Meeting

Yesterday was a good day as it turned out. It was originally a day that had no plans beyond going out on my seemingly never ending quest to get some new work trousers. I phoned my mum to find out when she would be about so I could drop something over for her. I ended up going over to my parents’ house and eating a quick bit of lunch before mum dropped me off so I could do my shopping. When I got out the car mum gave me a hug and a kiss and told me how nice it was to see me, which was really sweet of her.

I was just going to wander round for a bit and then meet up with mum again when she had done the various things she was doing. I went to M&S and was on the up escalator when I saw someone I used to go to school with on the down escalator. She wasn’t anyone I knew really well and I hesitated just too long to say hello and the moment had, literally, passed. A few minutes later when I went back downstairs I saw her again and I went over and said hello. I look decidedly different to when I was at school – slimmer and so on - so it took a few moments for her to realise who I was but then we started to have a chat. She was there with her 17 month old son and while we were talking we ended up walking over to a local park, so that her son could play on the swings.

We just had a stroll and a chat. She seemed to be enjoying being a mum but her partner works really long hours so she was finding it quite hard to bring up a child, to all intents and purposes, on her own – and looking after her own mum who is disabled, so we talked about that a bit and had a general catch-up. I once again showed my weird super power thing with children as my friend commented on how much her son seemed to like me. He kept reaching up to hold my hand and got me to pick him up a couple of times. He was very cute and we spent quite a lot of time looking at the animals in the enclosure they had there. The animals seemed to consist of two foxes, an owl, a couple of squirrels and some ducks, so it wasn’t really “Wildlife on One” but they seemed to fascinate him anyway. Although he did actually seem more interested in the woman who was cleaning the cages and seemed to focus more on her than any of the animals. When he’s older, he’s either going to have a real eye for the ladies or have a fantastically clean house.

I hadn’t seen my friend for years, we left school 13 years ago and we may have said hello to each other at the school reunion a few years back but nothing more than that, but we ended up having a really nice wander in the park and a bit of a catch up. It was a really pleasant afternoon.

Then I went off, did a quick bit of shopping and met up with mum before going back to my parents’ for dinner. I seemed to spend most of the evening trying to sort out getting their computer upgraded to broadband. Their connection is so slow that it took ages, but hopefully it will be sorted soon.

When I got back to my house, my landlady’s son and his girlfriend, B, were over. B was sitting on the sofa under a duvet because she was so cold, but we’re still not allowed the heating on. The other night my landlady told me in an incredulous tone that she’d had to put the heating on (it happened to be an evening when I wasn’t actually home). I resisted the urge to reply “The heating on?! In October! They’ll be allowing women to vote next!”