Monday 8th August 2016

I had been hit square on by a freight train. I lay on my bed just aching. All over.

I had been up many times during the night, so many times Scully had given up and slept on my dressing gown instead of beside me on the bed.

Jools was already up, feeding the cats and making coffee. I do make it down stairs and must have cut a pathetic figure. I felt like one for sure.

Coffee did not help.

Neither did the thought of work.

But first I had to drive Jools to work at we had an appointment with a financial advisor after work, and the only way we could make it was by me picking her up from work, and then driving to Canterbury. I have to take her to the bus station, then drive home. Which at half six in the morning was straightforward.

So idiot, me, had arranged a meeting for half seven, so armed with another coffee I switch on my work computer only to find all had declined the meeting. I rearrange it. And they all decline again. I rearrange it once more, then once it is declined I give up.

I struggle on through mails and calls until it reaches eleven, and I hit a wall. A brick wall. I set the out of office message and take to the sofa, and lay there fore three hours staring at the ceiling.

At four I have to go out and drive to Hythe to pick up Jools. I'd rather I didn't have to go, but no choice. Saying that, I was feeling a little better, and things were more solid. But I still wasn't hungry. At least until I had left the house. And then I was hungry, but it was too late.

So, I drove into town, back up Military Hill and back down the other side and then up the A20, accelerating up Shakespeare Cliffe on my way to Folkestone. I had the radio on, which made the afternoon somewhat better.

At least with the schools being on holiday there aren't the evening rush hour queues, and we get out of Hythe quick, then go up Stone Street, past the places earlier in Spring I used to haunt looking for orchids. Then up to Chartham, past where Jools used to work on the outskirts of Canterbury, round the ring road and up the the university. We did get held up, but that was at the level crossing, and any chance to see a train is good, right?

We arrive at the offices, ring the guy, so he lets us in and we talk for an hour about pensions and retirement. We are looking at giving up work in a few years, and so have to have enough money to be able to do this. It seems we might just have enough to reduce hours for one of us in a couple of years. We shall see.

We drive back through the near deserted city, back out to the A2 and home. It is a golden evening, and I am hungry like I have not eaten in an age. Not the 25 hours it had been. But at least all we had to do was get the pasta and aubergine out of the fridge, then boil the kettle for brews, as beer or wine would not have been sensible. And the food tasted like manner from heaven. Cold pasta and left over breaded vegtables should not be s glorious. But they were.

I have a shower, and feel exhausted. It is already half eight, and bed beckons. Best call it quits whilst I'm still breathing.

A year ago it was the school reunion in my hometown. Many familiar, if older, faces. It was good, but I have no desire now to repeat it, as there seems to be another one in the offing. I'll pass on that I think. I have nothing against them all, but the past is just that. Lets live in the present.