Friday 19th June 2015

Monday.

Workdays at home, working from home, either mean I am about to go on a trip, or have just returned. Being a Monday it means I was about to go, or will be on Tuesday.

Being a Monday, it was meetings, meetings. Only to find the 07:00 one was cancelled, apparently without my knowledge. Which was a tad disappointing. I could have been told in the blizzard of mails last week, and I just filed it I suppose....

I get a break from meetings at 11, time to make a brew before there is another one to attend to.

The days passes, I squeeze in lunch somewhere. And the afternoon trails off, as folks in Denmark head off for the day, as they are an hour ahead of us. I catch my breath, pack my work bag, double check my tickets, passport and Oyster card. And at four, I pack my case, forgetting a decent shirt for the project meeting we were due to have on Thursday. I will be wearing a t shirt emblazoned with Pac Man figures. As you do. One day it will be all the rage for business meetings.

Due to the cool and windy weather outside, the cats sleep the day through, and I am left alone. Well until four, when clearly the cat's internal clock are set to CET.

Jools comes home, we are both tired, and another planned walk in the country is shelved, and instead I cook dinner early, pan friend pork and cous cous. Not bad.

The day ends all too quickly, with me playing Heaven 17 and Mari Wilson records until the fix outside looks in, wth a look which suggests its time for bed. Which it was.

It is now the middle of June, and once again I can say that I have not had two weeks at home since October. I suppose I could look in my calendar and count the week, the days. To make matters worse, this weekend I fly home on Friday and fly back out on Sunday. However, that will be the last week away possibly until the end of July. So, fingers crossed on that one.

So, yet more travel, more airports, more hotels and more burger and fries.

Tuesday.

The alarm failed to go off at quarter to five, which meant that when we did wake up at ten past, I had 35 minutes to get ready before Jools dropped me off at the station. It was a glorious June morning, few clouds and the sun already up and warm. But, with the cool breeze still blowing, I was glad of my coat of the platform at Martin Mill.



I won’t bore you with the details of the train journey, it’s the same week after week after week. So, Once we leave Ebbsfleet, there is standing the whole length of the train, and at Stratford, there is barely time for me to get out of my seat, get my cases and push by those with headphones on who did not realise I needed to get off. In the end it took someone blocking the doors which were about to close, to allow me to get off.



Then the dash across London to the airport, a quick baggage drop as I had my electronic boarding pass, through immigration and security. Two hours to spare, so I could have a slow breakfast, which is just as well as the service was very slow: 45 minutes for two cold crumpets and a pot of tea. There are apologies all round, which is fair enough, the airport now dealing more with tourist travel as well as business, so ever more passengers I guess.



I wait for my flight to be called, then somehow manage to leave my phone on the table I was leaning on, only trouble was that this had my boarding pass. I run back from the gate and find it where I left it. Now at the back of the queue, and then onto the aircraft, where there is the usual scramble to find a place for all the cabin baggage.



We are late away from the gate, and in a queue of planes for a take off slot. But we are soon airborne and flying out over east London, turning east to the Essex coast and Holland beyond. There is time for drinks to be served, before the staff collect the empty glasses and we are already dropping down onto final approach.



Schipol is the usual busy hub, but by now I know the way to immigration, baggage reclaim and then to the car hire desk, the parking garage. It is now the everyday for me. I get a Golf, I program the sat nav, and all is set fair. Only, as I find out, the sat nav is trying to find a junction that has been taken away, and so we go up and down a road, with it asking me to turn either left or right onto a road that is no longer there.



I decide to ignore the silly machine and follow the signs to Haarlem, and soon the sat nav agrees this is the best way, and shows me on the right road once more. I have a meeting, which my phone chimes away every 5 minutes to remind me of.



I arrive at the office some 20 minutes late, and get the meeting done: it goes well, then there is more meetings, coffee to be drunk. And before I know it, it is half five and time to go to the hotel to check in.



At the hotel my room is reserved, I dump my bags and go down to the restaurant for dinner. Depite wanting to be healthy, I order burger and fries, along with a tall clod beer. It is real good.



Afterwards, I go for a walk to the beach, past the empty bars and tat shops, open for what little business there is even in June. Apparently the first week in July it will go crazy here. The wind whisltes over the wide, andy beach, seagulls circle above, looking for chips to feast on. I take deep breaths of the salty air. It is good.

