Tuesday, September 22

Today was Naa’s 20th birthday, and so Irma and I tried to contact her before we went to work. She wasn’t available so we sang a Snapchat or Whatsapp happy birthday message to her instead.

When I got to Arcada, after the usual cycling, riding and walking, I sent out a new set of emails for the Living Chatter event. John and I have agreed that if less than 7 people book places in response to this mail then we will cancel the event.

After this I booked my travel and accommodation for the trip to Sheffield in November. The only way to make it work was to agree to an 8:00 on Thursday November 12, which means getting up at 5:45. This has the dubious advantage of preventing me wondering what I should do on Thursday evening. Going to bed before it starts to get dark seems to be the only option. At least this way I will wake up on Friday at a normal hour well-rested, with a clear head and no jet-lag.

I spent the afternoon with the Mobile Apps group. I had expected them to have watched 3 hours of video from Lynda.com. They all claimed that I hadn’t been clear enough about what I wanted. I therefore improvised a three hour introduction to jQuery Mobile which was almost as coherent as the videos.

I closed the class thirty minutes early because everyone, including me, had brain fatigue. I got home about 5:35 to discover that the cat was not there. He had been indoors for four days with Jana while we were in Liverpool and had, according to Irma, shot out of the house into the garden like a thunderbolt this morning. He was still not back when Irma arrived home from seeing Päivi.

Now I am in Alepa buying milk. There is a long queue at the checkout but the rest of the shop is almost empty.

Later I will fix an outdoor light, sweep up piles of sudden autumnal leaves from the garden and hook Irma’s laptop into the new wifi network.

Sunshine will still be out when we both go to bed. I will wake at 2:30 and open the door to find him still missing. I will wake up a second time at 4:20, and open the door to see him trotting over, making noises as he comes.

He will rush in looking for food while I go back to bed.