up the dog shit. Then basically it was three solid hours of stripping. Finished it all by 4:30. Had a shower and then off we went to the dull in-laws. Well, they are not dull, I just don’t have much in common with a chef and I think she’s a mental nurse or something. I do however absolutely love Jim, Jamie’s grandad, he is such a fascinating character, he’s very ‘old skool’, but such a fascinating bloke. And I must admit, we do share heavily our political views, which I know for sure the rest of all our families certainly don’t. Now, we had dinner. I was served lamb, which I hate as I don’t eat meat, then served a real cream pudding which I’m allergic to. Dinner was fun. I must admit though, the conversation was absolutely amazing. I was driving, so I had half a glass of wine. Everyone else I think had been drinking since about Tuesday. To paraphrase it, Cathy said, “You certainly don’t get porn by email”, with such conviction. The rest of the conversation basically centred around porn, Ann Summers, La Senza and Jim discussing nudes. It was an interesting evening. After dinner I showed my ‘first solo’ video. Jim shook my hand, he can appreciate that it takes a reasonable amount of effort. Drove home. Then made up for the lack of wine.

So yesterday I was Tom Cruise in ‘Top Gun’ flying quarter of a million pounds worth of helicopter over Gloucestershire, but without the cannon and missiles, and today I was ‘Joe Smith’ scraping Artex from a bathroom ceiling. Quite a come down. But secretly I knew with every scrape, I was wearing a pair of mirrored shades saying ‘Goose, there’s a Mig at 12 o’clock’. Yesterday I joined an elite group of people who can fly a helicopter, a sort of gentleman’s club of geeks with far too much money. But after doing it for fun, I have so much respect of those who do it for a living in the military and search and rescue. Now, I’m no royalist, but my hat goes off to Prince William, I don’t think people realise how difficult his job actually is. There is a highly trained individual who actually does a valued job for a living. Sir you have my respect. If only your dad did something fucking useful rather than talking to plants and waiting for his mother to die. Talking of which, that kind of reminds me of somebody. But all my plants are already dead…