It has been a while since Nelson and I stepped out together. I have mentioned that he had recently been away on his jollies, specifically his Macrame for the left pawed course. He had telephoned me on the first evening of attendance with great excitement as he had been progressing splendidly. It was something of a surprise then, that the next day he telephoned me from the local A & E Department in some considerable distress, requesting rescue. 

He had confused his knots, experiencing particular befuddlement with a half hitch knot and somehow ended up knotting the raggedy fur from his bingo wings into it, which he didn’t notice doing at the time. Sadly Nelson uses a rather old fashioned wax based pomade when he performs his morning ablutions, which has a rather unfortunate propensity to melt when heated. The problem was with the vigorousness of his macrame knotting moves. Some commented on it being unusually frenzied for such a sedate craft, although that may be attributed to the 3 espressos he had quaffed earlier. The friction of his ninja knotting warmed the wax up a treat. He only noticed the macrame/bingo wing adherence during the tea break, when he stood up to snaffle a fig roll and his prized work moved with him, gripping on to his flappy arms* for dear life. 

*Hector has argued that they aren’t arms on a hound, they are legs, but I think you will agree that not that many people could do macrame with their feet! 

I was forced to leave my pottery class and ventured out to collect a very subdued Nelson from the hospital, who was now entirely bald on the underside of both front arms/legs…whatever you want to call them. I felt sorry for the poor chap as those of you who have been intrepid enough to read any of my other diary entries, know of his well documented battles with his buttock toupee wig. 

After this unfortunate experience I decided to cheer him up, hence the aforementioned stepping out together. We decided to go to the Velvet Marmoset, as they were advertising a karaoke and cocktail night to raise money for The Disadvantaged Mole Society.

Naturally Sister Josephine was compering the event, so it promised to be a cracker. I managed to finally shoe horn Nelson out of the door at Spindle Towers, dismayed to see him wearing an immensely fluffy white sweater with his sequinned evening slacks. I knew he would be too hot in the sweater but he was awfully embarrassed by his impromptu waxing. I pointed out it could have been much, much worse, and he conceded that it may well have been if he had been sitting on the floor, cross legged.

Arriving at the Marmoset, I left my travelling cape at the cloakroom and we sashayed in to the sumptuous palace of flocked wall paper and glitzy balls. 

I tootled up to the bar and ordered a humungous jug of the Marmosets infamous Bushwacker as only that would have the power to perk him up. An hour later and we were both sufficiently perked and were ready to let off some melodic steam. We had watched some rather good vocal performances so far and we were both keen and highly competitive. Having some difficulties with our motor functions we decided to move forward to the stage as one hazy unit to perform a duet. After a bit of a debate we settled on Cinderella Rockefella also performed by Esther and Abi Ofarim. I am not sure if you are familiar with the lyrics but I am afraid that we got completely carried away and modified them somewhat. It became really rather bawdy. Items of clothing were removed (including the jumper) and Nelson fell backwards off the stage as we chirruped away in abandonment.

The Velvet marmoset is well known for its acceptance of all things, I will remind you of the club’s motto:

Any earthly worries, you will forget

Once safe inside the Marmoset

Give in to it my dears, to all it has

Your unbridled desires, leather clad

Even so we were led away from he microphone before we could begin the twenty second verse. Our ears were met with a tidal wave of applause and cat calls. We were given beer mats (not flattering according to Nelson) to cover our denuded body parts and navigated our way back to the bar for a cheeky late libation. 

Our work here was done – Nelson was beaming from ear to ear, hot and sweaty…but happy. The rest of the evening continued in the expected fashion (*although no flaming hoops this time – See earlier dairy entry ‘Nelson and the Flaming Hoop of Destiny’.

Linking arms we tottered down the street, suddenly overwhelmed with the desire for a kebab.