:: ow!

Bertie's second "op" wasn't as bad as the first - though I was alarmed when the vet said "did anyone mention we might have to amputate a toe?" just as I was leaving the surgery. Apparently when a foreign body is lodged in the pad it can go septic and leave a terrible mess - and it's easier just to whack the whole toe off. But happily in this case the arrow-tip of glass stuck in Bertie's pad came out cleanly and the wound didn't even need stitching.

At first he was hardly limping on that foot. But now, a few days later, it's apparently very painful and he's limping heavily. The bandages are both changed tomorrow morning, and I hope there are no complications. One positive thing is that he's been very good about not gnawing the bandages off, and patient about waiting to have his "boots" put on before he goes outside.

No sign of my new coffee-maker (a replacement for the broken one that was eventually collected at 4:30pm on Monday). I phoned up about it and got a dithery young woman who couldn't tell me much but wittered on at great length about how the coffee-maker that was collected went to the courier's warehouse first, then to the John Lewis warehouse, and only then was a replacement sent out. By next-day delivery, so that meant it mustn't have arrived until, let's see ... "Are you still there?" she'd ask occasionally. If doesn't arrive tomorrow I should phone again, "because that means something will definitely have gone wrong". I think if it doesn't arrive tomorrow I will cancel, because that means I'm definitely not meant to have a coffee-maker.

There's another deadline tomorrow: the HR director has promised to sort out the pay rise I asked for politely six months ago and was promised by a boss who's since been demoted. The union rep and I went to see the HR man today to find out what's going on. He's leaving before the end of the month (the HR man this is), so I'm keen not to have to start the whole business again. He said he'd give me a definite answer by the end of the week. "This is Thursday," I pointed out. So, tomorrow it is. Definitely maybe is my guess.

The bath/shower is still leaking. The problem isn't just the seal, it's the tiles themselves. I've put up strips of masking tape as a totally temporary bodge, but will have to take all the tiles off and replace them soonest, I think. Hey ho. I wasn't planning to do anything on Sunday.

The weather's been weird - very very cold and very foggy. There is a set of temporary traffic lights on the intersection at the end of the street - we're not sure why, perhaps something to do with all the street lights having been out the week before - and today our one was showing red and green at the same time. That looked very strange in the fog.