Wednesday 12th June 2024

Eton Mess.

The wait for news of the big event goes on.

And on.

What I can tell you is that this week is just a four day week with Friday off and meeting back up with my old boss and his wife, where I will be taking them on a guided tour round Canterbury.

I don't really have the days off to spare, but at the moment, almost anything is better than work, so I am off from five on Thursday.

Two doors down are having clapboard attached to their house. They have painted the boards eggshell blue rather than white, so doesn't look right, but its their house. Its the same house that mows his lawn every three days and has their roof steam-cleaned once a year to get rid of moss.

I have work to do, and yet more chaos to uncover.

Sigh.

The day started off cool, cloudy and grey, but did warm up, but bugger the expense, I went round closing all the windows and putting the heating on.

Much better.

So, I was less cold, but about as productive.

Sun did get out in the afternoon, but was still cold. I took shots to prove it. That it was sunny, there were no icebergs to snap in the Channel I suspect.

Dinner was pan-fried asparagus, with sliced cheese and home-made garlic bread which was rather food, if a bit overcooked so very crumbly.

Jools bought some meringues from the Italian place at the weekend, and stopped off for cream and fruit to make Eton Mess. I added vanilla extract to the cream, and some melted berry sorbet at the end to the dish, and was perfect: sweet and sour.

One more evening without football, and then there will be little else for four weeks.

You have been warned.

Football endless

I once told my friend in the US, Jason, that football, soccer, is pretty much a 365 days a year sport now.

He said he thought that heaven.

And I would too if we didn't already have it.

I say this because tomorrow, the Euros kicks off bringing with it five weeks of games ending on the 14th July, just in time for pre-seaspn friendlies and the kick off of the new season in August.

I used to like NFL because there was none for seven months a year, so by the time the season began in September again, you were so ready for it. I'm not ready for another 46 game Championship season with Norwich and the remaining 23 teams.

Next season sees teams in the group stages of the Champion's League playing two more games, and at the end of the season the first 32 team World Club Cup featuring 32 teams from around the globe, five from England.

I am tired with all the games, I'm sure the players are. England looked shattered last week in their two friendlies, Wembley wasn't full and St Jame's Park was quiet as both teams went through the motions.

There can be no real reform of the game until the number games that each player takes part in, and distances travelled. A day after the end of the Premier League Season, Tottenham and Newcastle flew to Austalia for a friendly, this included players who will play for England in the Euros.

Changes to the game, the calendar without any consultation to either fans or players. No one asks what we want, or how players feel about having to play close to 70 games a season, with huge amount of European and global travel.

And then, after saying all of the above, I'll watch it all anyway.

Tuesday 11th June 2024

Of course after the big event, comes the waiting.

The other thing I haven't mentioned up to this point, or at this week, is that on Sunday on the way up the down on the hunt for orchids, I fell down a rabbit hole/ My good leg went down, and I stopped falling with my bad, and then after a pause, the pain came.

I am aware that I might be laying the my bad knee a bit thickly, so in doing the ankle on the same leg, might make it sound that I am a horse waiting to be shot.

Which it does fell that way, at times.

My ankle swelled and walking sitting and laying down is painful. Its getting better, but walking any further than the bottom of the garden is out of the question.

But I have drugs, creams and now staps to make it less hurty. And so life goes on.

The wind is still set from the north, and so its not just cool, its downright cold. All day Tuesday I told myself that it wasn't as cold as it actually was.

And then there was work.

Although, I am going through a period of not being very well disposed towards work, and I go through the motions, hit my targets for the day and so no one probably notices how sad I am. Not sad, but so tired by the endless battles.

One day the battles will end, and their importance will fade. But for now, I am tired. So very tired.

In the afternoon, dark clouds swept down from the north, and then the rain came. Heavy rain, chasing insects and birds from the garden.

Dinner was defrosted and oven baked Kyiv, sweet chilli stir fry and wholemeal noodles fried in oil and soy sauce.

It was too cold to sit around too much, so I went to bed at half eight to get warm.

Manifestly inadequate

Yesterday, the Conservative and UNion Party released their election manifesto at a low key event at Silverstone.

For the waiting journalists there was coffee but no food.

The main promise of the document is more tax cuts.

Unfunded tax cuts to be paid for by trimming the Civil Service and NHS Managers.

All about jam tomorrow.

Of course, the party has been in power since May 2010, almost as long as I have been working for my current employers, and sice 2019 have had an 80 seat majority, with which the party could have driven through whatever policies it wanted.

But instead did almost nothing.

Even its only policy from 2019 election, Brexit, has gone so badly the Government can't even crow about that, only that a Labour win would reverse Brext and take the country back to "square one"

Like that would be a bad thing.

Sunak and Grant Shapp have been reduced to warning that any Government with a large majority is a bad thing.

