Like a tangled web.

 Monday 13th October 2025

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what Dad said to me last night. Then, this morning, while Mum and I were taking a short break from cleaning, she suddenly said out of the blue,

“Your dad’s a different man since you came to us.”

“I hope that’s a good thing,” I said.

“Yes, of course,” she smiled. “He’s always kept his feelings locked away inside, and that’s no good to anybody. What he said to you last night about that song was so true—it made my own heart weep to hear him say something like that.”

I told her she should have joined us on the sofa and let her own feelings flow too.

Mum also mentioned that it was talk of Eric retiring that prompted them to make that trip to Scotland when they bumped into me. They’d thought it might be their last chance to go away for a while if they needed to hire someone new and get them settled in to look after the place. Since I showed up, though, Eric’s had a new lease of life and hasn’t even mentioned retiring again.

I knew Eric had given up on retiring—mainly so he could keep teasing me every day—but I hadn’t realised he was the reason they ended up at the end of the big house drive when they did. It still amazes me how all those little coincidences line up so perfectly. Without Eric hinting at retirement, without Grandfather deciding to drive down the track when he did, without the blue van man turning up… not to mention me, Irene, Mum, and Dad all choosing that particular day.

All those people and choices—each one had to come together at just the right time, or I’d have been anywhere else but here. Even Dirty Dave played his part. It’s strange how everyone’s lives are connected—sometimes by people you’ve never met and never will—but who still somehow shape the paths of those you do meet.

These are the things I find myself thinking about while I’m driving along in the tractor, so long as it’s not a job that demands all my attention. And when I do, there’s a quiet comfort in knowing that, however tangled the paths might seem, they somehow led me home.