To Bath

I am off to Bath for a reading. C set off to Hitchin earlier to look after her mother. Except the car has broken down on the way, with a flat tyre. The car was fitted with new tyres only last week, whether this particular tyre I don't know. She's at the side of the triple carriageway, ringing me. This is a couple of hours or so before I am due to get the train. So I ring the AA and tell them to hurry then call a taxi for myself to get down there. Who cars about cost? It'll be about half an hour's drive to where she is. The AA say they'll be there soon. The taxi arrives just as C is ringing. 'Don't come,' she urges me. They are almost there. So I send the taxi away with £10 for his trouble. He scowls. He has only come round the corner so there's not much call for scowling.

Meanwhile the rain raineth but the sky cleareth. Maybe it cleareth.

It will be a series of phone calls now to make sure she's OK.

*

The issue of assisted suicide. I understand there need to be safeguards. Old people, sick people, shouldn't be pressurised into it. There should be no guilt attached to choosing to stay alive by whatever means. But the fact is I myself would feel guilt if it were me. And I value my dignity too. The man in the news finished off the job himself. No-one murdered him.

I cannot begin to express how deeply I loathe those who mouth on about sympathy at a safe distance but still want the final say on what others do with their lives. I see them as a crew of moral Health & Safety officials who would prevent you crossing the road without their say-so. Totalitarians of the spirit.

Enough fuming. Other things to do. Check C. Shave.

Hah.