But of course, as the electorate look round a country and economy that is leterally crumbling, one has to ask, why does a party that has done so little with power in the last 14 years, want to hang on to it for longer? So it can fleece the country, impose more austerity and deport the most desperate people to Rwanda?

As useless as the Conservatives have been in power, their election campaign thus far has been no better, unforced error after unforced error. These are not clever people. Or, these are clever people who think they know all the answers, when wise ones would know they do not.

Still three weeks to go, much more time to make even worse mistakes.

Monday 10th June 2024

Monday.

And day of "the big event", details of which I cannot tell you because of stuff.

But it is big and was an event, or the second in a series of events.

And it went well.

I was told.

Which is nice. So, getting up I had a shower and put on a clean t shirt and jumper, all to look like I care about myself, and then have a coffee and prepare myself for the event.

So, in terms of the log, there were events before the event, after the event and then the event itself.

Which I can't talk about.

Outside it was sunny, but cool. Nearly cold, as the wind has set in the north and will be most of the week. I ponder with closing windows and putting the heating on, or maybe munching on some extra strong mints or something.

I watched as two Goldfinches moved from the feeders into the beds near the house, picking seeds of the knapweed and other plants, all the time chirping to each other. On the feeders, magpies have trashed one by swinging on it to get the fat balls out, so a new one will be needed soon, as it is hanging in the hedge by luck.

There is shop-bought chilli and rice for lunch, three bean chilli, and I warm some leftover focaccia to go with it, which worked.

And so to the afternoon, and time dragged. I spoke with Rune who is in Vietnam doing audits, and he wanted to vent after a long and bad flight, then no taxi to the hotel, a hotel that he discovered provided no breakfast.

I finish work, and with little preparation, I listen to podcasts until I put the three cheese bake in the oven and sliced the French stick we bought in Folkestone the day before.

I ate the bread, dipped in runny cheese, all washed down with a dumpy bottle of Chimay Grande Reserve 2022.

I know how to live.

And with me watching travelogues with Scully on the sofa, I opened the bottle of bourbon and sipped its sweet smoothness.

I know how to live.

Sunday 9th June 2024

A day full of plans.

Or a morning, at least.

Up with the larks at six, and after a quick coffee, we were out before seven, driving past the port and up the A20 to Folkestone and the orchid sites just beyond.

We take a main road off the motorway, then a side road, then a lane and finally, a track barely wide enough for the car.

We park in a passing place, and gather our gear together, climb over a stile, through a wood and into the meadow beyond.

I have made Late Spiders shot of the day twice, so a third seems a tad overkill, but we saw so many fine and interesting spikes, including at least three hybrids.

I did OK, pushed myself and so got the shots and saw the spikes I wanted.

Time was slipping, so at nine we went back to the car, then drove back onto the motorway and into Folkestone as I badly needed a haircut.

We arrived in town at half nine, I walked to the barbers and found it open, and a chair waiting.

I was shorn, then had a proper barber's shave too, for the big event tomorrow.

A proper shave means being shaved twice with a cut-throat, then more soap added, before finally a hot, wet and cologne-infused towel is pressed into my face.

I smelt and looked lovely afterwards.

We called in at the new Italian deli on the way back to the car, spending £42 on bread, beer, cider and other lovely things.

Jools drove us home, back along the cliffs and into town, getting back at midday, time for a brew and breakfast.

And that was that, really. A quiet day, with food and drink at regular intervals, music on the radio and sitting in the garden while the sun shone.

I had bought a focaccia from the deli, not as good as home made, obviously, but good enough, so we ate that with caprese and a glass or three of red wine while we listened to Desert Island Discs.

And somehow the weekend had gone again.

We shall remember

Thursday was the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, and the last time the small band of aging survivors will make the annual trip to remember their fallen comrades.

Leaders of the west were there, including the sonn to be ex-Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak.

Though not for long. Seems he had made an appointment with ITV back in London for a interview that was to be recorded and broadcast next week, staying just long enough for the "British" celebrations, even though D-Day was a union and sacrifice of many nations. Foreign Secretary, Cameron took his stead in all the official photographs, while Sunak flew back to London.

To say his actions has not gone down well is something of an understatement. Coming as it did a few days after suggesting the young might like to get some in, in bringing back National Service, aka conscription, apparently snubbing previous generation's service was tone deaf to say the least.

He did apologise, of course.

But the one anniversay the blue-rinse core Tory supporters always tqake part in is D-Day, showing apparent disrespect is not a good look, and is worthy od Thw Thick of It, really.

As I have said on many occasions, these are not clever people, so confident are they of themselves, they are capable of the most eye-watering mistakes.

Sunak cannot be replaced now, Parliament has been disolved, and the election manifestos will be published next week. Ministers still try to defend him, but its tough.

Less than four weeks to the election now. The electorate will not forget.