Craic On

The Flatmate (that was), is now up to her neck in Italian Politics and any chit chat has to be by appointment and booked ahead. We have a provisional date for a week on Sunday. In the meantime, she has celebrated living half a century. Obviously, I was not invited, because of “IT” and the collapse of air travel. I sent her a phone charger and a packet of pants for her Birthday. These are things that I know she is always short of because, mysteriously, I am now short of them. The Goddaughter was in my kitchen while I was wrapping up the parcel. I said to her, tongue in cheek, “I think anyone would be delighted to receive a phone charger cable and a packet of pants for their Birthday, don’t you?” “No,” she said. “It’s a bloody awful.” “What can you possibly mean?” “I’m not being funny, but if it were me, I’d prefer Gucci to a packet of pants and a manky old phone cable.” It was true. She was not being funny. I tried to redeem myself, holding up a basket I had made especially for the Flatmate (that was) Bi