Dying of Boredom

You know that old saying about 'dying of boredom'? Well, I think it is actually possible, and I think that, at this rate, it won't be long before I am lying prone on the hearthrug with the cat trying to lick me back to life (or eating me, more like!). As Mr G never liked going out, even before his strokes, I had got used to eating out perhaps once a month when I managed to drag him, protesting all the way, to a local curry house or a pub for Sunday lunch.

Mr G hates pubs. He gave up drinking almost 40 year ago when the violent results of too much Jack Daniels landed him in gaol a couple of times. All power to his elbow that he kept off the booze and took degrees in law and sociology, culminating in a PhD. All I have is a lowly 2ii, due to, yes, too much booze, guitar playing and messing around with the opposite sex. But back to Mr G. Not only does he hate pubs, he doesn't see the point of sitting in a restaurant when you could have the same meal on a tray on your lap in front of the telly. He won't go to dinner parties because, since his strokes, his throat is funny and he often chokes on his food. He hates any sort of party because he hates most people and loathes polite conversation. He won't go to the cinema because he can download the movie and watch it from the comfort of his own sofa. I have a National Trust ticket and would love to go round some stately homes. I don't drive, so I require a chauffeur but even an offer to pay for the petrol doesn't work. 'Seen one pile of old bricks and you've seen them all,' says Mr G.

So where does that leave lively, gregarious me, who craves good conversation and swapping ideas with others? Mouldering indoors, is what. Plonked in front of the telly watching endless re-runs of CSI, unable even to go upstairs and do some writing for fear of being moaned at because he 'hasn't seen me all day', even though I've been in the same house. I have to work. I'm not retired, or, thank God, on disability benefit like he is. I am trying to scrape a few pennies together by working extremely hard for peanuts and once I've finished a job, in an ideal world I would get together with friends and go out for a drink or a meal. Instead, I'm stuck within the same four walls I've been inside all day, chafing at the bit, remembering when I was a teenager with my nose pressed to the window in the Liverpool suburb of West Allerton, watching everyone else out and about in the streets having a life, and wishing I could join them but my parents wouldn't let me. And now Mr G is in effect playing the same role, as he knows I need a lift from him even to get as far as the tube station and my mates all live 25 miles away. He may not be in gaol any longer, but I am.

When I met him 11 years ago, my health was okay-ish. My stomach played up, but only 20% of the time. Gradually, it's got worse, and now it's bad about 90% of the time, so even if I do makew arrangements, I almost always have to cancel them, or go out and flop palely in the corner like the spectre at the feast. I really do think I may be dying of boredom.