Tuesday 16th January 2017

It is a sad fact that after several weeks of exercise, your mind is telling you that you should now be a racing snake, all fit as a fiddle, able to blow bubbles for half an hour or more, several days a week. It is something of a shock then when you catch a side reflection of yourself and are deflated at the lack of progress and how on earth you got into this shape. But we press on, trying to do our best. But then, rest days are as important as ones on which we phys, and Tuesday was a rest day. It is somewhat optimistic to think I would be motivated enough to do a session when I get up and before work. Might happen. Might not, though.

I am so tired these days, its the hedgehog in me that wants to hibernate, it can't be the amount of phys I do. But I sleep well, and sometimes fail to hear the alarm.

Like on Tuesday.

I hear Jools making her snap and boiling the kettle, so I get up and go down.

It is going to be a fine day, looking out back the sky is so dark blue it is nearly black, but there is a light strip along the horizon that turns orange and the sky begins to light up. I put out some food in the back garden, as the crows and magpies come to feed. It don't last long once they see it, but I can stand by the sink drinking my tea watching up to a dozen magpies. And what they miss and leave behind, the blackbirds and robins peck over during the day. All free entertainment, if I had time to watch. But there is just time to make breakfast before it is time to go and start work.

There is the list of things to do, which I intended to get working on, but as ever there is something else that seems to be more important, and the list remains undone. I decide that on Wednesday, I would set Skype to "do not disturb", no open Outlook until I had cracked the back of the most important.

A plan. At last.

We had run out of milk, so I had to walk to the shop before lunch, and with it being a rest day, I thought I would go the long way round to Fleet House, down the Dip, and back into the village along Kingsdown Road. A good plan. And I knew it would be muddy due the rain on Monday, but I went anyway, with my walking boots on, two cameras and an extra layer of clothes as the wind was set in the south west.

It was easy going out over the fields, what vegetation beside the path had either been cleared or the wind had blown to smithereens, so there was just a muddy smear to follow between the tussock grass. There were still no pigs in the copse, nor sheep in the lower paddock.

The bottom of the Dip was very wet and muddy, and the path around it was partially blocked by an ivy bush that had been blown over, but I get through and begin the climb up the other side. I would have been OK if my back wasn't painful, not so out of breath, not needing so many breaks, but my back let me know its thoughts on the matter.

At the top I looked for any flowers, I found no primroses, but there were a few leaf rosettes; not long now. Not long now until Spring and the return of the orchids.

The walk along the lane was long, into the wind, though not that strong, it was cool and made me glad of the work jumper I had put on. Here and there were a few Red Valarian, still in bloom, but no moths or butterflies about to feast upon their nectar.

Into the shop to get a pint of milk, and some crisps. And that is all, no ice cream. Not today.

And then down the hill, past the new house and up the otherside to home, where I find I had been gone over an hour. I check mails, and nothing much, so I make lunch, ham sandwiches with crisps and a good strong brew.

Lovely

. And back to work, with the cats being quiet and sleepy, I can get on doing whatever it was I did yesterday. Heck, can't remember what I did this afternoon, but whatever it was, kept me at it until four.

No phys to do, so I write, edit some shots and then begin to prepare dinner; steak and ale pie with the remaining veg from Sunday. Almost like a midweek roast, and all them vegetables. Jools was delayed by traffic, for no reason there were four mile queues to get into town, and no way of turning round, so she sat listening to the radio, but called to let me know.

Dinner eaten, we have a coffee, and I listen to some footy, going to lay on and then in the bed for the second half. I fall asleep and wake up with the game into extra time. Jools was already snoring, so I get up, brush my teeth and am back in bed, the radio off without me knowing who won.