Sunday 18th February 2018

Another glorious early spring day in the Garden of England. We thought it couldn’t be better than Saturday, but I think it was. Although, we had no churchcrawling planned. I could have, but there were chores to do.

We laid in until nearly eight, random cats came wandering round the bedroom, one suspects to check if we were alive.

But we did get up, have an emergency coffee, and go out to survey the work needed. The guys made a great job of the path, but their remit did not stretch to clearing up; so there was two piles of turf and a huge pile of top soil to be cleared from the grass.

It was frosty and chilly, but the sun was already up, noticeably now rising further east with each dawn as the year progresses.

We do the easy bit first, pick up the turf, lay it in the barrow and take it to the compost heap.

Come nine, we were hungry, so I go to grill bacon and make brews, the heat from the grill, coupled with the sunshine made it warm, nay hot, in the kitchen, making me turn the heating off lest I melt.

And once eaten, we go back out to clear the pile of topsoil, shovel it into tubs and transport those to the midden too. In an hour or so, it is done and so is my back. But there is still dead foliage to clear away from the beds, and it is done. Anyway, it is quite chilly once we stop and have a brew sitting on the patio.

At twelve, however, I stop work as there was a football match to listen to. Not a football match, but the football match; Norwich v Ipswich. The lustre has come off the fixture as both teams are in a bit of a slump, but saying that, if either teams put a run together, the play offs are a handful of points away.

Town dominate the first half, but don’t really trouble the Norwich goal. Second half roles are reversed, as City were on top, have two shots turned over, but looked like it was heading to a draw. But with a minute of normal time remaining, Town score.

Bugger.

All I can hear on the radio as the game slipped into injury time were the chants of their fans enjoying themselves. They had not beaten us since 2009, and nine games.

One last charge by City, and a cross is swing in, and Timm Klose heads it past their keeper. It was the 95th minute. Jools heard my shout of joy in the garden, with the back door closed.

A few seconds later and the game was over, honours shared and City unbeaten, Yay!

And then there was football on the telly; FA Cup, Rochdale v Spurs, and the game was excellent; Dal took the lead, then as they tired, Spurs scored twice and that was that. Until the last minute and a good cross was volleyed in to make it 2-2.

The crowd went wild.

The day was over by now, dark outside, so I make some potato bread to go with the insalata, which we wash down with a bottle of home made wine.

Time to catch another episode of Altered Carbon, and that was that. Weekend over.

Again.