Home!

After just over three long and stressful weeks, camping out in hospital with J to support her through her surgery and ensuing complications, we are finally hugely relieved to be home. It had started to feel as though it would never happen, with a series of setbacks pushing discharge further into the future, and I have been desperate to see sky and have easy, daily access to fresh air. Now, although J has a lot of recovering still to do and a lot of sleep to catch up on, we can relax and breathe. 

The landscape I gaze at from the back door is as dry and yellow as I have ever seen it. We have not had rain for weeks, months probably. The trees are suffering and the grass is tinder dry. P has been trying to do lots of mowing, in between his frequent five hour round trips to London to visit us and bring me food supplies and clean underwear - we had only packed for a week in hospital, the official estimate being four or five days post surgery. The mowing is the first step in our plan to do what we can to reduce the risk from fire: news of fires which have engulfed fields, houses and gardens around London and the south of England has prompted us to audit the many overgrown shrubs and trees too close to the house, which is surrounded by fields of dry grass to three sides, and to conclude that the long overdue pruning and tidying are now urgent. J's Facebook memories from nine years ago, shortly after we moved in here, show a much greener, lusher landscape. Each year, the summer drought seems longer. It's sobering to see the extent of the change.

I will back blip some photos from the past three weeks bit by bit, when I can - I think I've taken something most days.