Another year gone. The highlights of my year are always going to involve having sex with Emma. This year I have had her in every room in the house except the bathroom - an omission I mean to rectify sometime soon, despite the cramped conditions. In addition, I made mad passionate love to her in hotel-rooms in Llandudno, Chester (two hotels), Redruth, Warrington, Shrewsbury and Llangollen. We really enjoy sex in hotels, especially if the room is large enough to take some decent photographs. 2008 was also the year that Emma got her tits out in the great outdoors for the first time - this photo marks the occasion. Unfortunately, there was no sex in the open air - something else that needs to be remedied in the New Year. And that’s about it. Of course, I have also seen and read some wonderful, exciting things on the Blogs I visit. Thank you one and all, too many to list. However, I will mention just one: It has been a delights to see Heather in front of Joe’s camera lens this year. Beautiful!.

Emma: What d’you call it when it’s like that?
Alfie: Nothing. I haven’t really thought about it. Well, not to give it a name.
Emma: It must have a name, though.
Alfie: How about Mr Droopy?
Emma: Don’t be daft. I mean a proper name.
Alfie: Percy? John Thomas?
Emma: Be serious. What would the doctor call it?
Alfie: How the hell should I know? Maybe he doesn’t give his cock a name. Not many people do.
Emma: Oh, you’re hopeless. Look. It’s not erect, is it? So what is it?
Alfie: [The penny drops at last] Oh, I see. It’s flaccid. That’s the word, Flaccid.
Emma: “Flaccid.” I love it when it’s “flaccid”. It feels lovely and soft in my mouth. Mmmmm…
[Enter Mr Stiffy]

This is a picture of a shag. Not to be confused, despite the rhyme, with the common cormorant. Nor does it lay its eggs in a paper bag, as we have been led to believe. I well remember my first sighting of a shag. I was bird-watching on the sand-dunes at Formby and came across a couple so engrossed in their flamboyant courting ritual that I was able to observe them for a full half hour. I couldn’t wait to tell my bird-watching buddy KC of the spectacle I had witnessed, and he insisted on hearing every detail before going to see for himself. Alas, by then the birds had flown and there was not a shag to be seen. The courtship ritual of the shag is a delight to behold, and our Blogging friend Lapis Ruber has a fine collection of videos of shags at the seaside. [Watch one of them here.] Let’s declare 2009 the Year of the Shag. Get to the beach, twitchers, and keep your eyes peeled. They’re out there, and you may be lucky. One thing I can guarantee, you’ll never forget your first shag.

Emma and I love to learn about other couple’s lifestyles and we enjoy reading their Blogs. I hope we do so with completely open minds. And while we may not wish to emulate them, we are in no way judgemental. Who are we to pass comments on other people’s choices? I was a tad miffed, therefore, on reading Sebastian Horsley’s review of the book whose title I have used above. [The book is by Mark Brendon, by the way.] Horsley asks, “What is the point of a person who doesn’t share themselves? It’s like a bank without money. Christianity without Christ. By being monogamous, you are making one person happy but all the other people in the world unhappy. What right have you to do that?” Apart from the unfortunate syntax [He should say, “people who don’t share themselves” if he wants to avoid the awkward “a person who doesn’t share himself or herself”] and apart from the reference to Christ, which I completely fail to understand, what makes him think I am “depriving all the other people in the world” by screwing only Emma? Hell, I’m not that good at it! He goes on to claim we are not swingers because we “haven’t got the guts”. Why can’t he accept our choice with the same grace as we accept his? Surely all those lovely swingers can’t share Horsley’s viewpoint.

Emma and I spent a few days in idle luxury this month. And I don’t mean during the Christmas break, which Emma spent slaving over a hot stove. [Surely they should have been waiting on us. Where did we go wrong?] It was the week before Christmas that we stayed at the Wild Pheasant Hotel in Llangollen, pictured here. We took the notebook with us, of course, to check up on our favourite Blogs. We hate to miss anything you guys get up to. I composed a post or three to describe our own nefarious activities, and naturally I took plenty of photographs. But since I haven’t downloaded a photo-editor to the notebook, I couldn’t publish the posts at the time. In fact, it’s only today that I’ve finally found the time (and had the privacy) to download the photos we took. Jeez, I’ve now got so many posts lined up, I’ll have to do some serious weeding.

