It's finally here; the first cold snap of the winter. As I look out of my study I can see frost on the window and icy breath coming out of the postman's mouth as he strides up the lane with my bills. I knew it was coming, I was ready, and now I'm all set for the cold weather. I like my bedroom windows open at night, which is why, in the depths of winter, I need the warmest duvet I can get.

My super-duvet always reminds me of a monstrous device that belonged to an ex-boyfriend. The thing looked incongruous enough when it was lying on his bed, slightly lumpier and larger than a normal duvet, but otherwise unremarkable; however, when you tried to get beneath it you got a really nasty shock.

The duvet was so heavy and cumbersome that it was a real job just to lift it up and get into bed. It appeared to be stuffed with a mixture of kapok and builders rubble and had strange, heavy lumps and bumps that made sleeping beneath it a most unpleasant affair. In some of my darker moments I imagined it to be filled with dead bodies. I figured an absent-minded bird-plucker had accidentally tipped the feathers onto the spoil heap and put the geese in the duvet. I could feel them weighing down on me and I really didn't like it at all.

My boyfriend didn't seem to find his heavyweight comforter in the least bit uncomfortable, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's still got it. For all I know, his wife is now lying in bed, wondering why she's lost all the feeling in her legs, and trying to work out where that muffled honking noise is coming from.

It's nice going to bed with a big, warm man, but not nearly so nice to get into a cold, empty space that you cannot fill, no matter how far you push your icy toes. I need a bed-warmer, and last week I was hopeful that I might have found one. I had been taken on holiday courtesy of my mother-in-law, as a treat to celebrate her 70th birthday. It was a most generous gesture and the entire Boydell family were all soon lying on sun beds, soaking up the pleasant heat of the Egyptian sun. The week began without incident; I dived the Blue Hole, took my girls on a camel ride and haggled with wily tradesmen. And then one day a tall, athletic man strolled onto the beach volley ball court with his two sons. We were all camped nearby, and my sport-mad brother-in-law, Ed, offered to make up the numbers for a game of volleyball. We all tried not to stare at the handsome stranger's long, muscular legs, but the sight of such an attractive man was too much of a temptation and I couldn't help myself.

When we realised that he didn't have a woman with him, I was quickly dispatched to join him on court. My family recognise a good thing when they see it and I think we all thought that Christmas had come early.

I think I acquitted myself reasonably well for a couple of games, and then Ed left the court for a late-afternoon beer. I wanted to join him, but the handsome stranger asked me to stay on. I took this as an encouraging sign, but three more games later a group of Russian Mafioso came onto the pitch and asked for a match. I didn't want to get thrashed by the Cossacks, but I felt that in order to make a good impression, I had to play on. Two, hard games later and I was tired and bruised. The boys from Moscow pummelled us into submission and as darkness felt I was ready for my beer. I left the tall, tight, stranger and re-joined my family for a post-match de-brief. Not the kind of de-briefing that I had in mind, but I hoped that might follow later in the week. Part of me was excited at the prospect of a lone, attractive male, but part of me knew that I just don't get that kind of luck. How fantastic would it have been to have bagged a gorgeous hunk on holiday and then brought him home to be salivated-over by my expectant friends. I tried not to get too excited, but just the sight of those long, brown, muscular legs was enough to make me come over all peculiar.

We met again at dinner; I showed the hunk my bruises and we had a brief chat between courses. It was all going so well, and then came the news that I didn't want to hear. He was married. He'd left his wife at home with his other children. He was on a boy's holiday. A big, buggering, bollocky, boy's holiday. A holiday for boys. He wasn't a lonely widower or a carefree divorcee, he wasn't looking for love under the azure sky, he was just a dad taking a windsurfing trip with his sons.

I couldn't look at him after that. It was like giving a starving woman the smell of a plate of roast beef and Yorkshire puddings, a glimpse of gravy and crispy roast potatoes and then snatching the plate away. It was cruel, so terribly terribly cruel.

I suppose I could have found solace in the arms of an Egyptian waiter. They all look at you like you're a yummy cream cake that they want to lick all over. They all have eyes like limpid pools, and for a moment you feel yourself being drawn into their thrall, but when they open their mouths to smile, your hypnotic stupefaction is sharply curtailed by a glimpse of their dirty brown teeth. It's an instant wake-up call for any woman who values oral hygiene and I, for one, couldn't kiss a man who has the eyes of Omar Sherieff and the mouth of his camel.

So I came home as I had left, a lonely widow with two lovely daughters and an itch I just can't scratch. But I'm not too downhearted, because to my delight, it turned out that when the muscular hunk smiled, his teeth were just like the waiters'.


© Kate Boydell 2004. All rights reserved. e-mail: [email protected]. Close window.