7October1995

London: 7th October 1995
My dear folks,

The weekend is improving but it began from a very low point. After spending hours on the phone to various computer help-lines to try to resolve minor but irritating problems, I foolishly took the advice of one gentleman who thought radical surgery might help. It was like a nurse doing a heart transplant with the guidance of a surgeon at the end of a phone line. In short, my computer hardly knows its arse from its elbow & neither do I. I have spent hours, with moderate success, trying to reattach severed organs. Poor computer, wrapped in bandages, doesn’t know what’s hit it. It’s a hard way to learn.

Then tenants, who were due to depart mid-month, begged - after I’d placed an ad for the flat - to be allowed to stay until the end, as they’d been unable to find alternative accommodation. I agreed - they’ve been good tenants. Next day, I found myself inundated with beseeching callers wanting to view the flat but was unable to find the tenants to make arrangements. Then I lost my list of callers (amid computer traumas & files) and it took me 2 hours to find it again, after combing uselessly thru’ masses of shredded paper. I felt distinctly hassled & went to bed as unhappily as I can remember in spite of sharing with Freglet a two-bottle evening of reflective red wine.

This afternoon my new fax machine came to the end of its first roll of paper & I found that the spare roll I’d obtained with it did not fit. I swore! The tide turned when I discovered that the spare box of paper rolls for the old machine fitted the new one.

It improved further when I went over to the flat being advertised to find the sought-after tenants returning home. I was able to arrange viewing for tomorrow. Then I went to lunch with Fregs at the Elgin Lokanta, the Turkish restaurant we have patronised for 15 years. Our host - who never fails to remember my name - asked after Barbara & ushered us to a suitably important table where he served us an excellent lunch. I remembered halfway through that I was supposed to be taking Fregs to the airport in a couple of hours and switched from wine to water.

My thoughts have also been very much with Mum these past two days. Dear Mother, if wishes were horses, you would surely ride. Thank you for your recent fax. And thank you Kevin & Cathy & Jonesy for yours. I also had a long email message from Judy in Cape Town where Cornell anniversaries have been celebrated aplenty this month. Ann, strength with your back problems, too. You haven’t said anything. What’s the prognosis? Kevin, since we bear your lap-by-lap Indy races in good humour, so should you celebrate our course-by-course feting of Maria & family at a new restaurant.

And lest you think all Portuguese bills are reasonable, let me tell you that Jones was shocked at the bill presented to Freglet at the end of a super meal she enjoyed with him last month at our favourite restaurant - at the bottom of the track. Even Freglet blinked - as he confessed to me.

With some regret, we have struck it from our list of regular watering holes. He flew back to Jhb this evening. Jones will be returning to London next week - by bus - an exhausting trip which is due to end at Victoria Bus Station in the early hours of Thursday morning. I begin another spell of nights on Sunday - unless I’ve won the lottery.