This is farewell for a few days - at least until Saturday. And the picture is a reminder of what I will definitely not be getting for Christmas. Boo, hoo! It’s not just the thin walls and the incredible bouncing dog. I will have eaten too much, I will have drunk too much, and will have stayed up too late watching the festive rubbish on television. It’s my way of coping with Christmas - eating, drinking, sleeping - an enthusiastic pretence of enjoyment for the sake of the family. And especially for Emma, who loves the occasion., and looks forward to it with the excitement of a six-year-old (from about mid-July). Usually, when I am prized away from my computer for more than a day, I schedule a couple of posts to be published in my absence. In this case I won’t. Who would read them anyway over the Christmas break? So from Emma and me, it’s au revoir. Have a wonderful Christmas everyone and don’t forget to return after the break.

Yesterday, when looking back over the year looking for highlights to include in my end-of-year State-of-the-Blog report, I took another quick peep at Anna Louise’s video, which always cheers me up. (Watch it again here.) I was suddenly reminded of my deputy, Brenda G, whose photograph this is on the left. Shortly after my promotion to Head of Department, Brenda prepared an end-of-term dinner-party for the four members of the Department. Her husband was away on a course. We all got rather drunk, and when the other two teachers left, Brenda and I finished the last bottle of wine. As she poured me a glass, Brenda brushed my arm with her ample bosom. I remember saying something like, “You don’t get many of those to the pound.” With that, she pulled up her sweater, turned her back to me and asked me to unfasten her bra, which I did. And reaching round from behind, I weighed her fantastic breasts, one in each hand. I had never imagined anything so full and round and heavy. Nice. Cutting a short story even shorter, I politely declined her invitation to a fuck. I said it was the wine, but in fact I really didn’t want to. Emma was waiting for me at home - no contest. However, Emma’s invitation was also declined - but this time it really was because of the wine.

Today is the shortest day of the year - at least it is in our half of the world. Or, to put it another way, tonight will be the longest night - which may or may not have its advantages. More likely not, if the hectic preparations for Christmas have taken their toll. And for those sad souls who suffer from SAD, it could indeed be the gloomiest of days literally and emotionally. So perhaps it is time to remind everybody that from this point on, the days will begin to lengthen and we can at last start the countdown to Spring in earnest. “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind,” said Percy Bysshe. And who can argue with that? I’m not sure if I have published this composite picture of Emma before, but it serves to remind me of the pleasures to come - at least weather-wise. (It also reminds me how small Emma’s tits used to be. Small, but perfectly formed.)

This shows a couple of pages of the album which led to yesterday’s outburst (so to speak). And, if you really want to go there, this is a shot I took immediately before yesterday’s. And if you did go there, don’t say you weren’t warned. When Emma returned home from her shopping expedition, she asked me what I had been up to while she’d been away. I told her I had been looking through our X-files and had “come across” a couple of photographs I might publish. The pun was intended and, once I’d spelt it out to the innocent woman, it led nicely to a discussion on how much of a turn-on her pictures could be to the lonely and forsaken male. Thinking quickly on my feet, I quickly stressed that it was no substitute for the real thing. Hugs and kisses. Grope, grope. Emma asked me to run a bath for us both. She needed reviving after all that hectic shopping, not to mention the hours spent on public transport. We splashed around in the bath for a while. Then I splashed around inside Emma. A perfect way to celebrate our reunion.

Emma left me yesterday. Don’t panic, it was only for twenty-four hours - the rare delight of late-night shopping with daughter Eva without the additional burden of a reluctant, complaining male to drag around. Home alone for the night, I messed about on the computer until chronic boredom set in. Unable to sleep without Emma at my side, I lay on the bed browsing through our private albums, ostensibly to look for photographs worth publishing in future posts. In reality, it was simply to enjoy the luxury of a throbbing erection, and the chance of a very long, very slow hand-job to orgasm. I can’t remember when I last experienced such a pleasure without the eager, impatient help of Emma (who always insists on receiving my tribute inside her pussy). I’d quite forgotten how delightful it is deliberately to take your time, seeing how near the edge you can get (and how often) struggling at times to regain control, until that final climactic moment of release. Coming over her image was an offering to my wife, who will return to me later today.

