Friday 22nd March 2019

At last I was back home, but with a ton of things to do, I woke up at four, and my mind followed a nanosecond later. I tossed and turned for just over an hour when Jools got up.

So, there we were, making coffee at quarter past five in the morning.

I can tell you that blackbirds started singing at five past five, it is a glorious sound, a signal that the day is soon to begin and at least those are happy about it. I was happy about about it, what with it being Friday and all that.

Dawn was showing in the east, but being home meant that I could relax and see the day begin, and not start working until after half past seven.

As I have been travelling, that means travel expenses. And that means scanning receipts. And to scan receipts. And to scan receipts you need a scanner. And if you had a scanner, and a new laptop, you need drivers for the scanner.

And once you have the drivers installed and the computer says in a dialogue box, oh that scanner you mean, why didn't you say? So, for half an hour or so, I scanned away, labelled the files and e mailed them to my work account.

And then power up the work laptop, start Outlook, download the files from the e mail, create expense report, attach scans of receipts, and click "submit"

By then, I was ready to start work, deal with the overflowing inbox, scream at people, and so the day went on until three, when I could power it down, make a brew, and be relaxing watching a show on Irish Showbands when Jools returned home.

One of the joys of going away, even for work, is coming home and see what had grown in the time I had been away. Always wonderful to survey the beds and remark how much the fritillaries had shot up in four days.

It was the weekend.

We have a brew, tell each other that we were both tired, but we have made it to the weekend, which we would spend as little time as possible asleep, as it would be a shame to waste a minute of it.

I cook shoarma lamb, stir fry and egg noodles. No carbs, lots of protein.

For the evening, I watched the England game as Three Lions took on Czech Republic and romped to a 5-0 win without really playing that well.

Happy with that, though.