Monday 1 September

I belong (in a passive, lurking fashion) to an email discussion group for bisexual married men. Some of them have come out to their wives, and in a few cases the wife has been understanding and even cooperative, enthusiastically joining in bisexual three-way action. Far more frequently, the wife is devastated to discover the truth, and this often leads to divorce or to a miserable continuing relationship. Other men, like me, keep their situation to themselves and deal with it as best they can.

New members of the group often post messages saying how they are agonising over their situation and wondering whether they should be more open about their sexuality. Some of the advice they get is to be open and honest, "stop living a lie" and so on. But one particularly active member of the group always counsels them to think very carefully before taking such an irreversible step. I don't always agree with the trenchant way he sometimes expresses himself, but I think his advice is basically right. A couple of days ago he posted this little parable, which resonated with me.

So you're riding along with your wife in the car, but she wants to go to the beach and you want to go to the mountains.

You pull the car over and tell her, "I want to go to the mountains, I've always wanted to go to the mountains, I denied it for a long time but by God now I'm going to the mountains and you can either ride along or get out of the car."

So she goes along, but she hates the mountains, she doesn't understand how anyone could like the mountains when the beach is available, she's confused and hurt. But you just love the mountains, you tell her all about how great it is that you can finally truly express your love of the mountains. And she grows weary of your self-aggrandizement, gets out of the car, and takes a bus home to pack up and move out.

Or maybe she just skips the trip and gets out when you first pull over.

Or maybe, instead of doing your little speech, you take her to the beach. You tell her how much pleasure it brings you to see her happy. You occasionally mention the mountains, if she's at all interested you take her, otherwise you go on your own.

Whichever way you interpret it, that pretty much exactly sums up my attitude. At the most literal level, Mary loves the beach and I love the mountains. I go off on my own each year for my climbing holiday in Scotland, but I'm equally happy to take her for our annual winter holiday in the Canaries (to say nothing of our impending trip to Hawaii, Fiji and the Great Barrier Reef next year – you are going to get SO sick of hearing about that here). Of course, the fact that she's happy to stay on the beach in Gran Canaria while I slip away to the gay nudist area in the dunes makes even a beach holiday rather enjoyable.

At the metaphorical level, I wouldn't necessarily want to criticise a married man who comes to realise that his need for a same sex partner is so overwhelming that he can't resist it whatever the effect on his wife. But I think that in some cases, that's just an excuse for acting selfishly and reneging on what should be a lifelong commitment to love and cherish one's partner.

Tuesday 9 September

The house seems unnaturally quiet this evening.

For the past three days we have had the entire family staying with us: Liz (sadly now without Paul), Steve and Jo and the two grandchildren Tom and David. Now they have all left, and Mary and I have the place to ourselves. We won't be on our own for long, however, because this weekend I'll be driving down to Hampshire to collect Liz with all her belongings and her cat. She'll be staying with us for the next few months until she finds somewhere more permanent to live.

Tom, now four years old, is cuter than ever, but fairly exhausting to be with. He is so full of energy that some people might call him hyperactive, though I'm glad to say that Steve and Jo seem quite able to handle him without calling in the child psychiatrists. Of course, he was excited to be visiting us, and that made him even more bouncy. But he is very good with his baby brother (so far – I wonder what they'll be like in ten years' time), and behaves gently and protectively towards him. He does sometimes sit still, and in the picture he is waiting for someone to read from a favourite book, which sharp-eyed readers will recognise as Where The Sidewalk Ends.

David, now three months old, is a chubby little fellow, and appears to be much more placid than Tom. He hardly cries at all, and burbles happily to himself as he blows bubbles. He has a sweet smile for his grandparents, so of course he can do no wrong in our eyes. We're very glad that we have finally got to see him, if only for a few days.

A reader from Austria recommends a newly published novel called heinrich; hanna; gert, by Uwe Bolius. The blurb for the book states: 'Heinrich falls in love with Gert, a student, and Hanna, his wife of thirty years, doesn't quite know how to handle it. This sounds like a typical love triangle, but it isn't. Gert is already in a committed relationship with Kristof, his "great true love". The figures in this drama are driven into a dynamic which eventually devours them. While trying to lead an honest life with Hanna, Heinrich longs to have sex with the young man. The situation explodes. "Love is beautiful and terrible," it is said, "sweet terror, to be precise." Less importantly about hetero- and homosexuality, "heinrich; hanna; gert" is a dramatic novel dealing with love and fidelity.' (In case you're wondering, Gert is a male name in German.)

