Basquing in it.

I knew when I bought the underwear that it could go either way. I’d squeeze into it, feel a fool, be embarrassed, Hubby would laugh, and I would cry and there endeth an attempt at a dirty weekend.
So, having checked into our hotel in Fowey, we opened the champagne, sipped it on our balcony, and went for a stroll and coffee, then returned to our room. Hubby scoured the TV channels for anything with any reference to the rugby and I took to the bathroom. After a languorous bath with oils and foam, I peered into my Ann Summers bag and thought, “Right then. Here goes”.
For a white cotton undies type of girl, to squish and pummel myself into an hourglass basque was a bit of a learning curve. I almost snagged my red nails on the fish net stockings and got a sweat on by the time I aligned all the hooks and eyes, straps and poppers. After rearranging my décolletage several times I was florid, not the look I was aiming for, wanting instead to look cool and in charge. As I said earlier, had I emerged from the bathroom all coy and inhibited I would have looked like a middle aged mother, trying her damndest to dress up as a tart. No, in these situations, I had to and I believe the expression is, ‘own it’. So, whilst my heart may have been pounding as I emerged from the bathroom, I strutted my stuff with all the confidence I could muster. By the look on Hubby’s face I must have been doing a fairly convincing job, because he initially looked a little frightened.
“Bloody hell Alice!”, he said rather slowly, his eyes out like a robber’s horse, “Where have you been shopping?”.
All further details are for the imagination only, but as anyone who knows me well will testify all can not run smoothly for me and my family and this weekend was no exception.
Happy as Larry, Hubby took my hand and led me down to the stairs to dinner. We sat in the bar of our hotel and enjoyed a gin and tonic, “Sip it slowly Alice, it’s the most expensive G&T I’ve ever bought”. I nibbled on some fantastic nuts and Hubby popped olives into my mouth. It was bliss. No rushing, no children to shush, just gazing knowingly at each other. We undoubtedly looked sickeningly in love and just as Hubby was whispering extremely naughty things in my ear, our waitress directed us to our table. Giggling we sat down to the most divine food. An amuse bouche of a quails egg was followed by a starter of salmon on a beetroot risotto. All was going well, until the lamb appeared on my plate. The lamb itself was fabulous but by now a dreaded, cold sweat had broken out on my brow and my tummy was beginning to feel slightly aggrieved. I attempted a morsel. Earlier that day I hadn’t felt right but put it down to excitement, I couldn’t believe that on a weekend away from the children and on my birthday that I would feel unwell. This wasn’t fair at all.
Hubby looked up, “You alright love? Only it’s not like you to savour your food. You usually trough the lot within seconds”.
“Thanks for the porcine like metaphor.”
“Well what’s the matter then? It looks fab”, he said, digging his fork into my plate.
“ I just feel a bit dodgy”, I replied, rubbing my stomach.
“Well get over it love, at twenty three quid a go I could have bought you a meadow of sheep”.
I took another nibble, but I was no use, I felt really sick.
“I’m going to have to go and lie down”, I whispered. Hubby rolled his eyes to the heavens.
“For God’s sake Alice”.
“Please be nice to me. Just try and remember it’s my birthday in the morning”. And so I stood up, laid my napkin on my chair and raced upstairs. Hubby found me twenty minutes later, rocking gently back and forth on the bed, groaning quietly.
“Mind if I put the rugby on?” he asked. I shook my head. Perched on the edge of a bed, a sick wife on one side, a TV turned to mute on the other was evidently not the sporting atmosphere Hubby desired, “This is hardly the Stade de France is it? Would you mind if I went to find a pub?”
Once again I shook my head. Had I not returned to a hurling five year old, I swear that Hubby might have poisoned me to ensure that he saw the rugby, after all he saved quite a bit of money by my lack of pudding, coffee, liqueurs and petit fours but as it was, the three year old soon followed suit, followed almost immediately by her big brother and grandfather. I escaped the bucket, the mop and the disinfectant for one brief interlude to accompany Hubby to a cocktail party on board a German warship. It’s been a long time since I’ve been a WAG as I was an invisible presence at his last appointment, like Captain Mainwaring’s wife: they knew I was there but no-one saw me. Whilst not exactly eye candy these days, there must be some decorative merit to me being on Hubby’s arm - Hans, Fritz and Klaus were certainly very attentive and my mug of Holsten was rarely empty. It was an interesting evening: berthed along the wall of Devonport Dockyard the irony of what I was on did not escape me but I was surrounded by such genuinely warm people whose English was mortifyingly perfect that even listening to the Captain extol the virtues of his central rudder didn’t faze me and surely, that has to be saying something.