My lover is away for over two weeks with wife, daughter and son-in-law. It goes with the territory, but is hard.

We had a lovely day before he went, if somewhat prosaic. He arrived earlier than expected (1 o'clock) so I had to finish some bits of work. He dutifully admired my latest publicity stuff and we went for quite leisurely lunch.

We then went to Tesco's for money as my car was in garage and was turning out expensive. While we there, we went shopping for birthday present for my friends' son and something for their daughter. Was good to have second opinion on stuff - I didn't want daughter left out, but wanted birthday boy's present to be more special.

We got back to house sat in garden and had tea and cream cake and he had ciggie and it was suddenly five o'clock!

Went to bed and soon it was seven and hometime...

Agreed it was lovely day despite cloud of departure.