Wednesday 12th November 2025

It's the middle of the week. Again.

And no kitchen to be replaced now.

And no phys to get up for, but we are awake and about before six, drinking coffee and getting ready.

Although, Jools has her fitness class, and an hour later I had a bridge class.

Is it a class or a club?

A club, I guess. But we do learn things each week. Most weeks. Even if this week there was just four of us, playing shuffled hands rather than sorted hands to make us think about what we were doing.

I dropped Jools off in town before eight, then back home to have breakfast and wash up before driving to Kingsdown, through the warren of roads and drives that stretch into the countryside from the coast.

On one crescent, in a house similar to others either side, is where we were to play, starting at half nine.

Bridge is, on the face of it, a simple game. Whist with knobs on, but there are biddings and conventions that can make saying "one spade" mean a dozen or more other things rather than that I have an OK hand with spades as trumps.

Two hours rattles past quickly, and I have to go to Tesco for supplies now that our acres of fridge space is pretty empty.

Tesco is full of Christmas cheer, but I get little of that, instead fill the trolley with fruit and mainly vegetables. Although cheese footballs do find their way in.

Back home to unpack and think about lunch, before the long dark afternoon of the soul begins.

I have a delivery of beer come, so I pack that away in the small fridge in the kitchen, and settle down to listen to a podcast.

Jools had to go to Canterbury for a chiropractor's appointment, so I settled down at home to listen to more podcasts, feed the chats and check Scully then jab her.

No football on the tellybox, so music played into the evening.

However.

The aurora alarm went off, and as we were expecting a CME just after eight, we hightailed it to the cliffs, where its a dark sky area, to wait for the show.

But the show never came. It was quite cloudy too, but we sat for an hour, waiting. Watching the lighthouses flash their codes while the wind buffeted the car.

We drove home at half nine, where there was just time for a wee dram before bedtime.