Monday 18th November 2019

Back to the working week.

I have no travel, as yet, booked. No meetings, as far as I'm concerned.

All I have to do is get out of bed and have breakfast and be online by about eight.

And I wake up after the best night's sleep in weeks, so awake refreshed and waking to the smell of coffee brewing.

The clock says quarter to six, but the darkness outside says "middle of the night". A silvery crescent moon shines down on the back of the house. Its that time of the year.

And once Jools has gone to work, I take my lazy ass up to the spare room for another session on the cross trainer. I say another, I did 20 minutes on Sunday, and will do two on, one off until I have to travel again.

Whenever that might be.

I have the radio on, and as day creeps over the land, the rays of the rising sun flood into the kitchen and rest of the back of the house. I have seen the glory of the coming of the day. And it is magnificent.

A warmth spreads round the house. Or it might be the central heating kicking in.

Breakfast is fruit and yoghurt and more coffee, making me feel almost human again. Almost.

And then to work.

Get out the big screen, the additional keyboard and the laptop. Connect them all up, and try to log on for the first time in a week.

Windows updates.

And then to work.

I file the e mails that have crash landed, and file all but one as SEPs. Someone else's problems. And think about to deal with the one i can.

Skype reveals I am online, so friends and colleagues call me to see how things are. An hour passes.

Two hours pass.

I make a brew.

Make come toast.

I sit at the table and stare at my inbox, but no mails come in.

I take a sip of tea and eat more toast.

Well, this is exciting.

I put the radio on, and dance round the living room. Mulder, sleeping on the footstool looks concerned.

I sip more tea.

And its like this the rest of the day until three, when I have to walk to the surgery to collect my tablets. Nothing serious, blood pressure and cholesterol.

So, I put my coat on, grab my camera and set off down the street then down Station Road into the village.

No flowers in bloom to snap, just the long shadows and warm light caused by the low sun, setting in the west.

I walk up the hill into the village, then through the back lanes past the pond where someone was feeding the ducks, not with bread, but with seeds.

We pass the time of the day. I mean with the woman feeding the ducks, not the ducks. Only cats talk!

And I walk on to the surgery where I get the tablets and turn round for home.

The sun was setting, choildren were being collected from school, many by parents in cars, parking in dangerous places on the back lanes, as they live in Dover or elsewhere. Back in the day, local kids went to local schools. Now parents drive their kids miles to a school, rather than all schools be good.

Its all mad.

One parent comes round the corner in the path, not really a road, doing more than 10mph and she is annoyed I was in the way. Its a fucking footpath to a school and its end of school time!

Some people.

I arrive home safe and sound, but with an achy back.

I make a brew, then think about making dinner.

Or don't. As Jools as a yoga class, so I can chill and sit on the sofa and ignore the cats who want feeding.

Now, here is a true story. I get back home and Mulder is staring at the record shelves. I look down, and there is a mouse. A mouse, I guess, he has dropped.

The mouse is quite happy. I mean he's not dead.

I point at the mouse and suggest to Mulder he might catch it.

We watch the mouse run across the living room floor, to the other corner, along the skirting board. I get a towel to catch it, but he is gone. Mulder hasn't moved, and instead suggest I feed him a kitty kibble for being so clever.

I chase him out of the house.

Dinner is a tray of party food. Quick and easy, and I time its cooking to the second as to when Jools arrives home.

I divide the food up and we sit down in the living room to eat. It's twenty past seven. Needless to say, outside it is dark and the moon is thinking about rising again.

Soon, we are both tired, so are going to bed shortly after nine, another day done.