Back at work - and an update on The Builder's father

The good news is that The Builder’s father appears to be improving. Barb has just texted a photo of him lounging in bed, smiling broadly and clutching his water beaker. No oxygen mask. So, still not out of the woods, still not at all a well man, but, according to Barb, chatting, smiling and laughing. A vast improvement on Saturday!

The very bad news is that I came back to work today to find that a colleague in Acquisitions, who has been plagued with a horrendously painful back since Christmas, and who has had tests and scans and all sorts done but to no avail - was diagnosed a week or so back with a cancerous tumour on the spine and died last Friday. A bit of a shock for everyone. Though I suppose, if you are going to have cancer, that quick is vastly preferable to slow and lingering. But even so, that was extraordinarily quick.

On a happier note, we managed to get some gardening done yesterday, in the garden but not on the allotment. When we were dropping Gwen back at home last Saturday afternoon, we noticed that one of her neighbours was gardening with a kneeling pad which had handles so you can easily drag yourself back upright again. I developed a sudden need for one of those. We hit the DIY and garden stores yesterday afternoon – and eventually found one. Hooray! We also found a couple of quite nice table lamps for the lounge room. Then we had roast sirloin for dinner with roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding and purple sprouting from the garden. And then I pretty much went to bed. I seem to be a bit tired.

And today we are both back at work. The Builder has started working for the kitchen and bathroom firm again, but this time on their books rather than through the agency. He’ll probably be with them until their contract is up. He trundled off at 07:00 this morning. I pottered about at home, sorted a few things out, pottered up to the allotment, came back from the allotment, left the spade up there (oops!), and trundled in to work at around 15:00. This meant that I passed the end of Freyja’s road at about the time she ordinarily leaves for work. I was watching out to see if she was at the bus stop – and lo, there she was, walking up the road. I stopped, and captured her. I’ve left her at the solicitors’ office across the road for safe keeping.