We had a wonderful weekend. El and Phil were home from London, and so were here when Dilly and the baby came home from hospital. Al left at 10 o’clock, saying that he had no idea when they would be back as there wasn’t a fixed time for doctors to do their rounds at the weekend – one family had left on Saturday night at 8.30. This does seem odd to me; if there’s one time when a family needs consideration it’s when a baby has just arrived, and trying to manage childcare and transport can be hard enough without there being no way of telling, to within several hours, when you will be discharged from hospital does strike me as unhelpful.

However, this was no problem at all on this occasion. I took Squiffany to church with me, but the service had only been going on for 15 minutes when El appeared. They were on their way home already. So we abandoned church and hurried back.

However, Dilly will not be allowed to drive or to pick up Squiffany for several weeks, following her operation. Al will take all the time off work that he can, but it’s not easy when you run your own business, especially when it’s a shop. We’ll manage as best we can and his customers will understand – it’ll do wonders for his New Man credentials.