Grumpy Goes West

I knew that strokes could affect people's brains, but something very strange indeed is happening to Mr Grumpy. He thinks he's a cowboy. Either that or he's planning to take up line-dancing - which, in his case, would be more like lurch-dancing.

It started when a package arrived for him last Friday. It contained a pair of very macho boots, complete with strapping round the heels. All they needed were the spurs. I looked, but said nothing. The next day, he cut off the straps, deciding he didn't need spurs (no kinky sex, then!). Yesterday, another package arrived. I thought it would contain the new, larger cat flap for the old, larger cat! But no, it was another pair of boots.

This time, they were in brown tooled leather, with pointed toes and little heels. I'm afraid I burst out laughing. "You'll never get your feet into those," I observed. He tried, and I was right. I gave him my leather softening spray. Then, God forgive me, I began to mock. I stood up, I yelled, "Yee-hah!" and pretended to be a line of post-stroke patients attempting line-dancing. Cruel, I know, but Mr G pokes fun at himself all the time and refers to himself as a spaz, and his disabled badge as his spaz badge. "What on earth did you buy those for? Are you turning into a gay cowboy?" I asked, breaking into paroxysms of mirth. "You'll need a stetson, too," I pointed out, whereupon he told me, with a perfectly straight face, that one is on order from Canada, where he has relatives.

I have gone all round the house with my camera, stalking those boots to take an incriminating photograph, but they are nowhere to be found. I've even looked in the garage. Either he's sent them back as they're too small, or they have been hidden away together with a secret stash of other goodies connected to Mr G's secret fantasies. What next? Could he fancy himself as a bull rider? Will a cattle trailer pull up and decant some snorting, foaming beast with huge horns, that will be kept in the garden, tethered to the rotary clothes line and terrorising the neighbours with its bellows? Will I wake at 3 am and find him practising twirls and high-kicks in front of a DVD of Oklahoma? Help! Get me outta here before the pistols arrive and I am roped to the apple tree for target practise!