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By Root 618 0

my money were among the happiest times of my life – and while I’m certainly not angling for a reconciliation with a woman like Carol, stranger things have happened. I believe there are few things that can’t be sorted out over a coffee and a cuddle and I’m not saying I want her to at all but if she ever did have the guts to pick up the phone and admit she was wrong and was leaving her new lover and would I consider giving it another go, I’d be polite enough to give the idea proper consideration – on the strict proviso that the possessions of mine that I surrendered during the divorce were returned to me and that the sexual intercourse with other men was knocked on the head.

I first got wind of Carol’s infidelity when she came home from the gym wearing a pair of black Asics cycling shorts after having gone out wearing a blue Adidas pair. Also, the Asics pair were for men.116

Suddenly things that had seemed innocent – the snazzy new hair do, the packet of condoms in her glove box, reported sightings of her in nightclubs with a man – started to collect in my craw. What was she up to?

I began to keep a diary. I publish it below only to demonstrate how in the right I was.

21 Aug 1995 – Carol’s acting suspiciously again. Can’t explain why but if you could see it you’d agree.

24 Aug 1995 – Carol’s bought a new dress. No sign of it on any bank statements. A gift from a lover? [EDIT] Just realised she could have used cash.

30 Aug 1995 – Carol smells of a new aftershave – L’Homme I think. But I’m still using a giant bottle of Pagan Man [it was an ex-display model off a ferry]. Enough evidence to confront?

31 Aug 1995 – Didn’t confront.

6 Sept 1995 – Carol’s brother turns up and tells me she’s seeing117 another man. Reluctantly discredit his testimony on the grounds that he’s a former alcoholic and current weed junkie.

21 Sept 1995 – Carol now staying at the gym two nights a week in order to be first on the cross trainer. Suspect that’s a lie. Put in a call (false voice) to all local hotels to check she’s not staying there.

4 Oct 1995 – Park up outside the gym and watch Carol enter. She stays until 8am the next day. Thank God. Thank God. She is staying at the gym.

26 Oct 1995 – Carol 40% less randy than this time last year. Menopause or sourcing sex from alternative supplier?

8 Nov 1995 – Found men’s pants in the back of the Micra. Gotcha!

8 Nov 1995 – Actually what if this is a Gotcha? Edmonds can be one sick bastard, and I do have the profile to be the subject of a BBC1, Saturday night prank. Hmmm.

9 Nov 1995 – Realised they were my pants. Relieved/disappointed.

15 Nov 1995 – Had a succession of calls to the house. Whenever I answer the caller hangs up. Even when I impersonate Carol.

1 Dec 1995 – Heard Carol on the phone saying: ‘That was great sex last night.’ Oh this is so confusing!

[I spent several sleepless hours that night constructing rational explanations for this sentence. Perhaps she’d caught the tail end of a blue movie on Channel 4 and was chatting to a girlfriend about it? Maybe she’d said ‘sects’ in a reference to some pseudo-religious team version of step aerobics? Perhaps it was someone’s name – Jim Greatsex? Perhaps she was trying to say Great Six in a Scottish accent. Come sunrise, I’d convinced myself of all these things.]

8 Dec 1995 – Struggling to find a spare moment to confront Carol. She’s always at the ruddy gym.

15 Dec 1995 – Got drunk and tried it on with Sue Cook. She was so understanding – though witheringly emphatic in her rebuttal.

21 Dec 1995 – Had a long chat with Bill Oddie. An experienced birder,118 he’s lent me his binoculars and given me some great advice on how to remain still for long periods of time and go completely undetected in undergrowth and shrubbery. It’s surprising how many of these techniques can be used to track an enemy or errant spouse.

22 Dec 1995 – Called in sick to Peartree. Told Carol I was off to the office then set up a vantage point opposite the house. Binoculared her entering the premises with a man then shutting the