Tuesday 22nd June 2021

Tuesday began as Monday did, with heavy clouds and driving rain.

I felt a bit better, and I knew I should go back to work, so I did.

When I got my new work phone, an i phone, I wanted to set an alarm for when I went to see the Lady Slippers, and instead of an alarm, it gave me no option to set up set sleeping time on a health app. As I set it to go off at ten past four on a Tuesday, the phone now sets off analarm at ten past four every Tuesday. Most weeks I remember and manage to change the alarm, but this week, I forgot.

So at then past four the alarm went off. The phone was on the dining room table. Jools went down and pressed what she thought was the cancel button. Sadly, it was the snooze button, so ten minutes later it goes off again.

We were both wide awake, though we lay in bed to five.

Outside the rain fell steadily. It does the garden well. We tell ourselves.

Jools is behind at work, so she left at twenty past six leaving me to ponder life and the IT issues I was bound to face when I logged on at six. As it turned out, there were no problems with IT. That would be Wednesday, but more of that next time.

So, I catch up on my mails, make calls and tell folks I was OK, and the day carried on as normal.

Jools had bought half a loaf the night before so we could have chip butties with fish and chips, and I could hear the bread telling me how much better the morning would be if I were to toast two slices and smother with butter and nutella. I pondered this for three nanoseconds, and agreed.

Toast and a huge, strong brew is a fine way to start the day. I mean, there is a place for fruit and yogurt, not to mention bacon butties or even a fry up. But two big slices of golden toasted sourdough, snothered in runny nutella.

Lovely.

That meant I should be careful about what I have the rest of the day.

The rain falls all morning, the cats are happy enough retiring to distant corners of the house to snooze on their own.

The rain does stop in the afternoon, but there is heavy cloud. On a tour of the garden I notice a new flower in the lawnmeadow: what can it be, precious? Not sure if it was just opening or was like I found it. Wednesady morning would reveal it to be a Meadow Cranesbill, another new species for the garden, which is nice.

Elsewhere, everywhere, the garden is overflowing, all full of green growth or colourful flowers, or in the case of the broad beans Jools planted, making a future dinner. I spot raspberries on the canes, a bit earlier than I was expecting, but other plants are already laden with fruit forming.

Dinner is courgette fritters. I now use Garam Masala to spice the fritters up, as it has a fabulous warm spicy flavour.

Indeed the fritters are wonderful again, and there is enough left over for me to have for lunch the next day too.

There was just the one game on TV, or two, but being from the same group, and the final games, they kick off at the same time. England played the Czech Republic, and we hoped for a better perfromance than in the first two games. And all looked good when England took the lead in the 10th minute. But then lost their way and got worse.

But they held on to win the group and play their next game again at Wembley, where they will play either Spain or Sweden. I think.