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14 February 2021 (Sunday) - Valentine's Day

“er indoors TM” had dealt with Sid before I got up this morning, for which I was grateful. I made some toast and scoffed it whilst watching an episode of “Superstore”. One of the characters in it made me think. Universally hated by all her colleagues, this woman didn’t care and deliberately made no effort to make friendships at work seemingly relishing being despised by all and sundry. I used to work with someone just like that; she resisted all attempts to include her in any social events, rejected all overtures of friendship and deliberately acted in such a way as to alienate herself from all and sundry. And I am reliably informed that (ten years later) she is still just the same. Hated by all, hating all, and seemingly quite content with that. Some people are odd…

At completely the other end of the spectrum I saw mention of my old French teacher as I peered into Facebook this morning. When I left school I became quite a good friend of Mervyn Clark (and his wife Gillian). Looking back he was perhaps the most decent and good person I have ever met. He would do anything for anyone, and he was in totally the wrong job as generations of schoolboys were merciless to him. He deserved far better than just being labelled as “Mez” (a nickname he hated) and treated with condescension at best.

He died sixteen years ago. I didn’t get to the funeral but I’m told it was well attended.

 

I saw this morning that Facebook had invited me to set up a fundraiser for my birthday. My initial reaction was to ignore it, but then I had a little ponder. I had a few minutes spare whilst “er indoors TM” was farting about in the shower, so I set up a little fundraiser for the goat sanctuary. I decided that it might raise them a little money; it might not. At best they get a bung, and at worst no harm is done to anyone. It didn’t take long to set up - you can donate to it by clicking here if you want to.

I spent a little while sending out personalised invites to the thing to people on my Facebook list of friends, then stopped for a moment. As well as there being a lot of people that I don’t actually know on that list, quite a few of them are dead. What’s the etiquette for dead people on social media?

 

We settled the dogs and drove down to Hastings. Pausing only briefly for Munzical reasons we were soon at the hospice where I had my second COVID test of the day. I then spent half an hour with mum. I don’t think she realised I was there, seeming to spend most of her time fighting with her blankets. I came out, and asked the nurses to help her, and then “er indoors TM” went in and I spent a little time with dad.

One of the staff there told us that she’d been off duty since Thursday and hadn’t expected mum to still be with us today… Is that good or bad?

 

We came home; “er indoors TM” went shopping whilst I played Lego. A few weeks ago I bought a little Lego ice rink, and today I finally got round to putting it together. The thing is rather good – it has moving parts and with a little thought I might just be able to motorise it.

“er indoors TM” sorted out a rather good bit of dinner, then we tuned in to the weekly family Zoom quiz and bingo session. I did reasonably well I suppose – but here’s a poser for you. The letters in the word “allergy” can be re-arranged into three other seven-letter words. Do you know what they are? 

Oh – and in less than a day we’ve raised seventy quid for the goats…

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