A dog's best friend.

Another back blip!

Upon returning home from our late and alcohol fueled evening at Rose and Dave's we crashed at home for a little while. We had a visit from our next door neighbour who shared with us some fantastic news about winning a 15 year negligence case on Thursday (the result of the negligence was the brain damage of her son at birth resulting in severe cerebral palsy). It was a happy conversation because she has been unrelenting in pursuing the case, whilst working, and caring for her son. Her son is fantastic - I've mentioned him before - wonderfully independant, works at the local surgery, everyone in the community has watched him grow up. The victory is, for my neighbour and her family, a financial one which will ensure that her son's care will be as it should be, but more so, it is a moral victory, that for the sake of a 15 minute 'window' in her son's birth, where professionals were not on hand to make decisions and manage her care adequately, the life of her son was profoundly affected. I am thrilled for them. She can't stop saying "f***ing hell, I can't believe it".

Afterwards, we trundled over to Liverpool to meet up with MV who was busy in Liverpool 1 raising money for the Haiti appeal. We were late, it was cold, but we eventually managed to locate each other and took a wander down to the Albert Dock to visit the Tate. I finally got to see Mark Rothko's work in it's full glorious scale, then had a wander around the sculpture gallery where I got a gentle ticking off from the security man for trying to take a sneaky photo of an exhibit! Corin subsequently spent another 40 minutes trawling around, whilst MV and I tried to get a coffee (to no avail!)

After following MV home (no, we didn't stalk him, it was a prearranged situation!), we then spent an absolutely wonderful evening chatting, eating the most wonderful food that Anna had prepared for us, drinking far too much wine to be healthy and chatting about a random range of topics, some of which were too funny and have resulted in me having sore ribs today from laughing a plenty. I also have discovered that Corin does an absolutely cracking Sean Connery impression...it is part of our pre-nuptial agreement now that he will perform this impression at least once per month for my delight and delectation ;-)

The champion gurner and others

I now covet a 50mm lens.

And a greyhound with the quiet demeanour of Joey.

And the recipe for the baked mushroom I ate last night.

Thanks guys, it was wonderful. I am utterly knackered and going for a snooze.
xx