I remember a cartoon in Penthouse or Playboy, which I would have tried to reproduce here is I had any talent for drawing. It pictured two adjacent houses. In one bedroom of each house, there was a guy with binoculars looking into a bedroom of the other house, where a woman could be seen undressing at the window. The women are virtually identical. Like all the best cartoons, it had something to say about the human condition. When Emma and I were in our thirties, I would sometimes creep up to our bedroom if the sun were shining (as it used to in those days). Looking out of the window, I would lust after our next-door neighbour as she sunbathed in the garden. She was a few years older than Emma and less attractive. So what was I doing eyeing her up while Emma was downstairs? Forbidden fruit perhaps? This rather modest picture is of Emma at the time. I don’t have a picture of the neighbour.

I have gone through life trying never to hurt anyone, even in retaliation. And when I do hurt people, it invariably hurts me as much as it does them. Referring to Sunday’s FYAT post, it is to my eternal shame that I never spoke to Sylvia J again, even to explain that I had gone back to my first love. I had told her how beautiful she was. And she was beautiful. I had told her I loved her. And I did. I am sure that if Emma had not come back onto my scene, we would have had a long-lasting relationship. Maybe this Blog would have been called “Alfie loves Sylvia”. She will have long-since forgotten me, but I have never forgotten her to this day - the way one remembers a first (okay, second) love. But the fact remains that I dumped her without even having the decency to explain why. I regret that more than most things in my life. It’s just that my reunion with Emma blew everything else clean out of my mind. And what makes matters worse is that some twenty-five years later, my mother’s hairdresser said to her, “Your son Alfie broke my kid sister’s heart.” I do wish the old girl hadn’t told me that!

It’s all too easy to get into a rut, especially in the winter months. After a day of pottering and tinkering, it can feel so cosy to sit watching television in the evening, going to be, and fucking gently before going to sleep. And I hate to admit it, but that’s how it is for much of the time with Emma and me. There is something comforting about routine, but it’s insidious in the true meaning of the word: “Working in a subtle or apparently innocuous way, but nevertheless deadly.” This is why we try to arrange a complete break from routine as often as we can - no more than a couple of days in a comfortable hotel. We much prefer this to one or two longer holidays, and a package tour would drive us nuts. But between these breaks, it is a photo-shoots which rejuvenate us. When Emma says (as he did lat week) “Didn’t you say you wanted to take some photographs?” she rally means, “Hey, lover-boy, I think our sex-life needs livening up.” It works every time.

[Sunday, 14th December, 1958] Met Emma Jane off the bus at half five. Went to chapel so the lads could see we are back together. Spud blushed like a beetroot when Emma spoke to him - he is still as besotted with her as I am (with far less reason). KC said “Alfie has never stopped thinking of you, you know.” Good lad! Took Emma back to Lyon Street. Mum answered the door and was surprised to see Emma - and obviously pleased on my account. Spent the next couple of hours snogging and petting in the front room. Can’t describe how great it was to get my hands on Emma’s chest again. Struggled to get her bra undone until she told me it was a front-opening bra and showed me how. Seventh heaven. Tried to get into her pants but she wasn’t having any. Thought she must be on [=having her period] but suddenly she grabbed my hand and shoved it up her skirt. Finger pie after so long! Came copiously too soon and let out an embarrassing groan. Took her home on the last bus and had to walk back to Garston in the rain. Cold and wet and too happy for words.

We went to visit Mr and Mrs C our former next-door neighbours on Wednesday to check out their lovely new house. We were suitably impressed, but Emma was not in the least bit envious I’m relieved to say. It would be out of our league. In any case, Emma insists she prefers our tiny cottage. She likes small things - thank goodness. For our taste, the new house had the feel of a show-house about it. This is not simply because they have only just moved in. Mr and Mrs C are minimalists. For example, from what I could see, they have only one book between them (a dictionary) whereas Emma and I have hundreds. They are around us in every room, together with all kinds of other clutter we have collected over the years. Occasionally, Emma insists that we have a sort-out, which means hiding stuff in cupboards to make room for more. To each his/her own. [By the way, we are away at the moment.]

[Friday, 12th December, 1958] My cousin Geraldine - “Flash” to her friends because of her speed, lack of - called tonight at teatime. I’ve not seen her for two years. She removed from her shoe a piece of paper Emma Jane had entrusted her with. On it was written her phone number, which I already knew of course, and the time 7.30. Flash said Emma just wanted to hear from me how I was getting on (without her?) After the longest two hours of my life, I phoned her from the kiosk outside the Gasworks. I couldn’t hold back to tears on hearing her voice but managed to hold it together. She asked if I was interested in going out with her again because she was ready to stand up to her mother. She had wanted to write to me but thought I might have found someone else. I didn’t tell her about Sylvia J. We have arranged to meet on Sunday evening and she can stay till half nine (the last bus back to Woolton). I can’t believe we will be together again.

