Thursday 1st December 2016

First day of the month.

Last month of the year.

Another day at home. Life is good.

December dawned cold and bright, no clouds to hide the dawn. And the clouds the BBC said would soon roll over to warm the day up failed to appear, and so I stood at the window in the kitchen watching the sun rise, and when it did, the dirt on the windows diffused to create a wall of yellow and orange light. I stand there sipping my second coffee of the day, reflecting on my luck in having a job that either requires me to travel, staying in good hotels and eating in restaurants, or working from home.

Meow.

Behind me, one of the cats wants either food, attention or "something else". I am here to serve our feline overlords after all.

Thursday is bin collection day, so first job is to wheel the bins to the top of the drive, lest we be left out. Anyway, along the street, neat lines of bins are placed, ours now joining them. Above me there is chirping as assorted sparrows and blackbirds and starlings remind me not to forget them either. I don't, and as I am putting the seeds out, a sparrow flies by me to land on the wall to wait, flying so close to me, I could feel the air disturbance caused by its wings.

But this isn't getting work done, I have a meeting at the crack of eight, so armed with nothing more than a fresh coffee, I power up the laptop, update my overview sheet for the meeting. And wait.

And so the day begins, with meeting. And another meeting. And updating documents. And writing mails and all the other things that drives the modern project. The day passes, the sun passes over the yardarm, and I think about having the first G&T and to make sure I don't get the vapours or come over all un-necessary. I have a home made smoothie instead and so make sure I get all of my five a day.

The sun sets away in the west, hidden behind houses on our side of the street, and the down on the other side of Station Road and out of the back window, the sun turns pink, then red and finally to black.

No Scotch Eggs for us tonight, no I make breaded pork with cous cous, which is much better than it sounds. Especially with the half bottle of red I supped as we ate. Lovely.

There is TOTP from 1982, Boy George's first appearance on TV in Culture Club as they substituted for Shakin' Stevens was ill. How the history of popular music could have been so different? He looked happy when he finished. The less said about Survivor and Fat Larry's Band the better. Ahem, chiz.