Back in my room I have a balcony, so with the radio burbling in the background, I sit overlooking the marina and the steelworks beyond as the sun sets and darkness takes the world away.

Wednesday.

Who took the summer away? Outside it is misty, cold and windy. I have left the balcony door open all night, and it is like a fridge on the room. I grab a shower, wake up some more, and once dressed go down for breakfast and then onto work.

At least being in an office, it gives me the chance to work, to catch up with some pressing tasks. And issue yet mre paperwork to the customer for them to ignore. It is the modern way.

The day passes, it clouds over yet more and there is rain in the air. So it only makes sense that I chose this evening to go to visit a dyke.



Not just any dyke, but still a wonder of engineering, some 20km long, which separates a large inland lake from the north sea, and protects the interior of Holland from flooding. It also has a motorway running along it. Its just an hour’s drive to get there.

The sat nav tells me the way to go, but it all looks the same to me, windmills, churches, rivers, canals, motorways, towns. All the same. But in time I come to the start of the dyke, abut am held up as a barge is going through one of the massive locks. Once the road is clear, I power up to 130km and head out over the sea, inland, where there is a clear view, the land is over the horizon, or lost on the drizzle, as is the end of the dyke.



I reack the far end, turn round and drive back, stopping at the point where the dyke was closed in the 30s, take seven shots, and get back in the car for the hour drive back to the hotel. The rain falls harder, it gets dark. And I am hungry.

Back at the hotel I have yet another burger and fries washed down with more cold beer.

Monday 15th June 2015

Sunday.

Somehow we sleep until half seven: the cats gave up on trying to wake us and also went back to sleep. Outside the village was shrouded in thick fog, a right pea-souper if you will. The BBC said it would clear out some by mid-morning.

I was hungry. Real hungry, the kind of hunger only one breakfast would deal with: the full English. We have not been out for breakfast in months, and there is quite some choice in Dover and Deal, but the one we really used to like was on Deal pier. Looking at their website, I see it opened at eight, so we were on the road at ten to, with our appetite in good order with us. Traffic was so light it was hardly there, and the mist of lifting, but all was dressed in subdued hues, which made it feel like November rather than mid-June.



I found a place to park near the pier and began the short walk along the prom. We passed a group of photographers, one had so much gear attached to his DSLR, I thought it a movie cakera and another guy was shooting with a Hassleblad, serious stuff.



Don't mean they know how to use the stuff though I thought.....

Breakfast was good, a small English for Jools and a medium for me. There was a large, but some of us don't need to grow any more (me that is).



Bradshaw was very dismissive of Deal, which in the fist edition was the end of the line round the coast, before the line was extended down into Dover. It was rather unsophisticated, which is odd because now is is very sophisticated and genteel.



Tracey Emmin frequents Deal, but don't let put you off, it has some rather splendid buildings, especially around Middle Street, it is also the best town in East Kent for real ale, well, along with Walmer, anyway.

Back to the car, then out through the town and Sholden and onto Sandwich, which was also quiet. Instead of heading into the town, we take the road to the Bay, and I tell an untrth, well half-truth to the security guard, saying that we were only going to the Bird Observatory not the bay. Which, as I say was a half truth, as we were going their first, but then would go to The Strand. This half-truth saved us six quid, and I had the ticket from the previous night anyway.

My objective was to check on the Marsh Helleborines, which grown in a restricted area of theirs. The building was empty, but I saw movement in the ringing shed, so go in there to ask, and am told at least three more weeks.

Happy with that, we walk back to the car and then back down to where the Lizards are growing, as Jools wanted to see them too. And I wanted to look for the group of Bees we had seen the previous year. After some searching I found the Bees, in deep long undergrowth, but otherwise fine. I snapped them, then some other wild plants that looked interesting before we decided enough was enough, and we went back home.



Just after noon the clouds clear and the sun bursts through, making the temperatures soar. It is glorious, we sit in the garden, discussing our plans of landscaping and the eventual installation of the fabled 'footballers wives' fountain. Well, it seems we have clarity on the way forward, and maybe we will cut the ground in the autumn as we have broad agreement.

