Yes, you are BACK.... and life around here will never be the same (as when you were gone). However, that is a hugely positive thing and I'm ecstatically pleased to have you home again.
Welcome home, sweetheart... I'm glad your holiday with the young uns was a success and that you enjoyed it so much.

That month-long diet of bread and water was none to pleasing or appetising...
... so you'll probably be stuck in the kitchen for a month to help envigorate my depleted palate with some REAL cooking.

Seroiusly folks, it is great to see them go... but oh so much better to see them arrive home again. Admittedly the peace and quiet around here has been shattered (mrs starkers hasn't stopped talking since coming through the door), but it's a huge improvement on hearing just the sound of my own voice. Yes, that's right, I took to talking to myself in her absence. However, what was becoming alarming was when I answered myself... and frightening , even, when that developed into an argument, which it often did.
And those arguments became a problem in more ways than one... often I hadn't saved enough breath for my inflatable ladies, not that they were great conversationalists who could stimulate my inceasingly bored intellectual state. So for any of you guys who have a spouse going on an impending trip away, inflatable surrogates are NOT the answer... they don't cook or clean, either. Nah, the answer there is to go with them... and if you can't, learn to make toast and open a can of beans.
Which reminds me... to enroll for night classes in cookery, so that I know how for next time.
