Monday 9th February 2026

Its Monday again, and so the working weeks starts again.

For some.

I read old blog posts over breakfast, and I can read the sadness in my words when I wrote that the weekend was over and Monday morning rolled round again.

I think I did six consecutive days with at least 8,000 steps, so I thought I would have a day of rest, even if over the weekend most of the "steps" were recorded on the bike in the gym.

As I could lay in bed until whenever I liked, my stupid brain had me awake at quarter past five, with no chance of dropping off again.

So I get up.

Jools goes swimming, and so I am alone, so stand in the kitchen with a coffee, watching the sun come up over the other side of the valley.

Once Jools comes back, we have breakfast, but she now takes a friend out for coffee on Monday morning, so I am alone again, and after some early drizzle, the sun actually comes out for a few minutes before lunch.

Lunch was bacon butties. Or butty. As we eat less now.

And then 90 minutes watching Bangers and Cash with Scully on the sofa.

In a surprise move, I went out to do some gardening. Pruning, or sawing last year's growth off the buddleia, putting the branches in the brown bin ready to be collected on Friday.

I even put the saw and other stuff back in the shed.

Supper was sausage rolls, made with the last of the Christmas stock.

Life is too short to make your own puff pastry, so the shop-bought one was fine.

And so another exciting day drew to an end, with just Sheffield Utd v Middlesborough to entertain through the evening.