Urgh

Eight hour drive today, three hundred and seventy-five miles (pause to allow American friends to say things like "wimp" and "I do that for cat nibbles every day") to hale the Dowager Countess forth from Lincolnshire for a visit. Hopefully the cousins will now stop dropping oh-so-subtle hints about how she's not long for this earth and a real daughter would never have moved out in the first place, let alone gone to the other side of the country. (Actually, she has more go than both of us put together, which is depressing.)

Fall over now.