Yesterday, he briefly suggested up and running off to the seaside for the night, just turning up and booking a couple of rooms (damn him!), and just drinking, and having a laugh.

“Why not?” I laughed, knowing full well it wasn’t going to happen.

“I have to go and meet my friend, I haven’t seen him for ages and it’s all arranged…” Yeah, yeah.

But last night, I got a text - Want to book seaside for a weekend soon? Go friday back sunday?

I replied - Why not! Next weekend is bank holiday, got any plans?

His answer - No plans at all. Could be a goer. Dodgy b&b and copious amounts of alcoholic beverages.

This is so weird. He is such a nice bloke, I really like him on all levels - except the one. I don’t get him. We have had very similar upbringings, he is smart, intelligent, nice, funny. Geeky. I know that if it does actually come about (and he is not the most reliable of people, so I am not holding my breath that we will end up going to the seaside for a dirty weekend), we will have a really good time.

But I am worried if my misgivings are right. It really would be a big deal to me.

LELI - This is my italian number. Strange to be here and everyone considering that I am back at home but not feeling at home at all. I reckon it will change with time.

Me - Same as your old italian number! You will feel more comfortable with time. Missing you already!

LELI - I know what you mean, but Fashiontown is near, and it really allows to stay in touch. Cheers, LELI.

…another great day. Was supposed to be meeting him for coffee, as he had to go to work this afternoon. I was having a nightmare parking, so rang him as I was waiting in a queue. “Don’t worry, I’ll come to you and we can head out of town.”

So off we headed deeper into Taffland. First stop was the town he spent a lot of his youth, and we wandered around a bit, had a coffee and teacake.

Then we headed to a seaside town - him driving (I could definitely get used to that). Sat on the sea front with all the old dears, I had an ice-cream, he had a cup of tea (how terribly British we were). Then more wandering in and out of a few shops - he was even suggesting craft shops!!!

Back home via a great pub we went to last time we went to the beach, then back to Whotown because he was meeting someone for a drink tonight (me driving back, because he’d had a beer).

The weather was fantastic - definitely not too hot, but I wish I had known we were heading out, and I wasn’t just going to sit in Starbucks for an hour, then wander the market before coming home. My face and neck are lobster red!

In so many ways we have such a lot in common. Of course, it’s not all rosy - and there are some major alarm bells clanging from some vaguely racist comments he has made - not sure how much he actually means them (and for god’s sake, he reads the Daily Mail! How can intelligent people read that stuff?), but a few times now he has said things which have definitely made me feel uncomfortable. I guess I’ll have to wait for it to surface, but I know I won’t be able to handle that.

Ok, last message from this number. Thanks, and stay in touch. For those of you who have not sent your email contact please do it italianlel@yahoo.com take care LELI.

It was a very long day, but I had such a good time.

Next time he stays at mine (or he gets his car fixed and drives) because it is just stupid I had to drive to the other side of town at 7 in the morning to pick him up!

We got there at 11, after stopping for a quick breakfast, which wasn’t bad considering it opened at 11. We asked if the computer museum was open, as the internet described it as ‘partially open’. “No, sorry, not today. However, if you go up there, and ask, someone might let you have a quick look around,” so that is exactly what we did.

There was a lovely old man there, showing off Colossus to me and FKM, and this other bloke who was there. This in itself was much better than last time, when we had only been allowed to see it on a guided tour, and had had loads of kids in the way. FKM asked if it was possible to get a look at the other things on display, and he took us off into the ‘forbidden zone’. I found it funny, but FKM was almost writhing on the floor in excitement at all these big mainframe machines, with discs 12 inch in diameter on the top. My mobile phone had more power and memory than the whole room!

The lovely old man gave us a bit of spiel, but admitted that it wasn’t his thing, there was another colleague who was doing all the work in there, but he wasn’t in yet.

Right on cue, this guy turns up, and offers to give us a bit more explanation. This random bloke who had come in with us - and a woman I assumed to be his wife - made their excuses because they wanted a cup of tea. How mad is that ? You have the resident expert offering a guided tour, and you turn it down.

He was extremely geeky, as to be expected, but very passionate about what he was doing. There was one thing he was showing us (I was trying to look interested, but at this point it was all going way over my head), when FKM said some magic words. I didn’t understand most of them, but I definitely picked up “flip-flop”. Well, he might just as well have said “Open Sesame” because the geeky bloke got very excited.

And went running for his keys, to take us even deeper into the depths, showing off nearly all the rooms they have there, with lots of explanations. He was extremely proud of some big tube - it looked like a rusty tube to me, but him and FKM had a very geeky discussion about it - and about as animated as two geeks together can get I reckon!

By this time it was after 1, so we headed for some lunch, then decided to sit in on a lecture (my turn for the maths geek session - he had had his fun with the computer geek session, it was only fair). It was only supposed to be 45 minutes - giving us 15 minutes before the final guided tour of the day. However, it went on for an hour and 30 minutes, and was absolutely fascinating (although I am sure FKM fell asleep - a couple of times he did that jerky thing you do when you have just dropped off).

Then, just time to look around one of the exhibitions we missed last time, a quick walk around the duck pond and then head for home.

Even better is that FKM did most of the driving. It’s so weird, I’ve never had a bloke want to do ‘blokey things’ - like even filling the car up with petrol (made me pay though!), the ex only ever drove under sufference. We went to the pub when we got back, and eventually I dropped him off at 11 last night.

Fifteen and a half hours in each other’s company. And still laughing at the end of the day. There are really not many people I can spend that amount of time with without some little friction going on.

