Thursday, February 02, 2006

Missing you so much

As soon as I got to work on St. Valentine’s Day, I phoned Iris at work and told her I’d written a sonnet for her. She asked me if I was tired after the late night and our lovemaking. I told her my eyeballs were dropping onto my desk but I would see her that night. Iris said that her sister would be coming over and wanted to see the new man in her life! I told her I’d be there as soon as I could make it.
Later that evening, I met her sister and we stayed in watching some stupid TV soap that her sister wanted to see. By the time she left, it was almost midnight and both Iris and I were falling asleep. We made love again in front of the fire; Iris had an old-fashioned fireplace with a real coal fire in it. It always looked warm and inviting and making love in the flickering firelight was so very romantic! I left there later to go home and sleep; I was absolutely knackered!
Two things happened the next day; one good, the other not so good. My long-awaited promotion and a substantial increase in my salary had been confirmed. That was the good news. The bad news was that I was required to iron out teething problems in a company that had just been taken over bythe one I was working for. This place was way down in Falmouth and it was a case of an immediate temporary transfer…. Immediate, being tomorrow!
That night, I broke the news to Iris that I would be away for at least a week. She wasn’t very happy but realised there was no way out of it. The next day saw me travelling down to Cornwall. It was a Friday and I spent the rest of the weekend with a skeleton staff sorting out the problems of the company, ready to be in full production by Monday. That week, I rang her every day and sent her postcards of Falmouth and a huge bunch of flowers. Normally, Falmouth is a beautiful place but in the depths of winter, it was absolutely dead! A couple of my own staff had been sent down there with me but Andrea had to stay behind and work for my temporary replacement.
Have you any idea what it’s like to be stuck in a place miles from home and without a “Girl Friday” to look after you? My secretary and I were used to working with each other and she would go out of her way to see to my needs. The girl I was allocated was pleasant enough and had worked there for some time in a secretarial capacity but never as a Personal Assistant. Although she was au fait with the running of the department, she lacked Andrea’s personal touch. By the time I’d told her what to do, I could have done it myself just as quickly! I suddenly found I had to organize my own itinerary, my own meetings and even my own laundry! I began to curse the day I’d ever gone down there.
That week dragged and dragged; I thought it would never end. Eventually Friday came around and since I’d worked right through the previous weekend, I gave myself a day off! I left Falmouth at 10am heading back for home. My family were used to my moving from one place to another so it was no big problem to let them know I wouldn’t be back until Monday. This gave me a whole weekend with Iris; I could hardly wait to see her! Before I left, I phoned her at work telling her I’d be there later that evening. From Falmouth to home was around 350 miles. There were far fewer motorways then and it took me until almost 7pm to get back. By the time I got back to Iris, I was shattered! I had missed her so very, very much.

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