Monday 8th March 2021

It is now light in the mornings, so having the blinds down in the bedroom now, even f at five when the alarm goes off, there is only just a hint of light in the south east. But it does mean that the light doesn't wake us up until we want to. Soon enough it will be getting light at four in the morning, but then we hope this bloody war will be over.

We shall see.

But it is MOnday morning, and as soon as I wake up my shoulder tells me it still aches, which means as soon as I am up I have to put the ice pack on, quickly followed by the anti-inflammatory cream.

But there is coffee, and that is followed up by another while I listen to another Word in Your Attic podcast, which if I'm honest has kept me sane as much as anything else through the year of COVID.

Jools goes for a walk, I have a shower and am ready for work at seven, and after logging onto two systems, I find there were no new mails, and no early meetings to stress about, so I make a call to my colleague, Henrik, and we both complain about the lack of clarity. Which doesn't help resolve things, but good to know its not just me. Or him.

Outside it is still cold and grey, but change is coming. Just not on Monday.

I should go for a walk, but I felt down with the shoulder and wanted to keep warm. So I make a fresh wholemeal loaf, and pop it in the oven to proove before cooking at eleven so there is a hot crust to be buttered for lunch. And then a ham sandwich.

Yummy.

Is this what happened all day? I mean work, coffee, tea, lunch, work and repeat until four.

The new cross trainer has been dismantled and taken to the tip for scrap, as it was shit. A technical term, but a truthful one. We will wait to the unlocking to visit a specialist shop to buy a decent one. Until then, walking, climbing up and down downs, looking for orchids, other plants and butterflies. When the weather allows.

After the disaster of the pizza on Sunday, so I said I would try again on Monday. I made a dough, spiced up the tomato sauce. And once the dough had risen, and the stone was glowing red after being half an hour on top setting in the oven, I plop the dough on the stone, spread the sauce, sprinkle what must have ben close to six ounces of cheese, then arranged slices of pepperoni and chorizo.

It was perfect, the base a little thick, but wonderfully crispy. We had beers too.

Cheers.

We wash up, have a coffee. And then I try to watch West Ham v Dirty Leeds. Leeds have two goals chalked off, then West Ham score two, and that was that. Not a bad game, but I gave up on it after an hour and went to bed.