Today is Llywelyn II’s Day. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (died December 11, 1282) is also known as Llywelyn Ein Llyw Olaf (Our Last Leader). He briefly united the principalities of Wales under a single rule, and was the last prince of an independent Wales before its conquest by Edward I of England.

How time flies when you’re enjoying yourself. Christmas I almost upon us again (so the shops will soon be stocked with Easter eggs). So is my birthday - yawn, yawn. Emma is determined to make an issue of it this year, having no doubt read one of my many posts where I complain about my birthday always being subsumed by Christmas. Whatever the reason, we are booked into a splendid hotel in Llangollen for a few days next week. There we will enjoy a meal with daughter Eva and her husband and still have couple of days on our own to luxuriate. The camera will be put to good use, so I must remind Emma to pack a few frivolous items - at the risk of her catching cold. We have passed by the hotel a hundred times on our way to Wrexham, and I have always fancied the idea of staying there, although a full suite was a bit too pricy at this time of the year. I’ll let you know how we get on and post a few pics when we return. In the meantime, here is one I took earlier.

I love photographing Emma unawares, and often prowl around the house camera in hand in the hope of catching her doing something completely ordinary while showing a bit of leg or tit. In the summer, of course, she will often strip down to bra and pants while doing the ironing or the hoovering. In the winter (which seems to be nine months of the year) the opportunities come few and far between. Here she is busy sewing, having just washed her hair. Working without a pattern as usual, she’s making a blouse for herself and needs to try it on frequently - hence the incidental flash of tit. Having seen what’s on offer, you’d expect me to say, “Put that sewing away and get’em off”. But I’m anxious for Emma to get this garment finished. She has promised to make some more enticing items with the Blog in mind, and we even bought the material when last in Shrewsbury. But practical garments come first in Emma’s book.

I was born and raised in a heavily-industrialised suburb of Liverpool, where the only greenery was in the local park, where we played a rough-and-tumble war-game we called football. The only flowers I came across were dandelions and similar weeds, and the flowering privet around my grandmother’s tiny patch of garden (which I noticed made me sneeze). Even in the grander parks where Emma Jane and I misbehaved, there were precious few cultivated flowers, easily avoided. But when Emma and I married, we lived with her parents in Liverpool’s most fragrant garden suburb. It was only then that I learned just how debilitating hay-fever can be. I was particularly affected by lupins - Emma’s mother’s favourite bloom. Perhaps this was a deliberate choice on her part, who knows? Nowadays, we can avoid most of the triggers, but there is one very odd reminder. For some inexplicable reason, whenever I was on the point of saying something sexy or provocative to my young wife (e.g. “Suck it, you bitch!”) I would sneeze. Damned inconvenient. And it still happens.

If the background seems unfamiliar - who’s looking at the background? - it’s because our bathroom, with its much-derided avocado suite, is not exactly photogenic. It will be brought up to date (“You can have any colour so long as it’s white”) after we have a new kitchen fitted . This picture is one of a series I have just taken for the album and perhaps to illustrate future posts. I must admit however that the candles are merely props. We don’t normally bathe by candle-light. Despite their alleged mood-enhancing properties - and they certainly seemed to put Emma in relaxed and sexy mood - scented candles are normally out of the question, because all perfume brings on my hay-fever. Which reminds me of a rather odd phenomenon I must tell you about some other time. Tomorrow, perhaps, if nothing else occurs to me.

The fantasy won’t go away. I was looking through some of the one-on-one shots I have taken to illustrate recent posts and stopped at this one. It reminded be of a comment I once overheard as a much younger Emma Jane passed a couple of guys standing at the bar as I waited to be served. “Jeez, look at the arse on that!” My thoughts precisely. I often dream up the scenario when Emma is paying me lip-service: some other guy comes into the room, sees that generous arse of hers and … Well, who could resist the temptation? This is obviously a very well-established fantasy of mine, because it was the inspiration for my very first composite photo. In the old days, it could only be done by covering up one half of the lens at a time and taking two shots. Even the slightest movement between these shots would give the game away, because it was essentially a double exposure. It’s so much easier with digital editing. This imperfect attempt based on yesterday's picture took only fifteen minutes. To make it fit my fantasy, I really ought to have cloned someone else’s head on the other participant.

