11 March 2012 (Sunday) - Hythe (?)

It was gone midnight before we got home last night. "My Boy ^TM" had left some KFC on the table, so I scoffed it, and gave myself guts ache. I then tried to make sense of a load of really odd messages I had read on Facebook. Someone I had considered (for years) to be a good friend had made a posting on Facebook claiming that one of my muckers was being victimised by his circle of friends. It would seem that disjointed fragments of an idle conversation from over a year ago (which I can't actually remember having had) had been dragged up for no reason that I could establish, deliberately mis-represented, mis-construed and then blown out of all proportion. And somehow in all of this, I had become the villain of the piece.

Several people were on-line last night at 1am, including the victim and the person who'd posted the allegations. We got chatting. By the time everyone who was on-line at the time had all kissed and (seemingly) made up it was gone 3.30am. I then had a rather restless few hours in bed, alternating between feeling very sorry for myself because people seem to be so quick to think the worst of me, and feeling very sorry for myself because the warmed-up KFC had given me guts ache.

My phone started bleeping with text messages shortly after 9am, and I then spent the morning re-hashing the previous evening's squabbles with everyone who wasn't awake after midnight last night.

The plan for the day was originally to be a walk round King's wood, but "My Boy ^TM" suggested that there was a better walk to be had in Hythe. Not knowing Hythe very well, I was happy to go along with his better judgement. So seven of us (and a dog called Fudge) set off to Hythe. We drove to Hythe, and through Hythe and out the other side. Through Seabrook, and to the Folkestone Coastal Park. So much for Hythe.

But Folkestone Coastal Park is good. Littlun enjoyed playing in the park, and then we walked down to the harbour where we had cockles and whelks. (Yum!) My other grand-dog arrived (with his entourage), and we wandered back along the beach. Fudge then disgraced himself. Firstly by pulling "er indoors ^TM" flat on her face, and secondly by getting out his "lipstick" and attempting a bout of "the love which dare not speak its name" with his dog-cousin Sid. Sid seemed to accept the fact that Fudge was travelling on the other bus, but didn't seem overly keen on Fudge's physical manifestations of his intentions. Fortunately for all, Fudge's urges soon passed; it might be time to have his "pockets picked"?

Seeing the notices that children using the climbing equipment should be supervised, I took the opportunity to clamber all over, up and down the climbing frames with littlun until we were both worn out. As we made our way back to the cars we saw an area for barbecues.

We must go back to the coastal park one evening (mob-handed) for a barby.

And I came home to find that last night's squabble was still in full flow. I was soon messaging the person from whom all the unpleasentness originated via Facebook about the ongoing squabble. When I wondered how on Earth this sorry issue had been dragged up when it was all something over nothing, and had all been sorted out fifteen months ago I got told "f*ck off dave u two faced *ssh*le". Which was nice.

The victim of the piece was also on-lne. I told him about this latest development. He wasn't entirely surprised. And it would seem that I've finally solved the mystery of what the ongoing nastiness was all about.

It transpires that the whole sorry story had been dragged up by someone who delights in stirring up bad feeling. This person is known to have mental health issues and problems with alcohol abuse. And (ironically) is someone for whom I've bent over backwards to help and to whom I've opened my home so many times. Someone I iinvited along on a family holiday last year, and someone for whom I lined up cut-priced tattooing.

I realise that someone who reguarly eats the contents of the medicine cupboard and who has (on occassion) tried to overdose on birth control pills might not be in the most balanced frame of mind, and I will treat their opinions with the contempt that it deserves.

But through his drunkenness/mental illness/outright evil (I really don't know which) I seem (through no fault of my own) to have fallen out with one of my dearest friends.

I cannot forgive this person for having caused that....