On the day before I travel to Bruges, my cleaner can't come, I have yet to get supplies for the cat sitter,there's a dispute over a broken ipad which has led to a tiny amount of odd behaviour and half the apple tree has split away; a fine meal for the local pig farm out of all these inadvertent windfalls, while I've spent the morning carving off the huge old branch and applying what can best be applied as an arboreal poultice in the pouring rain. Solutions for the tree include vaseline and duct tape. Part of me thinks they might also be useful re the dispute.