I was woken up at 7 AM this morning by a text from the Tall South African. "Hey stranger..." Indeed, we hadn't chatted in a while. I then texted back and forth with him for a bit, and then thought I might as well call him (we normally don't text so much), but he didn't answer, making me realise he was already in the office at work. How on earth do people do that? I have no idea... Hence continued texting until I realised I had to get up and going if I was going to make it to the lawyers on time.
My appointment with the lawyers was quite brief, as the guy came down, handed me my Biometric Residence Permit, and that was pretty much that. Kind of anti-climactic after all the drama leading up to it!
I then waited ages for a train back to the office, and as I left the station and was walking outside, I decided to give the Young Dutchman a call, since I'd missed a call from him the night before. Perhaps I should have thought about this before I called, as the whole thing turned into a much longer discussion than I anticipated, with me standing out on a street corner! Still, I do love talking to the Young Dutchman, and it was interesting to chat to him about what he wanted to do after he graduates from Oxford, as opportunities open up before him.
Finally, after nearly a half-hour on the phone with the Young Dutchman, I went into the office to try and find a desk. To discover, to my shock, that there were absolutely none. And not only no desks, but no tables in the common areas, no touchdown space, absolutely nothing. It seemed ridiculous to go all of the way home again after having come into the office, but what else could I do? So I took all my things, and left the office again to go home.
Once at home, I was pleasantly surprised by the Tall South African calling me during his lunch break. How sweet! In fact though, instead of one quick call, it turned into a series of calls, as he kept having to pause for some reason, and then call me back again. Probably talked to me for over an hour in total (not helpful when I had work to get done, but I hadn't talked to him in so long I did want to chat). Finally, only hung up with the promise that he would call me after work. I was a bit puzzled why he was so keen to chat with me today, but hey, I like talking to him. Not quite as engaging as chatting with the Young Dutchman, but still...
Survived the most endless conference call of all time (the Tall South African took to texting me halfway through, which was a welcome distraction, although he obviously wanted to call me while I was still stuck on this call), and finally once I was off the call, he texted, I revealed I was done, and he called me to talk some more.
This time the conversation somehow got onto politics, which was much more interesting than anything we've talked about lately. Told him that if I could vote for mayor, I would vote for Boris, and then talked a bit about the next general election and Conservative politics. I finally felt like we were talking about something real, for once.
Although I just about died when he talked to me about shopping for a suit, and realised that he had to go buy a suit because he didn't already own one, the classic mark of a young man just recently out of university. I must remember how young he is, even as I often forget.
Still, overall at least everything got done at the end of the day, and the Tall South African signed off with a promise to call me (again!) later, although I figured that was probably a bit ambitious and he wouldn't have time. (Missed a final text from him at midnight, checking if I were still up, I guess he would have called then too!) He is awfully sweet to call multiple times a day, even if I have no idea why he does...
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