Mother and Father arrived yesterday and Jik brought in Sunrise with Tippa. It was lovely to see Autumn Wind come through the entrance. Jik was very formal and kept calling me Harbour Master while Tippa was present but I had a nice hug when I joined him and Dom on Autumn Wind for lunch.

In the afternoon we all worked to get Sunrise into the dry dock. They wouldn’t let me help very much but at least it got me out of the office for a bit. I felt for Tippa when we saw the state of the hull. I know it is her own fault, she has really neglected proper maintenance, but she was almost in tears which is very unlike her.

Jik and Dom have offered to stay and help her with scraping down the hull and doing the blacking, but I’ll need to find a welder urgently now because there are a couple of places around the edges of the counter that are going to need new plate welded on. The man who came last Gathering doesn’t want to deal with “disappearing boats and other weird stuff” again.

I was just going back to the office when Mother and Father arrived. Mek was snappy with me because I was not on the spot to greet them but he did take my work back for firing and agreed to bring me more clay when he comes back – not that I have much time to use it at the moment.

I took Mother and Father up to the flat and left them to settle in. I think they will be comfortable enough there. They came for supper on Day Bringer. They are quite used to being guided into the water dimension and enjoyed being able to see the harbour. I’ve promised to bring them again in daylight so they can see it properly.

Jik and Dom came for sperit after supper and listened politely while I whinged about my problems. Father and Jik have promised to look over the accounts this morning and check my figures and Mother says she will go for a wander and try to put herself in the place of the neighbours since she sees what they see.

It is nice to feel so supported.