Sunday 24th September 2017

And as there was absolutely nothing to do, or get up really early for, I was wide awake at five in the morning, listening to the sounds outside, and seeing if I could sense when the morning was coming. Even the cats slept on.

But dawn did come and it was time to get up, feed the cats and have the first coffee of the morning. And after checking in the interwebs, sit on the sofa to watch the fooball, in the hope Milly who has been acting a bit strange lately, might come and sit with me. I say strange, I guess it is fair to say that she has mellowed in her old age, and is now quite sociable, bears to be picked up. In fact sometimes seems to demand it, likes having her shoulders rubbed hard. She closes her eyes and dribbles at this sometimes.

Midway through the football, I pause it and go to make breakfast; proper butties made with butchers bacon, cut so thick the rashers appeared to be gammon slices, not smoked streaky. Needless to say they made butties to die for, and wonderful to go back on the sofa with a huge brew and watch the end of the football.

By which point it was a fine days outside; clear blue skies, no breeze and unbroken sunshine. Perfect autumnal morning, so best make the most of it, and in a change from what you thought, we both worked in the garden until lunchtime. Jools deadheaded and then replaced plants, planted bulbs. Whilst I raked the lawn, or what we hope will be a meadow come this time next year. But it is hard work, and I manage to get blisters on both hands, and work up an appetite come lunchtime.

Some crusty bread and jam sorted the hunger out.

And then back into the garden to finish raking the lawn, before finally getting the mower out to give it one last cut and to hoover up the last bits of dried grass and moss. I decided I deserved a cold beer, so I do. Jools has iced squash, and we survey the work we have done. But back in the living room to listen to the footy, I snooze on the sofa after one tiddly bottle of Wobbly. But I do wake up to make coffee for us, then edit some shots as the game on the radio played out. In the end Brighton scored the only goal, but really I had long since lost interest as I prepared finest fillet steak, garlic mushrooms, fresh corn and chips. And needless to say, it was wonderful. We listened to Desert Island Discs at the same time as we ate.

It seemed odd not to have Mum call on Sunday night, but she is now in a place where she will be monitored. And that is the end of the weekend, nothing really exciting, just stuff. But the garden looks lovely!