After the flood

We have just arrived back from 3 weeks in the UK to find that our apartment has been under several inches of water in our absence. We had a note from the management company explaining that a pipe had "snapped" in the flat next door and flooded our home. Brilliant. Luckily they sent in a team of cleaners to mop it all up, who used our lovely bed spread and my husband's dressing gown to soak up the excess, leaving the latter in the washing machine. For three weeks.

Somehow, this wasn't a surprise to us. We've just had the most devastating, upsetting time of our whole lives, and we've stopped expecting the world to go our way, even a little bit.

This is because my beautiful, vivacious, hilarious, loving mother-in-law died suddenly and unexpectedly while we were in the UK. It has been a time of incredible sadness, and my husband is undoubtedly going through hell. She was still young - not even 70 - and had so much to live for. Thank God, though, that we were in the UK - we could so easily have been over here - and in fact my husband was staying with his parents when his mum died. He is her only child and she loved him with an incredible and amazing intensity, and I know him being there with her always brought her tremendous joy. I thank God for that.

And for my part - when my mother-in-law was on life support in hospital, I promised her I'd look after her son for her, always.

And I will.