Tuesday 6th July 2021

We live in SE Kent, and for the most part, the weather is predictable; wet winters and dry summers. Summers are usually so dry that grasses and sometimes other plants dry out. The drainage on the chalk downs helps in this too.

And for wind, although St Maggies is up on the cliffs and is windier than say, Dover, wind at this tme rarely gets above a moderate breeze, which is nice.

Yesterday we had the second full blown (ahem) summer gale.

Gales in summers are dangerous, as three and shrubs are full of leaves and so are not aerodynamic, and they get battered, and loosen the soil round their roots if not brought down.

You might remember the last gale when next door's roof half came off and was perched, flapping on ours.

Well, we don't speak that much to Bev and Steve, so I guess I assumed the roof had been fixed after being kept down by large batons and six inch nails. Sadly, due to a shortage of scaffolding, raw materials and being so busy meant that the remedial work had not been done. No matter, as gales never happen in summer.

Until yesterday.

I was sitting at the dinig room table, working away when four six foot long battens were blown from the far side of their house and onto our drive, six inch nails stuck out. Thankfully the postman had just been, so no one was hurt. But the felt covering from their flat roof was flapping wildly and more of it came unstuck and the edge trashed our TV aerial.

I went to take the batons back to Bev while she was coming round to see me to tell me of their roof proplems. She didn't get the batons in my hand were hers from their roof, and stunned that they had been flipped thirty feet or so over the house. But no damage done.

Sadly, there was nothing we could do other than to watch her roof throw shapes.

But I thought we would not be able to watch TV, but I switched it on; radio worked, and the two BBC low res version of 1 and 2 worked. Nothing else did though. NO matter as the big game, Italy v Spain was on BBC, so I could watch that, but the England game is on ITV tomorrow, and I'd rather not watch it on my laptop....

Other than that, not much happened. It was too chilly to have the doors open, and so only Poppy's escape route was kept open. I worked, and only went out to look at the damage to the roof and to pick some raspberries. The overnight heavy rain had stopped, and was sunny most of the day, mocking is with glorious light for snapping whilst the wind blew a hoolie.

Jools left for work at half five, I was left alone with just the coffee pot to keep me awake. There was a couple of podcasts to listen to whilst I waited for the clock to tick round to seven.

The cats are pretty wel behaved these days, some stern words on occasion to keep her from chasing Poppy seems to work, and so POps is getting bolder, for the most part. Shenow allows me to stroke her shen she is eating, and sometimes even when she's not eating.

The day dragged/flew. Depends. Really.

As we had the last two portions of tart left, we had a light dinner of caprese (with no bread), so then once we had cleared away, I could make coffee and dish up the last two slices for this year.

Still damn good tart.

And then it was time for football: Spain v Italy. And what a cracking game it was, fast and skillful, breathtaking to watch, so the 90 minutes flash by. Italy took the lean, Spain seemed to do anything but score, then do level ten minutes from time, which meant we got 30 minutes extra time.

And then came penalties, and Italy won out.

Next up, England v Denmark on Wednesday.

Gulp.