Sunday 6th November 2016

Sunday, and as I wake I realise I have seven more such mornings with no work tomorrow. That is a good thought. With it not getting light until near seven now, it is easy to lay in bed, watching the room gradually emerge from darkness, and with Scully asleep beside my should, a gentle purring is created by gently stroking her head.

Jools gets up, and the cats all follow her. I lay for a bit more until I can hear the coffee put being put on. Time to get up.

The not so clever box had failed to record the footy, but it worked out OK as it was repeated at twenty to eight, but that means a late breakfast once it had finished. Anyway, a perfect start to Sunday morning, while outside the sun shone on our wreck of a back garden. I say wreck, as work has begun on the remodeling of it; the tree stump took two days to get out of the ground, and with the grass cleared from where the new paved area is to be laid, and then on that, the new cabin which will look back at the house, and the Footballer's Wives fountain, bought over three years ago.

In order to enable that to happen, the shed had to be emptied before being moved to the west side of the garden, and so to be moved, must be emptied. And so despite putting it off for 24 hours, like a cod piece as big as a royal barge, there was no avoiding it!

SO for an hour we took out yet more stuff stored since we moved into the house; deckchairs, tents, patio cleaners, paint, cat baskets, unused tiles and so much, much more. The patio at the top of the garden is now full of stuff, open to the elements as the BBC has promised us at least 24 hours of Biblical rainfall. It all looked ok, all piled up and a ready made cat assault course, of course.

Lunchtime comes round and we have another slice of the increasingly hard victoria sponge Jools made, all good with a huge brew of course. And then on the radio was football. The North London Derby, then some other games. It was OK, but a poor way to spend the afternoon, but then as predicted, the clouds rolled in and the rain began to fall.

Night time came an hour early, and rain hammered against the windows at the back of the house. At halftime in the Leicester game, I begin to prepare dinner; aged t-bones steaks, chips, mushrooms. And a bottle of fizz.

And it was better than good. We end up stuffed, as are Leicester as the lose 2-1 to WBA, and the radio can be switched off, so we can listen to the rain outside. Already the cats were showing signs of cabin fever, fighting among themselves.