So, let's start with the things that we knew were going to happen this week.
Scrumpy's recovery from her hip op is going as expected – here she is briefly without her 'cone of shame' on – which turned out to be a big mistake as not only did she manage to lick off the bandage over her wound without me seeing or hearing her, but having been sprayed with copious amounts of Savlon antiseptic, she then went dutifully to the vet to have her stitches taken out, and then very cleverly managed to open the wound up again by further surreptitious licking. Note to bad owners – no taking pity on her till that wound is invisible now..
And you can see she is rather missing the outside world and fresh air… little trots up and down the road are not ticking the spaniel 'wild times' box..
I have continued with Duolingo (Spanish) which has occasionally managed to make me laugh, in between the incessant bonging. In between lots about Pablo with his books in the library or Margarita not wanting to buy a slow car, this sentence was a corker – in that COVID, oh so ironic way…
We had a v nice eve as well, doing an early birthday dinner for Jules – partly as a thank for you for his STERLING efforts slogging soil etc out of the garden and 'hard core' (what even is that?!) back into the garden, in preparation for the laying of our new path and patio. Bless that man! In his honour, Hawksey found a layered chocolate cake recipe that involved more chocolate, sugar, cream etc than I even knew it was possible to stuff into one sole cake..
Suffice to say, the brown beast emerged from the oven, looking not too bad. Once sliced into layers, it didn't exactly come off the baking racks very well, and by the time the chocolate lake had been slathered all over it, it was starting to landslide gently..
Here is Jules, loving its arrival…
And here is the slippery sucker in the warm light of evening – its appearance brought back happy memories of H taking the piss out of my carrot cake for his birthday (known as the 'carrot biscuit' for only emerging from the oven 1 inch high..) Suffice to say, it didn't quite look like the picture! Mikey & Margo beware – some of it is oozing its way towards your house tonight….
But the biggest surprise – and very big moment of the week – was yesterday's lunch. Where, after an 11 year wait, with me not having not seen her since she was 9 years old, I (with Hawksey of course) had a really, really nice pub lunch with his daughter Zoe, and her boyfriend Alex.
Zoe is nearly 20 now, very grown up, loving her course and heading back for her second year at Sussex Uni in a few weeks' time.
Despite the passing of so many years, it was a really nice, easy and chatty lunch. And we even broke social distancing guidelines for a big old hug…
Really lovely for Hawksey to see Zoe, and for us to be able to invite her back to the house for a little post meal beverage.
You can definitely see the father/daughter likeness in this photo, taken in a very handy sunshine drenched gap in the howling wind and rain!
Wow. A big step forwards, and hopefully the first of some more to come.
x