My days off turned out to be just about as stressful as working days! Monday I got up at 8am ready for the tiler.

He didn't show up.

I phoned both his numbers and phoned the shop, without success. While waiting, between phone calls, I hunted out Faye's suitcase and got out the stuff she wanted me to send her, packed it up, wrote her a note and addressed the parcel. Trudged round to the post office, only to discover it was closed - it was a bank holiday. Pah!

Back home I found that the woman at the shop had called in my absence to say she'd realised that my tiles weren't arriving until the next day -- she'd told the tiler that last week, but neither of them had thought to tell me.

I was sooooooo tired I tried to have a nap, but couldn't settle -- there was too much to do! In the end I did a lot of boring chore stuff (including putting everything back on the benches), watched some TV and went to bed early.

Next day was an earlyish start -- I'd offered to collect Pip from the railway station (after posting Faye's parcel of course!). I took Bertie along and it was a good move. He was freaked out of course, though it wasn't his first time there. It's noisy, and the noise is coming from all directions: rumbling engines, cars, floods of people, suitcases with wheels, tannoy announcements, beeping electric vehicles, whistles, it's a cacophony. But the magical effect was that when we went back out on to the street he was much, much calmer. By contrast with the station, it was easy to comprehend: cars, people, no sweat.

After meeting Pip, putting her bag in the car and setting her loose in the city, I took Bertie for a ramble in Holyrood Park, did some shopping and then popped round to see Anthea, who's back from Oslo for a few months. Bertie scored a neat present, a wind-up hamster formerly owned by Jessie, Anthea's cat. The mechanism is all contained inside a furry ball, and apparently it feels incredible when you pick it up in your mouth. I wouldn't know.

More shopping on the way home, this time at Pets At Home (dog food). Pip was already back, we had a glass of wine and a long natter. She spent all day yesterday exploring Edinburgh and left this morning for Stirling.

Now I'm back at work, more stress, more complications, more uncertainty. I try to stay positive but it's a bad atmosphere.