I was always ‘proud’ to be something of a diversity. That I could include myself happily in the whole ‘LGBT’ thing, paint my hair purple, wear rainbows, march in a ball gown, the lot. Because I was under the impression that the ‘B’ stood for ‘bath’. And for so many years after expressing my love of this wonderfully relaxing cleansing technique, only to hear people reply ‘poof!’, I just assumed I was a deviant. When later I found out the ‘B’ stood for ‘bisexual’, I thought that was a plumbing term, you know, that lever that switches from the bath to the shower. And as I love showers too, it all seemed to fit nicely into my diverse, inclusive and politically correct lifestyle. To such an extent that when I actually realised the errors of my thinking, I had to cancel myself. Which led to communication problems.

When we moved into our house, 35 years ago (how is that fucking possible???), it had been untouched for decades, possibly centuries. So we ‘done a refit, innit’. And they’d just invented ‘power showers’. So rather than standing under a trickle, you could stand under the power of 16 Niagaras every morning. A shower so powerful that only those with really strong knees could turn it on. And that’s what I wanted. And it was brilliant. Ok, a bit ‘brutal’ in those days as, when you turned it on the sound coming from the loft was like a V8 dragster powering up. Oddly, I liked that too.

But every cloud has a silver lining so every dog has its, err, day? Whatever, there’s always a downside. And with every power shower comes a squeegee. Because with that much water, there’s spray all over the lovely tiles. Which obviously needs to be immediately removed or otherwise… errrr… well, otherwise, Golgotha will fall! Hell will freeze over!! The Martians will invade!! Or, the tiles will have spots of water on them. And no-one wants that!

I never realised the real value of a holiday until this morning, when I squeegeed my shower. Because for 2 weeks of showering in loads of different places, I never once had to squeegee. Wasn’t even tempted to rush to a little Indian market stall and buy one for a quid (everything’s a quid in India, except taxi fares, they’re 50p). I just showered and… and walked out! So as I dragged that horrible rubber thing squeakily down the walls this morning, I realised 2 things. Firstly, that I was home again. And secondly, that I am Pavlov’s dog. I didn’t even have to ponder it. As the shower went off, so the squeegee began its well trodden path.

Which probably accounts for why I like baths.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx