A little bouquet of Christmas Nightmares

You don't need to tell me Christmas can be stressful.

39 years ago the lady I was then with sat on the banister outside our flat in Harley Street on Christmas morning and threatened to jump if I didn't marry her.

Since the flat was a penthouse, this was a compelling argument. Nevertheless, horrified by the madness of it all, I left the house and rushed off to Euston to take the train home to Mother. Right strategy, maybe, but wrong tactics -- there are no trains on Christmas Day.

When I got back it turned out she hadn't jumped and about a year later we did marry. Then followed dreamlike years of ecstatic happiness - we were madly in love with each other - punctuated by nightmares, because every few months she would try to kill herself. Although I was no model citizen this was not an ideal menage.

Eventually she left me for a Swedish lawyer with transvestite inclinations, then came back, then left, then came back, then vanished. I regularly search for her on the internet - though I don't know quite why.

When I began this blog I planned to tell stories like that about my life, but somehow I got side-tracked, then sidetracked again - and so on. Rather like my present (and I pray last) partner who eventually flew off to Rome with BA on the 23rd after giving up on Alitalia.

Her plan was to take the train home - but there was no train, so she caught one to Naples where she stayed the night with a friend before being driven across the peninsula back home.

On Christmas Day she was rushed off to hospital with a virus. Not much cheer there either.