I am the huggee rather than the hugger

I have had some people congratulate me on my new Blog. Well I have no clue about these things. I write blogs and click ‘publish.’

The designer is Steph Waller whose link is at the bottom of the page. She is a web page designer, musician, composer, writer and multi-talented person who was sucked up by mistake from Ventura in an early Rapture and then spat back into Stillwater, Oklahoma.

The marvels of modern technology enabled her to transform Badger’s blog from afar. I am planning on visiting her one day when – with the aid of the Green Fairy and the Beatles on vinyl – we are going to explore the wonders of the universe.

Cate called me from wherever she is to say that she had a dream that she got a telephone call that they had pulled me from the wreck of a black Mercedes Benz and that ‘I did not make it’. My son Lenny was with me. No word on his condition in her dream.

I assured her that I was fine and that Billy Benz was tucked up safely in the garage and apart from a mild collision with the white Audi in that very same garage last week there was no damage to us.

This is not new – I have collided with the Audi – in a minor fashion – almost weekly – for years. Indeed it is almost impossible not to in our microscopic garage – but it is a mere brushing of our plastic bumper bars. 

As far as I was aware Lenny was also fine although I have no doubt that at some stage during the last 24 hours one or both of his dogs have pissed on his legs.

I am not superstitious – hence my lack of belief in religion and stuff like that – but am not entirely averse to partaking in premonitions – so will be extra careful for a while.

I did not mention that last weekend when we had Rebecca and Rachel with us we also had my daughter Molly and her friend Andy - aka Neanderthal Man.

I did not attempt to explain the situation to Mrs. Moneypenny because Andy is married and Molly is not - but Andy and Molly are not sleeping together – well they are sharing a bed but not - well you know what I mean – but Mrs Moneypenny’s eyes would have glazed over.

Andy and his wife are separated – well they live together – but she is a Lesbian and the whole things is a  bit complicated. You can see how Mrs Moneypenny would have been hyperventilating with that one.

But Andy wanted to see Vienna so he said could he come and stay with us and we said sure but you will have to sleep in the cat’s bedroom – it is called the cat’s bedroom because it is adjacent to the cat’s bathroom -  with Molly because Rebecca and Rachel are here and they had a priority booking for the guest bedroom.

Anyway when Andy was leaving he gave me a hug and wondered whether he should have - so he asked Molly who asked me - and I said sure I like hugs and in fact I am a very huggy person except at my age I really have to be the huggee rather than hugger because uninvited hugs from men my age are a sure-fire way of getting the police involved.

Anyway Andy is a very nice guy and is not called Neanderthal man because of his appearance but because he looks for fossils all over Europe. Naturally – being a scientist – he is also an Atheist – so we had a bit in common.

He sent Molly and I on chase looking for the skeleton of a very small horse but we were unsuccessful – but we had a delicious lunch at Café Schwarzenberg – where the waiter remembers me and showed us to a reserved table. Being recognised by a waiter is an occurrence so rare in Vienna as to be marked by balloons and a parade.

Janice left a comment yesterday on an earlier blog and finished with ‘and while I almost never agree with you, I do enjoy reading your blog.’Well – this almost knocked my socks off. ‘almost never agree with you!’

You see I thought that I was a fairly rational person with reasonably rational views and I had hoped that most of my readers could agreed with at least 49% of what I said. Almost Never! Suffering Snakes! That’s getting towards how I feel about Sarah Palin! But - I am sure Janice is a lovely lady - and she reads my blog - who can complain about that.