Chilling

It's a bit chilly here, considering we're in the second half of April. Noi remarked the other day that it's colder than in December, the month she's most used to spending in Manchester. But we were warmed last night by fond memories of Mum and Auntie Bet and Uncle Peter and others shared over dinner. Not to mention the lovely food.

The story of Mum ejecting the cup-tie winning Derby County off her bus went a long way to capturing the no-nonsense essence of the lady.

Had a rather more odd conversation with a chap at the supermarket check-out counter earlier in the day. He was the customer ahead of us and had heard us discussing where to get a drink. He assumed we meant alcohol (of course, we meant tea) and helpfully pointed to various pubs in the vicinity and how to get to them. He then went on to a discussion of the merits of Buddhism as opposed to Catholicism, having taken Noi for a Buddhist. It seems he'd watched The Da Vinci Code the previous evening and felt that it pretty much told the truth about the Christian faith. He felt in need of meditative calm, he told me, as he could hardly control his nerves. He then announced he was looking forward to the apocalypse as a way to sort everything out as people weren't so nice, but ruefully admitted that since it would mean the end of it all for him it wouldn't do him too much good overall.

It was all sort of funny - the guy was quite charming and likeable - and very sad. The sense of damage suffered was powerful.