Bob came through his surgery with flying colours, after some determined nursing on my part to get him to eat and drink in the days before the operation made him a lot stronger (and quite cross about having to go back to the vet). He does have cancer, and it is inoperable, but the vet gives him 6-8 months and he seems tons better (despite being split from sternum to tail!).

My relaxed (ok, lazy) approach to job-hunting seems to be paying off, with a number of calls from agents this week. There are some interesting roles coming up, so who knows? I may even be employed by this time next year. At least the redundancy pieces are all complete now, with lawyers advising and contracts being signed, and property returned (sob, my blackberry is gone).

In the interim I keep on renovating, slowly. The stairs are taking forever: they had a pretty non-descript beige carpet, which I ripped up in a shower of decades-old dirt and dust. Underneath was the residue of some especially hideous acid yellow paint (god lord, what must that hallway have looked like??), and at some stage they have clearly had a stair runner, as the edges are painted in a cream eggshell. My brilliant idea was to paint them white, but put a mock-stair runner on them. Heuga carpet tiles are gorgeous, and half a tile on each tread is the plan so far. This is not recommended by the manufacturers (something about being slippery, death-trap, I can't recall the precise details), but enough internet people have done it to give me courage, so I've ordered some samples (which, btw, Heuga supply and deliver within 5 days completely free!).

Combine that with the clear acrylic nested tables I'm getting, we're coming over all seventies here baby!