Wednesday 30th September 2015

Tuesday

As always, the start of a new day is always much better after something close to ten hours great sleep. Outside, there is a glorious sunrise, with orange on the horizon, and the few flecks of clouds and contrails already lit by the sun which was still below the horizon. Jools had got up without disturbing me, and came in with a mug of fresh coffee. Yes, I felt better, altough my chest was full of crap and I easily was out of breath, but I did feel human again.

She is ready for work, I am not. My head is full of wool, but in a good way that comes after a fine night's sleep, even if you are hemmed in my slumbering cats. She leaves, so I go downstairs, check on the interwebs to see if mankind is still doomed. It is, but no more than the day before. Not for the first time that day, a cats says meow.

I make another coffee, have breakfast and begin the day of catch up, as I lost five hours the day before. Thankkfully, the sky was not falling in there either, and within a couple of hours I was all up to day, and had time to do the first task of the day: make a pan of soup. Making it up as I went along, I sweated some onions and garlic, cut up half a butternut squash, added two pints of stock, whisked it up when the squash was soft, and i have a bowl of soup. It even tasted good, which is always nice.

To go with the soup, I made some poppy seed rolls, and left them to rise.

And after the final meeting ended at half two, I got on with making the second Christmas cake of the week. It has been a year since I made one, but I think I remember how. Even if it comes out wrong, who cars? CAKE! And once all was mixed in and the mixture poured into a double lines tin, popped int he ovem and the smell of the all spice filled the house. Soon mixed in with the smell of the cooking rolls too. How clever I am said Jelltex, how cleaver am I?

Indeed.

I even had time to squeeze in a little bit of shed repairs, as the roof is always problematic. Jools had bought some skyhooks, or something, and this drilled through the roof, attached the roof firmly to the shed. It might even last the winter. Stranger things have happened.

I warmed the soup through, buttered a couple of the rolls, and dinner was ready when Jools came home, and very nice it was too. The cake was ready at half seven, and I left that in the oven to cool over night.

I listened to the football on the radio, not expecting much entertainment, but with Arsenal ending up losing 3-2 to Olympiakos, and Chelski losing ay Porto, there is now a crisis in the Prem, apparently. NOne too soon saythe rest of us. Jools and I crack jokes through the second half, as Arse get ever more desperate, and concede within a minute of equalising. Now, that is funny, right? Jools begs the radio to be switched off as the inquests begin, and Mr Angry of Tonbridge Wells rings in to offer his point of view. I smile my way to bed. As you do.

One last thing to say is that this was the day of the mouse. Or mice. Two dead mice in the morning, Molly brought in two during the day. And in the evening I managed to catch two more in the humane trap, and another one over night. Now, I thought that cats were supposed to keep the house from being mouse-free, not, as it turned out, cats bring the mice in, and me, the human, do the mouse catching, putting them outside. No?