I look up to the house, and see a huge bank of dark clouds heading our way. It is only a matter of time before the sun is hidden again, it does not rain, but is cool enough for us to go in. I make chorizo hash, so to be ready for the big game (more of that in a minute), and so Jools can go to visit Nan.

The football season: when did it finish? The Football League ended in the first weekend in May. Their playoffs the 25th June, the Premier League the weekend before. The FA Cup Final the 30th May. The Champions League last weekend. So, how in all that is sane, are we still having football on June 14th? European qualifiers is the answer. As the number of competing teams and teams that can qualify have both been increased, this means more games, more football, and football in June.

England were to Play Slovinia, where I have been, when it was part of Yugoslavia, and I upset some local truckers by putting on a Madonna single on the juke box in the drivers rest stop whilst on a coach trip. IMagine, being upset by Madonna: how 1980s!

Anyway, it was a good game, with England scoring three good golas, conceding one bad one and one good one, and inbetween acting like a group of people who had never met before. Not good.

All that was left was to watch the rain fall steadily down outside, the best place for it, really, and wait for Jonathon Strange and Mr Morrell to start. Still good, and just two more episodes to go.

And the weekend is over.

Next four days I will be away in Holland. See you all on Friday.

Sunday 14th June 2015

Saturday

I am so tired. I mean so tired. So shattered. A two day trip to a suburb of Copenhagen to attend a four hour meeting and come back, coupled with poor sleep, long hour in the departure lounge. An arrival back at home about ten past eleven. I wake up at five in the morning with seagulls cawing on the roof, other birds tweeting demanding for food, cats using me a walkway between the window and the door. Heck, I am awake now, should I feed you guys?

Meow.

Outside it is blowing a gale, I thought about the possibility that in this wind macro shots of lovely orchids might be a challenge. Impossible you say? I will at least try, dammit!

I make coffee, after feeding the cats. The birds are lining up out in the garden, so put food out for them, and in their excitement with the food, they make yet more noise.



I edit some shot, listen to the radio, write a blog post. And by ten in the morning, I am getting itchy feet. Now, by this time I should have been waiting outside Charing Cross station, waiting for a tour of some of the abandoned platforms, as a few weeks back I managed to secure tickets. Only, as previously stated, I was shattered. And I am pig sick. No, completely pissed off with travelling, even up to London to go on what would have been a great tour. But the thought of getting up at the crack of down, or half six, going to the station, going up to London, traveling on The Tube, queuing up and then coming back, well I decided the night before, on the drive home, to give it a miss. That and the £88 we would have spent on tickets, then more on food, travel across the City and so on and so on.



So, we stayed at home. Or I did. Until I got a little bored. I mean with the exception of the shots taken on the lost camera, I had not taken a photo in what, three whole days! Jools was beading, so I go up to ask her, would you like to go to PGD to check on the musk orchids, whilst fluttering my eyelashes.



She declined! I mean can you believe that?

Go on without me she said. So I did.



I load the car and drive to Barham then down the Elham Valley road before cutting to the down. I have the site to myself, and at first I see no orchids nor any cattle, it seems they were sleeping off their latest orchid based meal. They are keeping vegetation down, but one of the paddocks, where they have total access, is devoid of all but the most hardest plants, and no orchids. In the second paddock, however, there was a haze of pink where the Common Spotted and Chalk Fragrants were growing.

I walk over and find a perfect Fragrant, so I get the shop I want. There are the remains of the Monkeys too. I get more and more shots. In the third paddock, I find yet more Commons, including in the midst of a large clump, a pure white orchid. Now, with the true orchid families, they are all variable, and most are more than capable of producing a pure white one. So, was this a Common Spotted, Fragrant or a Heath Spotted? That question would be answered when I get home. So for now I took shots of the remains of the Greater Butterflies, now going over along with the Monkey.

I look at my watch: half twelve. LUNCHTIME. That put pay to my trip to Brham, so instead I drive home for lunch with Jools, expecting her to either have eaten already, or be hungry. She was asleep on the bed, surrounded by sleeping cats. I make lunch, boil the kettle for a brew. She carries on sleeping. I try to make more noise, and she sleeps on. I have lunch, and in half an hour, Jools wakes up and then eats her lunch. I got sleepy she said. Which is a good reason for a good snooze than almost anything else.



