Friends - who needs them?

I got very depressed last week and almost gave my notice in at work, but fortunately for me my boss had just had a row with someone else in the office so that when I went into his office I could feel the vibrations coming off him and decided to wait until Monday - by which time, of course, I felt quite differently about the whole scene. So maybe it was just as well that he had changed from his usual `Winnie-the-Pooh' into a prickly hedgehog. I think it was just the fact that my `lodger', namely Joan, had been getting me down. She talks non-stop and as I have a woman in the office sat opposite who keeps on nattering away all day - even when I am typing she still chats, and I find this makes it very difficult to concentrate on my work; but to go home and have the same situation again is just one too many. Last night for instance, at 11.30 she said "I won't keep you up as I know you have to get up for work in the morning"…. BUT…. the last time I looked at the clock was when I wearily raised my head from my pillow and saw it was 02.10…AND SHE WAS STILL TALKING! I don't know really when she finally gave up as I had dropped off to sleep somewhere mid-sentence. However, last weekend really took the biscuit. As you may - and there again you may not - know, Dennis has a friend in the next block to me and he very often spends the weekend there with John and his wife. Well…. I suppose being so near he must have found out that Joan was living in my flat and we wasn't at all happy about it - naturally! SO…. he came on Saturday and said if I could afford to take in waifs and strays and cranks off the streets I could afford to take him in for a weekend. What fun and games: I had the two of them at each other's throats - each feeling that the other should be the one to get out - and best of all when it came to 01.00 a.m. in the morning there we were arguing who should have the bed! Then I really lost my temper and said `it was my ****** flat, and my ****** bed, and I was****** well going to bed and they could do what the **** they liked'. At least I got some sleep but I don't think either of them did. Still, looking back it was quite an amusing episode, but not so at the time. Still, that's life isn't it? It always seems much more amusing after the event.

Grace Russ 8th March 1977

Gone!

My lodger i.e. Joan, disappeared last Friday. I rang Greta today after getting no reply from Jim, and Greta said Joan had rung last night to tell them that the place she was going to in Orpington had just rung up and said they had changed their mind. So she is back to square one it seems. Meanwhile she is staying at a Boarding House somewhere in Bromley and all her gear is packed in my downstairs room! I don't know when she will come to get this and it pongs a bit as half of it is the stuff she buys in jumble sales to sell on her stall in the market - and some of the old second-hand cloths are none too clean. When she went on Friday she didn't say `Goodbye' or `Thanks' or anything. She just wasn't there when I got home, and I haven't seen or heard from her since. She just walked out in what she stood up in and took her handbag and dog and left all the rest! A bit of a cheek really isn't it.

Grace Russ - 16th March 1977