Friday 4th November 2016

And at last, Friday dawns. Or would do by the time I packed, showered, dressed, checked out, had breakfast and drove to the office.

It was a clear morning as I sat in the breakfast room, as usual watching the little old lady do her morning rounds inspecting closely each thing on offer before returning to her table. By that time, I had eaten my fruit, split, buttered and covered a roll with Nutella.

I am done, and ready for the final three or so hours in the office, dealing with stuff.

The offices are full of people, because the weather is supposed to get bad, and so no one is going offshore. I get down to work, and drinking coffee, whilst the Hungarian cleaners tries his best to clean around us as we are calling in on meetings.

But eleven comes round, I have three hours to get down to Calais, allowing for possible queues at immigration, should be on time.

Clouds rolled in as I turned south towards France, drizzle bean to fall, and driving stopped being a pleasure. But, I made good time, reaching the border in half an hour, then blasting down to Calais at mostly 130 kmh, zipping past trucks and lorries, just wanting the weekend to start.

At the tunnel, there was queues at the British border, but not too bad, and I am through in ten minutes, stopping off at the lounge for lunch and coffee. I make to board the 13:20 train, queuing up at the barrier before being allowed to file onto the train, trundling down to the far end of the train, parking up and getting out to stretch my legs as the train is made ready to depart.

The train eases out of the terminal, so gently its hardly noticeable. But once in the tunnel it rocks and sways, with the suspension on the car amplifying it. All enough to make my eyes droop, even with Nigel Molesworth trying his best to entertain me.

And we emerge into the grey afternoon in Folkestone, but an hour earlier than when we left, which is nice.

Off the train, over the bridge and take the off ramp to the A20 rather than the motorway, doubling back towards the sea before taking the road up the Alkham Valley as I had some goods for Dad. Or Jools' Dad.

It is some months since I had been to the old folks' place, and Tony was trying to get right of an invertor salesman. As you do when you're in your 70s I suppose. THankfully, the salesman takes my arrival as his sign to leave, meaning I get Tony's second hand smoke all to myself. Yay.

He is poorly, what with one thing and another, and with his dodgy valves in his leg, ulcers and the such, means that the infection he now has will take a long time to clear up. He even showed my his infection, which was not so nice. Thankfully, Jools comes along to rescue me, or to follow me down to the docks to drop off the car so we could both go home, and the weekend begin.

We arrive home to indifference from the cats; but the good news is that Mulder is much better.

Jools took him to the vet on Monday and he was given a shot and a course of pills, and straight away started to demand food. And more food. He spent the day at the vets, and is shaven in for places, and in himself looks a little shabby still, but he can bounce now and jump up onto the work surfaces.

We have fish and chips for dinner, just about all I can be bothered to have to be honest, and by now the rain had begun to fall hard, it did mean Jools had to go out into it and the traffic, and queue for freshly fried fish. Anyway, she is back by six, and we are tucking into a fine dinner. Perfect.

For the evening, we watched another Scandic Noir thing, Department Q, needless to say a murder mystery thing, but one that only took 90 minutes to tell its tale.