Thursday 3rd April 2025

Thursday.

And a day, part-filled with chores.

I now set the alarm for half six, and even if I don't leap out of bed right away, I am awake, meaning fair game for Mulder who comes to say hello and meow in my face.

Hello, handsome boy.

I get up, we have coffee, and then go to the gym for a session on the bikes. I up a level and really push myself, so do my best session since we started going. The new tax year has seen the cost of a session increase from £9 to £13, which is rather more than the rate of inflation.

Back home for breakfast, then into town for a haircut at one of the many Turkish barbers that have sprung up.

I am shorn, then with some lighted wick thing he burns the fuzz off from and on my ears.

And is done.

There is little else to do down town, other than get a haircut, there are vape shops, charity shops. And even WH Smith is either going to close or be rebranded now the chain has been sold.

Will Boots be next?

I walk back to the car and drive back home, making bacon butties when I get in as we try to use most of the stuff from the fridge.

The first suitcase is packed, and so with the afternoon stretching out, I watch more Bangers and Cash, while Jools makes a crochet gorilla.

Which she finishes in the evening, now it sits on the stairs,mournfully judging us as we walk round it.

I go for a walk round the neighbourhood, mainly to check on the colony of Coltsfoot on Collingwood, which as I suspected have been attacked by one householder with herbicide, but a few spikes survive among the small bed next to the path, which I snap.

Dinner is toad-in-the-hole: A Yorkshire Pudding with sausages in. Came out not so good, but good enough when paired with the ultra-crispy roast potatoes and steamed vegetables.

There is football, the last Prem game I will watch until May. Chelsea beat Spurs, and while it burbles to itself, I check us in for our flight on Saturday.

Its getting close.