just as well

Not a single candle, the ornaments purposefully forgotten in some box in the basement, no angels, no sticky sweet cards lined up on the mantle piece, just us and the cat and long breakfasts and reading and not much else, we thought. And then the vague phone call about my father - while visiting his floozie -  stumbling and maybe in hospital and of course his cell phone is off. So I go online and call the hospitals in floozie town and eventually a friendly nurse in some A&E tells me that he is still in the operating theatre. 

Outcome:

A father with a fractured arm and fractured pelvis holding court from his comfortable hospital bed, rescheduling his opera tickets, while he jokingly tells me that he was felled like an oak tree. (To which S calls out Timber! all the way from NZ).

But also: Two siblings mad at me for finding him and speaking to doctors etc. before they did. WTF!

The journey to floozie town was grey, grey motorway, grey fog, grey silent forests. 

These endless forests most of the time. I sit and look ahead and all these wonderful plans and resolutions come up in my mind. I always have so many fabulous ideas on the motorway, long lists of what I'll do differently, better, from now on. Can't remember now, but nifty things, small things, every day things. Also, I cleared up a couple a nagging thoughts, if only I could remember which ones.

The floozie was even more horrid than I remembered and of course she really is not a floozie, just a slightly pompous elderly woman who told me many years ago (in a foolish attempt to win my favours) that she secretly thinks that I must be my father's favourite child and I can still hear me clenching my teeth and vowing to never go anywhere near her again.
Well, there in hospital I tried to be nice and grateful and compassionate, I really tried but she was also wearing a gold lame top with leopard skin print.
So we left them sharing his hospital dinner and took off and ordered pasta and stir fried veg from the room service at the hotel and watched British Xmas TV channels, flicking between Downton Abbey and Armageddon and before that the Gruffalo.

 

Anyway.

And going home we thought, why not stop for coffee in Heidelberg and so we did. And that was lovely, never mind the tourists. It's really nice to reassure myself from time to time that this place is so well looked after - and with it our memories.