Sunday 1st February 2026

Every day is like Sunday,
Every day is cloudy and grey.

Or at least this Sunday was.

But was also the first day of the second month, and the never-ending month of January finally came to an end.

As I have said before, there are signs of spring, if you look for them, and there is a good half hour, or more, light in the evenings now.

It is a Sunday, so that means phys after coffee, and perhaps is the best day in the gym of the week, as few are as crazy or single-minded as us to be there at seven when the doors open.

I had planned to do another 50 minutes, but my legs said "nah", so it was the usual forty, which was the almost exact time the latest edition of The Bugle Podcast took to play.

So, all good.

And back home, passing families and late risers on the way in, but we had done our session, so another day of relaxation spread out before us.

Once home we had a brew, then while we listen to the radio, we have breakfast.

Jools had volunteered to inflate tyres of a friend's car, so while she was out I had a shave, shower and got dressed, now fragrant for the afternoon on the sofa.

No football until two, so I made chorizo hash, and all ready to eat by half one. Served with beer, and instead of Maris Pipers, I used some old baking potatoes, cubed and fried, as was pretty good.

What can I say about football? Two good games, but less than 24 hours later I can barely remember who played.

Man Utd beat Fulham 3-0, so perhaps are no longer in crisis, and then Tottenham v Citeh, where it was a game of two halves, Citeh dominated and were 2-0 up at half time, then Spurs dominated the second and drew 2-2.

Entertaining, if nothing else.

Saturday 31st January 2026

A year ago, Scully was diagnosed with diabetes.

To say that we had patchy advice and treatment from our vets would be an understatement.

We trusted the vet, and all the while the diabetes raged, and Scully lost more and more weight.

Thankfully, a friend pointed us in the direction of an online message board, but that was in August, Scully had lost nearly half her weight and was literally skin and bones.

It has been a long journey. Testing sometimes hourly, and injecting insulin twice a day. We have made mistakes and doubted ourselves, but we were reassured, it would get better.

And it has.

This is the test equipment, for which a month's testing cots something like £60, with insulin on top of that. But what price you pet's health?

She is putting on weight, nearly one and a half kilos, and is less desperate for food, and likes so snuggle up with us on the sofa.

On Friday, she played with a twig in the garden for half an hour, like a kitten. She's sixteen in July!

I thought we were going to lose her in the summer, instead she is almost back to her old self.

And so to Saturday.

Awake at six, and after coffee we were off to Whitfield to the sports centre: me to the gym and Jools to the pool.

I decided to try to do more, so did 50 minutes, 20% increase on usual, and was enjoyable, other than a numb bum from the hard seat.

I had to wait ten minutes for Jools, so watched families arrive for the fun swim session, their children so excited.

We drive home, and once back have a brew, top up the feeders, then the day was ours to waste.

Music for the morning: Radcliffe and Maconie on 6 Music, then Huey over on Virgin Radio, six music of great music and chat.

It was a bright day, but cold, too cold for gardening said Jools. I was happy with that, and anyway I had cooking to do. A lemon drizzle cake, though without the drizzle.

And then football.

Though the footy didn't engage, so we watched the final episode of Smiley's People, all spycraft and English upper class understatement.

Brilliant stuff.

Then to the sofa to listen to 5 Live and watch Final Score as Norwich went for four wins in a row.

Sadly, it was one game too far, though we gave Middlesborough a good game and only lost 1-0.

After supper there was Chelsea v West Ham, which was entertaining enough, and Chelsea won 3-2, coming back from two down.

Friday 30th January 2026

We come to the end of January.

Signs of spring are everywhere, if you look.

Daffodils are beginning to flower, crocuses are close, and out in the fields and lanes, wild flowers are in bud or flowering.

In our garden, the dwarf Witch Hazel has begun to do it's thing. Is it flowering? I don't know.

But I had to snap this in a gap between heavy rain showers, as Friday was rather inclement.

Jools went to yoga as usual. I went back to sleep so didn't hear the car being driven out, but once I did come to, I could hear the heavy rain hammering on the car port roof.

And it was bins day.

That meant once up and dressed, putting on the sou'wester, oilskins and the rest just to drag the brown and black bins to the top of the drive.

Then back down to fill up the feeders and scatter peanuts for the corvids and wood pigeons.

It took about four hours for the rain to lessen, by which time I had got one of the bins back down.

Jools came back, so we had breakfast and a brew before she was out for her craft morning.

Its all go here.

While I stayed behind to make a huge pot of chilli. Jools had requested chilli, so we had bought all the ingredients on Thursday, so all I had to do was combine them, in the right amounts and cook for some time to make six meals for chilli, the other five would be frozen as batch cooking.

