Hot Toddys are the order of the day

In Salisbury today and found it so difficult to wake up. Mornings are so dark now - at least when we put the clocks back on Sunday mornings will be a little lighter for a time but I shall then be driving home from Dorking (and Salisbury for that matter) in the dark. Golf will be confined to weekends only - but Richard is up for a few days golf over the winter so that we can keep our eye and swing in. The weather was wet again today. It was also the day of Tim's funeral so I hoisted the Union flag at half-mast - to be raised to full mast at 4 p.m. after the funeral and to mark the point during the Battle of Trafalgar (it is Trafalgar Day today) when Nelson was told that the battle was won. I took my lunch break between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. today on account of back to back meetings right through normal lunchtime. I met up with Sara in Starbucks as we both had errands to run in town this morning. This afternoon I gave a presentation to HR staff on the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations or TUPE. It had been useful attending the Employment Law Conference in London last week as I was able to use some of the material (particularly recent case law) for my own presentation. When I got home this evening we had a houseful of children as Sara had agreed to look after Louise's boy and Klynn and Susan's girls because their parents were stuck in traffic or were picking up family members from the airport. Sara cooked us sweet and sour pork with boiled rice for supper. She is suffering badly with a toothache and nasty bronchial cough but has antibiotics. I fixed her up a couple of "hot toddys" with a generous dose of Scotch whisky in each. Off to Dorking again tomorrow so a fairly early night I think.