Last Friday my workplace was flooded out. It was an eerie experience as a run-of-the mill drizzly day led to a river flowing through the site and a lake in my office. My enduring memory is of wading about in warm rainwater up to my knees trying to reposition the sandbags and some planks.

Now my office smells.

Although I live on the Gloucestershire/Herefordshire border, apart from the intermittent rain, we have had no problems at home.

I write this for posterity not for your information nor entertainment and I did advise you not to read it so it's your own fault that you've wasted time that you will never get back.

Whilst writing an entry in one of my other blogs about weather 'forecasters' I was reminded of a gay experience I had the other day.

You may not believe my protestations but I have to state first of all that although the act I was involved in was entirely voluntary and I could have said 'no' at any stage, I did feel in some way coerced; I was given a stark choice, neither options were easy and to my shame, I chose the gay way out.

Looking back I think I may have made the right decision. But that does not mean that I will be pushing my cheesy wheelbarrow up the bourneville boulevard or anything like that.

So what happened? Well, I was at work having a meeting with one other male and a female. At the end of the meeting we had to walk between two buildings, a distance of about 50 yards. As we left the meeting building I was informed that the weather had taken a turn for the worse. It was spitting. It was that fine rain, the sort that goes right through you.

Being from Sunderland, where no one has ever died from rain, I was not unduly concerned. However, I was dumstruck when my male colleague revealed that he had anticipated the precipitation and had brought us an umbrella each.

I was horrified. This was Bill. A married man whom I'd previously had the greatest of respect for and he was enticing me to use an umbrella. I'd never carried an umbrella for about 3 decades. I looked into his eyes and saw no glint of passion, just a hard, confident, masculine look that said 'this is the right thing to do, let's try to enjoy it'.

We carried the umbrellas for what must have been about 30 seconds but felt like a dirty weekend in Brighton. Although I was deeply ashamed I must confess I was strangely aroused. I couldn't wait to get home, have a hot shower and roger the missus.