153: Traumatised by Absence

The pup is still away.  He’s away for a month. That’s 4 weeks. (Don’t get me started on human time periods … they don’t seem to make much sense. 3 ‘between main walks’ makes much more sense to me then 3 days. )

His absence changes the dynamic in the house in a number of subtle ways.  

TOWTLH and TOWTSH have to talk to one another more and sometimes that seems difficult.  They end up in different rooms with different programmes on different TVs.  Sometime they are in the same room, doing the same crossword - one in the print newspaper, one in the digital newspaper on a screen.

Occasionally one of them will ask, “Do you want a coffee?” and a brief conversation will ensue.  There might be as many as 2 or 3 interactions before the programmes or crosswords are resumed.

So goes married life (at least for those who have been married for more than 50 years).   (Though it’s not what you’d call ‘life’ is it?)

Just a minute, there is another conversation going on.  It appears that in the last half hour they have booked a theatre performance (42nd Street), a holiday (the Highlands of Scotland) a comedy gig (Tim Vine) and, most difficult of all, a dental appointment.

Perhaps they are waking from their great slumber!  Perhaps it was triggered by the absence of the pup.