Sounds interesting. There's just one little snag that will prevent me from reading it. It hasn't been translated into English. But if your German is up to it, you might like to try it. Let me know what you think of it.

Tuesday 16 September

On Saturday I drove down to Hampshire to collect Liz, her belongings and her cat. She is coming back to live with us for the next few months. It was a warm day, and the forecast for Sunday was even warmer. The car has been overheating recently, and I was fretting about how it would survive the return trip, loaded down with Liz and her possessions on a hot day.

When I arrived, their house was in its usual chaotic state. Both Liz and Paul had avoided doing much in the way of preparing for the move. Although they decided quite amicably to break up, they didn't want to face the reality of going their separate ways, and so they had left everything until the last minute. Paul can't afford to stay on in the house on his own, and is going to stay with a friend until he finds somewhere cheaper. His parents were supposed to be coming to help him transport his stuff, but their car broke down on the way there and couldn't be repaired, so Paul had to rush out and rent a van for the weekend. If I had any sense, I would have done the same, because it soon became clear that our car couldn't possibly hold all Liz's things. Before setting out, I had removed the parcel shelf and folded down the back seats, but the space soon filled up. Then every few minutes Liz would find something else that she wanted to pack. In the end we had to adopt a triage system, dividing her things into those that we would take with us, those that would have to go to the tip and those that she would ask Paul to look after.

They had a checklist from the house rental agency of things that they had to do in order to get their rent deposit refunded: clean the windows inside and out, get the carpets professionally cleaned, make good any damage to the walls where pictures had been hung, and so on. Professional carpet cleaners charge an exorbitant amount, so they decided to do it themselves, renting a carpet cleaning machine for the weekend.

The three of us were hard at work all day, clearing the rooms, dividing up the possessions and cleaning the place. In the evening we went for a very good dinner at a local pub, the Good Intent. Paul insisted on paying for all of us. I think there may have been an element of guilt here, because I had noticed that whenever the time came to operate the carpet cleaning machine (which was quite hard work) Paul somehow seemed to be elsewhere, ferrying goods in the rented van.

By Saturday night we had made a good start on clearing the house. Most of the furniture had gone. I was glad that I had thought to bring a sleeping bag with me, because there were no beds left, and not much bedding. I slept on a mattress on the floor, and actually had a pretty good night's sleep.

In the morning we finished packing, had a picnic lunch on the front lawn, put Tiffin the cat in her cat basket and were ready to go.I stayed diplomatically out of the way while they said their goodbyes to each other. When Liz and I got into the car, it was Paul who cracked up. He is really sad to be losing Liz, and he couldn't hold back the tears. I was very sorry to be saying goodbye to him, and I hope we see him again. He's a really nice guy.

The car and the cat both survived the 260 mile journey pretty well (with me keeping a worried eye on the temperature gauge), and we were home in time for dinner. Now our entire dining room is piled high with Liz's gear – I was really impressed how much stuff we had managed to pack into our little Volvo. Next weekend she's going to have to stash it all away either in her bedroom or in the loft.

After a quick turn around on Sunday evening I was off to London for the day on Monday for a meeting, followed by a visit to Chariots sauna. I'll be giving up my job with the Math Soc at the end of the year, so there'll be no more of these trips to London. I'll only have one or two more chances to go to Chariots. I do hope I find somewhere local to replace it, where I can get away occasionally to spend a few hours in surroundings with a congenial gay ambience.

Monday 22 September

It's good having Liz back to live with us. We were a bit concerned that she might revert to teenagerhood and expect us to look after her all the time, but there's no sign of that. In fact, she was aware of the danger, and mentioned to us that she didn't intend to let that happen. On our side, there's also the danger of forgetting that she's an adult woman in her thirties, and treating her as though she's still our little girl. But I don't think that will happen either. In fact, we're all getting on very well.

