Book One: Chapter 36

Saturday 29th October

Two weeks of freedom! Two weeks without the shackles of baby, wife and family. I mentally reinstate my position as lord of the manor, king of my domain, master of my fiefdom. I lie in until the unimaginably late hour of eight o'clock, with an eerie silence pervading the flat. No joyous giggle of baby, no moaning from the wife that my socks are mid-tryst in the hallway. I strut around the house, mentally planning two weeks of hardcore partying and hedonism. The world is my oyster, bring it on.
Bring.
It.
On.

Then I spot Lily's pink frilly trousers hanging on the clothes horse. Cherubic Lily who is somewhere over the Russian Steppes with her mother explaining why she was abducted out of Britain, how her new surrogate "daddy" will greet her laden with sweets at Narita Airport. The silence is crushing, the emptiness pervasive. Cooking for one is a lonely chore. Plus I have to do the washing up myself (theoretically.)

By mid-morning I have broken most of the house rules, enforced by Tomoko with the draconian force of a mid-1950's communist state. The trouble is that I am fatigued. Nine-months baby-rearing exhaustion impels me to stay in and collapse into the sofa, as if the bones have fallen out of my body. Still, I have my bar of Green & Black organic chocolate to nibble through the week as I veg in front of the TV, the first chunks broken off during X-Factor. Of course, within thirty minutes I have devoured the whole bar, the one that was supposed to last me all week.

I wouldn't be much good surviving on rations in the wilderness.

Sunday 30th October

Christ, I`m tired. Tomoko has phoned. Her Japanese paramour must have failed to materialize at Narita. Lily behaved on the 12-hour transcontinental flight, her attempt at opening the emergency hatch at 30,000 ft thwarted in the nick of time. I spend the day chilling out and trying to avoid looking at any photos of Lily.

Monday 31st October

Tonight I go to the cinema, a leisure sacrificed for fatherhood. Upon Phil's recommendation I see "History of Violence", perhaps a rash choice since I cannot stand violence. I go to the Odeon near Leicester Square, ostensibly a wide-screen TV with a few dozen moth-eaten chairs plonked in front. I nearly walk out when "Directed by David Cronenberg" appears in the opening credits, but I persevere and shy away when the camera lingers on gratuitous violence, which means I spend the last 15 minutes of the film staring at a Monster Munch packet and a forlorn packet of Silk Cut the floor.

Tuesday 1st November

I attend an MW Bordeaux 2001 tasting at Vintners Hall. I get my head down, I want to taste as many as possible, including the First Growths which are being served blind. There is a rumour that any Masters of Wine failing to identify all five will be ceremoniously stripped of their MW and forcibly ejected from the building. Indeed during the tasting, whilst I am knee-deep in Pessac, I hear cries of despair as yet another MW is chastised for their ignorance and thrown onto the pavement, their tasting book flung after them into the pouring rain.

Afterwards I join a work colleague for lunch. My munificent friend orders a fabulous bottle of Chateau Trotanoy 1975 but alas the restaurant is in complete disarray. The oven has broken down, anything hot is off the menu, the sommelier looks as if he had a lobotomy for breakfast, the French waiters are too busy panicking to serve us and they have forgotten to cook my colleagues steak tartar. As the eminence grise of fast-food, I am certain that the accompanying bowl of chips that eventually deign us with their presence, are procured from McDonald's round the corner. To add insult to injury they charge us 12.5%service.

In the evening I meet Jude and Vik for some sausage and mash in the City. Topics of discussion include: "Why do 90% of business managers represent good advertisements for contraception" and "What makes a great sausage?"

Wednesday 2nd November

Tasting of some lovely Viogniers from Haan in the Barossa. I stay in during the evening, but order an Indian takeaway, too depressed at the thought of cooking for one.

Thursday 3rd November

It is amazing how quickly the flat is degenerating from a married couples' abode to a bachelor pad. The washing-machine is in a mood having been made redundant, starved of its diet of Lily's pureed banana-splattered baby-grows. It stands in the kitchen, its mouth wide open saying "Feed me", but I am determined to get through the fortnight with a minimal amount washing.

Each room is now littered with a vagrant sock or underwear, the odd dirty wine glass occupies shelf space, Anthony Hanson's "Burgundy" tome now inhabits the bathroom as something to read on the throne and the living room floor is mosaic of CD's. If Tomoko, my darling wife, is reading this, then you know that this diary is complete fiction so you have nothing to worry about. Honestly.

