Tuesday 1st September 2026

It is autumn.

Apparently.

And the year is getting older too. It was dark at ten past five when the alarm went off, I opened my eyes and wondered why the alarm had gone off in the middle of the night.

But it was morning.

Technically.

We get up and do the usual stuff, I sit down to drink coffee before going to the gym at ten to six, arriving there as the doors opened.

I was cycling away when after eight minutes the podcast I was listening to just stopped, and when I checked the pod itself had vanished from the podcast library.

I carried on cycling, and found an episode of Radcliffe and Maconie to listen to for the last half hour of the session. And when home contacted the creators about what happened, as the process for deleting a podcast from the library takes about four steps, and the phone was in my pocketses all the time, Precious.

Traffic was still light, I think the kids go back to school on Wednesday, so I arrived back home safe and sound, sat outside to cool down and dear Jools brought me a brew to sup as I watched the birds on the feeders.

She goes to her class, leaving me and the cats alone. Nothing planned for the day, just stuff. And cycling in the afternoon.

I had a shower, changed, then did some light gardening, picking up the clippings I missed last week, so that the grass isn't fed that much. It'll be soon time for another, harsher cut, then the scarifying, and finally the sowing of the seeds.

All in good time.

With Jools expected home soon after midday, I chop the salad and place roughly on plates, so that once she returns, I can air fry the chicken, and within ten minutes or so, dinner is prepared.

And eaten, washed up, all in time for the start of the day's coverage of the cycling.

More riding through dry rolling hills, up and down, through villages, concluding with a sprint to the finish.

Huge smiles and tears at the end.

For the evening there is football, and the madness that was the last day of the transfer window. I see a bubble soon to burst, but we've been saying that for years. Average players now needing £40 to £60 million to buy them, and at the top, more than £100 million.

Madness.

Norwich brought a sense of reality by showing they couldn't do it on a Tuesday night in Stoke, losing to a deflected goal, and unable to turn possession into goal.

Same old, same old.