It’s been that sort of a month already, and we’re only five days in! Perhaps it’s because I have a birthday coming up - as I may have mentioned once or twice before, both on the Blog and to Emma. Whatever the reason, for a couple of nights Emma has been more than usually willing - keen even - to get her lips around my aching cock. And for a change, it hasn’t just been to stiffen and lubricate it ready for action elsewhere. When I came in from the bathroom, she was kneeling at the edge of the bed and reached out to take hold of me and began to play. In seconds, I was hard and throbbing, and I thought I was in for the usual quick hand-job. I was standing at the bedside with my eyes closed enjoying the attention, when suddenly she took me in her mouth with a vengeance. I dared to hope that she was about to deep-throat me, but no such luck. Somehow I don’t think that’s a trick she’s about to learn. The blow-job may have been for longer than usual, but we still ended up screwing. The following night, I was again in her mouth with us both kneeling on the bed. Will she suck me to orgasm soon, I wonder.

I like tattoos - on other people. I don’t mean the multiplicity of designs that turns the body into a picture-gallery. I mean the tasteful less-is-more tattoos that draw attention to a part of the body rather than to the images themselves. I especially like the tattoo that many young women display across the small of their back. It seems de rigeur nowadays to display not only the tattoo, but also the thin waistband of a thong to underline it. Slovenly but nice. It’s the permanence of tattoos that would worry me. A simple red rose on a full breast might look attractive, as might a ring of roses around the navel, or a fairy maiden on a well-turned ankle, perhaps even a mythical beast standing guard over the pubes (all for future posts). But I’m sure there would come a time when I longed to see a different image, or none at all. As their colours faded, so would their appeal. For my delight, Emma will sometimes apply one of those temporary tattoos we used to call transfers a useful compromise.

A workmate of mine regularly used to pay for sex, readily admitting that it was the only was he was going to get it. On one occasion, he informed us, the insensitive woman looked disdainfully at his equipment and asked, “Who is that supposed to satisfy?” His answer was simple: “Me!” Which brings me to the point of this post. I have always considered myself phallicly challenged. In my teens, I dreamed of buying one of those penis-enlarging pumps, but I would have been at a loss to explain what it was for if my mother had come across it - as she was bound to have done. (Do they work, by the way?) When Emma and I finally got round to having sex, it was a great comfort to me that she knew no better. She still doesn’t, which suits me fine. There was a link on someone’s Blog last month to a guy who actually flaunted his small penis and welcomed comments. [I’ve lost the link. Help me please if you’re reading this and know it.] I admire his attitude immensely! It is about time someone spoke up for less-endowed mortals and encouraged us to come out of the closet to say (as the ancient Greeks did apparently) small is beatiful. Well, at least its okay.

Wow! I was totally bewitched by Anna Louise’s video-clip of her beautiful bosom last week, and she has kindly agreed to my linking to it here if you need reminding. A recent Channel Four series - Miss Naked Beauty - extolled the virtues of the natural, unspoiled female body. It castigated the fashion and glamour industries for promoting false images of womanhood. It made its point, particularly about the increasing desire for surgery. But how many times does the point need to be made before young women stop paying the earth to have a couple of cantaloupes stuffed under the skin of their chest? Even if the results were aesthetically pleasing (which is debatable) the finished article seems to be strictly for looking at. I don’t speak from personal experience, of course, but silicone tits appear to lack the feel, the swing and the bounce of the real thing. I suppose there must be guys out there who lust after silicone-enhanced boobs, but I’ve yet to meet anyone with that preference. Real is best, as Anna Louise proves.

[n. the faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident. C.18: coined by Horace Walpole, from the Persian fairytale The Three Princes of Serendip, in which the heroes possess this gift.] I wish I could draw. I attribute to artists ungodly and supernatural powers, and strongly suspect they all dabble in the black arts. Even as a child, my own skill with pencil and paintbrush was always considered to be ten degrees worse than incompetent. It has deteriorated since then. In an earlier age, my pathetic attempts at realism would have made me the father of cubism. Digital photography has given me the opportunity of at least pretending I can make a pretty picture. I don’t kid myself that it is anything more than a talent for occasionally pressing the right buttons on a photo-editing screen. With the help of Photoshop and PhotoPlus I have built up a scrapbook of pictures I wish I could have painted. But even these have usually been achieved more by chance than by skill. That doesn’t stop me signing them and claiming them as artwork.

