Wednesday 8th January 2025

This was the view when I threw open the drapes on Wednesday morning, a heavy frost, but light winds.

It looked cold. Heck, it felt cold.

So, with my commute literally moving from one seat at the dining room table t another, I had better get going if I wasn't to get caught up in the rush hour traffic at The Hanger Lane gyratory.

Pip pip.

That being said, it was mighty chilly in the house, so I turn up the thermostat on the heating, and the boiler fired into life.

After coffee, I start work and find that the three months jam-packed with activities that had been planned, seem now to have been slimmed down to a trip to Denmark in weeks 9 and ten, and a final design audit it week 11.

It means I have tome to chase existing open audit reports and remind folks that these are not going to go away.

I decide, between work activities, to make some bread. Its been a while, but mainly due to someone buying me some chocolate pieces in my Secret Santa gift, so rather than sprinkle on coffee, I would use instead of Nutella.

Dough made an kneaded by eight, I leave it a good two hours before beating down and placing it in a silicon loaf tin.

An hour later, and it was ready to go in the oven, so in it goes, and soon smells delicious.

As soon as its out of the oven nearly an hour later, I have a buttered crust and a single thick slice with the chocolate.

Delicious.

Another highlight was the delivery of an LP I had wanted for forty years. I saw someone with a cope on Bluesky, remember that I had the cassette version from when Colourbox released their first LP, which came with a limited edition remix LP initially.

A quick search last week had a copy in Bristol for under a tenner. I bought it, and that came just about three in the afternoon. But because Poppy is now sleeping in the living room, I can't go near the hi-fi without scaring her.

At the weekend, perhaps.

It is still cold at dusk, and Jools drives home in heavy sleet, though there's none in St Maggies. Dinner is sandwiches followed by Christmas cake, which being laced with madeira is boozy and tasty.

And there is football: Spurs v Liverpool, which Spurs wins.

Well.

Tuesday 7th January 2025

So, its Tuesday. Again.

And there is a ball of gas in sky, and its nearly warm. Or would be had there not been the same clear skies at night, dropping the temperatures to below zero.

Currently, there is no management at work, but I resist the temptation to play hooky and instead am online and ready for work at ten past seven.

Plans are under way on how the department will manage once I leave, though that seems to be any way other than employing any one new or paying the team any more.

Oddly enough, still no one wants to know why I am leaving or what can they do to change my mind. Maybe its different when you retire in that there is no exit interview.

In fact its very quiet in general at work, not sure if people just are sleeping off the stollen and mulled wine.

At lunchtime, I go for a walk.

I know, I know.

I put on my walking shoes, my jumper and coat, walk to the end of the street and up Station Road.

No new spring flowers in bloom, so I walk up the hill to the last of the roads along, then back home, into the teeth of the cold wind. But at least downhill.

I finish work at three, and watch Wallace and Gromit again, and find it as funny the second time round, and see more in-jokes.

Jools was off splashing, so we would have half a pizza when she comes home just after eight, so not much for me to do, just have a coffee ready for when she returns, listen to what happened at work. She gets changed and leaves.

While I do the washing up and get ready for the football: League Cup action between Arsenal and Newcastle, which the Toon cruise to a 2-0 win.

She comes home, we have pizza and a beer. Cheers.

Monday 6th January 2025

Hey! It's Monday again!

Hurrah.

That being said, the number or working Mondays is now running out, something like 12 or 13 of them to go.

Not that I am counting, of course.

And we slept through the alarm. Jools until quarter to six and me until six.

I did not want to get up.

But bills to pay and all that.

Jools has her coffee, has a shower and gets dressed and is on her way to work, while I ponder about getting the laptop out.

I better had.

And so, on with the show.

Every morning, except when it rains real hard, I go out to check the garden for early spring flowers, Winter Aconites especially. I planted a hundred bulbs a few years back.

You can tell them as they show with a short stalk and a ring of leaves before the single yellow flower opens.

None so far this winter.

And for work, the main order of the day is to clear my travel expenses from the France trip, as the car hire place had failed to provide me with the correct invoice.

I called them and it was sent, so no excuses now, just need to get the ooomph to get it started. Once I do, its never that bad.

I had all the receipts, scanned them, uploaded them and filled in the paperwork.

Then submit it to the computer for scutiny.

By which time it was time for a brew, listen to a pod and wrap up on another day in the go-ahead world of wind energy.

For dinner, I made fondant potatoes to go with the Kyivs and sprouts cooked with guanciale.

Readers, it was fabulous.

And so to the football as Nottingham Forest on the 50th anniversary of the appointment of Brian Clough as their manager, played with Wolves as though the team in black and gold were a dead mouse.

Ended 3-0. Could have been more. A lot more.

Sunday 5th January 2025

In less than three months now we will retire and then fly to India.

All our ives we are sold the dream that if we work hard, save, be good citizens, then we could look forward to a long and relaxing retirement. That we are going to be able to do this feel as though we have won at life. Or beaten capitalisim.

Most of our friends don't have the savings, or have spent them helping their family. While we have gone on our serene way, into the sunset.

We are currently waiting for news from our advisor, but nothing much is going to change now.

Both Jools and I have written handover notes for those who will follow us, and soon time will have slipped though our fingers.

Another weekend, cancelled by poor weather. Did I say poor? Bad weather.

Down here in the south there was strong winds and heavy rain, but north of London, snow was more frequent, and many roads in the hills and mountains collapsed.

An embankment carrying a canal collapsed in the wet of England, marooning boats on mudbanks or silt, and flooding the countryside for miles around.

