A surprising element of our trip through the Stans was a burgeoning correspondence with Mr. Richard Madeley, of Richard and Judy television fame. He’d been contacted by our amazing friend Aaron, whom for Susan’s 40th had sent out beautifully hand written letters with blank birthday cards to lots of her favourite celebrities (plus a few random ones, and ones she hates) to fill out and send to her with their well wishes. As well as sending back his card with a nice personal message (although Aaron had at this point ran out of 40th cards and told him Susan was 50!), Mr. Richard Madeley also went to the effort of calling up to say Happy Birthday in person! To our utter dismay we were in the wilds of Nukus, Uzbekistan at the time and had no phone signal so we didn’t get to speak to him and the voicemail didn’t even kick in, so he sent a lovely email instead:

“Dear Susan

Firstly, happy 50th, although as you are currently adrift in the wastes of the desert you may not receive this for some time. Or, indeed, ever, if your goat’s bladder of water runs short. However, we live in confidence and hope.
Assuming your survival, I thought I might just add to your developing appreciation of The Pickwick Papers. Here’s an extract I just know you will like.

“Oh, she dotes on poetry, sir. She ADORES it … she has produced some delightful pieces herself, sir. You may have met with her ‘Ode to an Expiring Frog, sir?’

Now that’s writing.
Lots of love on your 50th, Susan. You have some very nice friends.
Best wishes,

Richard Madeley. xx”

What a total gentleman and all round amazing human being he is! So having some time to ourselves on the night train from Yerevan, Armenia to Tbilisi, Georgia we thought it was about time to reply and try to become life long friends with the wonderful Mr. Richard Madeley, as well as send him some snaps of Jill’s fabulous new sausage skin fake tan and Susan weeing into The Gates of Hell:

“Dear Mr. Richard Madeley,

Words cannot express the thanks for the kind effort you took out of your very busy schedule to call me on my birthday. The desert was a cruel mistress hence my inability to receive your call. However, DJ Gas Crater possibly spewed out a ring tone at some point but we had had too much vodka to distinguish it from his other burpings. The day after, in Uzbekistan, other callers were not greeted as kindly as they had wished as we were highly anticipating a call from The Man Himself. Being unplugged from the Matrix for some time was very liberating but being re-attached had an up side as we received your email. However I have to admit that I could not read it in it’s entirety as you had possibly (we don’t know for sure as we skipped past it*) inserted a quote from The Pickwick Papers! This is just not on Mr. Richard Madeley. The plan is to never find out what it is about and have hot South American boys read it to us on our death beds atop Machu Picchu. New Scientist already broke a plot point mentioning in a psychological experiment they used a passage about a humorous ice skating incident therefore any small hint is just too much hint. We maintain a file of musings from random people as to what they think The Pickwick Papers is actually about and their diversity and creativity is immense. Personally I’m pretty sure it is about Mr Pickwick, who dies unexpectedly without leaving a will or having any children so his larger family are all fighting to gain possession of his coal mine. Jill still remains convinced that it is about the trials and tribulations of news distribution in Yorkshire.
Our journey has been fraught with huge swings between good and bad luck (including getting mugged in Kyrgyzstan with Jill’s passport in her bag, and then super sleuthing around the bins and park and finding the bag and passport!) but finally things seem to have levelled out and we are currently on the night train from Armenia to Georgia in a swanky first class compartment and have both politely declined the train captain’s offer of “blow job or anal secret”.
I need to come clean and confess that Aaron had actually ran out of 40th birthday cards so it was a decade earlier celebration, but an important one none the less. And yes you are correct he is a very good friend and was it not for his girlfriend he might actually get a blow job or anal secret in return for this amazing gift.
If you are at all interested I have attached some photographs of my wife on the train showing off her new partial fake tan made from sausage skins. As well as couple of whammy highlights of the trip.

You are indeed a gentleman of the highest caliber Mr Richard Madeley. We salute you.
With the utmost regards,

Susan and Jill.”

To this day we haven’t received a reply, so we have assumed that Judy has vetoed his replying now that she knows that Susan is a nubile young whippersnapper of only forty, or that maybe his agent was told to filter out any correspondence containing “anal secrets”**. Shame on you Mr Richard Madeley! We had hoped this would be the start of a long and happy long distance friendship!

* Balls, fupping read it while doing this blog post!!!

**Or, more likely, Aaron reckons the photo attachments were too big so he won’t even have received it. In which case we better twat him this bluurg!