Friday 28th August 2020

I slept better.

I was hungry when I woke up.

I had coffee. And breakfast.

I had energy.

It has taken a week.

We hope that with things returning to something close to normal next week, I can get back on the cross trainer, do no snacking, drink less.

The usual empty promises.

But I will try.

Being a Friday, there are several meetings. One after the other.

The morning passes in a blur. It ends with four auditors talking about audits. Again. I mean, we could do this every day, all day. Will we get any further forward?

I don't know.

I make bacon butties for dinner.

Now, for the last two weeks there has been almost daily predictions by the Met Office of storms. Each morning I put the storm radar on to track the thunderheads as they drift over from France, Essex or Sussex. And each day they built, the radar shows multiple flashes, but only to melt away before it reached us.

So it made sense that on the day when there was no storms forecast for the country, that we here in East Kent would get a storm. Not a huge one, but with thunder and lightning, and clouds dark enough to turn day into night, foretelling of the coming of the horsemen. Or something.

Jools called me to look at the sky, and to the north, towering over the house was a huge thunderhead, dark enough to suck all light into it. While the garden was lit by the still hot summer sun. The contrast was amazing.

I took shots.

I made coffee, which we took down to the shelter so we could look back at the clouds.

It started raining. Of course. So we beat a retreat to the house and looked at the storm radar matching the flashes seen outside to where the radar showed the lightning. The storm seems to be stuck over Barham, maybe the storm liked the church?

It bubbled, flashed and banged away for half an hour, we had downpours, then the sky cleared and the storm melted away out into the Thames Estuary.

That was exciting.

So to make it more exciting, I pricked two large bags of sloes, added sugar and topped the demijohn up with 2 litres of gin. We need to do a second. But, looking good.

I then switched to food and made a batch of courgette fritters, frying the batter mix until crisp and golden, all ready to dip into garlic mayo while sipping a large tripel.

And that was the day.

We also started putting actual money in our savings accounts for the first time in years.

Sensible.

Darkness came at half seven, the kittens full of energy and demanding to be played with.