some good things make a post

1. Unexpected cousins video call, yesterday. I'd entirely forgotten suggesting it until one of them was all "so what time are we doing this then? same as usual?" and I went "!!!" and... curled up on the sofa next to A and chatted to my cousins for a bit. It was nice.
   
2. During which A painted my nails! Because I remarked idly a week or two ago that not using wheelchairs much at the moment (if I'm going out at all it's with the Tramper) means I might actually be able to sustain decorated nails without immediately chipping them to hell and gone, having forgotten that my thumb splints also dig into polish, but -- anyway, yes, so I idly remarked that I'd still never got my act together to find an appropriately dark charcoal I liked, and so he did some research and the next thing I know some base coat and some charcoal and some matte top coat has arrived, and currently all my nails are matte charcoal grey except my ring fingers which are a shiny dark teal, and it's nice.
   
3. Ring splints! Ring splints are, in fact, still great.
   
4. Yesterday's p a k i d g e: as mentioned a while back I spent a... lot... of time going through Etsy's hair stick listings, and eventually found one I liked the look of for everyday and one I liked the look of for Fance. The everyday one has arrived; I have spent most of the intervening time with it keeping the bog mummy braid up. It seems to be working! Maybe tomorrow I'll take it to the allotment and see how it does with something more vigorous than being a sofa lump.
   
5. Pear & apple crumble, made with A: we've been doing a whole lot more collaborative cooking recently and it's lovely.
   
6. ... though in this case it was made largely as an excuse to check whether the latest operation on the oven had been Successful. It's an electric fan oven, you see, but it's also a portal to some kind of hell dimension as revealed by the extent to which it channels the screams of the damned. We'd replaced the fan at the back once, after simply repeatedly greasing it didn't work; we'd pulled the whole oven out and dismantled the back to get at different bearings; but A realised I think last week that there is another secret hidden fan in the roof of the thing, so this evening I cooked dinner around a minor catastrophe and then... it didn't yell while pudding was made. A MIRACLE.
   
7. Physio that makes me hurt less and work better continues a revelation.
   
8. Tomorrow's bread, which I'm going to put in the fridge for the night as soon as I get up off the sofa, is mixed wholemeal and white with pumpkin and linseed. It is an extremely satisfying texture, so far.
   
9. The Internet is an incredible thing. (#vagueblogging, but, right, okay: connection with all of you lot all around the world, exemplified by a number of conversations over the past few days; the sheer amount of information and the access to human knowledge and achievement, exemplified by the contents of today's new tabs sitting open.)
   
10. I'd been feeling wretched for about half a week and then yesterday my mood took an abrupt turn for the better, and everything suddenly feels that bit easier and that bit more like there's room in the world for hope. I'm especially grateful for that.