Thursday 21st August 2025

Days just fill up with "stuff".

Stuff that pushes other things to one side.

We were to go to the gym first thing, then the garden needed watering, and would have been to warm to do it when we came back, so we watered the garden instead.

After we had drink the first coffee of the day.

And after watering we had breakfast and more brews.

Jools was off out for the morning. Going to see Cath, Mike and see George's new house. Leaving me at home.

So after washing up, I do some gardening: finish watering, deadhead the cosmos and marigolds. And take in the sights and smells of the garden in high summer.

I do check every day for orchid rosettes, but it really is too early to see any.

I then sit with Scully, on the patio, having a brew, just looking at the paradise we have created, and my head filled with plans for the new year.

Jools came back at midday. We had a roll and another brew for lunch, before I went out to snap a steam railtour again.

For a change I went down the harbour to snap Clan Line as she emerged from the Harbour Tunnel and screeched her way past the old Dover Harbour station and round the sharp bend to the Old Town Yard.

I found a place to park outside the Booking Hall, walked up to the roundabout and then along the bridge to where the railway passed underneath.

I want a bit further for the view I wanted, but now the unchecked lineside vegetation obscures some of the view.

Below, a luxury coach had been detained, and the passengers, possibly of a rock band, we milling around chain smoking waiting for their clearance.

Lights appeared at the tunnel portal: was this it? No, a Southeastern Javelin emerged and made its way past me.

It would be five more minutes.

The keen breeze brought clouds, and the threat of more rain, so I was glad when lights were seen again, as Clan Line appeared, coasting at first, then engaging the regulator and puffs of smoke left the chimney, and the sound of her pistons working echoed around.

Little time to waste. Rattle off fifty or so shots, try to get a video with the phone, which I mess up, then across the road to see her accelerating away, the sea behind, trailing a long rake of luxury Pullman coaches, with people eating their silver service lunch.

It was over.

I walked back to the car, then drove up the slope to the roundabout on Townwall Street, then along that and up Jubilee Way to home.

It was half two, and the rest of the day stretched out in front of us.

We had brews.

Of course, then I peeled and cubed potatoes for hash later, letting them soak to get rid of the starch to make them even crispier when fried.

Onions and bell peppers were trimmed, chorizo skinned and sliced, then at half five the cooking process began: the vegetables with some smoked chipotle. Then the chorizo, before finally frying the boiled potatoes so there became extra crunchy.

I dish up. Pour beers/cider and we eat. Eat well.

There was no football to watch, just listen to the radio, and ignore the hated and malice around the world.