Monday 30th January 2023

Back to work.

Though in a change, Jools wasn't going swimming first thing, nor going to work. At all. No, she had a spa day booked with a colleague from work, and with that starting at half nine, it gave her the chance of a lay in, then a slow start before going out at half seven for a walk round Sandwich, and wait for a shop to open to buy a cup. I believe its a very fine cup.

That left me at home, not fully awake and in a foul mood.

I set up the office and logged on, one by one the systems coming online until after about twenty minutes, Outlook loads, so I could check the calendar for what delights it had in store for me.

The main issue for me was travel expenses.

Travel for work might be fine, and free. Mostly. But after you get back there is the expense report, and the computers spewing out random messages about why its rejected your report.

First I had to call the car hire place for the final invoice, then photograph each receipt now that the scanner has broken and gone to the great recycling place in the sky. Download the images onto my computer, send via mail to my work account as the work computer has no memory card slots.

Wait for them to arrive, then add to the report. Fix the error messages and send.

That's two hours gone and so time for the first meeting.

A meeting about a meeting.

Then another meeting. A meeting about a previous meeting.

Crushed by the wheels of industry.

Woo hoo!

I have lunch, and things settle down. I can clear some issues in the database that make it look like I do work.

Which is nice.

At three I go to fill up the bird feeders in the sunshine. There might be sunshine, but I was jolly cold. Beyond that, and my legs and I agree it was too cold to go out for a walk that evening, so I put the badger food out, which means I wouldn't be going outside for the rest of the day.

I go back inside and think about dinner. Nothing fancy, warmed up chicken, stuffing, pigs in blankets, gravy, Yorskshires, fresh steamed veg and fresh roast potatoes.

And fizz.

Easy to prepare, but magnificent to eat, and a real treat to have washed down with fizz.

We clear away and wash up, make coffee and sit down to chill the evening away. Footy on the telebox, though I went to bed at nine as West Ham were cruising at Derby.

I did spend most of the evening making final plans and arrangements for our trip to Svalbard in June. Turns out we forgot to book a flight from Olso to Svalbard, good job we checked.