I’m starting to recover from recent woes I think. Each day over the last few days, I’ve noticed that I’ve had a couple of precious little moments when I’ve realised with a pang that I feel completely happy, even though I’m still fretting and worrying for much of each day.

A couple of times, it has washed over me as we’ve sat in our sitting room late in the evening, which although it’s a fright, it’s also a fabulous room. Yesterday it happened as I was batting the ball down the field for Rosie with my Mum. Today’s moment hit me as I was making coffee for my folks and of all the triggers, pulling out a carton of milk from the fridge that came from our next-door neighbour’s farm, while I was NOT WORKING. It was a moment of pure, unadulterated bliss of the kind only a tiny simple thing can deliver.

This morning, my hero (the one who shares that mantle with DM….my Dad) got up, rolled up his sleeves, got into his grotties (his work clothes) and set about sorting out our bathroom sink drainage. It’s been a bit of a saga and it’s not quite finished yet – old lead piping, blockages, no bung to fill the hole in the s-bend, fractured pipe and all sorts of obstacles but he’s set to and I think we may (fingers well and truly crossed) be able to spit in the sink instead of a bucket tonight.

We had a ‘Cornish moment’ when we went to the local plumbers’ merchant and he gave us a roll of PTFE tape and a bung of the appropriate size completely free (they’re probably worth about 50p in total but even so…) on the basis that when we want something bigger we’ll go back there. People like that just don’t exist in the South East any more. They are gone. Cornish people are gentle and kind. I certainly will go back there and buy all my plumbing sundries (and heaven knows we’re going to need a LOT of plumbing sundries, I can feel it in my water as they say). I am now a committed customer for life! I LOVE good customer service and I don’t reckon you can get better than that – so, if you live in the South East of Cornwall, may I recommend the services of Plumbase at Moorswater. They are the ‘bees knees’ and will look after you well. Don’t forget to tell them I sent you as a thank you for my roll of PTFE tape.

This pic is of my hero, photographing the Moorswater Viaduct, a wonderful piece of civil engineering that carries the Great Western Railway across the valley on into Cornwall and to its ultimate destination of Penzance, from where you pretty-much have to swim to go further west…. Dad is using his 10d to photograph said viaduct. I keep thinking about switching mine for his – mine has developed a fault and drains batteries like there is no tomorrow but I think he’d notice if his suddenly developed love marks as pronounced as mine. Ah well, back to plan B!

Last year we were at footie and having a ball despite the scoreline!