Ten Days

 It all started so well.

Somehow I got the first draft of my new book on AI Governance out the door, and everybody seemed pleased with it, although it isn't the book I would have written given a free hand.

And Steph gave birth to our fifth grandchild.

I cracked open a bottle of fizz...prematurely.

Poor Teddy ended up in intensive care with an infection, but was home by the weekend.

I spent the weekend helping to run a training course in the USA, based on the book I'd only finished on the Friday...

We finished the course at 10pm on Sunday, just as Issy returned from her church group.

Then she got the phone call.


Steph was in hospital with two defective heart valves and a suspected blood clot.


The last week has been Hell.


Unless you are a parent, you probably can't imagine the emotions, the pain, the feelings of hopelessness.


Issy and I barely slept all week, I certainly lost all focus on the second draft of the book, though fortunately my second family in the company, spread across London, Greece and India, couldn't have been more supportive.

Steph should be discharged by the weekend. It is too risky to operate, but they think the heart issues were caused during labour, when she also managed to split a tooth. They think the valves will heal in time, but her blood pressure is still fluctuating wildly.


Meanwhile, my copy of the new edition of Cameo Layouts arrived, a much more interesting read than my book, and I picked up this bargain from Dapol.

It is making me hanker after a return to a pastiche of the Tanat Valley, although I don't think the moguls ever ran on it.. I have a vague idea in mind, based on a concept from many years ago.

I've also been doing more playing around with TT:120. An option I'm kicking around is a version of TAoC, or possibly two, beginning with it reimagined as a BR blue SLT.

This weekend, if nothing else goes wrong, I'm hoping to begin painting various models, including the Gubbin Box Caldon tramway stock. I'm still not sure what I'll do with it, but as a minimum I might make a display box featuring Hettys