Bad Week at Black Rock...

Odd sort of a week. Wednesday, following needling by a co-worker about making coffee for Indira I suggested to her that she should buy the next tin, thinking that this would give me a ready justification in future. Later I realised that as she didn't know about the needling and sees the coffee-making as a favour (besides which I normally use her milk) this sudden demand for coffee purchasing must have looked a bit odd, so I e-mailed an explanation and told her to forget it. "I was a bit shocked..." she said. "...I might have known Pingu was behind it".

The good news in the same communication - she says she did thoroughly enjoy the Globe, and she seems keen on the balloon trip we've been discussing, despite her fear of heights. "I'm entirely at your disposal" I said.

Between parts 1 and 2 of this, a phone call from Mrs K at home. She'd been trying to copy and paste something into an e-mail and hadn't pressed "copy" properly. Therefore the whole of yesterday's blog entry (which as explained I cut & pasted from Notepad after the first version was deleted by Blogspot) appeared in her e-mail. She read me the first few lines and asked me if it seemed familiar. "Dunno..." I replied, quick as a flash. Doh!

Spent a couple of nights away from home after this so I was rather anxious about what might occur on my return, but either she didn't realise what it was or she's decided the best course is to ignore it, so there doesn't seem to be a problem. It was pretty damning stuff I would have thought, even if it does refer to disengagement and so forth... Honestly though, what are the chances of that happening?

Then a snippy response from Suki to an e-mail I sent her about Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian shot and killed at my local tube station by police who mistook him for a terrorist. I'd told her I was bothered by this when we went out a couple of Sundays back and was shocked when she said it was his own stupid fault for running from the police. Recent information suggests early police accounts of the incident were very misleading and he didn't run from them but only to catch his train. My concerns were based on a knee-jerk belief that the police were fascists, she said, not because I knew what had happened, "and guess what, you still don't". Well not knowing what had happened certainly didn't stop her from saying it was his own fault, but I decided it was best not to get into an argument. She's been dealing with all the bodies from the earlier terrorist attacks in her role as a pathologist - perhaps she has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Bim's brother Jules has it after the East Asian Tsunami and it's apparently made him very hostile and aggressive.

Finally, news from my boss about Bob the Builder and the fraud case. It seems he was caught because his phone calls were listened back to following a customer complaint and he was heard discussing kickbacks with the contractor. Presumably he didn't realise his calls were being recorded. The contractor has apparently confessed but Bob continues to deny everything. Of course if they've listened back to all his phone calls they will doubtless have heard his phone conversations with Indira too. That would certainly be a cue for preoccupation on her part.

I don't know whether to drop hints to her about this, ask her outright or say nothing at all. I'm inclined to say that I have a feeling the mother-in-law issue isn't all that's bothering her and let her tell me more if she wants to, but either way I need to wait until we've got significant time alone together - two minutes snatched chat in the kitchen won't do. I've decided to wait until she makes an invitation this time - hopefully she'll suggest lunch one day next week - so this may not happen for a while, although we are due to make a joint visit to a customer on Thursday...

The shock of the cut & paste disaster, Indy's rather distant demeanour on Tuesday and Monday's stupidness have combined to rather dampen my ardour anyway. I'm still rather curious about what she's up to (and yes I do know it's none of my business) and whether she has any intentions at all so far as I'm concerned, but hopefully the worst of the wobbling is over. I need to concentrate harder on my work, apart from anything else...