Tuesday 11th June 2017

Tuesday and all is well.

The day started out fine, warm and dry, but later, clouds were to build and be heavy rain by evening. Standing at the back door when the morning sun shines over the hedge to the east falls on the poppies and other flowers in the old raspberry beds, lighting up the bees and other insects feasting on the fresh pollen and nectar. However, I am not so busy at that hour, I need coffee, lots of strong fresh coffee, and maybe in an hour will be ready for work in an hour or so.

Cats are out and about, occasionally bringing me a fat mouse or shrew. What more could a happy quality manager want? Indeed.

As you can tell, time spent at home soons falls into very much a routine, and thinking back, I believe this is the longest period spent at home without business travel for at least three, maybe nearly four years. I literally don't know what to do with myself. But then there is alway work to immerse myself in.

Breakfast, more coffee and start work, cats are asleep upstairs, and I am nearly 1/3rd of the way though the document I am turning into a spreadsheet. It is dull and repeatative, but at the end I will have created a useful data source, I hope. Just hope people see that.

I work the morning through, dealing with the single e mail I receive, and batting that volley back over the net, before lunch, and then retiring to the sofa in the afternoon to watch Le Tour. I can multi task, and do a surprising amount of wok whilst the peloton chases the breakaway to Bergerac. Molly joins me on the sofa, happy to lay beside and gently purr, however gets bored and wanting to be fed, walks across the computer keyboard, changing the database and needed undoing.

THere is a long ride through the country, and then a sprint into the city centre and a photo finish. And all is over.

At the weekend we had ended up visiting a massive Roman villa, as you do, at Lullingstone, and from the English Heritage shop I bought a jar of gooseberry jam. I thought that what would be needed was some fresh bread, so Monday I make a batch of poppy seeded rolls and eat two of them, still war, smothered in soft butter and lashings of the jam.

There were more rolls for Tuesday too, and I could hear the rolls and jam calling me, so I have an early lunch, rolls warmed in the microwave, and they're almost as good as when fresh.

And for dinner I make pasta salad during the day, which means aubergine to go with them, I prepare and have them all cooked for when Jools arrives home, perfect timing. By then, the sky had clouded over and rain, the first in maybe a good two weeks and with 18 hours of it, the most significant rainfall for maybe two months. We sit down to eat with I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue on the i player. Always a good evening with a good competitive round of Mornington Crescent to listen to.

Night comes early as the rain hammers down, the drops bouncing of the flat roof of the bathroom. We end the day watching a wildlife show on what can be found on our back gardens. And so the day fades.

One of the things that did happen today, and I make an apology for not mentioning the 45th President of the United States in these posts since he was elected. Although I admit it is a disaster unfolding before our eyes, here in Britain we have our own Brexit shaped disaster unfolding, so that takes most of the attention. But on Tuesday, the son of the President, released scans of e mails showing he had met with Russian officials with the intent of them hacking the Democratic Party e mail servers. This is something that Don Jr, had denied for nearly a year, and the story changed three times in three days, but the evidence is now there.

Arranging a break in at the Democratic Party offices was enough, in the end, to bring down Richard Nixon, so what will this do? And the thought continues, if the Russians were willing to hack the Dems, would they be willing to hack voting machines in swing states to ensure victory in the electoral college? His defeat by nearly 3,000,000 million votes in the popular vote might point to that. How a system built on informing the Commander in Chief of threats to the country will react when it it the C in C and his family that are the threats is going to be fascinating to watch, but could take time, and in the meantime the GOP dismantles the structures of Government, leaving many, many posts unfilled, departments understaffed and millions of Americans without health insurance to fund tax cuts for the rich.

And it is this house of cards that May wants Britain to align with post-Brexit.