Arson

As if I hadn't enough to do with cardboard boxes (with all the full ones cluttering our living room), this afternoon Elva and I, afterwards joined by Chris, volunteered to construct and fill a great many more. This was at the company premises of our friends Don and Carol and not for fun: on Wednesday night their headquarters was broken into and set on fire. Not all was lost: a snowplough driver happened to notice the smoke and called the fire brigade in time to prevent the company archives and computers going up in flames, but unidentifiable small objects that had melted are lying around in profusion, the offices are unusable and everything salvageable is covered in soot. As are we, after this afternoon.

It couldn't have happened to nicer people. Apart from the hundreds of hours of extra work Don and Carol have put in at the Flying Club since November masterminding the construction of the hangar, apart from spending further hours lately helping (helpless) me to replace my kitchen and their (far less helpless) son to replace his bathroom, a close friend of their family died this week and they have been keeping his bereaved wife company and helping her for several days too. Because Carol's parents came up from Toronto to attend the funeral, she also had to make arrangements for their stay.

It occurs to me that whereas our friends have magnificent coping skills, the arsonists presumably don't. Goodness knows what thoughts are passing through their mean minds at the moment.

Anyway, talking of boxes, I'm due to see dozens more over the next couple of days when IKEA delivers the component parts of our new cupboards, in two installments—don't ask!