The story we heard on the bus (see yesterday’s post) left Emma feeling sad, and wondering how the woman’s brother had become involved with the young girl from Thailand. A few moments later, I showed her one of many websites with pictures of beautiful young Thai woman seeking husbands to bring them to the West, from where they could support their families back home. Moments later a similar site showed images of attractive Russian women also seeking husbands. (The picture on the right is one of them, chosen at random.) It begs the question how could a Welsh hill-farmer think he would be the ideal partner for a sophisticated Muscovite? Welsh hill-farmers lead isolated lives, their only social contact being with other bachelor farmers when they bring their ewes to market for auction. (Their loneliness often leads to suicide.) It’s easy to see how one of them might be tempted into a marriage of convenience. The Welsh lady’s brother-in-law, a fifty-seven-year-old bachelor living with his mother, also fell victim, despite knowing she had been divorced three time already. What fools we men are when cunt-struck. Incidentally, it won’t be so easy for Emma to find a mail-order replace for Alfie. I’ve checked.

A woman on the bus home from Wrexham last week poured her heart out to Emma and me. This, much abridged, was her story: “Two months ago my brother, who was like a twin to me, phoned me and said he was going to kill himself. His girlfriend from Thailand, twenty-seven years his junior and his first ‘real’ girlfriend, had left him, after telling him she was already married to a man in England. I really thought I had talked him out of it. But a week later he did commit suicide … I’m now on my way back to Aberystwyth, where my hubby is caring for his brother, who is dying of cancer. The brother-in-law is determined to marry a young Russian woman, recently divorced from her third husband, a Welsh farmer. He has already made his will in her favour and has only weeks to live. Olga has already made the arrangements to marry him on his deathbed.” The poor woman had been home to Mold for a few days to settle her brother’s estate. She was now on her way back to the nightmare in Aberystwyth - a six-hour journey involving three buses. We could say nothing to comfort her, but were glad to have been there when she needed to share her story, even if it was with total strangers.

It's the fourth Thursday in November. And we have so much to be thankful for.

[26th November, 1958] Went to Blackpool last night with the chapel youth club to see the lights - or not, as the case may be. Sat uninvited next to Sylvia J. She is fifteen, very shy, very pretty - very Emma-like. Started to kiss her as soon as the coach set off, and we snogged all the way to Blackpool. Two and a half hours without coming up for air. Sweet innocent kisses at first, but by the time we got there, she was kissing open-mouthed and I was drinking her saliva. Definitely no groping, but God I was conscious of her beautiful little tits! I let her take a breather and enjoy the illuminations along the Golden Mile, - as excited as a six-year-old, all oohs and aahs. We shared a bottle of Coke and a cake she’d brought, warm and squashed where she’d sat on it. We snogged all the way back, till my lips were numb. Thought I might get a bit of tit walking her home, but her mother was waiting for her outside the chapel. Damn! Will see her next Tuesday at the senior youth club.

I downloaded a short video from yuvutu recently, and I am mesmerised by it. It depicts a man sharing his wife with friends in a very homely setting. In theatrical terms, it is true kitchen-sink drama, complete with a half-eaten pizza on the breakfast bar. The clip begins with pictures of the wife which would make her instantly recognisable - perhaps intentionally, given the lifestyle the video portrays. (You can watch it here if you want to and have time.) What intrigues me most about the clip (apart from the obvious) is the casual, laid-back approach of the woman and the men who enjoy her. Despite myself, I have to admit that I would love to see Emma being fucked by another man - to watch the bounce of her tits, to see the sweet agony on her face, to hear her cries. But before you volunteer, I also have to say it will never happen. Even had I been able to share her, she would never even have considered it. So I’ll have to be content with seeing pictures of myself doing it to her. A home movie would be nice someday.

