What-ho David,

Is it really a year since my last epistle? Bugger me (down Mike). Time to enter the Confessional again...

The year has been packed with events. I'm happy to report that none of those events came anywhere near me. What I did was sell my flat in Bournemouth and buy two more:

A single-bedroom flat in Old Christchurch Road, Bournemouth, with about 50 sq.m. I passed on the teensy, 37 sq.m.flat I had thought of buying, earlier. This one has a patio (hahahahahahahahaha) that's about 9 m. by about 1.5 m. I'd like to buy some of the land, behind, to make a more reasonable area for sitting and relaxing. A friend is looking after the place, rent free, while it's being renovated. We're redecorating the kitchen, right now, adding power sockets, moving cupboards, repapering, and painting.

A two-bedroom maisonette in Didcot, with about 87 sq.m. The previous owner liked strident colours and holes in walls. Renovating it has cost a fortune. I had the loft boarded, but the roof construction is so weird that I'll never be able to make a room up there--lots of relatively thin beams and joists. I've let that place, while I'm away.

This contract, at the Böblingen Lab, ends in a few weeks. Then, it'll be back to Didcot, to search for a job. At least the renovation work in that flat is nearly finished. Whatever's left will have to wait a while.

The other, two-bedroom Bournemouth flat chugs along. Laura, the tenant, really does consider it her home, and looks after it very well. That's why I've kept the rent flat for three years. That was somewhat accidental, because the letting agent increased the rent by 3% after the first year, when I'd asked them to keep it flat. Laura's a primary school teacher, so doesn't earn much, anyway. And I'd rather keep a good tenant at a low rent than lose her by putting the rent up. Some folk tell me that this is a bad way to run a business :-) . But I'm not after profiting from tenants. As long as the rents cover the maintenance and other expenses, I'm happy. Profit will come later, when I sell the properties. Anything else would be greed. But I suppose it all comes down to what one wants from life.

The friend, Beverley, who's in the smaller flat in Bournemouth earns less than the national minimum wage, she has a hard time scraping by. Her partner works at the same store, earning the same amount: £3.50 an hour plus 1% commission. (Bev reckons to earn about £25 commission in a good week.) So they pay the normal costs of services (about £100 a month) and Council Tax (about £90 a month), which is enough expense on what they earn.

Tina is doing well at Troon Golf. She's now an executive chef, with aspirations to move to the next rung: corporate chef. Right now, she's working in Colorado, soome 50 miles from the nearest shop. But she seems happy there. She was talking about staying there over the winter, despite the lack of golfers when the fairways, greens, bunkers, and holes are under several feet of snow. She's so impressed the diners, last year, that they wrote to Troon management demanding that she be sent back there. In the meantime, Tina's plan to take over the Phoenix operation are on hold. The last I heard, a few days ago, was that she was about to buy a horse--a life-long dream, though I did buy horses for her when she was young(er). (I think her mother simply marked them up and sold them on.)

Toby, now 22, is still in the "I hate you" phase of development and keeping strictly out of touch. Some friends say he should grow out of it in a few years. Tina thinks it might happen when he has teenage kids of his own. I think it'll never happen. Such is life. The only news I get about him is from his R-rated Blogsite: http://shiv379.modblog.com/. (If you think that site's bad, you should see the one he prepared earlier!)

I flew to England on 7 July. The idea was to attend a hearing at the High Court, in London. A couple of years ago, I applied to be recognized as the father of Toby's long-dead twin sister, Kahlina. "Piece of piss," I thought. "Rubber stamp job at the local Magistrates' Court. Obviously, the father of one twin must be the father of the other." Was I ever wrong. Thousands of pounds later, I have to present the application to the High Court judges, at about £1800 for 30 minutes. English law, you see, tangles itself up in precedents and rules. There's something about Kahlina not having lived in teh U.K. long enough to be recognized as "normally resident." So, some laws wouldn't apply. She was a baby when she died, so she'd come under the notorious Children Act. However, she would now be 22, had she lived, so the Children Act might no longer apply. And I'm not "normally resident" in the U.K., either, which further complicates the issue. Yet, I still think the issue is essentially simple: if bloke A is the father of twin A2, is he the father of twin A1. (Toby was born after Kahlina.)

Anyway, as I was about to go through the second security scan, at Stuttgart airport, my legal folk phoned to say the hearing had been cancelled, because of the bombs that morning. A couple of days ago, I was told that the hearing will be in late September. I just hope the current craze of bombing London's transport system quickly becomes passee. (Where are the accents when you need them?) Speaking of accents, is it true that Rick's cafe is to be called "de Sade's"?

Well, that's all for now, and probably enough for another year.

Ciao,

Ian