Wednesday 2nd June 2021

Oh, Gods of IT, please would you provide for me the data for which I have set aside this week to analyse?

The Gods of IT, put their heads together and talked for a bit, and then replied:

No, not today.

Which would be a bit frustrating, to say the least.

So, at least that meant there would be spare times during the day, in which I might be able to make drinks, lunch, snacks and so on.

And sadly, when we got up, there was no sign of Poppy. We expected her to have returned during the night, but there was no sign. And all through the day I had the front door open so she would have an easy way back into the house, thus avoiding the security guard Scully in the back garden.

But I sat looking at the front door, when I should have been working, in case there a black blur came rushing in demanding to be fed. But it never happened.

Jools was behind at work, so she left at quarter to seven without walking, leaving me in the house with just three cats. I made a second coffee, got my workbag out and fired up the laptop and got down to work, apart from the job I really needed to have start so I could fnish before the end of the week.

It didn't happen.

Breakfast was the usual fruit and yogurt, and another coffee, then back to work.

I went for a walk in the garden, and the tadpoles are now breathing through their mouths, and so when I tower over them in the pond, the dive back into the murky depths, but have to return quite soon to get a tiny lungful of air.

Back to work.

Somehow, we had managed to run out of bread, and there was little other stuff to eat in the fridge or larder. So, I defrost a roll, and get the single burger out of the freezer, and realise its a half pounder, and the tiny bun I planned to eat it in would not be man enough, so I defrost a second, then fry the burger patty, slowly until it looked cooked.

That filled a hole. And then some.

I checked the Teams tab on Office, and there was no access to the group I should have had a month back. Neither did an e mail come in with the data.

Sigh.

And there was still no sign of Poppy.

Double sigh.

I am caught up, so I decide to go for a walk.

I put on my boots and grab one camera, then another.

I don't go far, but not wanting to meet my new enemy along the street, so I go in the opposite direction to Station Road, then turn up to walk to the first track leading back towards the coast, with the aim of going up to Windy Ridge on a butterfly hunt.

Everywhere, Cow Parsley has flwoered, and street, lanes and hedgerows are bedecked with the champagne fizz of the plant stretching into the distance. And that and other plants have grown at an incredible pace, and what were once wide enough to allow two people to walk side by side, were now barely wide enough for a single person to squeeze through, plants on either side nearly meeting in the middle.

I do see a Holly Blue resting on a leaf and finally manage to get a shot of one of the flighty buggers.

Yay!

I take the next rack up to the wood, then along the tack beside it to look at what is usually a butterfly trap, but I saw none. So, at the next junction back down and then along, having gone round a huge square. I see some Black Bryony Leaves, but no flowers, they should be out about now. But not yet.

I get back home via the footpath beside Mr Shouty's house, though he had six feet high fences around his back garden, so he doesn't know I am out and about with a camera, maybe spying on him.

Back home to tidy up, then prepare dinner which was cajun spiced chicken with curried rice and some sweet chilli stir fry, and more cherry juice to wash it down with. I know how to live.

And somehow I managed to get to Wednesday morning without realising England were playing, a friendly against Austria, just some 48 hours or so after the last game of the season, but then this is the build up to the delayed Euros.

England play poorly, and Austria had brought their kicking boots, but England won by a single goal, without really impressing, and raising more questions.

And still no Poppy.