how long is a week?

My goodness, I know all 24 hour-periods add up to a day each, and presumably the whole 24/7 is true, and there are seven such periods per week, but this has been the longest week ever! And yet a good one, and so much has changed.

Since I last spoke to you, the cats have been delivered to their week in Kent relaxing in their "Family Chalet", and I finally stopped calling to check on them because the news was always... no news! Still the friendliest cats anyone has ever met. No doubt they will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to come home tomorrow. And we spent our last few wretched days in the Marble Arch flat, watching as the last vestiges of our own possessions that made it homey were stripped away. Poor Avery felt quite bereft the last night, and spent her reading time that evening ensconced in her (dry) bathtub, surrounded by pillows, saying, "It's the only room that's still the same." Only Becky's luscious gift of chicken cooked with prunes, olives and capers made the night bearable...

But then it was onto the onslaught of moving itself, and more on that later. Suffice it to say that we are very much settled in, on day four, at the price of total and complete exhaustion. Our great friends Vincent and Peter came to dinner tonight to help us celebrate, and it was a fabulous motivation to get things arranged. As you see, the kitchen and dining room were ready to feed people! Slow-baked barbecued chicken wings, potato salad with chives, dill and red onion, and red cabbage and fennel cole slaw with a spicy dressing. Plus chocolate mousse with strawberries! A proper dinner party. We are SO happy to be here. Tomorrow we get the kitties back, plus we have Becky's girls for the evening, and an audition for Avery, out in the hinterlands. And the delivery of our long-mused-over partner's desk: blue leather, gilding, all very worn and untidy, but that's all right! And a pair of worn-out red leather armchairs to go with. Pictures when ready! But right now... I'm collapsing. Wish you were here...