Three onions, two pounds of mince, three cans of tomatoes, five cans of kidney beans, seven cans of water, two stock cubes, chilli powder, cayenne pepper, dried chipotle and two splashed of Jesper's special chilli sauce.

Once all was combined, simmer for three hours of so and it was ready. So all there was left to do was boil some rice, and serve.

Some tortillas would have been nice, but it was OK. Good in fact.

Then to the sofa for two more editions of Smiley's People, while between us, Scully slept happily, as her sugars have stabilised and she is no longer desperate for food.

Thursday she ran around the garden chasing a twig for nearly and hour. Not bad for a senior cat of sixteen years.

There was the music quiz, but my knowledge of Sting solo albums was somewhat lacking, so no points for Jelltex.

Playing the old hits!

This was today's front page of the Daily Express:

Let me explain this simply:

1. The referendum asked if the UK should remain or leave the European Union. We left, both economically and politically.

2. The agreement was ratified by the General Election in 2019, as Johnson's "oven ready deal".

3. So happy was Nigel Farage that he stood down every one of his MPs in constituencies where the Conservative Party was expected to win.

4. Johnson won his landslide.

5. On 31st January 2020, the UK left the European Union.

6. This was a "proper Brexit", as this was the one that the electorate backed.

7. This is the deal that Johnson negotiated, Baddenoch as a Minister in his Government backed this deal. And Farage backed by withdrawing his party to ensure a Conservative victory.

8. I don't believe that the UK has the appetite for another Brexit election. In fact, we are all tired of it, all the little things that make life difficult, expensive and time-consuming.

9. A harder Brexit will make the regulatory border in the Irish Sea harder, and leaving the ECHR is explicitlyagainst the Good Friday Agreement.

10. All three support Trump and want to bring Trumpism, ICE, camps and repatriation of migrants that are here legally and have the right to stay.

Thursday 29th January 2026

Being Thursday, it means up at five fifteen, getting dressed, drinking coffee, all before going to the sports centre for some phys.

Each morning I read old blog posts I have written, and the reoccurring theme is my bad back and that it seems to ache most of the time.

Exercise either curtailed or cancelled due to various severity of back ache.

What I can see is that I have not really had back ache for about three months now, maybe more, and being careful with the phys, I have suffered no other injuries. Other than a minor back muscle pull when tying shoelaces back in December, even then, cycling did it good. As did ice packs and drugs.

So, off to the gym where I do a little bit more than Tuesday, which probably means another level increase over the weekend.

After phys, we go to Tesco to gather supplies, rushing round throwing stuff in the trolley.

And then back home before rush hour and the school run peaks. And that was it for the day as far as excitement goes.

Shower, shave, breakfast, put the shopping away, while outside the rain did fall yet again.

For lunch at two, it was leftovers. Or, the remaining hunk of prime rib, sliced and heated in the air fryer, served with fresh roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, veg and gravy also left for the meal on Monday.

A fine meal, lots of vegetables, and this time all crunchy, crispy golden roast potatoes were eaten.

We then retired to the sofa to watch two episodes of Smiley's People, before facing the task of clearing up the plates and washing up.

And another Smiley's People to follow that too.

Night fell outside, and so the final tasks carried out: a brew with a couple of chocolate digestives, put out the milk bottles, close the curtains, before finally turning the heating down.

And so the 29th day of January drew to an end.

Nigel, the rag n bone man

Here is a list of former Conservative ministers, MPs and current MPs who have defected to Reform:

Robert Jenrick

Danny Kruger

Andrew Rosindell

Lee Anderson

Suella Braverman

Nadhim Zahawi

Nadine Dorries

David Jones

Lia Nici

Jonathan Gullis

Andrea Jenkyns

Jake Berry

Adam Holloway

Ben Bradley

Chris Green

Sarah Atherton

Maria Caulfield

Anne Marie Morris

Ross Thomson

Alan Amos

Marco Longhi

Aidan Burley

Lucy Allan

For the most part these are not the sharpest knives in the drawer, nor do many have any apparent talent. I'm looking at you, Gullis. Many were Ministers at one time or another in the various Conservate Governments from 2010 onwards, or blowhards for Brexit, in love with Boris, but all part of the same former political party that Governed the country, which they now claim is a broken Britain.

Note, not UK.

Jenrick and Braverman were Home Secretaries, and Jenrick was the Home Secretary that had the bright idea of stopping asylum applications to create the crisis of hotels overflowering with asylum seekers.

Something he now seems to have forgotten. And people who could have executed whatever policy thay wanted, certainly after 2019 when Johnson won a lanslide, so could have fixed the issue, had it have politically beneficial to do so.

