Update

Things are looking up again on the home front. Mum-in-law has decided not to go back to her house, even when it's repaired, but look for somewhere near us and we may have found her a cottage. It's in the grounds of a 'hotel for the elderly', as these places are euphemistically called round here, but is entirely self contained. She would have as much independence as she wanted, but if the need arose, there would be back-up in the form of medical attention or meals or whatever from the main house. It sounds ideal, so fingers crossed.

We've rescued quite a lot of stuff from the fire - mostly china and glassware and a few pots and pans that can be cleaned up and papers and photos that were tucked away in drawers - smoke-damaged but definitely worth saving.

The boat is proving a splendid distraction. Yesterday saw Himself and me up early to catch a very low spring tide. We met at our village pier - he with the boat, I with a ladder on top of the car. We then proceeded to provide entertainment for the patrons of the pier café and several passers by as Himself climbed a lamp-post (a special pier lamp-post that has a signal light on top - I don't know what it's called) with the aid of the ladder, while I hauled in Fidelio's mast so that he could reach the very top and replace the wind-direction thingy. We only discovered this was broken after we'd enlisted the help of the crane at the marina to raise the mast and we've been trying to figure out how to get at the top of it without actually shimmying up. However, after this slick manoeuvre we proved ourselves complete amateurs by leaving a fender tied to the stepladder. When we realised it wasn't there and returned to the pier to pick it up, we came in a mite too fast and hit the pier with a mighty crunch (okay I hit it, being the driver). Luckily no damage ensued apart from a tiny dent in the pulpit which I wouldn't even have noticed was there had it not been pointed out to me *g*. They should issue boats with bumpers!