Saturday 26th September 2026

It's the weekend.

The first of two without club football. It's been six days so far.

And been hell.

Would the delights of Cambridge v Wimbledon at three sate my hunger?

Or the evening game at Wembley between England and Spain.

Only one way to find out: read on.

I was awake at quarter to four, meaning that come five I may as well get up.

Cats are fed, coffee made.

And with a list of things to do, might as well go to Tesco shortly after six as we were both up.

Which is what we did, gathering supplies, and ingredients for Christmas cakes, as its that time of the year.

We were out by ten to seven, so just time to drive to the sports centre for our session on the bikes.

Forty minutes later we were done, and two more tasks to do: fill up the car and go to Preston for beef for Sunday roast.

Thanks to the orange Shitgibbon in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, fuel has been creeping up, but with attacks on a fuel line in Saudi, prices have leaped.

At the Duke of Yorks it's 180p/litre, but sixpence cheaper at Tesco. However, at Pegwell Bay, it's ten pence cheaper still. And as we were going to be within two miles of it, best go there.

News of the cheap fuel has gotten out, and it was busy, but one pump was free. I fill up, as more cars arrived to take advantage.

Then back along the Sandwich bypass and up past Ash before turning right over the marshes to Preston.

Its been a while.

They had my order ready, and we bought sausages and burgers too.

We wished the boys well and headed back home, going back along the Eastry bypass to B&Q at Whitfield to pick up sausage and bacon baps for breakfast once we got home.

Jools made a brew while I got the bags in, so soon we were sitting down to an unhealthy breakfast, but cheaper than going to Chaplins.

In order to put the sausages and burgers away, we had to make space in the freezer, so out cam the sloes, ready to defrost and then add to two litres of gin and some sugar to create a delicious booze by the end of January.

Freezing the berries means the juice is released from the berries as the skins break, and easier for the juice to flavour and colour the gin.

At three the footy starts, and the game I chose to watch was Cambridge v Wimbledon, which was the worse game I have watched for some time, I switched off with 15 minutes to go, and Cambridge 1-0 down, but I gave up so poor was the fayre, so missed Cambridge scored in the closing stages.

We had dinner, and then eyes down for the big game, England v Spain. England are word class going forward, but less so in defence.

1-0 down in 90 seconds, then 2-1 up just before half time. Kane then missed a penalty, before England made changes and were worse, so Spain scored twice to win 3-2.

So it goes, so it goes.

Friday 25th September 2026

We reached the end of the week again, which means no phys for me, but Jools has to be out of the house by ten past six.

I help by going back to sleep, waking up just before she leaves.

There is the world to check on, then have breakfast, before sitting outside on the patio as the rising sun warms the day up.

I'm going to miss sitting in the sunshine when autumn actually arrives, but for the time being its warm enough.

Its been ten weeks since I had by course of B12 injections, so Friday was the day of the next booster, so as I had to go into town, why not try to have a haircut?

In order to save money, I park on a side street near the polic station where its free, and you can leave the car for two hours. Time enough for a barnet mangle.

I walked past Maison Dieu, and decided I would go into the fist barber that had a free chair.

I hadn't reached Specsavers when I came on a new place. I went in, and although he wasn't as thorough as the others, saved me a walk and twenty minutes.

And only fourteen quid.

I came back home for an hour, had a brew, before going back into town to park outside ASDA.

I walked through to the surgery, checked in and went upstairs. Two minutes later, I was called.

Suzzanne asked if I was OK, jabbed my arm, and I was done.

Back out to the car, then into ASDA to check on their new craft beers, but as the shop is quite small, they had none. But over the car park, Morrisons also should have a new selection in.

I went over, and they did. I bought eight cans: porters, stouts and DIPAs, paid an left.

That was the appointments out of the way, so went back via Reach Road, along the cliffs, then through the village and back home.

More sitting in the garden followed.

I read, watch the birds until Jools returned from the library.

More sitting in the garden followed.

The afternoon grew warm, almost hot. Too hot for cats it seemed, and then the sun began to sink in the west, the warmth seeping away.

And then came the Manchester City news, so I watched the storm as it grew and grew.

For the evening, I listened to Radio 5 with headphones on, sitting on the patio as the near full moon rose, silvery-white, hanging just above the horizon.

