it doesn't hurt when I wee through it, so I'll just use it for that

I've been reading a lot about other people's experiences with Mosquito's. It's amazing how something so tiny can be such a pain in the backside? Most of the bites that I get I pick up in the evenings while I'm out walking the dogs, and sometimes there's quite a nasty reaction, one got me on the eye not too long ago and it swelled up as if I'd been punched. (I do take a crumb of comfort in imagining the mosi waking up in the morning clinging to the underside of a leaf and thinking "Holy Moly, what the hell was I drinking last night, I'm not going back there again", and searching around for tiny gnatspirin).

But this year I picked up a can of repellent in Canada, it's en francais so I have no idea what it says but I think it must be something like "begone you frail filigree winged fucker" (if it's not it should be), because now I trip gaily through the fields like the boy in the bubble with nary a thought for airborne wee beasties. I don't know what it is but I recommend it (and the manufacturers can quote me on that).

Speaking of tripping gaily through fields, there are a few fields that we have been avoiding recently. There's an Airedale out there that has designs on Toffee. Recently we've been wending our merry way through "Forty Hall" (ex hunting ground of Dick Turpin just by the way) when this bloody idiot terrier has broken cover, slewed off it's dirty old mac, and bolted towards poor Toffee like a sex starved cheetah. Toffee wants to run, that's what he lives for, he'll run, and run, and run, through thickets of undergrowth, puddles, ponds, ditches and farmers fields if you'll let him. And he's a boy, he has absolutely no interest whatsoever in being done roughly up the bottom by a gay opportunist Airedale.

And while we are in the realms of the sloppy segue, Toffee still has a better sex life than me, If you were around last night you'll know that I was feeling just a tad sorry for myself (wallowing in a humungous scalding vat of self pity because I have a vague head cold), one of those occasions where you take a roll call of all of things that are wrong with your life. Stand up career, idiot colleagues prepare to be named and shamed, say hello location, you there - too little time - stand up at the back, although I must say thanks for all of the offers of chicken soup, I may ironically pop my clogs but it won't be for want of nourishing broth. And it's raining it's pouring, my love life is boring. It's been over a year now...be honest Colin, well over a year. My hoover has seen more action in the bedroom than I have (which believe me is saying something).

Not that I'm surprised at this, please don't misunderstand. It's not as if I'm in a relationship, I don't have anything remotely resembling a 'girlfriend', so it would be even more remarkable if I were showered in indiscriminate sexual favours. It's also not something that I think of all of the time, (except for those little 3 second bursts that we all have every 2 minutes - at least that's what it says in Cosmo), but I don't dwell on it or sit against the bathroom wall and rock disconsolately. Which, in a way, ought to be just as worrying as dwelling on it and panicking. Am I getting used to it? Has my libido shrunk to such an extent that I'd just as soon spend an evening in with my furry friends as try to find some beautiful, happy and above all willing, lady friend? (Word to self: Have a chat with yourself Colin, when have you ever, deliberately managed a successful conversation with someone that you were attracted to? The likelihood of your mouth uttering words that a woman might want to hear is in direct, inverse proportion with how much you like her). And I am able to, you know, sort it out for myself, I don't believe I really will go blind and after all I ought to know what turns me on - except that the last time I tried, well....I got bored, (Hellfire, I even bored myself! That doesn't bode well for the future does it?). In any case, masturbation is to sex what a dip in the local pool is to swimming with dolphins. Anyway, do people really do that, I mean do men (and women) really see someone they like while they are out in the evening, introduce themselves, chat for a while and then go home together? Am I missing the point here, am I the only one that longs from afar? Or, possibly, do people have sex with people they don't particularly like, just for the moist, jiggly bit? Oooer, now I am beginning to panic, it is perfectly possible that if I continue down this manic, limiting path of trying to find someone attractive that I actually like that I may never, ever have sex again. Brrrr, is it cold in here or is it just me?

I'm really giving some serious thought to running one of the dogs over, slightly, so that I can go back to my gorgeous vet......better still, I could kidnap that bastard Airedale and have it's nuts removed?

PS, Last night I found a pair of spectacles in the kitchen. They must belong to one of the drive by wine sponges from the weekend, but nobody has called or emailed to claim them, it's my first clue.