13November1997

13 November 1997
My dear folks,

Jones is home. I drove down to Gatwick airport this p.m. to fetch her. She came trotting through the door leading from customs into the terminal, carrying only a cabin bag (stuffed with figs) & delighted to be back. We cruised home along the M25, Jones oohing & aahing over the autumnal English landscape as I kept my eyes on the traffic. It’s eight months since she left Britain; she was overwhelmed by the greeny-gold trees & the neatly trimmed & hedged Surrey fields. So un-Portuguese! I reflected that if we retired to live full-time in Portugal, Jones was going to miss her English homecomings.

We stopped off at Marks & Sparks. Jones wanted a fiery curry for supper. I’d stocked up with an assortment of her favourite things & had intended to order curry from the den over the road but she had her mind set on M&S’s mouth-scalder. And so it was. She emerged with a bag full of goodies, bowled over by the choice in M&S. Jones loved the redecorated flat but couldn’t live for a moment with the rearranged pictures which I’d merely slapped back on the wall pending her return. Each was promptly rehung in its designated place. She replaced the tablecloth that’s served me well since her departure & we toasted her homecoming with generous shots of the 5-year old Demerara rum that Chris left as tribute last week. Excellent stuff! I delved deep into the cupboard to extract a 10-year old Meia Pipa before running a bubble bath into which Jones disappeared, rum in hand, half an hour ago. MCP is equipped with a shower rather than a bath, a facility Jones misses sorely.

We found Mavis sprawled indifferently across the wide arm of the chair nearest the radiator in the lounge. Although it’s 9 inches across, it vanishes completely under his hairy bulk. Jones tried to love him a little & tell him how much she’d missed him but he grabbed her arm in his mouth to discourage any such intimacies, at least until such time as he acknowledged her return & initiated an approach himself. He’s been vanishing each evening to visit his supporters in the area. Last night, he was being spoiled rotten by the girls below me; they ejected him as they heard me arrive home from work; his nibs however preferred to settle down in the stairwell rather than come upstairs. That was fine by me. He trotted in for breakfast this a.m. & came to inform me at lunchtime that his bowl was empty again. I told him bluntly that he was the fattest cat in Maida Vale & more in need of a diet than lunch. He was sufficiently impressed with the vigour of my response to retire to the safety of the landing where he stared back brazenly.

The weather forecast appears on the telly, showing a vast black cloud over Iberia & regiments of rain clouds heading across the Atlantic for Britain. Winter is here. Not that it’s a particularly cold; just grisly & gloomy & damp.

Friday 14 November:
We are home again, after 5 hours on the road & a thoroughly frustrating day. We set out at nine to attend the funeral of BBC colleague’s husband, 50 miles up the M1 motorway. With an hour in hand we stopped off at a motorway restaurant for coffee, just in time to hear the local radio warn of a mega prang which had closed the motorway completely between us & our destination. We tried to take a country deviation but got caught up in a queue of traffic that seemed to reach from one end of the country to the other. At a second roadside café where we stopped to phone, a chatty cop (whom I met in the loo) said a truck had crashed through the central reservation of the motorway & ploughed in the traffic coming in the other direction. Very nasty! We eventually trailed off to Waterperry Gardens for lunch & a walk. So at least there was some good in a bad day.

I work Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues & Thur. Christmas approaches. Am still trying to wangle a swap that will allow us to get to Germany for New Year.

Blessings
T