Friday 3rd January 2025

And, like magic, Friday follows Thursday, and the hope that every week this year will have just two working day.

No yoga this week for Jools, so we lay a tad too late, meaning it was twenty past seven before I started work having fed the cats, drunk coffee and filled the feeders.

Its all go.

There is actually blue sky, and the early morning flights heading east soar leaving trails of white, turning gold as the near the south east horizon.

Still no management in work, so we have our own meeting and discuss some of our pressing issues.

Then two meetings where few folks turn up, there is lunch to have, and be ready for when Jools came home. I packed away the laptop and screens, boiled the kettle and was ready for her return.

When she did come home, she was in tears. She had slipped in the car park at work and hurt her wrist pretty badly. Somehow she had managed to drive home, but I needed to take her to the local small hospital in town to get it checked out in case there was a break.

We got down there and Jools was told there was a three hour wait for a doctor or 15 minutes for the nurse.

She chose the nurse option, and was seen within 15 minutes, sent for an x-ray, then analysed and diagnosed with a non-break injury.

We were back in the car heading home within 50 minutes of arriving, dodging the traffic in town by going up the hill to Whitfield, then along the quiet A2 to Deal road and back home.

I make a pasta bake with the leftover turkey and stuffing, going as far to defrost some more sausage meat to make fresh stuffing balls.

After making 400g of cooked pasta, that, a sauce, the stuffing and leftover turkey and lots of grated cheese were put into a pan and cooked for half an hour.

The result was excellent, not high cuisine, but tasty, hearty.

I do the music quiz, and win. While outside the cosmic dance brough Venus the Moon near to each other, and I go outside to take a shot or seven.

It was the weekend!

Thursday 2nd January 2025

2nd of January and back to work.

At least I was, management, however, thought better of it.

What can I say about the day?

Well, it was dark when we got up, and cold and dark when I was drinking my coffee.

I had slept poorly, the cold. If that's what it is, woke me up early and so laid awake until ten minutes before the alarm went off, I fell into a deep sleep.

Jools was slow too getting up and ready for work, then was off, as the overcast skies showed the faint outlines of morning's golden light.

After a shower, she was gone, and the cats asleep. I have a brew and turn the computer on and wait for the updates to come through needing to restart the laptop.

The day starts off cloudy, but brightens up, and I notice in the back garden a Hellebore in full flower, if quite small.

I go to take shots of that and the Penstemon that has been flowering since June of something, and is still going strong.

I catch up on my mails, reply to some, file the rest, and plan yet more meeting.

After today, I do have a maximum of only 92 working days left.

Which is nice.

Rune is in work. So we talk and swap news of what we did for Christmas. He has grown up kids, and apparently their kid's friends did not leave the house until four in the morning on the 1st.

Not like that here, of course.

Come three in the afternoon, there was football to watch: Rangers v Celtic. Celtic were on another level going into the game, just needed to win to clinch the title.

And yet, Rangers were a team reborn.1-0 up at half time, and knocking two more in during the 2nd half. Celtic had looked beaten since the first minute.

I cooked chicken, air fryer chips and a big bowl of sprouts, bacon, chestnuts and guanciale.

Another triumph if I'm honest, and ore Christmas food repurposed.

Wednesday 1st January 2025

So, after a succession of named storms through the end of 2024, 2025 was blown in by the most severe one, at least here in Kent, and appeared to be un-named.

The wind blew through most of New Year's Eve, causing hundreds of celebration events to be cancelled, so the country battened down the hatches and waited it out.

New Year's Day, at dawn, the storm had reintensifed and was gusting to nearly 70mph. The wind howled around our house up here on the downs, though the house seems undamaged.

High tide was just before midday, so at eleven we went out, first to St Martin's Battery, then down onto Shakespeare Beach itself, where the waves were crashing on the beach, and in little more than ten minutes we got soaked, but I got some shots.

The winds suddenly dies at three, and all was eerily quiet.

Having gone to bed early, we were up at six, and the wind was wild outside. We had coffee and breakfast, then waited until near high tide to go out.

I passed the time watching planes land at LHR in the strong crosswinds courtesy of BigJet.tv.

The roads were quiet, and only one ferry in dock, though there was inbound, but we couldn't see it quite yet.

Up at the battery, I went out and took shots of the waves crashing over Dover Marine station, and then the incoming DFDS ferry that was battling against the waves trying to get into the harbour.

That would have been a very rough crossing.

We then went down to the bast of Admiralty Pier, lots of parking at the pier was closed, so grabbing the camera we walked round to the track to the beach, and full force of the wind hit us.

That and the sea waver flung from the top of the crashing waves.

We struggled up the beach to the high tide mark, than we could see the waves beaching a few yards in front of us.

We struggled to stay upright, and were getting wet by the rain and waves, so after rattling a few shots off, we scuttled back to the car and came home.

The wind did drop, but as the Met Office promised, the winds were replaced by four hours of heavy rain, though by then it was really too dark to see it falling, though in the bathroom you could hear it beating down on the flat roof.

At three, Norwich kicked off on the tellybox, away at Luton. Never a happy hunting ground for us. And after a bright first half, we faded, until Núñez let rip with a shot from distance, that went through several players, out of the reach of the keeper and into the corner of the net.

1-0.

There was more football, but there had been five hours of it up to that point, so soon after supper, we both headed to bed to read before turning in at nine, as tomorrow we were both back at work.