An Update - a bit long

Months ago (back in February, actually), I planted two tiny pots of forgetmenots. They were mentioned again in this post (which also contains the link to the original post); scroll down to the bottom of the post to find the picture of the forgetmenots.
And finally, last Saturday, I replanted them into a terracotta pot my sister gave me. They looked a bit lost in the long narrow pot, so I gave them some basil as their neighbour, and now they sit together on one of my kitchen windowsills, facing the morning sun:

All they need to do now is grow :-)

At the beginning of this month, I started a new job. My work consists of talking to my customers on the phone and reply to their emails; I advise them on what point-of-sale hardware to use best for what application and in what kind of environment, issue quotations for them and take their orders. A lot of the talking is just to keep in touch; personal contact is very important in this small industry, where everybody knows everybody else and people buy from other people often based on how well they get along with someone rather than pricing or technical features (which are comparable anyway).
Of course, to make these phone calls, all I need is a phone and a computer - both I have at home. So, when I had the chance to change from one company to the other and improve my working conditions, I did not have to think very long and very hard!
Since the 2nd of May, this has been my office:

The big computer was my husband's and is actually sold to someone in my wider circle of acquaintances; they have not paid the full amount yet and therefore I am not handing the computer over to them until that's done.
The laptop is the company's, everything else you see is mine. Once or twice a month, I travel to the office which is a two-hour train ride away (that will undoubtedly be the source for some more blog posts).
My mother-in-law sent me this card:

In Germany, people rarely send each other cards to congratulate on a new job; mostly, cards are only sent for Christmas and birthdays. All the more I appreciate getting cards from the family in England, and I usually put them where I can look at them for a while before taking them away (as I dislike cluttered spaces).

The whole working-from-home thing suits me just fine. More about this should go into a different post, I guess; there is an interesting post about it here in one of the blogs I follow.

Another update concerns my cat; she has been mentioned and pictured in my blog many times before.
She has not been very well for a while, having both a heart condition and an over-working thyroid on top of being a rather old lady now, with the ailments typical to old age for humans and animals alike. The thyroid problem caused her fur to get all matted and knotty, and for a while, I managed to keep it under control by combing out the smaller knots and cutting off the worst bits. But she did not like me handling her with comb and scissors, and eventually wouldn't let me do it anymore; she would wiggle and move about in a way that made it dangerous to use scissors on her. At the same time, she suffered from having her coat in that condition, and unsuccessfully tried to get rid of the knots herself.
So I took her to the vet's and had her shorn...
She looked so painfully thin after that - I'd known she had lost a lot of weight in spite of eating six or more meals a day (that's all down to the thyroid problem, too), but seeing her bones sticking out like that made it even more evident that she needed different medication.

She already looks a lot better, three and a half weeks into the treatment; her fur is growing back nicely, and I make sure to brush it every day. Instead of 6 or 7 meals, she is now content with four or five, not constantly being ravenously hungry, and she has put on a little bit of weight. She rests and sleeps most of the day, which is partly due to the medication, designed to calm down her overworking heart.
This is her last week:


Last but not least, have a look again at the cherry tree branch pictured in the post I have linked to above, for the forgetmenots. The blossoms have long gone, and last week, the same branch looked like this:


That's enough updates for today, I think!