Friday 4th November

Tonight I participate in a tasting of Seguin-Manuel Burgundies, centred around World War I vintages: 1906, 1915, 1918 etc, you know, the typical vino you pick up at Threshers for the weekend. It is becoming a cliché, but this is a memorable tasting, especially several bottles that represent the final stocks from the Seguin cellar, including a Richebourg 1906 that is corked. I cannot think of a greater travesty.

Just as entertaining as the wines is the verbal joust between the redoubtable Dominic, composer of defunct boyband Blue's poptastic ditties and Anthony Hanson MW, who as far as I am aware has not penned any compositions for any boyband. A man of Hanson's stature is accustomed to being treated with respect, particularly when moderating a tasting and sharing their divine wisdom. However Dominic is in a pugnacious mood. I hope he does not mind me saying this, but this evening he is like a five-year old tearaway who has a wrong opinion on everything: especially 90-year old Pinot Noir.

Hanson remains his normal emollient self, but his exasperation is soon boiling over as he deploys a salvo of softly-spoken retorts, usually beginning with "Well, I don't agree with that at all" (i.e. I think you are talking absolute bollocks.) I speculate upon whether it will end in physical violence before we get to the Charmes 1945 and I can tell that Hanson is comtemplating a left-hook upon his nemesis on the other side of the table.

After the tasting is completed (without Dominic and Hanson grappling on the floor) we move over for a three million course grazing menu accompanied by some more exquisite Burgundies. I am fairly inebriated by the 2,405,611th course and consequently manage to miss my connection home. I am marooned at Victoria bus station at one o'clock in the morning, which is a tad less desirable than a desert island.

Saturday 5th November

Weekly shopping, albeit for one, consequently the usual fresh fruit and veg make way for frozen BOGOF chicken kievs that should see me out until the wife gets back, though I treat myself to some frozen mince for a chille con carne, scheduled for tomorrow evening. I feel like a student again, my metabolism fuelled by low-grade, industrial produced, additive-rich meals that would put Jamie Oliver in a strop.

In the afternoon I make a life-changing decision. I am going to sell the flat. The problem is space: it is cosy for one, cramped for a couple but a rabbit-hutch for a reproductive family, so much so that we spend much of the time tripping over each others feet. There is no room to escape and collect your thoughts, consequently I compose many of the articles for wine-journal perched on the edge of the sofa juggling an the Mac and a fidgety baby.

No wonder there is so many typos.

The estate agent is summoned to survey my humble abode. I have chosen this particular estate agent because they sounded "hungry" on the telephone, so it is no surprise when I am met with a feisty pudgy-faced dynamo with machine-gun sales spiel, like Del Trotter on amphetamines, who talks up my two-bedroom des res to the point where I feel like buying it myself. I sign on the dotted line and for the third time in my life, commence one of the most stressful undertakings in ones life. I make a mental note to tell the wife, I wouldn't want her to return from Japan homeless.

(Post-script: the previous paragraph represents one of the worst decisions of my life.)

In the evening, I tube over to Alex H for a four-course Manchurian banquet, the antithesis of my victuals purchased that very morning. Alex has circum-navigated the globe, sourcing the finest products that make La Gavroche look like "Mmmmm Fried Chicken": a delectable artichoke soup, a flavorsome mushroom risotto, a slab of venison that must have been culled in Richmond Park mere hours ago and a delicious hard cheese that I would have appreciated more had my faculties not been impaired by a series of stunning wines, including the inaugural Opus One 1979, a coveted Bonnes Mare Vieilles Vignes 1988 from Domaine George Roumier, a Filhot 1935, Haut-Brion 1970 and a couple more whose names I forget.

Whilst I would like to say that the Bonnes Mares was savoured to the accompaniment of a Chopin concerto and a choice cut of Mahler, it is actually savoured to the soundtrack of a deafening Led Zeppelin drum solo (Ramble On from Led Zep II.)

For the second night in a row, I miss the last tube and find myself stuck in Victoria bus station, waiting aeons for the N3 night-bus, which seems to take the scenic route home.

Sunday 6th November

Down to Leigh to meet the parents and avoid cooking for another day. It is dreary and overcast, the landscape imbued with a dispiriting greyness and so I refrain from venturing out and spend a couple of hours conversing with the menagerie of pets, discussing how the tortoise's hibernation is progressing and what Frank, the world's most stupid dog, is planning for Xmas.

