Into Town/Bailiff news

I WENT INTO TOWN yesterday, rode the tube for the first time in ages. Once I changed Central Line and sat opposite two Pakistanis, a Somali and a Korean-looking girl and a miserable British business type I felt like I really was in the metropolis.

I went up Tottenham Court Road, where you can stroll for five minutes passing nothing but electronics shops on both sides. The prices weren't as bargainacious as I remember (Argos, a shop that stocks almost everything and you pick from a colour catalogue and collect from local stores where I buy nearly everything in the toasters/kettles/lighting/non-computer electronics league, still beat most of them ~ but Argos only started stocking computers last year) and I tested about 280,000 laptops. I also closed their lids to get a proper idea of how big or small they were, and gently lifted them up ~ which made the Indian assistant in one shop nearly have a coronary. She got straight on her phone. I am sure she took me for a would-be shoplifter. Anyway I found a machine I wanted. But I refuse to fall in love with anything electronic. I suppose at least electronics though they do break down and dislike getting wet are more reliable than most human beings, so at least that is something...

I saw my Mum and Branzie (my stepfather). We had high tea near De Beers' diamond shop (extremely unimpressive display, considering they MINE the things ~ can't they affort proper bulletproof windows? Endless pavé-set sparkly-covered gold and platinum in every window ~ nothing so big as even one single carat to be seen anywhere!

I felt so exhausted I had to go home early. I'm sure they thought it was drugs. No ~ THAT is one of the illnesses everybody thinks is nonexistent but I had for years BEFORE the drug addiction!

Today I went to the council offices. No wonder I couldn't find them before ~ nobody knew where they were even when they were right round the corner, and they were MILES away. Though I DID like the suburban shopping centre ~ bigger than Reading's shops ~ just round the corner. Anyway, the lady I saw rolled her eyes when she saw me trundling up with documents sprouting from every orifice, made SOME sort of sense of them and got me an appointment on Monday with the bod who actually presses "APPROVE" on the computer that pays. THEN, so she says, the thugs can be kept at bay.

And my solicitor telephoned this morning, saying she is faxing everybody left right and centre. She hasn't faxed the prime minister or the queen, but she appears to have faxed everybody else...