I’ve had a much better day today than Thursday – both productive, relaxing and joyous in the space of 14 hours, it doesn’t get much  better than that, I don’t think.

Started out with a way-too-early start to give K a lift to work this morning, but when I got home decided it was too late in the morning to consider sliding back into bed (although I have to say it was mighty tempting), so instead I sat myself at my desk in the study and got stuck in to completing the background work for a documentary proposal I’ve been working on since my transplant.

It took me most of the morning, but I got it sent off to the appropriate people to see what they make of it by lunch time, which pleased me greatly – as it always does when I actually complete a task I set out to do.  I suppose that’s a pretty bad reflection on how often I complete the things I set out to do…

Anyway, after busying myself all morning, I decided to take the afternoon off – as is my wont – and relaxed playing Football Manager on the computer for a couple of hours before heading out to pick K up.

From there, we headed to my ‘rents to catch up with my cousin who was visiting with family in tow from Luxembourg, where she took up residence with her Luxembourgish husband several years ago.  I’ve not seen her or her family for two years, we worked out between us, when her eldest was younger, her middle was toddling and her youngest wasn’t even thought about.

It was fantastic to see them – and my other cousin and his new wife who made it up from the old family home in Southend – and catch up with them all.  K was especially happy to be able to enjoy the baby-cuddles she’s been looking forward to all week.  The little one is a wonderful bundle of cuteness, although she’s not as good at hide and seek as her brother and sister are.

In another moment of “oooh I can do that now I’ve got new lungs” I took my cousin and her four-year-old into town whilst we waited for dinner to cook to pick up some new shoes (which are apparently a bargain over here compared to Lux).  We had the best time wandering into town, looking at all the shoes, (“those are cool.  Those are really cool.  Those are REALLY cool.  Those are the coolest!”) although we were all disappointed that they didn’t have the ones with monkeys on in his size.

We all gorged heartily on one of mum’s roast dinners and the “adults” sat around chatting whilst K and I played hide-and-seek after dinner.  My ‘rents house has the best places to hide – it’s clearly been far too long since I’ve played a proper game of hide-and-seek, because I found some great nooks and crannys.  And I’m much better at hiding now I don’t have a tell-tale “ahem” to give me away every 5 seconds.

I’ve got such a wonderfully close-knit family that it’s always wonderful to spend any time with them, but when the gap has been as long as it was since I last saw the Lux Lot it makes it that bit more special.  And when they’d been told after I saw their mum and dad (my aunt and uncle) just before my op that they weren’t sure I was going to make it to Christmas, it adds that final finesse of wonderment to the whole day.

Now I’ve just got to wait until my first year post-Tx is up and I can finally go out and visit them instead of having to wait for them to get enough time off to make it over to us.