I am getting pretty bored of decorating. The laminate guy is theoretically on his hands and knees right now in my flat transforming the floors into the vision of my imaginations (I write this at work).

I didnt get the bathrooms or any of the skirting board outwith the hallway done this weekend. The hallway is a troublesome room to do the skirting for. First off, as a hub for the rest of the house, it may be small but its got a lot of damn doors, more to the point, door frames. It took me a day and a half just to sand and paint the skirting for that one room all by itself. Which means the skirting for the living room, spare room, bedroom, and both bathrooms will have to be done after the floor is down. Nothing I can do about that now.

The one thing I have enjoyed about these weekends, with forced multimedia deprivation to rid me of any distractions, is how much writing I do in my mind. Its fantastic and fantastical the stuff I come up with. One day they will come up with a jack plug that connects directly into the synapses and allows you to record your thoughts onto a iPod or something. When that happens I will be churning out a book a month.

I have thought about lots of stuff over the weekend, but above all I remembered the value of a crush. When I was young (under 14) I used to fancy the socks off Jenny at school. She was a star pupil through the 5 years of comprehensive school and I used to go mushy inside just thinking about her. While walking home I would imagine precarious situations where she needed saving and I would rush in, dodging arrows and felling bad guys before sweeping her up onto my horse and rushing away with her in my arms. I had no idea what it was about her that I liked other than everything about her was magical, from her smile, the way she played the flute to the way she walked. It was brilliant.

The absolutely best thing about a crush was that if you kept the secret safe nobody could tell you she was out of your league, that she was already going out with someone or that your affection was misguided, innapropriate for some obscure reason or that you  were just plain stupid.

For me thats the value of a crush, if nobody knows your perfectly entitled to your little flights of fancy and can have the greatest of times.

I have been having these crushes all my life, on and off. The first one out of school was the girl in the chip shop, another the girl in the sandwich shop, another my 40 year old boss, some 20 years my senior, my ex-wife was an uncommonly realised crush. As I cut and rolled carpet, sanded down wood and laboriously made my way around the hallway saturday through sunday, I found myself realising the latest.

Unconciously the music playing on my MP3 changed from tub thumbing movie soundtracks to Sarah Brightman, Moby, Enya and Annie Lennox. Occassionally I had a little dance round the mostly empty rooms. Unspoken, while it lasts nobody can take away these flights of fancy, my imagination is my own realm.  

This one is of course innapropriate, the best ones are and will go unrealised. Crushes though are not sexual in any way and especially do not  involve lusting over body parts. A crush is about going a bit stupid on the inside when you think of someone. A crush is about the essense of what they are and how that makes you feel. There is no sadness at the thought it might never be realised because it is not meant to be. The finale to each of my scenarios now though has changed. Being allergic to horses and not being overly quick on my feet, dodging arrows and galloping into the horizon is out of the question.

Rather in a private moment she comes up to me and asks; 'Is it me?'

I hesitate for a few moments and looking each other in the eye, answer nervously 'Yes'.

She smiles, reaches out resting her hand around the back of my neck while I tenderly hold her face in my hand. We melt towards one another, a gentle kiss of those that have known love and lost it, have shed tears of loneliness in the dark watches of the night and have hoped not for someone to share life, but with which to live it.

Cool uh! Romantic fiction here I come.