It got worse as you went north, but some of us stayed inside. I did, as my cold which appeared to have gotten better on Saturday, returned in the middle of the night, wrecking any chances of a good night's sleep.

So when Jools went to see Jen, I stayed here in case I had caught something new and infectious, so I wouldn't pass it on.

There was little to do, as outside rain hammered down and wind lashed the house. Again. It is that time of year, I guess.

There was football during the afternoon, of course. Fulham pulled a late goal back to draw with Ipswich, wile the expected avalanche of goals by Liverpool against Man Utd failed to happen, and Utd were the better team.

That ended 2-2 as well.

Cheese and crackers for supper, and listen to the radio before another early night.

Rock and roll.

Saturday 4th January 2025

We had nearly eleven hours of sleep, so were running quite a bit behind come Saturday morning.

That being said, shops are not that busy, even the big Tesco, so we had a brew, then checked our list one last time and set off.

Yes, it was cold, frosty and the roads to the A2 were tricky.

I filled the car up, got two candy bars, then went to meet Jools in the shop.

There was me expecting there to be a huge amount of ex-Christmas stock on discount and me thinking some cheese footballs or flavoured peanuts, but there was nothing.

So it goes.

There might not have been any Christmas stock, but stuff for Easter is already on sale, with several huge displays of Creme Eggs.

Having a house full of food, we didn't need much, but still spent £65, which seems to be the minimum now.

Back home, and while Jools put the shopping away I prepare breakfast and make fresh brews.

Being a Saturday, there is football to watch, but before the main bunch of games we have to go out.

To meet a friend.

Over the years, social media gets a lot of bad press, and with good reason, but the good stuff it does is hardly ever reported.

Andy lives in London/north Kent, and we have been contacts of Flickr for more than a decade, and nearly 12 years ago we met up when we went to investigate the Grain Tower in the mouth of the Medway.

Andy likes history, and was coming down to do the "Dumpy Tunnels" tour at the castle, would we like to meet for coffee later or a beer?

We would.

So at half three we walked into the Hoptomist just off Dover Town Square, where Andy already had a pint of porter under control.

We found a table to sit at and chatted for over an hour, nearly two in fact, as he had to catch the twenty past five train back home.

We dropped him off at the station, then headed home where I got news that Norwich, who has been losing to Coventry into injury time, not only levelled, but scored a winner.

Well.

Back home to have the rest of the pasta bake for supper and try to stay awake to watch the Arsenal game.

Phew.

Friday 3rd January 2025

And, like magic, Friday follows Thursday, and the hope that every week this year will have just two working day.

No yoga this week for Jools, so we lay a tad too late, meaning it was twenty past seven before I started work having fed the cats, drunk coffee and filled the feeders.

Its all go.

There is actually blue sky, and the early morning flights heading east soar leaving trails of white, turning gold as the near the south east horizon.

Still no management in work, so we have our own meeting and discuss some of our pressing issues.

Then two meetings where few folks turn up, there is lunch to have, and be ready for when Jools came home. I packed away the laptop and screens, boiled the kettle and was ready for her return.

When she did come home, she was in tears. She had slipped in the car park at work and hurt her wrist pretty badly. Somehow she had managed to drive home, but I needed to take her to the local small hospital in town to get it checked out in case there was a break.

We got down there and Jools was told there was a three hour wait for a doctor or 15 minutes for the nurse.

She chose the nurse option, and was seen within 15 minutes, sent for an x-ray, then analysed and diagnosed with a non-break injury.

We were back in the car heading home within 50 minutes of arriving, dodging the traffic in town by going up the hill to Whitfield, then along the quiet A2 to Deal road and back home.

I make a pasta bake with the leftover turkey and stuffing, going as far to defrost some more sausage meat to make fresh stuffing balls.

After making 400g of cooked pasta, that, a sauce, the stuffing and leftover turkey and lots of grated cheese were put into a pan and cooked for half an hour.

The result was excellent, not high cuisine, but tasty, hearty.

I do the music quiz, and win. While outside the cosmic dance brough Venus the Moon near to each other, and I go outside to take a shot or seven.

It was the weekend!

Thursday 2nd January 2025

2nd of January and back to work.

At least I was, management, however, thought better of it.

What can I say about the day?

Well, it was dark when we got up, and cold and dark when I was drinking my coffee.

I had slept poorly, the cold. If that's what it is, woke me up early and so laid awake until ten minutes before the alarm went off, I fell into a deep sleep.

Jools was slow too getting up and ready for work, then was off, as the overcast skies showed the faint outlines of morning's golden light.

After a shower, she was gone, and the cats asleep. I have a brew and turn the computer on and wait for the updates to come through needing to restart the laptop.

The day starts off cloudy, but brightens up, and I notice in the back garden a Hellebore in full flower, if quite small.

I go to take shots of that and the Penstemon that has been flowering since June of something, and is still going strong.

I catch up on my mails, reply to some, file the rest, and plan yet more meeting.

After today, I do have a maximum of only 92 working days left.

Which is nice.

Rune is in work. So we talk and swap news of what we did for Christmas. He has grown up kids, and apparently their kid's friends did not leave the house until four in the morning on the 1st.

Not like that here, of course.

Come three in the afternoon, there was football to watch: Rangers v Celtic. Celtic were on another level going into the game, just needed to win to clinch the title.

And yet, Rangers were a team reborn.1-0 up at half time, and knocking two more in during the 2nd half. Celtic had looked beaten since the first minute.

I cooked chicken, air fryer chips and a big bowl of sprouts, bacon, chestnuts and guanciale.

Another triumph if I'm honest, and ore Christmas food repurposed.