Here I am. Here, in fact, I have been all along. We had a terrific thunderstorm on Tuesday night. I felt very droopy on Wednesday morning (as I still do). I could scarcely face packing, let alone the thought of C. having to carry cats and cat food and cat litter and our food and our overnight bags down the driveway – it’s not the longest driveway in the world, but it’s not the shortest either. Our house is not on the road.

 

In the end, she didn’t go on Wednesday either. She had a warning light on her dashboard to say that tires needed inflating. Manaba and her friend Ian saw to it – but the light was still there. So C. went to QuickFit and found that there was a nail in one of her tires. So much for men.

 

She went up on Thursday and was able to drive down to the house. She took her grandcat with her, Manaba's and Christina's Poe.

 

I had a lovely birthday with cards and phone calls. But what made the day memorable was an email from Helen in the afternoon to say that Fergus, her youngest son, cruising with rich Greek friends, had dived into shallow water and hit his head hard. So all that afternoon what we knew was that he was in a Greek ambulance, with a neck brace, on his way to a hospital in Nauplion.

 

When he got there, he had an MRI – skull and neck and spine are OK. They stitched up the considerable gash on his forehead and kept him in for two nights.

 

[When he got there, the hospital was busy with a near-by road accident. Fortunately the friend’s mother who had accompanied him, is formidable. Also fortunately, his hypochondriac father had insisted on a Covid-19 test before he set forth. If Fergus hadn’t had it on his telephone, the hospital wouldn’t have let him in – or so we’re told.]

 

So at the moment Fergus and Archie and their father David – whose birthday is also August 13 – are staying with the friend’s family.

 

I got quite a bit of knitting done that afternoon. It’s one thing you can do when worried. I’m currently on the antepenultimate row of the Stillness Shawl.