"PHEW"!! (Goodbye to 2021, All That and Possibly More).

My visitor left this morning. I feel some shame about the relief I felt when his van finally disappeared from the front of my house. He did a great deal for me whilst he was here, not least replacing and installing a radiator in my bedroom which he ordered, collected and paid for. As that radiator never worked very well up to the day the pressure from the new boiler caused it to leak water into the lounge below and it has been switched off ever since, after his handywork, my bedroom and the first flooor landing was warm for the first time since I moved in.

My friend is a builder; to him, it was pretty routine. I knew he was making money as he made a pretty life-saving loan to me in the past, but only now do I appreciate how LOADED he is as he is trying to make sure his wife does not get her hands on more than he thinks she should. That presented a bit of a problem as I have become used to frugality and low waste whilst he, on 'holiday', was spending cash for fun! It was also difficult when he pointed out the myriad problems with my house as if I wasn't living here and hadn't noticed them. I had to get nastily sarcastic to make him see that he wasn't telling me anything I didn't know, but as I had been impercunious for four years I just had to live with it. He is a lovely man with a heart of gold. He is also an uncomplicated man with strong views that sometimes sound devoid of thought. I have known him for many years- long before I moved to Newcastle, but the ten days we just shared is probably several times the amount of time we've spent together in total before that. The experience made me think that engaged couples should do something similar before they finally tie any knots! - Not that marriage was on the table in this instance of course!! He does have plans for when he has finally extracated himself from his current quicksands of retiring (early) to 'the countryside' where he can have "views" and a workshop to make furniture as a hobby. I've encouraged these dreams but realised in the last ten days just how different we actually are on so many deepy important levels. Things about which I am passionate disinterests him [not EVERYTHING obvs] and the same is true for me. 

Television is an interesing one: My ideal is that TV watching diminishes with human contact but when it doesnt, tastes quickly become clear. Perhaps it would be boring for partners to enjoy the same TV, but when the divide is as stark as reality dating shows versus history documentaries, alarm bells surely ring. I know my friend thinks of me as "an intellectual, clever bastard", whilst I admire his drive to ensure his business is brilliant, employs excellent craftsmen whose repect he has gains through his daily interactions with them. I found it hard to discuss much with him as it was always easier to agree rather than engage. He's a guy who needs his questions answered when watching movies etc- asking questions that can usually only be answered by continuing to watch the drama.

I'd been trying to manage his expectations around exploring the North East at Christmas during pandemic response protocols but he arrived more than eager regardless. His most demanding aim was to drive to North West Scotland (in a van) just to have driven on a road featured in a recent James Bond movie. It would have been a five hour drive and it is getting dark around 3.45 down here at the moment so goodness knows how long he'd actually get to do more than take a few pics and come back. Apparently that suited him fine so I said "cool, but I'm not going with you" - which he said was fine too. In the end there wasn't time to include it in his itinerary (!) so he had to leave it on his bucket list. I was glad to as I dislike my friend's driving. He is a London 'White Van Man' after all so no surprise that he was always bending or ignoring rules but when he started sneering at people who follow those rules I bit my tongue no longer- which led to a 'moment' and me being dismissed as 'Just like [his] wife' etc etc- in short the usual litany from drivers who believe they're the most skilled blah blah blah... people like that make me nervous to be driven by them. Nevertheless due in large part of spookily unseasonally warm weather, we went to Tynemouth, Seaton Delaval Hall, Blyth, Berwick, The Angel of the North, Blanchland and Stanhope. I commented that the road over Weardale to Stanhope looked pretty similar to the one in the 'James Bond' movie, but that was dismissed of course- not the same.

I confess that I began to give in and take the line of least bother by the middle of the visit. My friend thinks he is discussing when he repeats what he said more forcefully in response to a challenge or query from me. He lives by a series of epithets which sadly sound like working class cliches and I realise what an intellectual fucking snob I sound when I write that. In most ways, my friend has achived much more than me- family, business, wealth are the things to which we are programmed to aspire and he has achieved that. I, on the other hand, have approached him in the past for a loan. He has two kids even if one allegedly treats him with open disrespect. -Now; there is another issue of profound difference: If a child of mine, in their mid twenties, living in MY house showed me disrespect, it would only happen once, I assure you! My friend tolerates it probably out of guilt. 

He IS in a horrible, emotionally draining position where his wife is acting with the malice you'd expect if she caught him in an affair, which is not the case. he has endured it for more than a year and has another six or more months and much more expense before the divorce is finally resolved. He appreciated being away from that and I enjoyed him being here, but our relationship has definitely changed- at least for me- not exactly 'for the worse' as I feel I have a much more adult awareness of what we have together.

It was an interesting end to 2021... I can't say that it was a particularly bad year for me, in some ways the pandemic actually helped me financially as there were payment holidays for mortgages etc at just the right time. I am sad that my Albanian lodger did a runner, I hope he is OK. I worry about my remaining lodger but at the same time, I will be quietly relieved when he has moved on: After half of his life in care, he lacks basic communication skills and has been conditioned to ask permission for every aspect of his life- he reminds me of a dog that has been denied affection and hides its face from people as if expecting to be abused. -Having said that, it IS clear that he has improved since living with me. I do my best to teach him how to be assertive effectively and to take emotions out of times when he needs to complain or address a problem with someone: he gets so stressed about ANY such interaction that even the simplest of things can become problematic due to the way he presents them.

This year has some real promise. I just hope that the foster child I am assigned is young, but I fully-expect them to send me an older teenager.