26June1997

My dear folks,

Portugal is yesterday & tomorrow. London is today & London is wet. The tennis from Wimbledon is showing on the telly. But it’s Tuesday’s tennis because there’s been none today & there was precious little yesterday. Play didn’t get underway until evening. The organisers brought today’s notional start times forward & will no doubt have to do the same tomorrow. With the current weather outlook, players will be on the court by the crack of dawn soon, if they’re on the court at all. The rain England has needed so badly these past months is finally here.

Happily, it was a manageable drizzle during my cycle commutes to the Beeb on Tues/Wed for two heavy days. For much of Tuesday morning, I underwent a lot of testing & interviewing for the Online job I want. I’d spent hours preparing for it only to run into the most unlikely questions from the board – often remote from the job - & left shrugging my shoulders. I gathered it might be a couple of weeks before the outcome was made known as they’re seeing dozens of applicants. More encouraging was the amended roster that has gone with my transfer to a new team.

It enabled me first to make a couple of shift swaps & then to change my next ticket for Portugal in order to get down there three days earlier. Since it was the kind of ticket you can’t change, I’m particularly pleased. It’s the fruit of introducing scores of new customers to our travel agents, Destination Portugal, who don’t otherwise recognise my services. They didn’t pay for my upgrade to Club Class where they got me the last remaining seat for the flight going out on Sunday 6 July, but they did convince TAP that it was worth bending the rules. That means that I have all of ten days in Portugal before nipping back to London en route for another ten-day break in Canada. This is the life.

I started a letter to you at Faro Airport as I waited to catch the plane back last Monday & continued it on the train to Victoria. But it was the sort of letter that never properly got hold of itself & which I will expunge from my laptop’s memory shortly. I walked halfway home from Victoria. In fashionable Belgrave Square I caught sight first of an ageing Roger Moore whose permanent-tan face-lift was fast approaching its renew-by date - & then of 2 mega-expensive Aston Martins circling the square in a hopeless search for a vacant parking spot. That’s what I call rich irony. I got as far as Hyde Park before it began raining & I borrowed a bus for the rest of the trip.

Mavis was delighted to see me & celebrated my return by accompanying me downstairs the following morning & going walkabout. There was no sign of him that evening, nor the following dawn. I hoped he was okay, knowing that he’s returned from lengthy jaunts before, famished but otherwise unharmed. Sure enough, I found him back in the flat when I got home the second day. Stef had let him in. I could hear his piteous squeaks as I mounted the stairs. He’d finished what food he’d found in his bowl & poured out a desperate tale of woe as I opened the door, hardly knowing whether he wanted to be backscratched or fed first.

Food won. My ankles were rasped to the bone before I could get the goo into his bowl. He’s needed lots of hugs since. Last night I found him sitting on the cushion on my dining room chair as I came to eat. He declined to leave, even when I began tipping over the chair. Eventually Mave & cushion both vanished beneath the table. When I peered underneath it after supper, he was still sitting on the cushion.

Today I had an appointment with our accountants, 10 miles away in Harrow. I’ve been using their services ever since we came to London, first for our personal affairs, then for the 90 Shirland Road books & finally for one of my “flat” clients. I packed wodge of files & papers into a bag & woke the Rocket into life for the trip. I’d given myself half an hour to spare, knowing the traffic can be awful. It wasn’t too bad in fact but I needed the extra time because I lost myself twice in the road changes.

Central Harrow has been turned into a vast pedestrian mall dotted around with carparks. Getting there was the hardest part of the exercise. The rest was easy, as I’d spent a day drawing up the figures. I chatted for a while to the auditor & his partner wife before sitting down with her to go through the books. The annual Harrow pilgrimage has proved well worth the effort, not only for the accounting exercise but also for valuable guidance as the government of the day changes the tax system or reconsiders the conditions for “non-domiciled” status. And it’s doing both of those right now. The onus falls for the first time on the taxpayer to become a pro-active (horrible word) supplier of relevant information with all kinds of fines threatened for late responses.

I surveyed the fridge on my return, with a view to a quick bite. It contained a box of fancy chocolates dating from my pre-diet era, a container of marge & a scattering of cokes & beers. Happily, there were still a couple of frozen microwavables in the icebox. A raid on the fruit shop & the health shop has improved the outlook ahead of an assault on Sainsburys tomorrow. I needed the brolly all the way. Outside the bank I lost my footing on the kerb & went sprawling like a drunken fool across the pavement. No damage except to my dignity. Home again for a solid hour’s kip in the TV chair, Mave sprawled across my lap. This evening, for the first time, there was a hint of sunshine before the showers returned with a vengeance. There’s talk on the radio of the poor folk heading for the Glastonbury festival this weekend. They’d better take their wellies!

Thank you letter writers. Annie, I poured over your recent fax. All of a sudden, the wedding approaches apace. Ditto Cathy & Mum for your despatches. I’ve chatted several times to Jones who’s delighted at the prospect of my imminent return. We’ve also been filling up several of the gaps our immediate Quinta schedule with late guests. The gaps arose from cancellations. I learned with shock from her nephew Bevan that Robbie was stabbed in the back by an apparently crazed Indian while jogging in Durban. I understand that he spent a night in hospital and was able to drive himself back north within a day or two, so I assume that the wound was not serious, however shocking the attack.

I’m due to work Sat/Sun and then next Tues/Wed and Sat. Sunday I head back to the Quinta. The big story this coming week is Hong Kong. We’ll be saturated. No doubt you’ll get your own fill of it. Here, I watched the new leader of the Tories, young William Hague, make a creditable start to his career in opposition. No doubt that he’ll be on the opposite site of the despatch box some day though it won’t be this century. I’ve been reflecting on the fate of his former government colleague, Jonathan Aitken, who swore dramatically in front of the cameras to take up the sword of truth against the press after being accused of being a pimp & a cheat. Now, abandoned by his wife, as he goes down in history as one of the few worthies to resign from the Privy Council in disgrace, I wonder if he regrets not falling on the sword of truth rather than brandishing it. I can abide a honest villain but the pious hypocrites piss me off something wicked.

Blessings
T