Don't mention the unmentionable

Good to have women’s tennis back again. I turned the telly on when I got in from work to catch up with happenings in SW19, and it was raining. I thought “Yep - it’s Wimbledon time.”
The weather has really been getting me down. Rain and wind most days, with just occasional bursts of sunshine, which always seem to coincide with me arriving at work. I don’t know what I expect really. After more than a quarter-of-a-century in this country, you would think I’d know what English summers are like by now, and yet still I walk into June each year expecting scorching, dry weather and cloudless skies. It’s an example of blind hope, I suppose, like the middle-aged men in nightclubs hoping to pull a stunner, or tennis fans expecting a Brit to win Wimbledon.
Philippa has banned me from ever mentioning my tattoo again. It’s still bothering me, you see. Even when I’m wearing a shirt so it can’t be seen, I can feel it burning away like a distress beacon. I can almost hear it screaming “I’M SPELT WRONG! AND I ALWAYS WILL BE!”
I’ve walked past The Inkmans’ premises twice in the last week, and both times I had to stop myself racing in and stabbing him to death with his own needles. Sophie tells me that some NHS hospitals will pay for tattoo removals if it’s particularly ugly or causing you undue stress. But she also said ‘they normally don’t expect to hear from people who have only just had them done.’ It’s a conspiracy, I tells you.
I spent three days trying to persuade Philippa to change her name by deed poll, but she wouldn’t do it. Selfish cow. I think my only hope may be an expensive course of intense psychotherapy, because as things stand it’s making me insane.

RC 22-6-11