Friday 22nd June 2018

We used to ave an expression in the Air Force, that on Friday afternoon, a volunteer or pressed man would act as "trade cover" for all armanent issues so the other lads could go home early and either start drinking or take to the highways and byways of Merrie England to see their friends and families.

So the trade cover, duty armourer and duty NCO would wait in the ESA offices until five, when we could be certain that no aircraft had crashed, and no Foreign Secretary had declared war, and would could all go home.

And always. Always, on Friday afternoon, once the three of us would be having our thirteenth coffee of the afternoon the phone would rig, and all hell would break loose.

Don't believe me?

Once, a USAF convoy of nuclear missiles had been involved in a road accident in Kings Lynn, the police asked us what should they do.

Another time, as a result of a pyramid or Ponzi scheme going belly up and the country descending into chaos, the RAF had to evacuate all UK citizens from Albania, could I withdraw 75 9mm pistols from the armoury?

Or the time the station tannoy announced an emergency state 3 (aircraft down), and the duty NCO said to me, if that was the case there'd be a huge plume of smoke. We go outside the piquet post and see, a large plume of black smoke.

Oh dear.

Anyway, the point of this is that Friday afternoon, when the boss has gone home for the weekend, is when the shit hits the fan. And still does.

It is, at least Friday, and once we get to five, we can forget about work for two whole day. That is if our brain lets us.

It is a glorious day, but then the World Cup is on, so I try to balance things out in going out when I can, but then being a hostage to the beautiful game. Saying that, Friday night's games were not too tempting, so sci fi and Monty were planned.

Our garden is filling out well, so full of colour and the fruit hidden away in deep foliage, is ripening. All good stuff.

The cats are spending almost the whole day out, because of the heat, so leaving me with the house to myself, and actually able to concentrate, which is nice.

Jools comes back at four, now with a heart monitor strapped to her, as a result of her mini-stroke diagnosis from a month or so back. But she seems fine, and is just to untick some boxes.

We have salad, southern fried chicken, which is not covered with a special blend of twelve herbs and spices; not a three quid for four anyway. Which means once we have eaten and tidied up, we could retire to the sofa for the evening for two episodes of The Expanse, sandwiching The Don.

Perfect.

Now the weekends.