As the BBC predicted, the clouds cleared and the wind died a little, so I,must.go.and.take.more.shots.of.orchds. I am going to Sandwich Bay I say. OK, bye, says Jools.

However, before I go I make good on the promise to mow the back garden of our neigbours, who are away. It is like a jungle in there, and the thick grass, two and a half feet in places, was more than a match for our mower. But, making the mower do a wheelie, I trimmed it, then cut again, and in about an hour we had the lace looking presentable. Phew, and even better was that I sat down for a pint of squash rather than a beer afterwards.

Sandwich Bay is private land, and at most times during daylight, the owner charges £7 to enter in a car. Now, the socialist in me rails against this, and yet such access limitations and security means the orchids here are the most secure in the county. So, what should I think? Remember the orchids, Ian.



So, I drive through Deal and then out to Sandwich, thus foregoing the coast road, dodging the mad cyclists, or rather leaving the coast road to those on two wheels who just want a quiet drive. And why not?

I arrive just before seven, and I now realise the security guard was about to go off duty, and waiting 5 minutes would have saved me seven quid, but remember the orchids, Ian.

Down on The Strand, in fact before there, in the lawns of the rich and Porsche owners, the orchids are there, already beginning to open. Imagine having a rare orchid on your lawn? I say, we could charge the plebs to see them, what?



I park in the dunes, and take lots and lots of pictures of the orchids. They are wonderfully mad, all frilly stringy bits, and smelling of goats wee, I am reliably informed. In the breeze, photography was trick, but I manage it, and I get some good shots.

Once back home, Jools has prepared Insalata Caprese, which was ready for eating.

We end the day with a recording of the final episode of Springwatch, and we saw #Si'sFry !

Saturday 13th June 2015

Friday.

After what seemed a very short night's sleep indeed, I was awoken by the bright sunlight at five in the morning, which in English o'clock was four. Damn you Scandinavia! I laid in bed until my alarm went off, maybe I should ignore it, but then I have to have a shower, read the documents for the meeting, and so on.

I check the world news, more FIFA scandals, but then there is something new everyday. After showering, dressing to impressing, I pack and go down to check out have breakfast. The restaurant is full of Japanese tourists, I can't be sure but I am sure I saw them at the airport later in the day, all of them laden down with many bags of last minute shopping.

I program the address of the where the meeting was to be, should take ten minutes, or so said the sat nav, maybe mocking me. It does come up with possible routes very rapidly, and soon I am confused. But I make it to the offices with half an hour to spare. I wait in the car park, sure that a number of CCTVs were focused on me as I sat and sweated. Sweated, because it was another wonderful day of sunshine and high temperatures. And I was done up in shirt and tie.

My old boss arrives, and we go into the building, all brushed steel and glass. It seems to have a stream running through it, along with fountains and waterfalls. We book in and wait. In time we are taken my stairs and walkways to some meeting room on the far side of the building. It faced the sun, and was quickly becoming an oven. Our host battled the control box on the wall, but it seemed to make fans work with little effect on the temperature.

At nine we got down to business. I won't dwell on details here, but I did OK, I heard myself say some fairly intelligent things from time to time, and my mind did not wander. Until I told myself how well I was doing. We break for lunch, then wrap up at two.

We all shake hands, and some other people who were attending another meeting, but works for the same company, need a lift to the airport. And so that meant that any plan I had to drive into the centre of Copenhagen was scuppered. As I try to drive to the airport, I am quizzed about a few things, but I explain where I was coming from, and it is accepted.

I drop them off at the terminal, and I drive to the parking garage. I am five and a half hours early for my flight.

I check in the car, walk to the terminal: I see from the blurb at the check in desks, I can't check my bags in until two and a half hours before my flight. That would be half past four, some two hours from now. I try to change my flight, but the handlers say there is nothing doing. I can buy a very expensive replacement ticket, or accept my fate.

I accept my fate and find a place to sit, pull out my magazine and read. That at leas takes me to quarter past four, so I have a few minutes to wait. At half past, I get my boarding pass and baggage label, I drop the bag and walk up to the security. No wait again, but on the other side the places to eat are through the huge duty free shop. I find a bar and order a beer and a pack of crisps: 97 DKK, about a tenner. Time creeps forward.

