In the mail

Given the dearth of my entries recently I thought I'd try and mend the gap with some correspondence.

The Other Reader has been on the grand tour, but being as reticent as I have lately been has only written once

Hola Senor? Que pasa, mi amigo? I'm sitting in a cafe in Madrid, about to depart for Seville, and thought I'd shoot you a quick email to see if all was well and ask if the bed springs above you creak with pleasing regularity. All joking aside, let me know how you are doing and how your health is. I'll write a longer email later with updates and descriptions of the trip so far (I've been keeping a hand written journal - gasp! - so I haven't been blogging, but will probably start soon enough). 

Lots of love,

TOR

I share with you my response, removing , of course, the names of the guilty. Let me add as an aside that I have been busy with medical stuff, of good outcome; you will learn of in this note....

Dear Friend 

How nice to hear from you! Handwritten, my goodness, I would not have suspected that a few days in the old world would have engendered pre- digital susceptibilities in you! It is good however, even kind, to leave some archaic records for a future doctoral candidate to discover in some obscure library. I often wonder what doctoral candidates are going to do in the next generation, the subjects of interest having displayed their most personal thoughts publicly in blogs and websites, leaving no arcana for doctoral theses.

The strings of your harp do not vibrate as they once did, but perhaps that is a matter of the gentleman's style. I speculate that the youth of the old world has had to develop a certain style of stealth. In any case there seems to be no lack of affection, I hear cooing and other very sweet sounds when they are reunited after work each day. A baby came to visit on Saturday, so perhaps they are practicing.

My health seems to have my friends on Brookline Avenue baffled. Last week was the dread week of tests. Here is the upshot: "T" cells returned printed in black for the first time in seven years. Dr Afdahl's tour of my nether regions was a total bore, so uneventful in fact the he called for a Cat scan because he couldn't find anything at all- I assume he meant anything bad, I'm pretty sure I still have a stomach. On my breathing test I scored "140 percent." This was my first meeting with my pulmonologist- all other visits had been covered by other doctors, he is, it turns out, a total heart throb and so I didn't explain to him the conceptual difficulties of 140%, thinking it might be rude.

I attended the "Saint Matthew Passion" last weekend, which was astounding. My public has informed me that I am lagging behind in my blog posts so I won't make any comments about yours. not just now, but like a certain ex of mine I may start chiding you the minute I bring my own up to date!

I hope you looked at El Greco

Take my love along in your travels

Moi.

I suppose I ought to have added as a postscript that the gentleman in question showed a high degree of "Guyness" by borrowing a pair of wrenches so he could tighten the bolts on the "harp" in question, but thought it might sound catty.