I have just felt the wrath of Emma’s dad. He’s a horrid, horrid bully; she always told me he was but like the best bullies they have a way of hiding their true nature and of being deceptively nice. I have seen something of the other side of him in the past, most notably during emailgate a few week’s ago, but today I felt it full on and direct.
I got home from my interview this morning and checked my email. There was a message from David there; he had been checking out the narrow gauge steam railway from Beddgelert to Carnaefan and was suggesting the Friday morning as the time when this might happen (a nice diversion from wedding plans etc etc…). Yesterday we had been discussing this and he had been indicating that it might be good to book ahead for it, but we had also decided that the afternoon would be better because then we could all go after the jobs were done. I replied (to all as it happened) saying this, and also that we were likely to have a Tesco delivery in the morning so the afternoon would definitely be better. All perfectly polite and reasonable and just in a way as to keep everyone in the loop about what people in general were talking about…
…a few minutes later I get a phone call. Showing up as ‘Unrecognised’ I thought it might be an agent with job news so I answered. It wasn’t. It was David on the funny broadband phone thing launching straight into a shouting tirade of questioning and abuse along the lines of ‘Thomas, why do you always have to quibble every single little thing…’ and going on to say about how nothing was any of my business anyway.
Anyway I manage to get out of the conversation to roll into a ball onto the bed and cry and sob and swear.
I did go out into the garden and plant Love In The Mist in front of the new hornbeam hedge but I was still more than miserable when Em came home from lunch. She phoned him straight back and had words – or tried to have words – but he wasn’t listening to anything – refusing to consider any other viewpoint other than his own.