In the early years of our marriage, Emma and I lived next door to her parents - well, in reality it was next door to her mother, as her father was mostly away at sea, sensible chap. It was not an ideal situation by any means, but Emma’s parents had sold us the house at a time when we had little choice but to buy it. With tact and diplomacy, we eventually established some ground rules which made the arrangement at least workable. And Emma’s ,other came to accept me as the honest, hard-working, mild-mannered citizen I was. Why else would Emma have chosen me? But after five years we decided to move away. We both found jobs in another county and bought a neat little house on a new estate in Cheshire. Two weeks after moving into a new home (where this picture was taken) we invited Emma’s parents to Sunday lunch, to prove that we hadn’t broken off relations altogether. Emma was serving the sweet when her mother, with a beaming smile, dramatically announced: “We called at the show-house on the way here and spoke to the agent. Guess who’ll be moving in next door?” Aaaaaaagh!

Yesterday Mr and Mrs C returned from their trip and prepared to move into their grand new home above the village. It is a very desirable residence indeed, with fantastic open views across the valley to the mountains beyond. The house is palatial and the rooms spacious and airy. Glamour and/or soft-porn photography would be a doddle if Mr C were into that sort of thing (which he isn’t so far as I know). I could be quite jealous, but I’m not. I appreciate the attraction of a large house, having had a couple. But now I enjoy my mortgage-free, car-free, carefree existence here in the village. Emma too prefers our bijoux pied-de-terre, with its lower running-costs and its proximity to the village shops - even if we have no room to swing a cat and we have to poke our head out of the door to see the mountains. As for me, this (with the usual warning!) is the sort of open view I like best.

Mr and Mrs C, our friendly next -door neighbours took themselves off for a week, giving Emma and me a foretaste of the freedom (from interruption) we will enjoy when they move out of the village for good later this month. Accordingly, we spent a couple of days getting some more photographs to illustrate future posts. At last, we had the opportunity to take some in the living-room again. The intention was to take some shots of Emma, and then for me to join in the action. So far so good. This is one of the pictures I took of Emma in preparation. However, by the time I had set up the camera for the planned one-on-one shots - tripod, remote shutter-release, etc. - my ardour had cooled somewhat. It can happen to anyone! The result, as you can see here if you wish, is an obviously posed shot. Sod’s law being what it is, as soon as the camera was put aside, my virility returned with a vengeance, and I was splashing about in there for real.

I’m not sure who’s in control here, me or the Blog. Ever since I started posting on a daily basis, I don’t feel the day has gone well unless and until I have published yet another piece of trivia, or at least a picture of Emma. I’ve see this condition described elsewhere as blogorrhoea, but in my case I prefer to think of it as CBD - Compulsive Blogging Disorder. I’m a martyr to it. I even have a reserve of posts to publish in case I am away from my desktop for a day or so, or if the Black Cloud of apathy descends upon me. How sad is that? I’m sure there will be a cure out there - some sort of aversion therapy, probably involving electrodes attached to ones genitals. (Or is that Guantanamo Bay?) But like all addictions, you have to want to be cured. And I’m not sure I want to be. For one thing, it gives me the opportunity to see what my Blogging friends have been up to on a daily basis. For another, it gives me a reason/excuse to continue taking and posting photographs of Emma.

I’m with Emelda Marcos on this one. A woman can’t have too many shoes. The ever-frugal Emma doesn’t agree, and has to be persuaded to buy them - but I know her size and, if I see a sexy pair I can afford, I buy them. I’m not sure if it is a full-blown fetish, but I can get quite aroused seeing Emma in sling-back stilettos. Perhaps it goes back to our teenage years. When we first met, Emma Jane was wearing her standard issue school uniform, which included sensible, flat-heeled, lace-up shoes, which squeaked when she walked. And that’s how I saw her for two years, for as long as she was at school and dependent upon her mother to buy her clothes. Then one memorable day, a week after she had left college and started work (as a dressmaker) Emma turned up for our date transformed. She was suddenly a woman. And what I noticed most was her high-heeled sling-backs. Those shoes did wonderful things to the shape of her legs and to the way she walked. An instant and powerful erection was the result. Then, as now.