After downing the beer, I go for a walk, and find another place to buy a beer from. Looking at my watch I have just over an hour before boarding, so begin the long walk to the gate, only to find I have to pass through immigration. A ten minute wait in line brings me face to face with the policeman, who barely glances at my passport, and I am nodded through.

At the gate people are waiting for it to be opened: don't we all have allocated seats stupid people? Whatever. They queue to get in the gate, then queue to get on the plane. I am last into the gate and join the line to get on the place. I have somewhere to store my bag, so I am happy. Once again some folks have two or three bags. Why do they let them?

Once all bags have been stowed, we start off, and in ten minutes are in the air. The usual stuff; pay for food and drink, free wi-fi, movies on demand. I snooze.

It is hammering down as we are on final approach. Then there is the usual scrimmage to be first up to try and grab your bag, and so not be delayed by 5 nanoseconds. We do all get off in a fairly orderly manner. The usual long walk to immigration, but a short queue and we are through, our bags are waiting for us. As so is Jools outside.

It being half eight, if I had to catch I train I would not be home before eleven, and to be honest, I just wated to get home, so Jools came to collect me. Once we get the car, we are going down and around the garage and out onto the motorway, hurtling towards London as dusk fell. A light mist was rising from the road surface as the earlier rain evaporated. Onto the motorway to Clacket Lane where we stop for dinner. We can't face McDonalds, so we go to Costs for a sandwich and coffee.

Back on the road, heading down the M26 aand M20 towards Ashford as darkness fell.

We arrive home at half ten, and feeling shattered I grab a large dram and we sit out back for a bit as we relaxed. The whisky tasted sweet as planes passed over us, their lights twinkling.

But, it was the weekend.

At last.

Friday 12th June 2015

Thursday

I should be more excited about travelling to the Danish capital for the first time, but I am not. The reason for this is that I am flying in for a meeting, and flying out again. Or something close to that anyway. As the meeting is due to start at nine on Friday, I have to arrive the night before, and oddly enough, I can fly direct to Billund from London City, but not to wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen. Instead I have to fly from Gatwick, or worse, Stanstead. Shudder.

What this means is that rather than a 6 hour jump, I will be giving most of the day to travelling, which, although isn't like stuffing giblets kind of bad, it does mean sitting on trains, in departure halls, on aircraft, in hire cars. I know, I moan, moan, moan. I moan when I travel, moan when I don't. So shoot me.

My flight is at half three, which calculating back on the travel times means I need to catch the eleven o'clock train from Dover. I thus need a quarter past ten taxi from home.

Jools leaves for work, it is a glorious morning out there, clear blue skies, not a breath of wind. I can hear the orchids calling me, instead I pack and send off some last minute mails to work colleagues. At ten past then the taxi arrives, I am ready. I do laugh as I check my work phone for mails as I walk out the house to see a coordination meeting for my activities on Friday has been called for, just a few days too late, guys. I swear to the taxi driver about it, he laughs along. Even more so when my ex-boss calls me to ask where in the world I am and am I going to join the meeting.

No chance.

Whilst sitting on the platform, I get another call, and through the broken speech, I get the impression not to worry, read this and that document and we will meet at the hotel that night. Sounds good. Too good perhaps.....



For a change, I am on the slow train, there are many ways to get to the airport, and all take about the same amount of time, but the most pleasant is the route through Tonbridge and Redhill: which will mean quiet trains and fine views over verdant countryside.

The train pulls in, and i have the carriage to myself, until just before departure, a couple of drunken bums-cum-drug dealers get on, already drinking cans of Special Brew, and effing and blinding, making jokes of their partners, and making plans for the place where they are going, a pub, and deals to be done. Although I don't want to be a drung dealer, the thought of spending the afternoon, or in this case the late morning and then afternoon in a beer garden sounds very nice, instead here I am, travelling.



They get off at Folkestone, and yet more drunken bums get one, but at least they are quieter, more content to sup their tinnies. By the time we leave Ashford, the train is quite empty again, but heading closer to London we start to collect more passengers again. And so by the time we are coasting towards Tonbridge, it is standing room only. But this is where I am to get off, and with just a walk to the other side of the platform for the connecting train, and on which the air con is pumped up, it is yet more easy travel.

