Gobshites and Gifts

Good evening and greetings from home where I've finally landed after a superb trip to Inverness. Girl cat is in heat ( again ) and is busy caterwauling in the hall to attract the attention of the local talent, boy cat has given up and taken cover behind the washing basket. As soon as she's finished this time she's off to the vets, without her paws touching the ground. *sigh*

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I have a "ned filter" which has seldom let me down. Perhaps I should have mentioned my "gobshite filter" too. In some respects this is a lot easier to police than the ned filter. A dear friend of mine in Edinburgh who speaks beautifully ( proper English like wot the Queen does ) kindly recorded my voicemail greeting for me. It says - ( think Watson and Jeeves ) -

"Hello, you've reached the private telephone of Miss Laura Lee. I'm afraid the Mistress isn't free to pick up the telephone herself, so please leave a message with me, her very personal assistant. Speak after the tone."

Fairly straight forward you'd have thought? Apparently not. The number of people who speak to my "butler" is truly frightening.

"All right mate, eh, can ye get a message tae Laura fae me ?"

Dear God.

The best of all was the ( I'll be kind ) "gentleman" who called me one afternoon as I made my way to Aberdeen. The phone rang and as per usual, it was buried underneath two tonnes of my worldly possessions in my handbag. By the time I found it, it had gone to voicemail. Blast. Happily though, he called back two minutes later.

"Is that you Laura ?"

"Hi there, yes it is. Sorry I missed your call."

"Have you got yer pimp with you like ?"

"I very much beg your pardon ?"

"When I called a minute ago some bloke answered the phone."

*sigh*

"Oh I see, no don't worry that's my assistant, he takes my calls in my absence."

"I was gonnae come and see ye, but that's well dodgy man."

"You know what ? DON'T BOTHER."

I mean really.

It's fair to say that sometimes I get to the point of wanting to find a remote beach where I can scream until my lungs implode. Take this little beauty -

"I saw your details on the net and would love to come and see you."

"No problem, was it a Glasgow meeting you'd like ?"

"Aye, but there's something I need to tell you."

I braced myself.

"I'm on job seekers allowance so I only have £30, yeah ?"

Brilliant. Perhaps I should go the whole hog and offer discounts to OAPs and students too. And people born on Wednesdays. And bisexual one-legged pisceans.

Just when I start truly losing the will to live, there is always a last minute reprieve. So when I came back from Inverness today ( still seething at the man who tried to convince me that unprotected anal sex is ok, because it's only vaginal sex that transmits STI's ) I went through my mail. Amongst the usual stuff was an envelope from Debenhams. My slave "J", has sent me a voucher to go shopping by way of apology for our recent trip. I am so chuffed, and there really was no need, no-one can help being ill. Thank you J, I really am very grateful.

So tomorrow, after I've booked slut cat into the vets, I'm off to do some retail therapy. Bliss.

Nite,

LL xx

(P.S : Gobshite is not a curse, if it's good enough for Channel 4, it's good enough for me, K ? )