Numbers

Last night a friend came to stay. I wasn’t actually entirely sure whether she wad still due to come and stay or not. We’d talked about it ages ago and then hadn’t really spoken since. She’s a teacher at a school just down the road from where I live and it was parents’ evening last night so rather than trek all the way home she stayed the night at my place. It’s really nice to be able to have people to stay as and when I want - not having to ask people’s permission or have to mention to them that they might have to sleep with their feet in a wardrobe. It’s the little things in life that make the difference.

Anyway, it was a pleasant evening and we had a good catch up. She’s pregnant and so she was updating me on that (not too much detail you understand. I do know about the birds and the bees already) and she seems to be doing rather better than my other friend who has been hospitalised because being pregnant has made her so ill. I still haven’t phoned that other friend. I really need to get my act together on that.

I don’t have an answer machine at home. Not even 1571, which I know I could set up, but I don’t really see why if someone phones me and the line is engaged they should be charged for getting through to an answer phone. I sometimes dial 1471 to see if there are any numbers that have come up that I might need to call back, but normally they aren’t numbers that I know. Have you ever googled the numbers that are listed on 1471? Most of the time I just ignore whatever the number was, but strangely any number I *have* checked seem to be of businesses that I have no dealings with. You might not think that’s very strange because it’s not unusual to get sales calls - except that for me it should be, as my home phone number, and any number that I have had for as many years that I can recall, have all been registered with the telephone preference service, which is generally very effective. Even if an occasional call gets through you only have to mention the TPS and the cold caller apologises and goes away. There was a Liverpool number on the phone a couple of days ago. I don’t know anyone who lives there and I thought I’d see if the number came up on the internet and sure enough it did and it was some law firm. What slightly freaked me out though was the location of where that firm is based, which I can’t explain here, but it suddenly felt very Big Brother-ish (as in the George Orwell meaning of that, rather than like a Channel 4 reality TV programme). I’m sure that it was a total coincidence, but sometimes the internet reveals information that causes me to wonder.