The Nothing Is Coming

Well, I was going to tell you all how beautiful the weather is, and how we're all sitting out getting tans (in the case of Omega, one of the Special One's friends - one is a student nurse, one is a funeral director, hence Alpha and Omega - lobster red, the kind of sunburn that requires desperate measures such as ice-cold baths and natural yoghurt poultices), but thing have taken a turn for the worse, the sinister even.

Sure, it's still hot as hell - the tube was difficult for the first time today - but now clouds for which the only word is 'lour' have arrived, hanging very low over the city and mingling with the smog and the dust of a blisteringly hot week. Walking from the tube to work, the rain started - you know the kind, rain with attitude, falling exactly vertically, rain with a game-plan to soak you as hard as it can - and the thunder rolled. Normally visible landmarks - church spires, office blocks - had disappeared into the gloaming. If you remember 'The Never-Ending Story', it was like the Nothing that rumbles through the land because children don't believe in magic or fairies or fiction or whatever it was. Looking out the office window at 4.30pm, it looked like night had fallen.

Which brings us, quite neatly to the reason I hadn't blogged in a while, as promised previously. Doney Casanova and the Scholar were coming over for a weekend, and we wanted to tell them our big news face to face. At least one of them either does read or has read the blog, so I couldn't write about it until they were here, and it was hard to think about anything else with that on my mind. Anyways, they arrived, the Special One met them in the pub (Doney Casanova's local, which, amazingly, didn't fold after his departure), bursting to tell them but unable to because even she agreed we'd do it together. Hours later, I arrive from work, and we break the news to them. There are hugs and congratulations and toasts all round. I get the feeling, though, that they're not as excited as they should be, and that they're holding something back. Turns out my sister, the talented and charming LuluPop, had blurted it out the weekend before, before returning half an hour later, shame-facedly muttering: 'I'm not sure I was supposed to tell you that.' So Doney Casanova and the Scholar had a good chortle at the Special One's thunder being stolen, we had a few drinks and went home.

Quick synopsis of the night after: Doney Casanova, the Scholar and I went to the Special One's pub for a pint, then to the local, then out to a club in Camden til 2am, then back to the local (passing a heavy-duty police operation - vans, dogs, machine guns, etc - that looked like it was just packing up after a no-show of whichever ne'er-do-well they were hunting). We met the Special One and she and the Scholar bailed, while Doney Casanova soldiered on. At 6am, we went with one of the bar staff to a weird house party where everyone had to be quiet while the cult leader played his guitar. I went back to the local at 10am, Doney Casanova went and hassled Omega into joining us at lunchtime. We manfully soldiered on until 2pm, by which time our poor little heads were nodding onto the bar and the Special One and the Scholar arrived. For some reason, unclear to us, they had been concerned as to our whereabouts, whereupon we all agreed they were squares. Our story ends with us poor little lambs heading back home (Doney Casanova to Omega's) for a little nap to spruce up for the night ahead.

Oh, what was the big news, I hear you ask? well, I'm sure it comes as a surprise to none of my small coterie of readers: the Special One and I have set a date. Or, rather, the Special One and I told her mother we were thinking of setting a date; within two days it was set. She's a woman of action, no doubt.