Beef still in fridge. Will eat tomorrow.

Monday 7th November

Beef still in fridge. Will eat tomorrow.

Tuesday 8th November

Beef turning brown.

Wednesday 9th November

After work I walk down to Christies for their Chateau Latour/Chateau Petrus vertical in the company of Jean-Claude Berrouet and Frederic Engerer. The towering scribes of Jefford and Robinson are seated on the back row, a few members of the wine trade are scattered here and there and an ultra-serious journalist from La Revue de France takes a pew in front, armed with a bevy of existential questions that nobody comprehends.

I feel that I should make my presence known and spend much of the tasting racking my brain for an intelligent question to ask. After an hour or so, I manage to question Berrouet whether he believes that low yields are a prerequisite for quality given the 1982 vintage? He replies at length, however it is the fag end of the tasting and hardly anyone is listening except me, so after procedings are wrapped up (by Hanson, who is probably still having nightmares about Dominic) I engage the charismatic Berrouet in conversation and he offers to guide me round the vinegard. He is busy tomorrow, but I will diarize that for next year.

I manage to write the seminar "live", tidy up the prose on the way back on the train and upload it by midnight, just to flex the power of the internet. Of course, the beef is forgotten about and remains incarcerated in the fridge.

Thursday 10th November

I spend the morning with a herd of Barossa "garagistes" who have been shepherded to Australia House by Bordeaux Index. They are mostly young, good-looking guys who my single girlfriends would nurture carnal desires for. The wines are superb: just a shame they are made in miniscule quantities, so small that they are in danger of evaporating before they are even consumed. One wines' UK allocation is a whopping three cases of which two bottles are being sacrificed for this tasting, I mean, they might as well include a free teat pipette taped to the side so that you can distribute droplets around the dinner table.

Tasting number two is in the early evening, courtesy of Linden Wilkie, a comprehensive tasting of a some Vouvrays by Prince something-or-other back to 1947, after which it is a short hop, skip and jump to a Christies' "Hospice de Beaune" tasting. As if that was not enough, I rejoin the Antipodean winemakers who are on a quest to drink London dry. We rendezvous at swanky Indian eaterie Yatra, bottles of Verve Cliquot already flowing before they arrive at around 10.30pm. I chat with Dan Standish (ex-Torbreck) who has a wide face. I mention this because I have a theory that the greater the width of an Australian's face, the more alcohol they can consume (if anyone Down Under can verify this I would be grateful, it's just hypothetical.)

I had anticipated the Ozzies planning a night of mayhem and debauchery, yet a few of them bail out at midnight, muttering that they had tea-cosies to finish knitting and some embroidary to finish off. I, myself politely refuse an invitation to party the night away as I want to be A1 for clubbing tomorrow.

Beef thrown into bin.

Friday 11th November

Today has been reserved for clubbing, a pursuit relinquished when fatherhood beckoned. Jude and I exchange e-mails during the day and hatch a plan to go to Rollerdisco at Kings Cross. We meet at Hammersmith after work and catch the bus back to her pad for some sausage and mash during which Jude demonstrates her fancy-dress outfit (see left.) I might borrow it for the next Petrus vertical tasting, I'm sure it would go down well.

Fact is, we cannot be bothered to trek over to Kings Cross to spend the evening falling on our arses, so instead we catch a taxi to Clapham to visit "White Cube". I must admit, I do feel rather gauche when two cubic bouncers size us up at the door, my attire consisting of a cardigan from M&S and a t-shirt from Asda. Am I post-modernist retro-chic or dressed like a sad dad trying to recapture his youth?

I intially feel like a dad, a generation apart from the clubbers flirting outrageously in their Diesel jeans and Ted Baker shirts, planning their next ski-boarding holiday for the winter. I am out of practice, I have lost the art of clubbing, I therefore need booze.

But first I must get rid of my coat and I forget that in clubs are a veritable minefield of traps set down to extricate a few more quid from punters such as the cloak room (one pound per item) and the intimidating toilet attendants whose modus operandi is to give dirty looks to those who forego washing their hands just to avoid parting with yet more pennies.

Jude and I spend much of the evening propped against the bar ordering a string of multi-coloured cocktails including one, a "Jayne Mansfield", which unbeknownst to me is the gayest cocktail of all time. I mean, I might as well hang a sign around my neck saying "I Am Gay". To illustrate how gay it is, I take a photo: see what I mean? Surely it should have been entitled the Judy Garland?

