About Nude Not Naked

~ I Wish I was A Punk Rocker, Sandi Thom.
Lovely song, watch out for the lyrics!


I usually bounce out from bed, singing and dancing, having the biggest breakfast that I can stomach and starting work at about 10 a.m. after publishing my post for the day. Waking up right and eating right is very important to me and I love having breakfasts out in the open with my friends. I miss PY and R very much.

Yesterday was just one of those days that sucked. It sucked big time the moment Alex got up at 7 a.m. Yes, I have been having very long days - up at 7 a.m. and sleeping after midnight. I am allergic of getting up earlier than 7 a.m. and Alex pushed all the wrong buttons by saying:

• You have to do laundry today. I am running out of socks.


• Remember to call for your national insurance number or I will spank your naughty bottom.


• While you are at it, the floor could do with some hovering. Crumbs.

By the time he got to “Oh yeah, you need to hang your twenty jackets and coats in the cupboard,” I honestly felt like strangling his neck.

The funny thing is, I have never really argued with Alex. Sure, we sulk sometimes but naturally we know how to smooth things out with cuddles and special treats. Like elderflower ice creams or a little email during the day.

By 10 a.m. when I was sitting at my make-shift coffee table with an emotional storm percolating in my heart. I was ready to pounce on the squirrel feeding off my bird table less than 2 metres from me, turning it into a duvet to keep my toes warm at night.

Then his email came. “Remember to call the national insurance number, you naughty babs!”

I have not had my usual hot chocolate, cup of hot fruit tea, bacon slices, sausages and tomatoes and I most certainly recoiled in horror when he sent me that email.

“I will call them after lunch break and even the hospital for whatever shit.”

“My babs is in a bad mood today. Haven’t had your breakfast?”

I gave him the silent treatment.

He came back for lunch, which I had to cook. Bah. Wait a minute, I think we shared the cooking. He grilled some tuna and I did a simple courgette and broccoli main course. We sat in the garden, appreciating what we have planted and grown since last year. The flowers are coming out fine and dandy despite the dumb hose ban by Thames Waters.

When he finally left for work again, I sat facing my Apple and the blank cream wall behind it the whole afternoon. I was still in my house slippers and top half of my PJs. It was 1 p.m. A pair of green finches started to feed at the bird table. So did the mother woodpecker check up on the peanut bowl, which was empty. No food for her baby. Tough!

Here I come all the way from Malaysia and Alex gave me nothing but a list of chores to do, I grumbled to myself.

Wait a fucking minute. What the fuck did I just get myself into? I am living with a boy!!! Oh my god!!

I looked at the bird table. I can understand why Tungsten (you can see a photo of him at the navigation bar) finds the bird table amusing and sits for hours below it. It is the most fascinating thing to observe during the day. How rich my little garden is and how much I can actually see, if I gave up television, which I did, by the way.

We shopped for the first bird feeder last year during the NEC show. That was exactly a year ago. Alex bought it, chopped a branch of the maple tree in the mini forest behind our garden (Kent being the green belt of London has lots of trees), filled it up with wild bird seeds and plonked it less than 3 metres from me in the living room. He got me a bird guide. “So you will be entertained while I am away at work.”

I smiled.

Then I recalled the sheepskin I sit on each morning while I write my posts. When the two of us sit on the sofa, Alex lets me have it because I feel cold often, seeing that I come from a warmer climate. "I bought this specially to keep your cute little bottom warm."

I smiled again.

Thinking of being warm reminded me how Alex would jump into bed earlier than I. This is mainly because I wash my face with proper skincare whilst that boy washes with hand soap. And each time when I enter the bedroom and crawl next to him, he would move away. Alex keeps my side of the bed warm, so when I finally curl into his arms, I will lie in a warm comfy bed.

Are you smiling too? I did when I thought of that.

I am guilty of what many women are guilty of. I complained to myself that Alex did not love me. It was absolutely logical. He did not say "I love you". Thus he does not love me. Alex has not said “I love you” for so long, I can’t even remember when he said it. Probably in January in Phuket? I wanted to hear those words. It is romantic to hear those words. I want it but I ain't got it.

A million different scenarios run through my mind yesterday. He treats me like a maid, asking me to do his damn laundry for him. He nags me like my mother. Perhaps even worse than my mother. Argh, how did I end up with him? Alex? Did I just make the biggest mistake in my life? I have just exchanged the attention of probably a million men for the inattention of one. And he is hairy!

Oh god! What did I just do?

I need to run.

Sometimes life is so good with things going your way. Everything is okay. Panic floods through your veins because the sensation is foreign. You feel restless and you realised that it is called happiness. You sit quietly in the corner and you cannot believe that you are actually happy. The feeling is so fleeting because you have been let down a thousand times. It is so frail and you are even more.

Just when I thought of a thousand different reasons when Alex failed to say “I love you” I realised that he showed “I love you” daily, in the simplest of ways. From warming up my side of the bed to weeding the garden of stinging nettles (trust me, stinging nettles sting!) to painting the living room and turning the house into a girl friendly home. A million different ways, each a little different but each with the best of intentions.

Not with sweet nothings or empty “I love you-s”. Each with sacrifice, sweat and tears. Each silent and not heard.

And if I allow myself to open my heart, I will see. I will see that he actually loves me.



”And now here is my secret, a very simple secret;
it is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
~ The Little Prince, Antoine Saint Exupery