The line to Redhill is through wonderful countryside, through a green and pleasant river valley, woodland and leafy suburbs. It seems like a backwater, and yet the M25 is just a few miles away. It was much busier at Redhill, with most people waiting for the connecting train to Gatwick, that connection turned out to be an express to Southampton, which was busy, but as it was for one stop, I did not mind standing.

At the airport with two hours to go before the flight, I dreaded the long hike to the check in desk, the wait there, the wait at security, finding the gate, etc, etc, moan. Walking out of the station, I follow the signs to the south terminal, and within 5 yards of the exit there are the Nowegian Air self check in desks. I punch in my booking reference, I get my boarding card, baggage tag. I go tot he automated bag drop of, scan my tag, the bag goes. Done. Two minutes and counting.

Security is well organised, I am directed to a short queue, three minutes later I am through.

The biggest drag is having to walk through the massive duty free shop to find a place to eat, that must take at least a minute. There are many choices, but I plumb for Nando's, get a table and order a salad with a beer. It is summer after all. Apparently.

That done, I still have an hour to kill. I find a place to sit and people watch.

The airline sends me a text with my gate, so I wander over for the scramble when the gate opens. despite us all having booked seats, people now travel with no check in bags, instead like to have it in the cabin, which means the overhead lockers get full quickly. That some people have three bags, I am not sure why the airlines allow it, as always the flight is delayed as latecomers have to try to find a place to stow their bags. The woman next to me had a bag the same size as my RAF kitbag, and took up half the bin which is meant for six people.

In the end, all bags are stowed, and we can close the doors and make ready to leave. I have an aisle seat, as there was no option to change that online, but is is fine, I have more legroom than on the KLM flights I have to Holland most weeks. But being a budget carrier, there is nothing free, but they accept all currencies for the drinks and snacks. I should have tried to use my Alterian Dollars, like the seasoned traveler I am.

We land safely, and if anything it is even hotter in Denmark than in London. It must be one of their two days of summer! It is easy to get through immigration, the police just wave me through after glancing at my passport. My bag arrives, and once through the car hire place is well signposted. I get a Polo, the garage is another short walk away, I find the car, load up, program the address of the hotel in the sat nav. And I am off.

Now, I know you are wondering, what Copenhagen is like. I know I was, I have seen friends pictures of the centre, and it looks very much like Bergen. However, I am on business, and I have a hotel near our customer's offices. All I see is motorways, junctions, more motorways until I am told to turn off, down a busy road to the district where I am to stay. The hotel is easy to find, and it has a large car park, which is always nice.

MY reservation is good, so I dump my bags and go back down to get somethign to eat. It is already eight in the evening, and I have a meeting and then documents to read. My old boss called: he could not get a reservation in the hotel, he is somewhere across the city. Don't worry. Read this, this and tat documents, and see you at nine for the meeting. Is that all?

I have lamb stak and vegetables, and two small bottles of beer which are of a strength the business traveler might think not a good idea if an evening of work beckons. The food is good, as so is the beer. Back in my room, I start to review the documents, but by half ten I am falling asleep. What is the point, I had better wing it in the morning, I was told not to worry!

So I don't. It is still light outside, the air in my room is hot and heavy. I fall quickly into a deep sleep.

Now, you will notice there are no photos for this post: there are two reasons for this. One, I was on a business trip and did not really have any free time. And 2, I seem to have left my camera in the hotel in Copenhagen.

Bugger.

Thursday 11th June 2015

Wednesday

And on hump day, does it feel like June yet? In a word: no. Although it was brighter, the wind was still keen and from the east.

I have important business to attend to to, I am hard at work by half seven, trying to arrange stuff. Important stuff, and I am frustrated that others don't see how important it is. Actually, some do, and with their help, as the day progresses, the issues get discussed and sorted.

It being cold, I put on one of my work jumpers, and straight away begin sneezing. I take it off and I stop sneezing. I put it on, and begin sneezing again. I take it off, I am cold, but stop sneezing. I put two and two together and think there is something on the jumper causing me to sneeze. See why I was way too clever for military intelligence!



After lunch, I have got to a place where I am happy with in regard to sorting issues out, and as we had just run out of milk, this called for drastic action.

This meant a walk to the village shop, which, if I walked along the main road would be ten minutes there and then back again.



