Pillow talk…

When D and I were first together I was travelling a lot for work – my magazine job meant I got to go on lots of swanky press trips, leaving him and Beckett behind.

I got into the habit of leaving a post-it note with a message on his pillow before I left – something for him to find when he went to bed. The messages might be slushy, or funny. Sometimes I’d leave a pair of (clean) pants on the pillow instead just for variety, or one of the dog’s toys. Something to remind him that he’s always on my mind.

The notes would often be on his bedside table for a while after I came back before being cleaned away. We agree it’s a shame he didn’t keep them as they’d be a nice record of our relationship.

As I’ve written before, we are both early risers and at the moment our waking time is around 5.30am, though one or other of us is awake at various points during the night. We sleep with the radio on. D likes Radio 4 Extra, I prefer World Service. I’ve lost count of the number of times D ‘wakes up’ to announce ‘I was listening to that!’ as I switch stations – having ascertained that he was deeply asleep.

The day begins by asking each other how we’ve slept and relaying any thrilling dreams (last night I was unexpectedly flying to NYC and the trolley dolly wouldn’t let me off the plane even though I didn’t have a ticket and my social media is full of anti-Trump content). I then get up and make tea for D and a strong coffee for me (in a cheery orange Bialetti hob top cafetiere).

Back in bed we chat while looking at email, news and social media. For the past week or so one of the first phrases I use is ‘For fxck sake!’ as my MacBook goes from almost fully charged to totally dead as my battery has given up the ghost (I am, probably foolishly, going to try and fit a new one myself) while D makes a comment on what is popping up on his feed. Today’s observation was, ‘I’m sick of all the dancing men!’ – goodness knows what he’s been searching for but the algorithm is serving him pics of young men prancing around in pants – and also artists showing off their work.

There’s an interesting Venn diagram to be done of the young men in pants and those artists, some of whom choose to show off their creations while also showcasing what’s going on down below.

Which reminds of Paula Yates’s Rock Stars in Their Underpants book – maybe D should do the same with artists.

And while we’re on Pillow Talk, in case you don’t know it, this is excellent