Anyway, I have an enjoyable evening in my charade as a regular, hedonistic clubber (who swings both ways) although my mind keeps wandering towards Lily and whether she will recognize me when she returns. I hop in a taxi home, I cannot be bothered spending another night at a freezing-cold bus-stop with two amphetamine-fuelled space cadets and a drunken, wee-smelling bum who declares that you are his new best friend.

Saturday 12th November

One of those days when you need 25 hours. The house appears to have been turned over to a pack of slovenly students for a fortnight, the fridge has forgotten what food looks like, the plants are committing mass suicide and troups of voyeuristic, prospective house-hunters are marching through my abode every ten minutes, making mental appraisals of my modest accommodation.

Fortunately my metabolism has coped admirably with last night's torrent of cocktails and I make a mental note that gay cocktails are more benevolent to the following day.

In the afternoon I journey across the metropolis to Ealing, which seems to have gone completely organic since I last ventured there. Practically every boutique is flogging eco-friendly goods made by Inca tribes and North African nomads; meat from livestock that volunteered to be slaughtered.

I meet Joel, website-designer extraordinaire, to discuss moving the site on to the second phase (I do not know what "second phase" is, but it sounds good.) He cooks some delicious lamb chops and serves a fine Brunello, for which I repay him by forcing him to download the Arctic Monkeys. I depart at five: I am due to be in Greenwich by eight, but I feel fatigued after a whirlwind of wine tastings, dinners and socializing. It is my final night where I can relax properly and my body seizes the opportunity by ensuring that I fall asleep on the sofa before the results of X-Factor are revealed.

My fortnight of relative solitude is coming to an end, fourteen days without wife and child. In many ways it has been a rewarding experience, a time to reflect on what you have, a pertinent reminder never to take it for granted. There are some things that I miss: the freedom to go out whenever I want, to whatever time is desirable plus the freedom to leave my underwear around the flat and pick it up whenever is convenient (until it forms a dam across the hallway); the freedom to watch reality TV 24-hours a day.

The quietude is both enjoyable but unfulfilling; the absence of Lily's laughter deafening. The novelty of a temporary bachelor life wore off after three of four days, the pleasures of single-life paling against the joy of a family. I crawl into bed and take a look at the photograph of Lily that sits on the bedside cabinet, the one shown right.
Goodnight Lily, see you tomorrow.

Sunday 13th November

Oh Jesus H. Christ: the wife and baby are back in six hours time and the flat is still looking dishevelled. I make a b-line for the utensils cupboard but my last-minute cleaning receives and early setback when the furniture polish dribbles its last droplet of foam and dies in my own hands. Emergency drive to Savacentre to replace polish and procure ingredients for a welcome chicken chasseur, chosen for its homely smell and my inability to f**k it up. I return home, polish like my life depends upon it, rush to kitchen and chop vegetables with both alacrity and little care for fingers.

Clean, polish, clean, polish. Last minute inspection then another inch by inch search for anything where it should not be. Then again, what is the point? I am constantly having it drilled into me that my cleaning standards are of a lower level than hers and whilst I am at work, she will discover something to admonish me for, a stray hair here, a recalcitrant sock there making a bid for freedom through the back door.

O.K. the flat is as perfectamondo, time to pick up the family from Terminal 3. I leave in good time for the airport and buy a copy of Mojo magazine to pass the time (must-read Kate Bush interview) and take voyeuristic pleasure in watching families reunite, businessmen search in vain for their business contact like lost 5-year old children, round-the-world trekkers laden with three bulging rucksacks and a surf board.

Finally Lily and Tomoko exit the doors and I am immediately aware that the daughter I said good-bye to is different to the one I now say hello to. Two weeks is a long time when you are ten-months old: she looks older, her hair is longer, she is a little bigger.
But most disturbingly she does not know who the hell I am.
I had imagined a broad smile beaming from her face and illuminating the whole terminal, a huge hug, preferably a "Dada. I wuv you." Instead I get a stoic, unemotional, spaced-out daughter who could quite happily jump on the next 747 back to Tokyo and search for a surrogate father.

Still the chicken chasseur is a success. I am a dad once again, though an intensive program of refamiliarizing must commence at dawn tomorrow.