However, my allergies, caused by house dust, have been getting worse all week, not helped by the cool weather which have caused me to have the windows closed during the day as I work from home.

And so, after another series of phone meetings, and with actions in place, I thought i could spare an hour for a walk to the shops: via the pig's copse, down the dip and along the top road opposite where I could check on an area of the field that has been fenced off, and quite frankly, I was curious as to what was going on.



THe colours are a bit muted, as it was a cloudy day, but it was also very breezy, something unusual at this time of year, and I even put a fleece on just to make sure I kept warm. This is June, right?

No point in checking on the glade for butterflies, as they would not be basking in the weak light, and the wind would rip their wings to shreds.

The pig and piglets seemed to be asleep, and down the dip not even the semi-friendly horse would come over to say hello.



The field leading down towards Kingsdown, is still full of rapeseed, slowly drying out, but the edges now have some added colour as poppies and other wild flowers colonise. Along the top road and back at the edge of the village, I see that the end house seems to be expanding its garden, which is why that area of the field is now fenced off, and clearing of the hedge is under way. My curiosity satisfied, I walk into the village.

I get some milk, but then think an ice cream would be fine as I walked down the hill home, and mybe last the walk up the other side too. But no, seems like I was for to intent on munchin ght ice cream, and it was gone in seconds: maybe I should go for another?



I don't, and so walk to the bottom of the hill, then like the Duke of York, I walk to the top, or near the top of the other side, but then I was neither up nor down. But puffing well.

The day peters out into later afternoon and then evening. Jools is coming home, so I prepare dinner, some breaded chicken and bulgar wheat. Very nice. I feel like a beer would be very nice as I am cooking. I am right, beer is very good when I am cooking, as is another when we are sat down to eat. Now, why am I feeling all sleepy.



Outside the clouds cleared, and the wind dropped some, but already it is half seven, and after clearing up, we go out to see a large cruiseline which should be in port. Sadly, we see it in the distance already having sailed, as we drive down Jubilee Way. So we go round the roundabout at the bottom and go back home again.

And finally, the next to last Springwatch, with the robin voted as the national bird of Britain: haven't those people seen how agressive the little red-breasted buggers are? Its all down to good PR and those Christmas cards I tell you.

Wednesday 10th June 2015

Tuesday

Flaming June? More windy and chilly June if you ask me.

And another day as I am working from home before my trip to Denmark on Thursday. Where in Denmark? It is wonderful, wonderful. Apparently.

Jools goes to work, leaving me with the cats who decided that it being a Tuesday, they would be hungry all day and present themselves at my feet in a constant stream demanding food. More food. And yet more food. In the words of my dead Dad, they don't have worms, they have snakes!

I would like to tell you about the battles I am having at work this week, but that would be unprofessional of me and point the 'you are a dick' finger at some people who may not like that to happen. I may not say it out loud to you, but I am thinking it. All the time. If people say they are going to do something, I expect it to be done, not for it not to be done and then you log off the system when you come out of a meeting.

And deep breaths.

The day progresses though the morning, through breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, brunch, lunch, afternoon tea, high tea and so all that remains was dinner. See what happens when I am at home? food, food, food.

As it is so cold, I put on a jumper, and close the doors and windows. Which causes an allergic reaction. To avoid taking drugs, I go outside regularly. And spend more and more outside and less and less time at the computer. At least this stops me sneezing. I do some work on the plants, including the tree stump which is furiously putting up new branches, and uncless cut back will in 20 years be as tall as it was before. So, I hack it back.

I trim the raspberries, and ignore Scully once again meowing for yet more food.

Back inside I tidy up, and begin to prepare dinner: I zap some jacket spuds ready for frying, and have defrosted the kofte kebabs. Dirty, dirty food. And with proper Dutch fritesaus. Mayo to you, but sweeter and more, well, Dutch than the stuff we can get here.

The food is as good and dirty as it sounds. The cats still insist they haven't been fed. They are lying I say.

More Springwatch at the end of the day, including a good section on the Holy Grail of orchids: The Ghost, which has only been seen once in 23 years, and then just one spike. Which a slug ate as soon as it was identified. As you will imagine, this is what I very much would like to find, it is almost impossible of course, but then I like a challenge.