Last night I was home alone due to Mr C being away overnight on business. Shortly after I arrived home the doorbell rang. I considered answering but it was dark and at that time in the evening it was most likely a salesman of some sort  and I rationalised that if it was a neighbour they would call back again a little later on.

The doorbell didn’t ring again but about an hour later the phone did. I thought it would be Mr C as I knew this was the time he was due to arrive at his hotel. We have call screening on our phone so I knew immediately it wasn’t Mr C. I was however rather puzzled to see the screen say ‘Internal’ which made me think that one of the other handsets was paging the handset near to me. As I was home alone I dismissed this idea and thought that it must be a clever nuisance call.

Dinner was cooking in the oven and I went back to my reading. After dinner I went upstairs to turn on my computer and noticed that the handset was not flashing and therefore there had been no missed call. I checked the phone menu to be doubly sure. By this time I was feeling a little unnerved so I checked round the house a couple of times even though I knew there was nobody there…

I have to confess I left the bedroom light on overnight, but all was well and I woke up feeling refreshed. Just as I was about to leave for work a belated birthday card and present were pushed through the letterbox. I popped them into my bag, thinking I would open them in my lunch hour and headed off for work. This is when the fun started…

As I tried to get of my estate the exit road was much busier than usual which meant I had to wait for several minutes before I could be on my way. I then encountered a much longer queue of traffic on a road that is normally traffic free at that time in the morning. As I slowly made my way down the road I realised that in addition to the permanent set of traffic lights there was also a man with a stop go sign controlling the traffic. The effect was a lot more stop than go and large queues of traffic in both directions. Eventually I got past this roadblock only to catch up with a learner driver going at a snail’s pace!!

In due course I reached the approach to my workplace and was pipped to the post by two lorries that would have to go through the booking in procedure causing me further delays… I elected to go the slightly longer route only to be delayed by the learner driver once again. By this time I knew that I was going to be late!! And sure enough when I arrived at the key point and keyed in I was annoyingly (for me) two minutes late. In the bigger scheme of things it doesn’t matter because I work flexible hours, so apart from being technically late the minutes get made up.

I would like to say that the day got better but that would be pushing it a bit…

When lunchtime arrived I made my way to a seating area that is usually empty apart from me. But on this occasion two other colleagues were also having a few quiet moments there. I joined in the conversation with them; the present that had arrived through my letterbox was left unopened in my bag beside me. After a little while they said goodbye and returned to work. Almost as soon as they had gone a gentleman who I see walking past me almost every lunch time arrived. This time he didn’t walk past he came towards the seating area and asked if I minded if he joined me (of course I didn’t). We got chatting and I think that him seeing me there every lunch made him realise that he needed to get away from his desk for a break too. My gift remained unopened in my bag until I got home rather later than usual due to the day being rather hectic.

After opening my gift, a book (see picture above) I sat and read the first few pages whilst my dinner was cooking in the oven. Just as my dinner had come out of the oven Mr C phoned, he was arriving home earlier than planned and could he have a lift home from the station. Things got rather hectic again…

I am still working my way through my holiday photos and thoughts. For now I hope you enjoy my ‘Twilight View’ of the cathedral