Tuesday 2nd July 2024

Day two of the great report writing exercise, which will take me until the deadline on Friday to get close to be done.

At least there are few distractions with the holiday season under way.

Or so I thought.

Chaos takes no holiday, does not sleep or call in sick. Its always there. So, at regular intervals I was called to have new forms of chaos reported.

Which is nice.

None of which I can tell you, of course. Nor can I tell you about the big news, as I have heard nothing, and the days have stretched into weeks now, and will soon be a month.

Sigh.

There is to be water falling from the sky from midday, so after an early shower, I hang my towel out and have the first sweet coffee of the day.

Then on with work, staring at my notebook, my handwriting has not improved since I was nine, and sometimes I struggle to understand what I have written. Sometimes I used abbreviations, thinking at the time I'd remember what they meant.

I was wrong, I had no idea, and stared as the poorly formed letters and dots and my mind boggled.

I had stumbled on a new form of cooking potatoes. Was fiddly and would take most of the day, but would result in crispy layered buttery goodness, perfect with steak, which we just happened to have.

So, having sliced, oiled, seasoned, stacked, baked, compressed and cooled the potatoes, at five I took the block out of the fridge, cut into slices ready for frying. The steak had been seasoned in the morning and the salt and pepper rubbed with oil and left to infuse. Only peas to have with it, so I make a quick tomato salad, which was basically Caprese without the cheese but with added pesto, and it all came together and was splendid.

I brought it all together at half five, poured the fizz, and we sat down to eat, all done by six so I could watch the second half of the first game, Netherlands winning easily. And then Türkiye took on the surprise package, Austria, and beat them 2-1 to progress to the quarter finals.

No football for two whole days now. Oh noes.