The price of friendship
The Landlady
I don’t often keep in touch with people who are ex-lodgers at Landlady Towers. There are a couple of ex-tenants who regularly turn up at my parties and it’s always nice to see them and find out how their lives are progressing – or not, as the case may be.
“We got chatting about cookery; it transpired he was a huge fan of Jamie Oliver and was desperate to get his hands on a copy of Jamie at Home”
One of my German lodgers kept in touch with me by email for about six months, that is, until I’d supplied her with just about all my recipes and I never heard from her again. I also receive a regular e-Christmas card from a French horse dentist who only stayed with me for two nights about five years ago. I can barely remember whether this person is male or female, let alone what they looked like.
Although, I have way too much time on my hands at the moment – I’m even considering getting another job – I have discovered keeping in touch with people who live abroad can be a time-consuming and expensive business. By way of a very pertinent and recent example, I met a lamp seller in Istanbul a couple of months ago, which, given that this seems to be about 50 per cent of the populations chosen occupation was not difficult.
Actually, to be more accurate, I purchased a lamp off him after much, fairly unsuccessful (on my part) haggling. During the lamp-haggling, we got chatting about cookery; it transpired he was a huge fan of Jamie Oliver and was desperate to get his hands on a copy of Jamie at Home.
In my usual blasé fashion, I promised faithfully that I would send him the book when I returned to England, which made the man very happy indeed. Alas, this conversation happened after I’d actually handed over money for the lamp, thus affording me no extra discount for my projected generosity.
On my return to Britain, I was horrified to discover that Jamie’s book is currently only available in hardback at a cost of £25. Furthermore, because it’s in hardback, and about 50,000 pages long, it weighed a tonne. You may not be astonished to learn that the postage cost a huge £17.
As the icing on the (Jamie) cake, when I asked the man in the post office when the book was likely to reach its destination, he rolled his eyes and said that, given the reputation of the Turkish postal system, probably never. Great, so that’s an outlay of £42 to send a book that will almost certainly never reach its intended recipient, plus the £20 I paid for the lamp. That was a very expensive lamp.
Really, I should have learned my lesson with my alcoholic Morroccan friend Bilal, whom I met four years ago while holidaying with the terrible Ex-Boyfriend. I have kept in touch with him ever since and always go to see him when I’m in Essaouira.
One year, I sent him a Christmas hamper with things like Christmas puddings, crackers and a Father Christmas hat in it – again at huge expense. Alas, the last time I met up with him, he got really drunk, propositioned all my friends and was later spotted being bundled into a police van wearing his Father Christmas hat. I’m thinking of holidaying in Cornwall this year.
