Today I saw my Gramps for the first time since my op – he’s up visiting the ‘rents for the weekend and K and I stopped over for the afternoon to catch up. It was brilliant to see him again – after quite a long while, too – and he was suitably impressed with my turnaround from the last time I saw him. I love to see the look in people’s eyes when they see me for the first time since the op; it’s a wondrous mixture of the most complex emotions, with happiness and relief dominating.

This afternoon was not a great one, sporting-wise, which makes it lucky the rest of the day was so happy and pleasant.

First up, I arrived at Mum and Dad’s in time to sit and watch the Saints drop miserably out of the FA Cup to the mighty Bristol Rovers… they of an entire footballing division below us. Not that the difference in league standing made an impact on the game, since the majority of the Saints team (ok, the entire Saints team) completely failed to turn up for the match anyway. Maybe they thought they were playing Bristol City instead.

Following that disappointment, we hastily beat a retreat from the sofa to the pretty little village of Olney, where we took my Gramps and his lady friend for a nice afternoon stroll around the little boutique shops and stopped at a perfectly quaint little tea shop for afternoon tea and teacakes and crumpets – incredibly refined even if I do say so myself.

We found a beautiful little gift shop there, too, a real little gem, with sparkling jewelery which attracted the magpie-like K and some lovely little tokens and miniature statues and the like.

We eventually wandered ourselves back to the car and back to the ‘rents just in time to sit and watch Man Utd demolish Arsenal. Felt very sorry for K – being an ardent Gunner – but was remarkable to watch. And Dad and I did enjoy making the most of it because, let’s face it, K gets enough comedy mileage out of our following Southampton, so it’s only right for us to take advantage while we can.

We then settled into a lovely evening’s roast dinner (I guess Mum got confused and thought it was Sunday…) and chatted about all sorts of weird and wonderful things as we tend to do when we get together as a family.

It’s been a lovely day seeing Gramps again, going out for a stroll around a small town with him – something I’ve not been able to enjoy for some time, like so much of what I do these days. The firsts are stacking up so fast I keep thinking that I must have run out by now, but then another will pop up and remind me how well I’m doing and how great this new life is.