A Nice Man

Last night Partner and I met his mother for dinner, who told me that this is a terrible world with a lot of terrible people in it and she cannot bear to be a part of it, because of all the terrible horrible people doing awful things all the time. She told me this more than once. I did not say to her, have any of these terrible awful people ever a/ screamed at you that you were a 'trollop' in the middle of a Wetherspoons pub b/ tried to have you thrown out of accident and emergency during a family member's last illness and then ostracised at the funeral c/ written you long mad letters detailing the members of your family you have personally killed through your innate badness and individual neglect? Because, they would indeed be quite mean things to do to someone, and I do not think either of us needs to look far to see someone who has done them and who they have done them to. Anyway I did not say that, I smiled in a slightly vacant way and I nodded noncommittally at the Badness Of The World.

Anyway today I took my watch to a jeweller to see if he would repair it. It is a gold rotary watch which mum bought me for my 18th, and the clips that hold on one side of the strap had worked loose and just needed squeezing back together. I did not want to do it myself because I thought I would probably break it and I have seen similar watches on ebay for £400, so clearly I could never replace this watch and indeed I am at the point where I cannot afford my own possessions. Anyway he did it for me straight away, looked at it carefully through his little glass, and did the other side as well, where I had not noticed that it was also loose. And then he refused to charge me! And blushed and looked embarrassed when I told him how kind that was. I mean, I know it wasn't a big job, but I certainly wasn't expecting him to do it for free, and I was grateful.

So I collect evidence of things in this world that are not terrible and awful, and that man can be Exhibit 1. As my own departed Nana Bessie used to say, it is good for you to count your blessings. I would not have put it past Nana Bessie, to be honest, to be calling people trollops in pubs, but I think she would certainly not have bothered with long mad accusatory letters hand-delivered in secret over a period of years. She would have put on her powder, lipstick, rhinestone earrings and Estee Lauder's Youth Dew, and she would have gone out to Bingo, at which she might well have won a mixed grill, or, on one memorable occasion, an imperfectly-plucked turkey which we had to finish off at home. And I think there's a lesson there for all of us.

(Never take home an unplucked turkey - the feathers get everywhere. Make someone else pluck it first!)