As a boy I adored any writings by the naturalist Gerald Durrell.
I recognise that we own the same observational humour as well as the ability to share a true story, with relish, and so this morning when I spied Mr Lugaretzia, gnashing his gums in the queue at the petrol station, I made a detour by the fire lighters in order to avoid him.
Now Mr Lugaretzia is a nice man, but he is a boring one. He is fixated about his bad health, a subject one can cope with during your first half dozen or so meetings, but after several years of bleeding gum, stories, hospital appointments and GP’s diagnosis quandaries, I have been left a shell of my former self when social niceties are involved and spend much of my time now hiding behind bushes to avoid him.
But what has this to do with Gerald Durrell you ask?
Well Lugaretzia was the name of his cook when he was a boy in Corfu. A woman of great suffering , a hypochondriac who would gladly slow every wound or malady to her captained audience of English School children
Now you get it?
We all have the ability of becoming a Lugaretzia.
I’m not far it myself .
And this fact annoys me greatly.
Think of someone else John
I keep telling myself .
No fucker wants to hear about your fucking blood sugars
I sent some flowers to Nu this morning. She’s been in hospital overnight, I’ve got gifts to send to a friend in Dublin and a letter to write to another friend in Argentina
It’s not all about me