I sipped some red wine as I listened, and Scully slept on beside me.

On Citeh

At about three yesterday afternoon, I saw a post on BlueSky that said Manchester City had been found guilty on 114 of the 115 charges brought by the Premier League in early 2023.

These comprise of:

54 x failure to provide accurate financial information from 2009-10 to 2017-18.

14 x failure to provide accurate details for player and manager payments from 2009-10 to 2017-18.

5 x failure to comply with Uefa's rules including financial fair play (FFP) 2013-14 to 2017-18.

7 x breaching Premier League profit and sustainability (PSR) rules from 2015-16 to 2017-18.

35 x failure to co-operate with Premier League investigations from December 2018 to Feb 2023.

My thoughts:

1. Failure to provide accurate financial information could be the most problematic. Filing incorrect or inaccurate financial accounts is a serious matter in business, and those responsible are barred from being company directors, or worse could receive a visit from the Fraud Squad.

2. Failure to provide accurate drails for player and manager payments will alert HMRC, who will be reading the report, when it comes out, carefully.

3. It is any organisations primary obligation to obey laws, rules, regulations and other requirements for it to operate. Saying it did not agree to the regulation in the Premier League at the time isn't a defence.

4. The club has always denied any wrongdoing, even when there is clear evidence to say otherwise. Chelsea had a fine for some, though not as many, breaches, reduced to a financial penalty of £10m. Manchester City have done the opposite, tried to delay and delay any investigation. The 35 charges relating to failure to co-operate show that.

5. If the club are thrown out of the Premier League once the appeal process is completed, where should they end up? Unless there is an additional promotion place for the Championship, then dropping them into the EFL should be refused. This is a Premier League matter only anyway.

6. 114 charges, at say a penalty of 10 points for each offence means a points deduction of 1,140 points. I'm not sure if stripping titles and tropies is in scope, or appropriate, but then my team didn't lose to a team that had cheated and then covered their cheating up for a decade.

Thursday 24th September 2026

Now that the spring and summer filled with holidays, church visits, hunts for orchids, and visiting 19th century fortifications are over, we have days to fill.

Doubly so with there being no football on TV, well, except for Thursday when Wales were to play Portugal, and that was live on BBC.

We were up again for six. I went down to feed the cats, only its Jools that normally feeds them, so I am alone.

I make coffee.

I had made coffee and was about to take the first sip, and that's when the cats decided I could feed them now.

NOW.

I feed them, we potter around until it was time to leave, ten to six or something.

We both get on the bike, do 50 minutes, though with no huffing and puffing, it was still humid in the gym.

And then, what?

Back home.

For a brew.

Breakfast.

Another brew.

Then a shower and a change of clothes.

I texted Jen to see when she was in so we could visit. She was off to a funeral in the afternoon, so we left then.

Jen had been given some green tomatoes. She didn't know what to do with them, so I looked online and saw that you could make salsa verde. And we had all the ingredients.

So I made the salsa, added an extra chilli as I thought it might need an extra kick. The allow it to ferment for four hours until dinner time.

I read some more, Jools fusses around her composter, and in that way the afternoon slips by.

Nachos are toasted, laden with grated cheese, then plated up. Salsa and sour cream added, and then ate.

Messily.

Yum.

Indeed.

And, the salsa was about perfect, I had added some honey, which the recipe said, but I added more, and it had bite, but not too much.

I had a one of the three remaining beers from our trip to France to wash it all down with.

And then to football.

Wales played OK, but were undone by a deflected shot. And Ronaldo walked around, had chances, but his lack of pace meant they went begging.

Wednesday 23rd September 2026

I can't remember when we bought our latest mower. Possibly four or five years ago.

Last year it stopped working, and I, the engineer, tried to fix it.

I did not fix it.

Jools said we should take it to the lawnmower repair man in Whitfied.

I tried to fix it again, and failed.

Turned out that the fuel had gone stale, as I only use the mower two or three times a year, so drained the old fuel out, tightened everything up and sold me special fuel at twenty five quid a gallon.

But the mower fires first time, and works well.

I never used the collecting box, it all looked rather complicated, and maybe I though manual labour cleansed my soul.

Or something.

With the equinox falling at six minutes past midnight, and the day was to to be warm and sunny, I thought I would "do" the lawnmeadow.

