2September1997

2 September 1997
My dear folks,

The nation remains preoccupied with “the” obsequies after the revelations that “the” chauffeur was drunk & travelling at 196 kph when the car crashed. I supposed that after “the” wedding & “the” divorce, it was inevitable. You be seeing & hearing as much as you need of these events so I shall leave them alone.

It’s a lovely London afternoon as I write, with Mave, sprawled in a pool of sunlight & a Mozart sonata tinkling through the computer for company. (I bought a whole collection of them on CD.) I sat down for half an hour in the TV chair to read Cathy’s epic account of her Canadian holiday, without once falling asleep. As I’m still plagued with long nightly wakenings & prone to nodding off, the author may take this as a compliment. Thank you Cathy for taking the trouble to send it. It was much enjoyed. What a brilliant holiday!

My day began with an 0830 alarm for a dentist’s appointment an hour later. Mavis sat impatiently on the bathroom floor while I shaved & showered & kept trying to get behind the towel while I dried myself so that he could rub a dub my ankles. He likes to be fed the moment I wake, not after any ablutions, thank you.

I cycled into Harley Street where Mr Hely waited to attend to a long suffering molar which had been mined & refilled numerous times & now needs expensive attention. It provided Mr Hely with quite the largest cavity he had dealt with in years, something he remarked on several times as he called on his nurse, Sharon, to shine a light into it. He also assured me time & again that he was nearly done & that I was being an excellent patient. Since he’d numbed the tooth good & proper, being an excellent patient wasn’t too difficult. I don’t get any marks at all when dentists try to drill sensitive teeth – all my teeth are sensitive - without using anaesthetics, with assurances of “it’s just a tiny cavity & won’t take a moment”. I left with his admonitions “not to chew on it” ringing in my ears. I go back next Wed to get it capped or whatever.

On the way home I stopped off at the local shopping street for a couple of cappuccinos at a pavement café & a relaxed perusal of The Independent. A party of loud voices at adjoining seats made me nervous. They belonged to the trainers, tans & T-shirts variety of café society that one bumps into fashionable parts of London. Fortunately I have that indefinable air that rules me out of such society at a glance. A waiter came out to tell off a long-haired youth who, with his girlfriend, had ordered coffee & then proceeded to lay out the lunch he’d brought with him. These are the dramas of downtown Maida Vale.

My hairdresser, Elaine, had (I discovered to my disappointment) gone off this very morning for a piss up holiday in the Mediterranean. So I had to content myself with the services of David, the proprietor of “His & Hers” across the road instead. I opted for the next best thing to short back & sides, noting the steadily receding hairline as he worked. When I asked him what he could do about it, he offered to glue some of the falling locks back on. He’s down to earth, David is. I suppose you have to be when you run a place as unpretentious as His and Hers. I like it for that in spite of the pop music you have to endure. If you want to be stylish, you can go down the road & get yourself sheared at some exclusive outfits at horrendous expense. I never can work out why people do it but they do. Jones & I once walked through Mayfair & stared in amazement at salons decked out like art galleries where haircuts clearly cost the same as the Old Masters on the walls. I don’t suppose they called them haircuts there.

Yesterday I clambered up the ladders attached to the scaffolding at the house being decorated up the road for a chat with “Andreas”. He’s doing it single-handed & seems to be making a good job of it. I can’t remember what happened to the rest of the day. Oh yes. I spent several hours washing & polishing the Rocket & did a big raid on Sainsbury’s. Now for a little walk to the greengrocer. Am working Wednesday.

Blessings
T