Good news, it’s our anniversary today – four years of hard, solid marriage, and eight years of being together. The eight years is a bit of a fudge, we can’t actually remember the date we got together, but eight years in gay years is almost a century, so we’re doing well! We had such a romantic start, looking back. I was trapped in a Tyneside flat with a borderline psychotic flatmate who never cleaned up, paid her bills or washed – and worse (as we found out after she left), used to hide her used, bloody drip-trays behind the radiator rather than putting them in the bin. You can imagine how fragrant her room was when the heating came on. Meanwhile, Paul was a tenant in a mansion in Portsmouth, paying all of his meagre nursing wage to two old queens who had a sling set up in the same room as their chest-freezer, meaning there was every chance of seeing some turkey-necked, bollock-naked aged twiglet trying to get top value out of his black-market Viagra with some bought in piece of rent each time you went to get a box of fish fingers. Wow, there’s a sentence I don’t get to type often enough. We’d met previously through university friends, but after our first proper ‘meeting’, Paul got the Megabus back to Newcastle with me and never went home. In the spirit of Queer as Folk, he’s quite literally the one night stand who never went away. And damn it, we work together very well. I don’t say it often enough and I’m often a bit mean in my depiction of Paul but I’d really have him no other way. Even if he is sulking a bit because I told him that hugging him when I’m sitting down and he’s standing up feels like I’m trying to move a hot-water tank.
Our wedding was a very low-key affair, but deliberately so. We spent as little money as possible on our wedding and then thousands on our honeymoon and went to Florida for a month. Some might say that’s selfish but actually, given we don’t like any kind of fuss made over us, it suited us down to the ground. Now, because I like writing, I immediately typed all of that up in a book, and although it’s four years old, if you’re a fan of my writing (and who wouldn’t be?) you can find it here on Amazon for a tiny £1.20. I’d die a happy man if people had a read and left a review. Other people immediately copied my idea but well there’s only one me. So there!
Remember we were going out for a McRib yesterday? We went out at midnight and didn’t get back until 2.30am, mainly because once we had enjoyed the McRib, we decided to go for a drive along the coast. I love driving at night, partly because I’ve got a bit of boyracer in me (Paul’s anniversary present) and it’s good to get it out of my system every now and then. So, naturally, we were enjoying the various ice covered car-parks in Whitley Bay. That said, we must be the first two chavvy types to be doing spins on ice in the car but with the 25th anniversary special recording of Grease coming out of the speakers. What a mix! Oh and we managed to drive into a clearly very popular dogging spot – St Mary’s Lighthouse car park, if you’re curious. We parked up for a moment just to cause mischief – two bears in a DS3 screeching and cackling their way through Look At Me I’m Sandra Dee would stop anyone on the vinegar strokes. We left before things got nasty, although the sight of someone’s cottage-cheese thighs wobbling away in the moonlight half-in and half-out of a Vauxhall Astra made me a bit bilious. Still, each to their own – no judgement here.
Finally, if I get the time, I’m going to go into William Hill tomorrow and see if they’ll give me odds on losing 150lb between the two of us this year. If it’s decent odds, I’ll stick £250 on it. Game on!
DIET STARTS TOMORROW. GASP.