Thursday 28th April 2016

I have been wanting to say this for some time, but we are going to Japan next week! Eeek, how darned exciting does that sound? I just hope we are prepared for all we want to do; today I received the opportunity from British Airways to choose my inflight meal on the flight out. Which was nice. Now we are nearly at the departure date, anything we have forgotten is too late now. Maybe just buy a new pair of shoes or trainers and I'll be done. Now that I've got the lens of course. And so, just two more working days to go; yes it really is that close, and it will be time to go. Before hand, there is a three day weekend, hopefully some fine weather and time for orchid hunting and a barnet mangle. I have given up on City staying up, if they do win the two or three games needed, it'll be luck that there were two worse teams in the division. But, onwards and upwards....

Wednesday

After the long drive into Ramsgate yesterday, well long in time if not distance, it seems a luxury to be able to wave Jools off to work at seven and pop the kettle on for more coffee and breakfast before the stress of the working day begins. Despite being sunny, it is cold out there, in fact there has been frosts all week, and during the day it fails to be break above 10 degrees, but the sunshine is bright, and in the house it is lovely and warm.

I have a mammoth task, turning out a document for a new project, and making sure it is in a usable state by the end of the week, so with a strong cup of coffee and silence in the house I get to work, and only stoppingfor dinner and answering phone calls, I work through until four, at which point I have the bare bones of what I need. Phew, that was a long hard day of concentrating, but worth it, and so I thought I deserved a small beer before I begin to prepare dinner. There is a bottle of the Leffe 9% rocket fuel; oh well, can't hurt. Only I have to cut a couple of chicken breasts in half, which after just a small bottle of the Leffe requires some more concentration.

Storm clouds gather outside, and soon sleep and hail are falling, bringing the cats rushing in. Is it dinner time they ask?

We have breaded chicken and Lentil Dahl, which is lovely, and requires a certain kind of beer to go with it; a bottle of Esbjerg Brewed smoked stout, which isn't bad, more like a porter, but the smoke flavour seems very artificial compared to the Mikkler I had a few weeks back in Arhus.

I find out there is free to air football on TV, Athletico v Bayern, and is a great game with the home side winning 1-0. Even better as it was free too.

And so ends another day, time is running out before the fun really starts!