Instead he and Braverman played politics and the racist card with the most desperate of people, because it made them look tough. And cruel. Though cruel is what they are.

So, Farage has filled his "Party" with Tory rejects, the people who created the situations through Brexit and failed immigration, who most of them claim the party they left, The Conservative and Union Party, broke Britain, which they were members of.

We can only hope that the electroate sees it the same way, failed politicians for a failed party trying to enact failed policies.

Wednesday 28th January 2026

Wednesday.

Hump day.

Unless you're retired.

We have both been a couple of leisure for ten months now, and there was a time, soon after we did finish, that we both thought we might not enjoy retirement, and might go back to some kind of work.

But as time went on, and through the long winter nights, we have come to really love our lives, and there then is zero chance of being tempted back.

This week has seen brighter days, so lighter in the mornings and late afternoons, and with the sunshine yesterday which shone until well after four, it felt and looked like Spring.

After I dropped Jools off at her class, I was going to go to Canterbury to visit the cathedral to snap the now completed renovation work. But a check online meant I found out that it doesn't open until ten, and with the churchcrawling in the afternoon, really didn't leave me with enough time to go to the city.

So I didn't.

Jools took the car and I lollygagged around the house. Had breakfast, washed up, did the bird food and listened to podcasts, and watched videos.

I wasn't bored.

Out in the garden three Winter aconites were in flower, and now the sun was out, one of the flowers just about opened, so I went out to snap it and other flowers that were showing.

I also broadcasted the seed packs that Fran had given us for Christmas, making sure that they were in contact with the soil.

The wisteria is showing signs of waking up, and the lilac has had buds for most of the winter, while rosettes of Cowslips, Pyramidals and other perennials were showing well.

Spring is coming.

We had tasted hot cross buns for lunch when Jools came home, giving me half an hour to faff around before leaving the house so I could pick up Martina from Deal, en route to the church at Nackington.

It was like a spring day driving from Deal to Worth then past Ash and Wingham. At least in the car with the heater on.

Along the A2 for a bit, then turn off through Bridge, where the road to Stone Street was closed. Or had road closed signs showing.

So instead it was back onto the A2, turn off at Wincheap, then through Chartham and to Hardres and back onto Stone Street.

We got tere at ten to two, one car was already there, and soon four more joined, as we turned the quiet dead end lane into rush hour. A face showed at one of the windows of the end cottage as the lady tried to see why there were so many folks about.

The warden arrived, so after introductions, we walked to the porch and inside.

I read from John's book, and the words of Hasted from the 18th century, of the descriptions of the parish and church.

I had brought them here to see two of the oldest stained glass windows in England. Which the warden told us were brought from Canterbury Cathedral at some point, for some unknown purpose. Try to understand Hasted, it seems the windows were there at the end of the 18th century.

The windows are of early 13th century manufacture, and so old that the craftsperson who made them might have been alive when Thomas Becket was Archbishop. As it is, the windows have probably the oldest representation of Becket.

We talk for nearly and hour as I describe the church and the fittings. And we were done, meaning we should just about get home before the schools runs on our route home.

I drove us into canterbury, then up the Old Dover Road and back onto the A2 before going back through Wingham to Sandwich and finally onto Deal.

The sun was about an hour from setting, and was still full daylight. And looked all the world like Spring.

I dropped Martina off, battled through Deal town centre and its new roadworks, then took the Dover Road through Walmer to home.

I got back at ten past four, where it was time for a cuppa.

Supper was minted lamb and stir fry with noodles. It worked. And increased the amount of fibre we both ate compared to the day before.

And there was minimal washing up, which is always a bonus.

For the evening there was the chaos of the last round of Champions League games, all 18 games kicking off at the same time to see who would would go through to the round of 16, and those others who would either go into the play-off round or just go home.

After seven dreadful rounds of games, the excitement is pretty much save for this night, and at times it was exciting. That it takes eight rounds of games just to eliminate 12 teams is a result of the "need" to reduce the risk for the biggest clubs and mostly to ensure those biggest clubs are the ones to progress to the knock out phase.

Money talks, always had, which is why five out of the eight who go straight through were Premier League clubs, or 62.5% of teams in the top eight were PL teams.

I kept listening in the hope that one of the biggest clubs would fail in some way. In the end it was both Real Madrid and PSG who in failing to win must now play two extra games in the play-off rounds.

It matter not a jot to me as a football fan, or the club I support whether any English club wins loses the Champions League. Very little money comes our way now, as domestic players are not seen as value for money.

So, the circus now moves on to the play off round where its not quite sudden death, but there is real peril for the biggest clubs.