Yesterday evening the three of us went out to the new Ster cinema centre in town to see a film called Spirited Away, an anime cartoon described in The Guardian's listings as a Japanese version of Alice in Wonderland. That's about as good a summary as you could give in a few words. I had never heard of it, which just goes to show how little interest I take in movies, because apparently it won an Oscar this year for best animated feature.

It's a beautifully made film, packed with wonderfully imaginative ideas. It tells the story of a little girl who has to take a job as a cleaner in a bathhouse for departed spirits, after her parents get transformed into pigs. As the story goes on, it starts to get a bit weirder...

The film lasts for over two hours, and we loved every minute of it. The only criticism is that the dialogue is dubbed into a very grating American English. I would much have preferred to hear the original Japanese voices with subtitles. As it was, the heroine's voice reminded me all the time of Lisa Simpson.

One of the reviews in the IMDB makes the point that you couldn't imagine a film like this coming out of Disney or Hollywood, because the characters don't neatly divide into goodies and baddies. In fact, these categories just don't apply. The film creates a world that is totally alien in almost every way, and yet has its own consistent and convincing morality. Visually it's stunning, and I'll remember some of the scenes for a long time. Strongly recommended.

Sunday 28 September

I had meetings in London on Thursday and Friday. As you might expect, I took the opportunity to visit Chariots gay sauna. I also found time to browse in Gay's The Word bookshop, where I bought an interesting looking novel by Patrick Gale, Rough Music. I expect I'll report on it here in due course, when I have finished reading it.

I can never pass by a bookshop without going in and browsing. But even better than a bookshop is a map shop. I am an obsessive collector of maps. Every place I ever visit, I must have a map of it; and I keep them all, even maps of places that I know I'll never visit again. So the highlight of my trip to London was a visit to Stanfords. Stanfords is a magical place. It sells maps and guide books to just about anywhere you can think of. Its web site currently has an excited splash announcement: "NEW – Kinshasa City Map. One of our rare finds: a good street plan of the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo." I love that sort of enthusiasm. If I had known about the Kinshasa street plan I would probably have been tempted to buy it. But of course my real reason for visiting Stanfords was to get some maps of the places we'll be going to on our round the world trip next year. I picked up good maps of Hawaii, New Zealand, and the Sydney and Cairns areas of Australia. The one thing I couldn't find was a useful map of Fiji. They did have a map of Fiji. But it was very large, expensive and cumbersome, and consisted mainly of ocean with little islands dotted around here and there. Maybe we'll have to wait till we get to Fiji, and buy a map on arrival.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to shut down the computer and spend the rest of the evening looking at maps and guide books.

Tuesday 30 September

I came home from work this afternoon and announced to Mary and Liz that the University has given me my P45. I showed them the small blue printed form, and it brought home to all of us the reality that after 37 years of full time employment I have officially retired as from midnight tonight.

Note for foreign readers: P45 is the form that the Inland Revenue require firms to give employees when they leave. To be given one's P45 is often a polite way of saying that you have been sacked, and of course that was the way I presented the news to Mary and Liz. They were duly sympathetic.

Retirement won't have any immediate effect on me, because the University is re-engaging me on a part time basis for the next three years. I'll continue to go in to work as usual until Christmas, but after that I'll have no further duties until next September. I have been looking forward to this for quite a while, and now that it's actually happening I'm confident that I did the right thing.

My final month's salary was paid into my account today, and in a richly symbolic gesture it has almost entirely been used already by Liz. An important part of the decision to take early retirement was the fact that now that Liz has graduated from her osteopathy course we no longer have to support her to the tune of about £10,000 a year. Without this drain on our finances we should be able to get by on a reduced salary. I was kind of hoping that there would be something to spare from my last full salary payment so that I could treat myself to a new computer or something like that. But Liz is still penniless and not earning yet, and she doesn't stand much chance of getting work as an osteopath unless she has her own transport. She has never owned a car, but now she really needs one. One of her old school friends has a brother who works in the second hand car trade, and he found a car that she set her heart on. The only snag is that it costs more than double what Liz had budgeted. What with the road tax and insurance as well as the cost of the car, that cleans me out of my whole month's salary.

If ever you are thinking of starting a family, be warned: daughters are an expensive luxury.

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