And in with the new.

This day brought two surprises. One nice, one absolutely horrible. It's only now, three days on, that I am able to write about it.

Late last night I discovered that a good friend of mine, and fellow blipper, had gone missing. Having dropped his son off at school in the morning as usual, alarm bells starting ringing when he failed to pick up in the afternoon. I spent the day in a daze, and the evening with the family, trying to stay strong together.

The nice surprise was that the snooker table man came back. Although he'd worked tirelessly on Saturday, I was left slightly disappointed with a couple of the leathers surrounding the pockets. Doug, bless him, emailed him to that effect, but I honestly didn't expect anything to be done about it, the man wasn't exactly local, and everything else had been done so well that I felt bad for feeling the way I did. He'd been lovely, and even left a little old, solid silver chalk case for Joe, as a little Birthday gift.

I felt so guilty when he turned up at lunch time to rectify whatever it was I was unhappy with. He re-cut and stitched three pockets, and then one of them again - and did it all with brilliant humour and apparently a little bewilderment that anyone could be as fussy as me.

I made him lunch, and congratulated him on the finished result as being a true "Dobb Job"! He seemed to understand.