Sunday 14th November 2016

Awake at half five, and with two hours to wait for breakfast, I think in that time I could get dressed, pack and after check out be at the Tunnel in that time.

Yes, that sounds like a good idea.

I am loading the car at just gone six, looking up there is no light in the sky, seems and feels like the middle of the night.

I drive out of the car park, through Oulton Broad towards Kessingland, passing just one other car on the way. And then out in the country, driving at 60mph when I could down the twisty road south to Ipswich. There was little traffic about, so I made good time, arriving at the A14 junction in 45 minutes, and after grossing the Orwell Bridge, back on the A12 again in under an hour.

Traffic was light, the radio was on, and dawn crept over the land, cloudy, then clearing, then getting cloudy again.

I am indeed at the tunnel by half seven, meaning that home is just over an hour away. Over the bridge then turning down the A2, keeping the average speed at the speed limit.I just want to get home, so I was only thinking of getting home as quick as possible.

I pull up outside Chez Jelltex at twenty to nine, not a bad run at all. Jools is already out in the garden, painting the back wall of the garden prior to the cabin being put up. The guys had prepared the second area prior to the patio stones were being laid. Other than that, thanks to the rain, the garden is beginning to look like the Somme, but it will recover, and with most of the hard landscaping now done, we can see the end of the job.

We have coffee, talk about what we had done these past few days, and then it was time to strap the workboots on as there was a hedge to lay. Yes, a hedge.

When the tree stump was taken out, it left an eight feet gap on the hedge, so we have to replace that with some hedging. We have to dig a trench just one foot deep and wide, eight feet long, and it seems that was almost beyond us, but we laboured on, and in an hour we had the gap filled, although the plants/shrubs need to grow some.

Phew, manual labour.

And that was it for the day, even with the sun coming out and making a golden afternoon, we sit around doing our hobbies; me editing and Jools crocheting. We are joined by the cats who seems happy enough to have us about.

The afternoon passed, the sun set and the warmth of the day faded so we put the heating on.

Another week had gone by, a week off for me, gone in the blink of an eye. And tomorrow it is back to reality with the commute to Belgium.