Summer outing.

I can’t quite put my finger on what’s the matter, but somehow I haven’t been able to get my head together this past month. There’s definitely something in the wind, but I’m blowed if I can work out what it is, so apologies for the extended leave of absence, and further apologies that it is going to be further prolonged by upcoming hols.

Actually that ought to be Hols with a big “H”, since we are off cruising again which could spell bad news for the Jesterly waistline, and I promise I’ll try not to bore you all too much with countless photo’s of the backs of the family’s heads at various exotic Mediterranean locales when we get back. In the interim here’s a little offering I’ve had on the blocks for a while, since inspiration remains at low ebb right now.

Miranda has been a regular attender to my consulting room for more years than either of us would care to remember. She’s had a hard and demanding manual job and down the years it has taken its toll on her joints, but she complains very little and takes just enough pain relief to keep her functioning at work and “productive”. For the first decade or so of our acquaintance she appeared to be a loner, and quite content in her solitude. Then she began to mention a friend of hers who had recently been bereaved. It turned out that her friend was also a regular at the surgery, though perhaps a little less often than Miranda herself.

A year or so after the bereavement Miranda’s friend moved in with her to help with the rent and save them having to run two separate houses. I know this because Miranda was at pains to point out to me the nature of their association at the time. Down the next couple of years she would make occasional references to her friend during consultations, but often said nothing further about their continued association. Then after five years or so she finally let slip, oh so casually, that she and her friend had become “partners”, whilst looking out of the corner of her eye to see if I looked like I might fall off the chair or start wagging a disapproving finger. I didn’t, of course, and feel I passed something of a test that day.

I suspect you will already have guessed the reason for Miranda’s anxiety but offer the usual EVCHN ™ for the first correct respondent.