News from afar

Today has been very quiet, which is just what I intended. After Keith returned from taking Mike to school we sat over a cup of coffee and wrote out the week's menu as we both wanted to go and get the shopping out of the way as soon as possible.

We were all finished by 11.30am and I spent the afternoon catching up with stuff in the conservatory and talking to Sophie on Messenger. It never fails to amaze me that although she was over 3000 miles away we could communicate so easily. When I went to Nepal back in 1987 I had to cross Kathmandu to find a hotel that was able to make international telephone calls. They were no mobile telephones, no internet, no instant communication of any kind and I can only wonder what I put my parents through when they were unable to get hold of me!

After having a conversation on the computer she actually called me via Messenger and we had a somewhat unsatisfying chat. Firstly, she told me that in Central Park the day before a man had come up to their group and had demanded donations for a children's charity. He looked very rough and Sophie said he appeared to be on drugs so they were polite and refused to give any money. At this, he starting calling Sophie and another girl in the group some really nasty names which obviously frightened them both to bits. He went away, thankfully, and started to hassle other people but he continually looked back at Sophie and her friend and still shouted out names at them. I became very alarmed when I heard this (obviously) and wished she had waited until she arrived home before telling me the story!

She then went on to say that a group of them had wanted to all go out on Sunday night which further inflamed me as Keith and I had said before she left not to plan anything on this day as we're going to an afternoon drinks party and there was no way I was going to drive afterwards!

We rang off but by now I was in a bad mood and even a game of cards with Keith in the conservatory didn't make me feel any better. He roundly thrashed me (apart from one game) so I made him go back to the kitchen and finish the dinner! Bah!