It would appear to be someone called Rufus McLean.

I found that out, and that's actually his only good angle. Shame.

I should've been an actress. After weeks of trying to sort out my apparently non communicating new electricity meter, speaking for hours all told to different people and departments who told me all kinds of conflicting things, this morning I decided the time had come to pretend to burst into tears. I sobbed loudly for a good couple of minutes, whereupon I was immediately transferred to a senior person who solved all my problems in one go, and offered £750 compensation.

Top work.

I only hope they're not reading

I was going to give up after a minute, but as I reduced the sobbing, I thought I could probably manage another minute or so. It was very cathartic in and of itself. I was in a much more peaceful frame of mind when I was put through to the person who sorted everything out.

My boss once phoned me up on the first day of my summer holiday to ask me some trivial question, and then he got shirty because I complained about having my holiday interrupted. I told him tearfully (and truthfully) that he'd upset me very much, and the next morning I found a note through my letterbox apologising and telling me to take an extra day off at the end of my holiday, with the company's compliments.

It's been an eventful year for me, hope you lovely bunches are doing well.

There's a helicopter just landed on the street I'm walking down.

Helium wrote:It's been an eventful year for me, hope you lovely bunches are doing well.    

.

The Call of the Wendigo wrote:There's a helicopter just landed on the street I'm walking down.

I'd take a photo but there's a man sitting in it and he might shout at me.

And now I'm not on that street anymore.

I've been upset.

This boyfriend of my mothers is getting on my nerves. I knew she was away in Bath, so I went round there to get a couple of things and take a couple of things for her. He was unexpectedly in residence, wearing my grandfathers cardigan, sitting in a chair that belonged to my grandfather - which he's already tried to get rid of according to my brother. I placed a traditional West African statue by the front door and he asked what it was, then grunted. He does more of that than words.

A new door knocker arrived from the US, from my favourite hardware store in the world on Lexington Avenue. My gift to her house. He sneered 'surely you can't be bothered with all that?' - it was such hurtful dismissal. It would take all of about two minutes to adjust the screws with a hacksaw.

Recently, he threatened to deck one of the neighbours at a late summer barbecue. My mothers manners are hit and miss at the best of times - I personally don't think she was leathered nearly enough as a child, and by the time she was a spoilt brat it was too late for discipline to take hold. He makes her worse. Like so many women of her generation, she changes herself into the woman the man she's with at any particular moment wants her to be. It's always been one of her worst, most cloying, habits.

Hi Helium - lovely to see you back, whatever you've been going through.

I just saw Caroline Munro having a coffee at the cafe over the road from my flat.

My mother is here, having set fire to her own flat.

Since arriving, she's managed to smash a decanter, break a drawer, and detach the door from the microwave. I have never, in my life, come across anyone so destructive and so noisy. She's completely oblivious to anyone else's existence. Every door she opens is wrenched from its frame with maximum force. Every door she closes is slammed with such severity the building vibrates.

I've retired to my bed, with headphones. I've just now taken four propanolol to calm my heart rate, because I can still feel all the many vibrations as she crashes around as I type, banging things, breaking things, throwing things, making an absolute f***ing nuisance of herself. She's a spoilt brat who wasn't disciplined hard enough.

I've just had to shove her out and scream until she left the door alone instead of trying to get back in. She stormed in here pretty much the moment I pressed send, shouting about some charging wire that required her dragging the bed across the floor and threatening to throw me out of the window. I just want peace. She doesn't think she's done anything wrong. I've quite literally been living on nerves and labour breathing techniques since before she arrived. I shouldn't have to end up hoarse from begging to be left alone and not have to see or hear her causing destruction.

My mother is back with me after a few days with my brother. She always manages to work something in - tonight, in the middle of having a bit of a laugh, it was 'I got a lovely message from X'. Oh ok I said, that's nice, how's she getting on with her seventh marriage, etc. 'Yeah, so we were chatting away and then she asked how you were'. I see. 'So I didn't know what to say and I haven't got back to her since then'.

That was this evening. When she arrived this afternoon, she managed 'oh wow, your hair is looking great, I love that streak on the back'. What streak would that be because I haven't had any streaks put in, said I. Cue her pulling a load of hair to examine, and concluding 'oh no, I think it's just more grey coming through'.