Wednesday 18th January 2017

Days like these make you wonder why you ever bothered getting out of bed. Heck, maybe even coming down from the trees was a mistake. Maybe we should never have left the oceans? Yup, worked sucked, sucked like a nuclear powered vacuum cleaner. And there was no escape; not with mobile phones, Skype et al. Bugger.

But it all started out so well, waking up with the dawn creeping up the southern hemisphere of the sky, but it did look cold. Jools made coffee, and I sat in my dressing gown sipping and checking on the interwebs. Outside, to the south, the sky was criss-crossed with contrails. I thought I had better snap the scene lest it not be recorded.

I have breakfast, more coffee and put the radio on so to easy myself into the working day. The radio burbles away, the sun rises and birds feed on the seeds I had just put out. All seemed well with the world, although there were lots of mails and calls to deal with.

There was no dinner to prepare, as we were to have the Scotch Eggs that I made the day before, so easy day! No?

Well, just after lunch, I thought I needed some fresh air, as when I thought about it, I had been in the house mostly since Friday, with just the trip to Tesco to break things up. So, why not go for a walk?

Why not, indeed?

So I put on my new fleece which Jools bought me, as apparently I looked a tramp in my old one. I mean, I've only had it 15 years, plenty more life in it yet. Anyway, I took my compact camera instead of the DSLR, it does a trick in bright weather. So off I set.

And it was bracing outside, but not a breath of wind, and with most people away at work, so the street was almost empty of cars. Across the fields, there was nothing to stop what breeze there was. Underfoot, the ground was as hard as iron, puddles were frozen solid, and yet with the sun still low in the sky, it had some warmth in its light.

Through the narrow passageway past the small paddock and then out into Collingwood Road down to Fleet House and the Pig's Copse. Needless to say, there are no pigs there yet, not even the large sow. The horse's paddocks all had horses, all wearing coats or jackets, nibbling at the stunted grass. My back was playing up, only to be expected I suppose, so instead of going down the dip or up to Windy Ridge, I turned round and walked into the rays of the stting sun along Collingwood Road, going along the top of the field which I had walked out along the bottom of.

Back home I made a huge fresh brew, at which point I found that I had several missed calls and text messages. Oh my word, always something to come and blindside us, and this was one of those occasions. So, problem to deal with, problems which two years ago I would have slept on for at least one night, but now, think about things and act. Make calls, write mails.

It got sorted within an hour, and with Denmark an hour ahead, colleagues went offline, and in the end I could too.

At four, I went out again to snap the sunset from the top of Station Road. I decided that I could get a view from the fields over to the horizon, or if not the horizon, see far enough to see the sun get redder and dimmer as it sunk lower in the sky.

I get my shots, then walk back down the hill, or halfway down it, back to home in the gathering gloom of a winter's evening.

I crack open a bottle of the Christmas ale, put the radio on and watched the sky go to pink to dark blue and finally to black as night came.

Scotch Eggs and beer for dinner, along with come radio comedy and each other's company, of course.

Norwich were playing in the cup, so I decide to keep away from the computer and lay in bed listening to the game on the radio. And it was dreadful fare, City failed to register a shot on goal in the whole game, but lost to the only goal in the 2nd minute of injury time. So the dream is over for yet another year.