Long Live the Gourgeoisie!



I just wanted to get the power cable for my laptop that I’d left at home so after a bit of toast I jumped into my car and drove to Newcastle. Lodger wasn’t up (no surprise). Jamba was pleased to see me, less so that I didn’t let him out, but at least I sorted out his litter tray. I did warn the lodger that he’d end up with much more unpleasant cleaning up to do if Jamba decides his litter tray is too full. I got the cable and, on a whim; my clippers and a couple of books.
I was back at the castle before realising I hadn’t thought about doing anything else: it was as if I carried the Faerie Gathering experience with me in the car and didn’t want to risk losing or wasting it on any of that so-called “reality” shit! I’m sharing with Cufuffle, Kingfisher and Javis and who had all stayed up till almost sparrow-fart the night before and so didn’t actually arise until after lunch! -Apart from Kingfisher taking Jarvis out for a necessary walk before I got up myself. When they were at lunch I decided it was time to dispense with the beard. I let it grow on a whim and when it gets too shaggy, I shave it off… Or if I meet someone new. I loved the fact it made almost no impression on anyone here. BUT I really did feel more like “myself”- I know that I am 55-and-three-quarters and I am happy about that but when I shave I look so much younger than that and it sometimes feels like a cheat. I am a gay man: we’re supposed to cling onto our “youth” at least in looks as if our lives depended on it like an unfortunate climber clinging to a ledge. It’s a weird one when people are surprised to hear my age and it is something that has affected my professional life: some people I encounter simply make assumptions about this “young” (LMAO) unexpectedly black man who can’t possibly know about yet have experienced the stuff about which he is talking. But the shaving-not shaving cycle IS connected to how I am feeling about myself…
Newbies missed a bus to Newcastle and were arriving after the last train to Haltwhistle. Nobody wanted to make the 75mile round trip to collect them- unsurprisingly, so I arranged with my local taxi company to pick them up and take them to my house where the lodgers had agreed to let them (Talisman and Anonaki) sleep in my room. That was cool.
Food has been great as always with people being really creative as well as resourceful to make scrumptious food for more than 60 people (there’ll be 80 of us by the weekend!). As a treat and gift to the group Manon made the most amazing chocolate cake and there was a chocolate sauce that was… UN believable!!!! Nom, nom, frigging nom!!
Pinkie showed some truly “classic” horror in the ballroom: Nosferatu from 1989 and a Hammer Horror with Christopher Lee playing (a nasty and unpleasant) Victor Frankestein and Peter Cushing as the (non-speaking) “Monster” in his first Hammer Horror role. We had popcorn… or was it popcorn-flavoured salt? I think the armful I munched might have received the salt portion for the whole ENOURMOUS bowl of popcorn… -It made my eyes water!
We coined a new term: “The Gorgeouisie”.
Fun’s being had like its going out of fashion!


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