Thursday 23rd April 2020

St George's Day

And a rest day.

Which is nice.

It means I can be extra relaxed in the morning. LAy an extra ten minutes in bed, but there were chores to do. After coffee, I put out the bins, put out the seedlings from the shed, water them too.

And before you know it is time to start work again.

There is the usual early meeting, while we finish our coffees, swapping news and gossip, and mainly comparing the weather in various parts of Jutland and Kent.

Outside it is a glorious day here, the wind had dropped, and was much warmer.

Which was also nice.

I have to go to the doctors for my quarterly assessment as to whether I needs the pills I'm on. So I set out to walk over the fields and then down the Dip to the village.

I see little of any additional interest that I saw at the weekend.

There is a queuing system outside the surgery, I go in and am seen by the doctor, though I am at one end of the room and he behind the desk. He looks at me and says I have lost weight by still need the meds. The dispensary tells me that they don't have the drugs and I will have to come back in the morning after nine.

Bugger.

So, I walk down the Dip, and go straight on, heading for Windy Ridge, even if my back had been complaining for a god twenty minutes already.

And it is busy, I mean not crowded, but groups of people, a family of five, a couple in stout walking shoes with those odd skiing sticks for walking, another couple in sweat pants, and a mother with young son.

But further on as I neared the wood, I was on my own.

I was there to check the bluebells in the wood, to see if a stray EPO would show.

There were none. In fact only one small group were anything like pure-bred "English" Bluebells, the rest were hybrids, or "Spanish". They don't droop like the native ones. And some of those are pinker, even pink. Anyway, I walk on.

After a while I leave the wood to walk along the lane beside it, hoping to see butterflies, as it has been a rich spot in the past, but as it was gone eleven, any that did fly by were very twitchy, and none settled.

I walked on the lane leading back down to Collingwood, the ground now hard like iron, but due to lack of rain, not cold. Chalk downland drains so quickly, so it was like we had no rain.

Back down the hill, up to the road and along, pausing to check if I could see a Bluethroat, but no, as there is little manure to rummage in.

Back home it is lunchtime, and back to work, but I had missed little. So I put on a podcast and listen while I have lunch.

I try sitting in the garden, and was rewarded with a Holly Blue flying through, it briefly settled on the hedge, long enough for me to hurry over wearing my floppy slippers and grab a handful of shots.

Through the day I made a rich ragu, but in a change I used the hedge garlic from our garden instead of actual garlic, seeing as we'd run out. I simmered the tomatoes with the garlic for an hour, then let the pot sit for a few hours for the flavours to build.

I fry two small onions, some sausage meat, add that and the final five mushrooms in the bottom of the fridge, thinly sliced, to the pot. I add a litre of beef stock left over from the prime rib, mix and then set to boil, then simmer for 90 minutes until Jools was due to come back.

Finally I boil some pasta, make some garlic bread out of the stale remains of the cornbread loaf.

And, it was very good indeed. Not a huge garlic hit, but a slight afterburn. I liked it, so did Jools. And good news is there is more than enough to freeze for another day.

By then it was seven, and we were pooped, but we have a coffee whilst listening to the radio. It was nearly warm enough to sit outside once it got dark, but we were tired little angels, so we go to bed. Me curled up around Scully as usual.