A week until the twelfth

A week until the appointment. I have not told anyone except Danny and Tess. Not Mum — definitely not Mum, who would be careful about it in a way that would require managing, and who would then tell Dad, and then there would be two people in Greenfield being careful at me from six hundred and ninety miles. Hannah I might tell. I have not decided. A month ago that would not have been a question at all. Dale asked about the two extra clients again today, framed as an opportunity this time, which is the second framing, and I said no again. It was easier the second time. It is apparently a muscle. And then — not planned, in a corridor, badly, with no preparation at all — I said that I want to talk in January about going to four days. He did not love it. He also did not say no. He said let's put it in the diary properly, which could mean anything, and which is more than I have had in two years of not asking.