Update

Very quickly - one thing about the E-Bay episode was that I suggested Ahmed our IT guy might have set the account up for her. I'd seen him talking with her once in a noticeably familiar fashion. I wondered if perhaps I shouldn't have said this as she seemed just a ittle put out by it. The next week Ahmed turned up at our office just before lunch and they both disappeared for two hours or so. So perhaps my intuition does work a bit after all.

Not sure what it makes of today though. The week before last I suggested it was time for another lunch - she agreed but we couldn't find a mutually convenient date last week so (after a reminder from me yesterday) agreed today. Today I got out of my morning meeting to find an e-mail saying she would like to cancel our lunch appointment "as I don't feel up to it. Sorry".

A little blunt, I thought. I caught up with her later in the day and asked if she was feeling poorly or just fed up. "A number of things", she said. I didn't probe. She seemed upset; perhaps it was something that happened at home, but who knows? She's seemed much less keen to be with me the last few times, perhaps she is embarassed after all...

It would be a shame to have lost our friendliness I think. I'd definitely prefer to be friends than acquaintances; while it's obviously necessary to watch one's step where emotions are concerned, I think I've managed to put enough distance between my state of mind two months ago and now that there needn't be more pain than pleasure involved. Anyway, I'll try and be friendly but not pushy.

lukewarm

Another weird thing about hotornot is that I posted a picture of my ex-girlfriend Nat (from the early 90's!) which I thought was very lovely and people only rated it 4.7 (it's since gone up to 5). What's going on there? She may not be the best looking woman in the world but she's a hell of a lot better looking than me. Maybe women are more generous in their marking than men, (although that's not been my experience in the real world). See what you think:- http://www.hotornot.com/r/?eid=ERNREYR&key=VQG . It seems that to get a score above 9 all that's necessary is long blonde hair and a bikini so maybe it's not entirely surprising. Perhaps I'll try and get a picture of Madame I and see how that fares.

I gave Indira a hand with her e-bay account on Thursday. She seemed to have it up and running already (Username "PrincessI2"!)so I created a sellers account for her and explained how to go about advertising items for sale. The weird thing here was that she thought I'd set the initial account up, while I thought she had. As it had her home address listed on it this begged certain questions - in fact I do know her address from a work form she filled in once but I certainly wasn't about to let her know I did. It's probably a bad sign that she assumed I knew it of course... In the end it transpired that one of her daughters had set the account up, although we didn't establish that till the next day. "PrincessI" though? Interesting.

She also asked if I could help her out with the loan of a laptop for a week as her home PC had crashed and her daughter needed to do a homework project. Achh. "Laptop for Mrs Khumari" was one of Mr Bob's calender entries. Well, of course I can refuse her nothing so the next day I packed the work laptop (kept at home) into my bike bag and delivered it to her (checking carefully first that there was nothing incriminating on it).

Well, that's it for now. Here we are several hours into the weekend and I don't have a plan yet - always a bad sign. Too easy to find yourself at the wrong end of Sunday night with nothing accomplished. Item 1 should really be a haircut; I think I'll shower and get a bus into town. Then on with the decorating, perhaps. At least I didn't wake up thinking of Indy today, rather of Petra, my ravishing Italian correspondent. Not that they inhabit the same area of head-space. I really don't think you can fall in love with anyone over the Internet, although clearly you can become interested.

all at sixes and sevens

So Monday seemed fine, I hardly saw her, we spoke briefly at the end of the day, probably about work - no, I met her at the tube station on the way home and we chatted a little about nothing much - she hadn't made it to see "The Lion King" musical with her kids as she'd planned, that sort of thing..

Tuesday, suddenly, Blam! She was dressed in white, bare arms, smelled heavenly, came and stood next to me to ask about work, I was just consumed with lust. I could barely concentrate. I was supposed to show her how to set up an e-bay sellers account but when I'd finished my work and went to look for her she'd gone home. And I got so depressed; I can't tell you. Got home and felt bad all evening, and for much of today. What's that all about?

Today she was away on a training course. I've researched the e-bay thing a bit - it's got to be easy hasn't it?

I tried to catch up with the gossip on Monday, talking to my immediate junior who'd also been away on leave and is probably the best person to acquire such information from. I don't normally concern myself with these matters at all, but now I have an interest. Bob, she said, apart from having a general air of disreputability about him, had questionable morals where women were concerned, had been going out with a woman from another department in the same building, and someone else as well at the same time. I thought I sensed a knowledge of who this someone else was, and a reluctance to tell me, which I attributed to an inkling at least that I've been spending time with the same person...

I also found out from her where he lives - just on the other side of the Heath as it turns out, not so far away from where Indira and I were walking the other day. I wonder if he's been walking there with her too? Anyway that would certainly make it easy enough for him to nip over and meet her for lunch in Dave's Diner.

Meanwhile in perhaps desperate attempts to unfocuss a bit I posted a photo of myself on the "hotornot" website. A very unflattering photo, I felt, but the only one I had available at the time. I also set up a "meet me" profile with a rather cantankerous message warning women who'd put "astrology" as an interest to stay the hell away from me. Not only did the picture acquire a 'hotness' rating of 7.4 out of 10 (but you should see some of the '8's - yechh!), but also the profile attracted a really strikingly attractive Italian woman from Turin who shares my liking for Leonard Cohen among many other things. We're now correspondeing by e-mail. What are the chances of that? Of course I'm really anxious that I'll be too boring and she'll lose interest, but there's not much I can do about that...nothing like finding the cloud to every silver lining, is there?