2008 — 19 January: Saturday
Junior duly darkened my doorstep shortly before midnight, and has decided against the entropy raising exercise in his room. In fact, he may even take his snow board and ski clothes away with him, assuming we can a) find them, and b) remove1 them from, the loft. It adds up to a surprisingly large, heavy package of stuff — but then, so does my son! Everything fits neatly into the Aygo. While scouting around in the loft, he noted the Scalextric and assures me I could make a lot of money by selling it. Any offers or advice?
We have a plan
And the aim of this plan is a lie-in, followed by lunch2 and possibly some form of mini-adventure. I would call it father-son bonding, but we did a heck of a lot of that in the days either side of Christa's funeral. I would say we are closer now than ever before, thank goodness. He's a good lad!
I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other.
Frankie says "Relax!"... department
The building society savings account passbook has mysteriously re-surfaced in this morning's post — not the new one in just my name, not even the promised replacement copy of the new one in just my name; no, this is the original one, in our joint names and with both our signatures in it. "Further to your request" says the accompanying letter "please find enclosed your updated passbook" etc. etc. In a perfect demonstration of complete misunderstanding they also tell me to visit my local branch with identification, to add my signature to the book. So, it seems I need to notify them again of Christa's death and have them again attempt to re-issue this damned book reset to just me as the account holder. Two months, and progress exactly zero. As before, I can clearly hear Christa saying "Good God!" and with that fiery3 twinkle in her eyes. Tell me again, somebody, why she was so keen on this institution? The account is one of those "use it and lose it" deals. If you withdraw money (except during one, small annual window of shopportunity) you lose the bonus.
By the way, Big Bro, I got your text message this morning, but my attempt to reply provoked a "Stop" sign and a "message failed, try again later" response. I have yet to try adding the suggested zero on to the front of your number. (It strikes me as an unlikely cure.)
It's 10:01 and Junior has just been woken by a phone call. Let the day begin! And a tip of the hat to the WinSCP programmer, Martin Prikryl. What a fine tool. Over 18m downloads. Wonder what his inbox is like?
Comforting thought
Weird, isn't it, how memory works? On the day of Christa's funeral I'd been struck by the thought that I could only recall ever once telling her a lie (and a pretty minor one at that). Well, if you regard this (yet to show up) Bereavement Allowance as a one-year continuation of the poor girl's State Pension, that lie becomes even more minor in the grand scheme of things, doesn't it? Well, I think it does! Ho-hum.
OK. Who's on next?
Junior having hightailed it out of here shortly after 15:00 it was not too long before I got a call from Big Bro, asking me where I was and telling me he was parked on my drive. (As my car is in its nest he'd naturally assumed I must be out. But in that case, why did he call me on my landline,4 I wonder?) He has been disabused, and fed a cuppa and a choccy biscuit — there is little limit to the hospitality on offer here in Technology Towers, let me tell you. Anyway, we've had a nice long brotherly chat, and now he's been granted brief access to the wireless network to ponder a stack of incoming email while I sort out a booking at a local(ish) restaurant. Done. We shall shortly be venturing out to one of Len's preferred watering holes. Let's see if I can remember the way in the dark!
Turns out I can. Curiously, if my little dominatrix-in-a-voice-box was wearing knickers, however, they were thoroughly twisted. I took my normal route, but she got totally confused. (I read a supposedly funny piece in the Times by Hugo Rifkind claiming to have ended up in a field by obeying the order to "Turn left now" while barrelling along a motorway. Can't rely on technology, you know. Not when it's programmed by people, at least.)