I am currently using up what remains of my annual leave before my colleagues take theirs and I return to cover for their absences. So today I have travelled West and am staying with my niece. This will mean I may not be responding to comments quite as much as I usually do but I will catch up with you in a few days I promise.

2017: We had some friends come to stay, we had some family come to stay, he was utterly vile to all of them. They all asked me how I could, or why I would, tolerate his nastiness. I didn't have an answer except that I loved my home.
The grand-kids, now 10 & 12, were old enough for their Da, my StepBrat, to bring them all the way across Europe to visit us – a treat we'd been anticipating for 12 years at least, or so I thought.
In the briefest moment an interior door slammed shut accidentally and that was all it took. He chased after his ten-year-old grand-daughter, cornered her in the bathroom and grasped her tiny throat in his monstrous fist.
Nothing was ever OK after that.