Wednesday 2nd February 2022

I began writing a post a day during the London Olymics in 2012. Back then, life was exciting, I travelled, I did stuff, we had holidays and everything.

I have continued this through 22 months of COVID too, detailing my day. Day by day.

And know the past few have been a bit samey.

A lot samey in fact.

I hope that weekends will break this up, and the occasional evening trip out to see a gig or something.

But January and February seem so dark, spring so far away, with rain, frost, snow and gales.

Usually.

It is quite springlike, not much wind, little rain and only a few frosts with no snow. The garden is waking up and I search every days for the ellusive orchid rosette and for other flowers about to bloom, though not much yet.

Another days of the endless month of March 2020 continues. It is now some 704 days since the frst of that month, when we went out and bought the new car and less than two weeks later the world changed.

And here we are. Here I am, working from home for a new company just about keeping my head above water.

Wednesday was noteable for being the third and final day of the audit, half a day of auditing, two hours of agreeing on the findins and then a closing meeting.

I wish I could go outside, especially once the morning cloud broke up and the sun shone forth. What would I give for time to walk and take shots?

I had to make some bread, so mix a batch of dough, put it in the oven to rise, and two hours later, bake until golden and crisp. Breaking off from the audit to make a brew and cut the crust off and smother wit butter and apricot jam.

Yummy.

We finish at ten past four, but then I had to take a call, and so any hope of getting out for a walk faded.

But I did have no dinner to cook, as we were going out. For dinner.

The Lantern was having another Japanese themed night, and with other stuff planned we decided to give it a miss, but I did say to Jools on Saturday evening that if the owner, Andy, messaged me on FB we would go. Five minutes later the message arrived and we agreed to go.

January is tough on the trade, with Christmas, lack of money for customers and added the impact of COVID, so we arrived at quarter to seven, were shown to our table and asked for our free cocktail order, then to wait while the rest of the diners turned up, while final preparations were made on the meal.

We had:

Red miso soup

Nimono | chicken, vegetables, shiru, sake

Sakamushi mussel

Sashimi | bluefin tuna, salmon, white fish, scallop

Dessert

My first time with mussels, and I'm not that keen, but the sauce was very nice and full of garlic. Sashima was wonderful as ever.

We were home at half nine, full and shattered as usual.

Phew.