It’s slow going in the house of mirth. We’ve been explor­ing parts of Scotland every day, so we decid­ed to take a day off to watch acclaimed British sit­coms and movies. I’m so hap­py here. It final­ly feels like I’m on vaca­tion, as Dennis likes to remind me when I say I should­n’t eat any more ice cream. Where else does some­one keep my dish­es delight­ful­ly warm in the oven before serv­ing me? Luckily, Dennis is also some­thing of an accom­plished key­board play­er. Jamming with new peo­ple, learn­ing their unique strengths and the sound they can get from their instru­ments, is always more fun than I can describe.

Funny to think that we’d only met once before at Aaron’s wed­ding five years ago, and kept in touch from across of the pond. Introverts like us nev­er for­get those kinds of con­nec­tions, cause it’s so rare to find a per­son to whom you can eas­i­ly talk for hours. He lives the same life I have now, the same life I see myself hav­ing many years into the future. Even our cats are alike.

Dennis had this con­ser­va­to­ry built as a room where he could lounge dur­ing the day. The poly­car­bon­ate ceil­ing lets plen­ty of light through and keeps the space bright and warm and sun­ny and I’ve decid­ed that I need a room like this.

When the sun sets it can get quite chilly, so then we move to the main room and put the fire on.

Minced beef with car­rots and peas, and Yorkshire pud­ding. The whole “pud­ding” thing is a mis­nomer that threw me off at first. It’s actu­al­ly a light pas­try, usu­al­ly served with a savoury dish.

Taken at Aaron’s wed­ding in 2007 (I was a grooms­man). Between him and Dennis are Chris and Vic (whom I’ve always called Papa).

One of the best things about this trip is final­ly being able to meet Barney. Dennis lets him out as he pleas­es, and when he wants back in, you can see his black out­line through the pat­terned glass as he waits patient­ly by the door. He does­n’t like being picked up but he does­n’t make a fuss about it either.

Barney rarely stays in one place at a time, fre­quent­ly alter­nat­ing between stretch­ing out on one of his pil­lows and the car­pet.