After a lay in to six, coffee, and lazing around. Jools went to her class, and was now going to go to a different craft club so to taxi for Jill along the street as her dementia is too much for those who used to drive her about.

So, when she left at quarter to ten, I got the mower out, took ten minutes to attach the box, then dropped it down two notches and gave it a good going over.

No manual scarifying for me, I now have an electric one. So ran that over next, dragging the dried thatch to the surface, before finally mowing again, collecting the thatch with no raking needed.

I was done by half eleven, and the machines put away, the clippings in the bin, and sipping on iced squash when Jools came home.

It looked great, almost lawn-like.

All I have to do now is wait for next week's rain, and the day before, sow or broadcast the seeds, then let nature do her work over the winter, and hope for a fine display next spring.

Other than that, not much happened. I read more of the book in the afternoon sitting beside a gently snoring Scully.

In the hedge I saw a Blackcap, and two Chiff-chaffs came hopping up the path only to see me, then fly away in a panic.

Leftovers for dinner, and squash.

And a football-free evening to relax in, and sit on the patio to watch the fuller gibbous moon rise through the clouds over France.

All rather nice, really.

Tuesday 22nd September 2026

My brain and body woke me at half four, so I was first up and downstairs.

No cats!

So I make coffee for me and herbal tea for Jools, and as I was about to take the first sip, then came the cats.

Test and jab Scully, then feed her and the other three.

By which time Jools is down, and we are actually ahead of schedule.

I am off to the gym at six, and have ten minutes to kill, so go to Tesco just to scout the fuel prices, as the Duke of Yorks petrol is now £1.80 a litre, Tesoco is sixpence cheaper, so there's that.

On Thanet, its another twelve pence cheaper still. That's competition for you.

I go to the sports centre, wait five minutes, then go to wait by the entrance, with the other gym rats and kids going to the pool, as there's another gala on the weekend.

I do my forty minutes, and happy with that, back downstairs to cool down, then back home so Jools has the car.

Once home there is a fresh big brew waiting, which I drink sitting on the patio with Scully. Again.

Jools leaves for her classes, I have breakfast, then a shave and shower, so all fresh for the day.

I start to read the new book on churchcrawling, and so the morning slips by.

Jools is back for half eleven, and comes with spicy lamb samosas for lunch, which go down well.

And into afternoon, more of the same: alternating between reading, writing and editing yet more shots from the trip to France. I am now at the end of the second day with those.

We have an early dinner, tidy up, then have the whole evening to make our own, but with little football around, we end up going to bed just after eight, with the gibbous waxing moon hanging in the sky to the south east.

At six minutes past one, the autumn equinox passed, but I slept on.

Nine and seven years ago

Nine years ago, Mum lay in a bed in the new Norfolk and Norwich Hospital waiting for a free bed at the old Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, after another heart attack, it was decided that mere stints now were man enough for the job, but something called a cabbage was needed.

This, the doctors would later tell me, give Mum the oxygen she needed, and so could gain a full life again, able to walk, get out of the house and so on.

Seven years ago, two short years later, that chance of a new life was wasted, and Mum was five days from death.

After the operation at Papworth, they made her walk, every day, and until she met the minimum requirement, she would not be allowed to leave.

She did the minimum, not a step more.

Then back at the James Paget Hospital, she could not be discharged until a care package in place. This was outsourced, and to make their job easier, and more risk-aversed, Mum had a catheter fitted and was discouraged from walking by herself to the toilet, twenty steps away.

So, after an operation designed to give her a new life, the system then set up a situation in which she would move even less.

The eating of Pringles and boiled sweets, smoking again meant that her situation was even worse.

In July 2019, some two months before her death, her social worker and myself tried to persuade her to move into sheltered housing, made difficult by her use of equity release. But she was having none of it.

She stayed.

Her cleaner, and former geriatric nurse, tld me MUm was in the final stage soon after. I doubted Sheila, but she knew. I though Mum had strong genes. She did, but had used them up.

To read each day, from my old blogs, the oportinity the cabbage offered, and then the total waste of time it was on her, is heartbreaking.

Her final word on deciding against moving into a home is that all her health issues had been "cured".

The last chance ship sailed that day.

So it goes, so it goes.