But damn him, I reckon it’s just not going to happen now. If nothing has come of it by now, I best just settle for having a geeky friend instead. Sigh.

Unless there is a change of plan, tonight was the last time I will see LELI before he leaves.

Last night was his shared leaving do from work (someone else from my old department was leaving yesterday) which was why I was out and got drunk. It was nice to be out with old work colleagues - even though I know it’s baloney, it’s nice to be told how bad things are now I have left, and how they wish I still worked there to kick ass. It’s nice they think things would be any different if I was there, even though I know different - I only gave the appearance of doing good because I had great people doing the work for me, and they are still there doing there work, so it really wouldn’t make that much difference me being there.

I had made both LELI and the other guy a leaving card (well, I couldn’t make one just for one of them). The other guy was pleased with his, and put it out on the table, and was showing it off to people. LELI asked me to keep it in my bag as he didn’t have big pockets. I still showed it to people until he made a comment about it being ‘private’ - that was quite sweet I think, as inside I had written how gutted I was he was going, and how I was going to miss him.

Tonight we went out for dinner. It was really nice, but for some reason there were a lot of awkward silences. I guess it’s hard to know what to say, but I found myself babbling a lot, saying the sorts of things I would say to someone I hardly knew.

Not fully crying, but I did have a tear in my eye as I drove away after dropping him off. After making a sincere promise to visit him back in Italy (like that is going to be a hardship!).

Tomorrow is part 2 of geek days out, as me and FKM head back to Bletchley Park to look at old computers. Oh the joys of being a geek!

They weren’t my idea. And it would have been rude to say no.

But I wish I hadn’t.

…I think.

Today I got up at 5 am to drive to the office in England. It was agreed I would stay overnight, and come back tomorrow night, before spending the rest of the week at what is pretty much my permanent placement 7 miles away.

Only they rang me up. “Any chance you can come back for half a day tomorrow?”

Half a day? How will that work given that it takes about 2 and a half hours to drive there (2 hours if I wanted to pay the £5.30 to cross the bridge, but I am too tight for that).

“Oh, right, never thought of that, I’ll ring you back.”

Five minutes later. “Can you come back for the whole day? Make this week one of your weeks you do 4 days, swap it with one when you are doing 3?”

So I had to drive back tonight, after a very long day. I am exhausted.

However, got a result in my pocket - boss has agreed to pay £15 a month towards my mobile phone bill! I was angling to get a tenner, so I am well chuffed!

…but my family truly are insane.

I went home for my nephew’s 21st birthday celebration. It was so obviously done for the rest of family, and not for him, with family going for lunch in a local pub, then back to my sister’s house for friends to come round.

It was okay, I suppose, but I get so annoyed with my family making out he is a victim all the time. When me and nephew did get some time to talk on our own, he discussed it with me, said how his old counsellor used to say that part of his problem has been the way the family always manipulate him.

For example - he is away at university, living in a shared house with 6 other blokes. My mom has repeatedly said, in a really tragic voice, with her fake sympathetic face on, “What a bloody shame for him, you know he only had 6 birthday cards to open on his actual birthday?” In what world do they live in? I know very few blokes who do birthday cards - that is just life. But I know they have said that to him, so he now feels that somehow what he does is wrong because he didn’t have piles of birthday cards.

The fact his housemates all clubbed together and got him a present, and there is a proper party planned for later this week (they couldn’t have the party last week because they all had assignments to hand in, plus nephew had to get up for 9 o’clock to give a presentation). He doesn’t sound like that much of a victim to me!

Then, when I turned up on Saturday, my dad announced that I would be driving him and my mom to the pub in his car, seeing as he still can’t drive after his broken wrist. Great. I hadn’t been drinking the night before because I would be getting up early and driving to see them, now I got lumbered with driving duties. “That’s okay, I’ll drive to the pub, but when we get to sister’s, I am going to be drinking, and we can walk back. I’ll go and pick up the car on Sunday.”

My parents then proceeded to get pissed as farts - to the extent that my dad actually couldn’t walk, and then they were both affronted when I wouldn’t drive them home (after consuming a whole bottle of wine myself). Luckily my brother in law had only had one drink, so he took us home, but I am so annoyed.

It was also irritating about my dad. I don’t mind he was drunk - I’ve seen friends in a lot worse state than that - but I can’t stand the lying the next day. He is adamant he wasn’t that drunk, he was fine. I got up in the night to go to the loo, and I could smell alcohol vomit. The airing cupboard door was half open, where the cleaning stuff was kept. Yet there was indignant denial that he was sick. For god’s sake, just admit it and we can all move on, at the moment I have this lasting irritation that he is just a big fat liar!

Went into work early today, so I could leave early for my 4.30 doctors appointment. I hate early mornings - not helped by the 11.30 phone call I had last night.

Got to the doctors 10 minutes early - which was just fantastic, because they were running 30 minutes late.

I go in to see the doctor, she gives a bit of spiel, and then takes me off to the nurses room.

I finally got around to sorting out the fitting of the merina coil!

Except I didn’t. Apparently, they always have trouble fitting them to women who have not had children, and I was no exception. I don’t know if it’s a good thing to know that they “almost got it all the way in, but it wouldn’t go that last bit” or not.

It was painful, but nowhere near as bad as the period pain I get about once every 3 months. Probably helped by the pain killers I took an hour before I got there - double dosage.

Anyway, they gave up, so I am going to have to go through the whole thing again at the family planning clinic, where apparently they can give a local anaesthetic to make it a lot easier.

Oh joy of joys.