Z is told where to go

So, Weeza and Phil have chosen carpets and other flooring and paint colours, and booked fittings. Furthermore, their tenant has moved out, so the house is properly theirs. I started to feel excited as soon as I walked in again from waving her goodbye, but it took a while for the slow big grin to spread above Weeza's face, as it started to sink in. She's still pacing herself though; it'll be a few weeks yet before she finishes work and moves here, leaving Phil to finish packing up and loading the heavy stuff and leaving the London flat empty. I will so miss my overnight London visits - I usually go up on a Friday, spend a day doing this and that, meet them for dinner - El is a whiz at finding good restaurants with half-price offers - and then we have a day together before I come home on Saturday evenings - but the pleasure and excitement of having her within 20 miles and the prospect of the baby to come more than makes up for it; indeed, it doesn't matter at all.

We thought a barbecue last night. Sadly, the weather forecast was accurate and it rained, until I served up steak in the west-facing dining room, whereupon the sunlight streamed in again. Today, another lovely morning, but it rained at lunchtime, so it was just as well that we hadn't tried again with the outdoor eating. We drove over to the house and then to the station for a cup of tea before the train came in, and it started to tip down yet again as I was about to leave them. It wasn't that far to the car, but I was wet through and my hair was dripping, so that I had to comb it back and the unaccustomed sight of my pale bare forehead startled me.

I tried out the new satnav and am a happy convert. I am a Luddite at heart, rejecting most innovations, but I rather liked the unnagging tone of the directions and, although I ignored the voice at one stage and went my own way, there was no fuss but a few seconds of quiet reconfiguration and then a polite suggestion of the next turning, which was the one I wanted to take all along. On the way home, it was entirely good-natured and caused no dissent at all, unlike Dilly's sister's, which tried to send her several miles the other way to the main Lowestoft to Norwich road, quite unnecessarily. Next weekend, I'll be driving to their London flat and I've got lost doing that before (on a rainy November night; the only other time I've driven there I was all right) and I just don't want the anxiety: which is the reason for the satnav.