I told you I would come up with an acceptable Christmas present for Emma - since she refused to accept the tumble drier as a suitable gift. We spent a long weekend at Eva’s place last week with only a visit to an Outlet Village to relieve the monotony. I quickly discovered that outlet village, is a euphemism for a hundred shops selling cut-price expensive clothing - still expensive despite the alleged cuts. We have no sex when staying at Eva’s, by long-established tradition. However, Emma was so kind as to let me buy her a designer coat for the winter, which has earned me a million Brownie Points to be cashed in for sexual favours on our return home. I think I’ll be cashing them in a few at a time. I’m not sure my aging heart would stand the strain of a million BPs worth of sex in one session. Given the present economic situation, I’m not sure what the going rate is for a blowjob but - if you dare to look - here I am on a previous occasion, having cashed in a few Brownie Points earned for changing a light-bulb.

I was quite surprised one day last week, after our photo-session, when Emma said to me, “I’m a bit more relaxed in front of the camera lately, for some reason.” Comfortable in front of the camera? I hadn’t noticed her being particularly camera-shy over recent decades. Pressed for an explanation, she admitted that she no longer frets about what images I post on the Blog and she doesn’t insist that her face is pixilated out of existence. The fact is she quietly enjoys the thought that other men might still lust after her. So thanks, guys, for those appreciative comments. I’m sure one reason for Emma’s changed attitude is the content warning recently imposed on us by Blogger. No-one can now chance upon the Blog without knowing what to expect. Although I’m equally sure she would prefer not to be “outed”, it is no longer the worry it was. In principal, Emma now agrees with me - if people find shots like this offensive, that’s their problem.

One of the disadvantages of living in a cottage is that the rooms are so small compared with other houses we have lived in. When taking photographs indoors, it is difficult to get enough distance between camera and subject. To take a full-length picture of Emma, she has to stand too close to the opposite wall to avoid harsh shadows on the background. You can see it clearly here though it is not a full-length. Few of our walls are uncluttered with radiators, pictures, light-switches, etc. - distractions which often need to be edited out. One-on-one pictures are even more of a problem. We simply can’t get far enough from the camera, which often has to be placed too close to the wall to see the viewfinder. I’ve lost count of the number of times heads have been cut off. Mostly, they have to be discarded. Occasionally however, there is enough going on in the picture to make it worth while keeping, like this one. Nice tits if nothing else.

I hesitated to put Wrexham on the list of places we like. For one thing, it is almost completely anglicised - almost as unWelsh as Liverpool. Emm and I go there frequently, but as often as not it is to one of its quieter suburbs, where we are periodically required to live celibate lives, while looking after a delinquent dog and an antisocial cat. However, Wrexham itself is a thriving town, with a wide range of shops and department stores to cater for all pockets and tastes. It even has a sex-shop, which I visited once. It was the seediest, most dismal shop I have ever been in, and was reason in itself for shopping online. But the town is also blessed with a wealth of fashion shops. When Emm tires of shopping we head for the Elihu Yale for a drink. (Elihu Yale is considered Wrexham’s most famous son, though he was actually born in Boston, Massachusetts. His family moved to Wales when he was only four, and he never returned to America. However, having made his fortune, he sent a large donation to a newly established college in Connecticut, which was renamed in his honour. This was to become Yale University.)

It turned out that my all-in-one and my negative scanner were “not worth repairing”. Labour charges being what they are, it will be cheaper to replace them. What a way to run a planet! So today I sent away for the replacements, and for a new camera. This will apparently be my combined birthday and Christmas present. As a child I was invariably conned by “combined” birthday and Christmas presents - the curse of being born in mid-December. My parents would always ask if I wanted separate minor presents, or one major one. I fell for it every time. My “major” present at Christmas never amounted to anything more than my brothers received. They had the sense to be born in April, March and August. Incidentally, I tried to say that the tumble-drier we bought last month was my Christmas present to Emma, but she wasn’t at all happy with the suggestion. I’m sure I’ll come up with something more personal.

It is interesting to know that most mammals have a penis bone, known as the baculum or os penis. The only primates not to have a bone in the penis are humans and - you’ve guessed it - spider monkeys. It has been speculated that Eve was made out of Adam’s penis bone, rather than his rib. This would explain why men and women have the same number of ribs, but men do not have a penis bone. It would also explain (if you believe in such fairy stories) why there is a scar running down the underside of the penis and scrotum, where the flesh would have been closed up. What happened to the spider monkey’s penis bone is anybody’s guess, but I really miss my baculum. And if I were to be granted an extra bone, I would certainly elect to have it in my penis. What a boon it would be on those occasions when the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. At least I now know what to say to Emma when I fail to rise to the occasion: If I still had a penis bone, you wouldn’t be here to enjoy it.