An early start

This morning I woke before six and was soon downstairs imbibing strong black coffee.

By eight o'clock I was outside in the garage carrying out much needed tidying. I really wanted to get the floor swept, but each time I put a couple of bikes outside, to give much needed space, a shower passed over and they had to be rushed back inside. Eventually a shower free spell occurred and I can report that the garage is now a much more pleasant space to work ... far from pristine, but certainly a lot tidier.

I wandered back in to the house for a coffee and eventually TP made an appearance. I encouraged him to breakfast swiftly and then recruited him to assist me with a trip to the Tip. The trailer was already loaded and it was a few minutes work to rope the load and head off.

Forty minutes later we were back at home and loaded the last remnants of the "kindling stack" in to the trailer. Allegedly, a colleague of 30% wants this wood, so by having it pre-loaded it should encourage him to simply borrow my trailer and take it away ... alternatively it is ready for another tip trip if it isn't removed before I need the trailer next.

This frenetic activity brought us all to lunch time and in the afternoon 30% and I headed over to see her brother and the ELF.  A pleasant couple of hours were spent catching up on each others' news and discussing the recent political divides before we headed back home.

We then returned to the garden and I mowed the lawn whilst 30% planted up the raised bed. Various pruning and weeding activities followed until hunger and fatigue drew a halt to proceedings.

Dinner was taken early and was followed by a wash and brush up, as our evening was spent at the Artrix theatre in Bromsgrove watching Barry Cryer and Colin Sell  perform their Strictly Come Joking tour.  It was a lovely evening watching the two old farts enjoy themselves on stage recounting anecdotes and telling jokes, some of which were as old as they were.

We certainly managed to fill our time today.