The phone rang quite innocuously.
So, you could have bowled me over when the person who said "Hello" at the other end revealed themselves. Malcolm was a friend from way back, from the Percy Street days. I went to visit him in Berlin with Keith in 1993.
Shortly after that, he went completely silent and did not respond to letters and telephone messages. Initially, I wasn't concerned because Malcolm had a habit of doing just that. This time it went on for just too long. I think that there was a point sometime in the late 90s when Keith and I were talking and I grimly surmised that he might even be dead.
Well, wrong. Or telephonic communications have broken through to the other side.
We didn't talk of very much apart from a lot of reassurance that it was good to hear from him and that Keith would like to hear from him as well. A general invitation to visit was issued and I shall probably make a little effort to keep in touch. But he's in London staying with friends and sorting himself out so he's a little out of my orbit these days and I think I want to get a sense that he's putting himself back together again before I make too much of an effort.
I warned Keith as much when he rang a little later. He's well also and full of plans for this year. Holidays in USA - New York, Boston and San Francisco.
I talked with Chris later. Good to hear from him. He will be travelling this way for a meeting so we'll meet up for a meal and an overnight stay.
You may remember that late last year, I began to decorate
my study. Well, I've used some of the
downtime I've incurred through this bug to move books onto the bookshelves
and to begin sorting them ie category and then alphabetical by author and
then chronological by date of publication.
Yes, I know that this may be viewed as obsessive but I like that sort of order and, a long time ago, Denise was convinced that I was a Librarian in a previous life - actually in the scriptorum of a monastery.
I've also watched a video of Flawless which was a pretty patchy and unco-ordinated sort of a film whose only raison d'être seemed to be to give Bobby de Niro a chance to do twitchy acting and show how well he could impersonate a stroke victim. It was a Joel Schumacher film. So, it would seem that Tigerland was an aberration.
We had a meeting today (Monday) with Paula from Social Services. It appears that Sefton do not provide care in the same way that Tower Hamlets do. So care provision that Ross was receiving there will not necessarily be replicated here. However, it appears that we may, via a variety of flexibilities in the system, more or less get what we require. There'll be another meeting in the near future.
I had to fill out a form to state my requirements as a carer. This was painful but necessary. It's made me think in a lot more detail about what I require and what I have taken on. Ross urged me to think about the worst days as the care provided has to be able to cover for those. I suppose, as a good product of my middle class upbringing, I tend not to dwell on such things. Well writing it down makes you dwell.
In the news, George W Bush made the headlines by choking on a pretzel. He then fainted and biffed his head as he fell. Don't we all just wish we had been that pretzel in order to make a better job of it.
Prince Harry made the headlines by being a normal teenager. Last summer, he went
out with friends, got drunk in a pub despite being under-aged and was barred
for bumptious behaviour and verbally abusing a member of staff. He also smoked
dope at a private party in his parent's house. It all sounds typical for a 16/17
year old.