Salt 'n' Pepper, flamingo style

I bounced out of bed today, slightly hampered by the cat who was glued to my side and didn't wish to get up. He was enthusiastic by breakfast, though, when he figured out that I was in the kitchen.

Up early, I was in good time to make my train to Hove. However, round about the time I should have left home, I was still repairing the squirrel-nibbled sunflower hearts bird feeder by unravelling paper clips to create a makeshift mesh over the holes. This DIY wasn't planned, but I think is ingenious as there was still sunflower hearts in the feeder when I returned from Hove (as opposed to a fresh mound of sunflower hearts on a  decaying mound of sunflower hearts on the ground below). Take that, squirrels!

So I missed the train I should have got. To be fair, I was at the station right on time, but on the wrong platform so I watched the train I was supposed to be on pull away from the station. This meant, though, that I could get a coffee . When waiting for my caffeine, I was told by the chap at the cafe that the free coffee I'd donated last weekend had been snapped up right away. Pintadera has a system where you can buy a coffee to give to someone who can't afford one. I had filled in a whole loyalty card and had given the resulting free coffee to the tab.

When I eventually reached Hove, I had a warm greeting from a friend who I hadn't seen for perhaps a decade, which is just ridiculous as we're not far away from each other. 

She treated me to brunch and we chatted about the ups and downs of life, and reminisced about our first workplace. She recalled coming into the room I shared with my boss, asking me to lunch on my first day. I didn't realise that she (as I was) felt quite intimidated by my boss and her coming into the silent room and proclaiming that she was whisking me off to lunch was brave of her. I am forever grateful that she took me under her wing – I was a long way from home and starting an editorial working life in Hove was a big deal! We also both appreciate with hindsight that my boss was a great person to learn from (she had a different mentor at the time – we were in small teams of a junior or two under a senior editor and I was the junior to this particular senior). I recall him telling me sternly to photocopy everything I sent out – this after I'd sent an edited manuscript to an author without having made a copy of what I'd sent. Oops. Computers weren't so much of a thing then so there wasn't a file marked "sent_to_author" on a hard drive. I've never forgotten to keep a copy since!

It was really lovely to meet Katie's sons, and Ralph the dog, and catch up with her husband, who I also hung out with many moons ago. It was like no time had passed by, except the eldest son assured us that he no longer stuck his fingers into the wall sockets. As I left, I heard him playing an excellent Jimi Hendrix riff on the guitar, so he still has a pash for the electric side of things.

The blip flamingos are from the cafe where we brunched. Each table had a novelty set of salt 'n' pepper pots. Katie thought I'd like the style and I did. She was naughty to buy me lunch. Thank you, Katie!