Wednesday 10th February 2021

All back to the tundra.

It is so chilly, I mean, just as to what it normally is, that we keep the heating on low overnight, and it kicks in at about four in the morning when the temperature gets too low.

It woke me up when the boiler and pump switched on, so lay in the dark for an hour wondering how late it was. I knew it was dark, so it could be any time between then and six. After a while, the alarm went off, which meant it was fibe, and time to get up.

In time.

Jools gets up, and is followed by our posse of kitty cats, all of them wanting to be fed first.

Here we go.

I get up, and get dressed as there is a chill, and if it had snowed during the night, the drive would need clearing. None had fallen, so no need to go out. Just drink a coffee. And drink another.

Jools gets ready, packs the car with the filing she had brought home, and was gone. All cats went to bed, so it was me and the dark before dawn.

I listen to a podcast, while i drink my third coffee, it gets light, clouds cleared and it looked like it was going to be a fine day. Sadly, the wind was very keen still, but I was hoping to find time to venture out for a walk.

I now start work shortly after seven, it seems the right thing to do, then if things trail off a bit I can finish just after three. That was the plan, anyways. And there was meetings.

So many meetings, our heads are exploding with the information, and there is a lack of clarity as to what, exactly, is expected of us. But we try to cope.

After the second meeting, I have an hour, or so i thought, so put on my boots, a jumper, a coat and a woolly hat, grab a camera and venture out.

The snow had reached the stage were it had fallen, melted, frozen and was melting again, but with lots of white and black ice. I walked down our street, slithering and must have looked like Bambi on ice, until I got to the track at the end, and if I walked beteween the car tracks, footing was quite good.

I got to the path over the fields, but already the strong east ween was cutting through me and finding the poor seams in my coat and jeans. I walked halfway across the field to get a shot looking back at the village and was done. I turned for home, and was more than happy to get back in one piece and not having fallen over.

I make a coffee and log back on at work, only to find my boss had arranged a very short notice meeting, to which I was two minutes late. No damage done.

After that it was the big end of year announcement, and where the new company is going this year, and our place in it; the old company and quality is front and centre. We have a major part to play, no hiding in the shadows.

That done, there is another meeting, this time on, well, I won't bore you. All bar two hours of the day in meetings, and I was spent, I took the laptop to the sofa, watched Britains Lost Masterpieces to get my Bender fix, and somehow it was four and time to prepare dinner: courgette fritters. INto which I change the recipe again, adding curry powder and orange juice and peel. And not squeezing out the courgettes, so the mixture was a little runny. But its good to experiment, right?

It get dark, I fire up the frying pan and am cooking away when Jools comes back home.

The fritters are great, of course. There is a plateful to share and dip in garlic mayo.

And that is that, footy on the TV, which I watch with half an eye, while, outside, two unexpected inches of fresh snow falls, and Jools had parked the car down the drive when she came home, which meant that we would have to be up early in the morning to clear the drive.

Sigh.