Day 5 of “the great move”. I’ve spent the morning working on planning lessons (badly) for next week and didn’t see the folks until about 4pm when we went over for the express purpose of taking them out to show them the fabulous sights of their new locale.

Yes people in ether land, we went to the dump to get shot of stuff that should have never made the 100 mile treck up the motorway, to the very sick Homebase for things that were left behind that should not have been and the not sick at all Sainsbury’s for human sustenance. We forced mum to drive, to try to familiarise her with the local roads.

My world continues to comprise strange or simple meals – today’s supper was a bunch of local asparagus lightly fried in olive oil then some cream and cheese added before stirring though some shop-bought tagliatelle. It’s a good thing it’s the asparagus season or I don’t know what we’d have done for the last couple of weeks, in which we’ve eaten asparagus and tagliatelle about every fourth day and asparagus with cheese omelettes in between.

I came into the utterly neglected sitting room with two steaming bowls of pasta to see this scene. Irma is standing on the (not so) gorgeous carpet and JD has a perplexed look on his face. Please take no notice of the dog bed that seems to have been demoted to a door mat now that there is no back door (knocked down) and the sitting room door is the only way into the garden.