LIZ JONES’S DIARY: In which I double park my exes

I broke the habit of a lifetime last week and sent my column to its subject matter before it was printed. I’m sick of spending Sundays hiding from my phone, worried about the fallout, so I thought I’d head off said fallout at the pass. 

I felt very brave. This column detailed me asking my ex if he wanted to get back together before I contracted cystitis with someone else in a boutique hotel. I also quoted him telling me that he has gone into a steep physical decline, but is at peace with his fate, ie, to die alone watching The Chase. 

He had asked me not to write about any of this, but I did, hence I sent him the proof with its giant heading, ‘David drops a bombshell’. I really wish they would hide the personal stuff in the small print up the side: he’s so blind, he’d never spot it. Thankfully, it turns out he was fine with it, but then he said: ‘Won’t the new man be upset to read you asked if I wanted to get back together the night before you had sex?’ 

I hadn’t thought of that. Also I’m not completely certain I didn’t say in this week’s podcast, after sex with the new man, that I ‘get more pleasure when he’s not even in the room’. The topic came up (ahem) when I was reviewing the new Emma Thompson film Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, wherein her character, a 55-year-old, hires a gigolo in order to climax. I said that all I need is a Morten Harket poster and some peace. Oh dear. 

Anyway, the unfortunate upshot of our conversation – with David saying my column is fine, print and be damned – was that I invited him to stay for the weekend as it will be his birthday. Having been dangled this sweetener, he made what seemed like a miraculous recovery and replied, ‘I will be there at 7pm on Friday. I will bring bread and gin.’ 

I don’t think he will expect sex, especially as he has gone into a physical decline. Although, when I typed, ‘What do you want to eat? Apart from me? Obvs.’ He replied, ‘Obvs.’ 

I think he was buoyed by the fact I’d written that he was so handsome aged 31 that women fell at his feet despite the fact he wore double denim. And that I have lusted after him since I was 21. All of which is a bit Lazarus-making. 

His birthday weekend is only a week before I see the Rock Star in a warm-up concert in front of a small crowd, before the festival proper in front of a big one. This is almost double parking, something I haven’t done since I met my future husband and had sex with him on the first date, when I had just started to date the Osama Bin Laden lookalike. 

At this warm-up gig I will be sitting in seat AA. The Rock Star has slightly put me off by saying our room on the coast has a double bed and two single beds in it. I’m not staying in a room with more than one bed! Who does that?* 

Me: ‘Does it have a bath?’ 

Him: ‘I think it has a shower over the bath. And you’re not bringing the collies, especially the one on the pillow who kept growling at me. She did so in the full knowledge you couldn’t hear her.’ 

Well done, Gracie. 

Me: ‘Do you mean Grace Kelly? I learned the names of your children; well, most of them. Still no idea what the small one is called.’ 

Him: ‘That’s a grandchild. I’ve no clue either. Anyway, white pepper man. Is that over or what?’ 

Me: ‘I’m about to find out.’

* I’ve just looked up the room online. It says there is ‘a supplement if the third person is an adult’. What sort of establishment is this?