Episodes

13 June 2025 (Friday)

Up early, and up first for a change - I wanted to get to Lidl early, the new one in Brentford which opened a week ago. Our local one, which is just a five minute walk away closed on Sunday until sometime in November; Lidl have acquired the similar-sized shop next door so it will.open up the whole space and double in size. However, once I was up I checked the fridge, and two cupboards, and the main freezer and decided that a shop can wait until after the weekend… I can get some tomatoes and pitta up the road as usual and make do until Monday, so I got on with other stuff.

Early at my desk, I picked up on a few of the issues of For Earth’s Sake from yesterday, and spotted another that I needed to do some research on; I needed to find out who to go to to resolve the issue… and found the teacher and school that needed to be contacted. It was about borrowing their Maypole and Splat-the-Rat for our Midsummer Revels… in nine days time… without which there would be fewer revels!

I then read a message from Vanessa… one of the longest serving members of staff in the shop is moving on, so the day she usually works is now a day that needs to be covered by another. It’s a real shame, though I hope the right move for the ex-staff member, who I’ll contact later to wish her well.

The broadband was still not working in the shop, so I still couldn't see any sales data, nor make any price changes to the till or add any new stock items, of which we’ve two this week. I had by now had a reply and amends from Vanessa to the letter I drafted on Wednesday re the damage to the festoon lighting; having read it I decided to not make some of the amends and just get the letter off, via email, to the delivery company. A few hours later, a positive response… they’d send their electrician to sort it, and he’d have a look at the damage this afternoon, to decide what needed doing. Result!

I hate these bitty days of struggle and stress, albeit minor struggles and stress, as in “there's no blood”, a saying my mum used in times of stress… “Is there blood? If not, there's time to sort it all out”. It feels like there's been quite a lot of stressful episodes this week, no blood, just stress. I’ll be glad once June has gone as we’ll be in a programming phase for the Great Green Barn for a few months, finalising something for September, Christmas and through to May or June next year. Vanessa and I are seeing a few shows in July, so that will feed in to our decisions.

Rain and thunderstorms had been forecast, and we waited and waited, though hour by hour the storm was shifting and getting later and later in the day.

So, I decided to go down, in the heat that I hadn't expected, and water virtually everything outside, and scatter chicken manure pellets too! If rain comes it will moisten the pellets to start the process of adding goodness to the soil. As I'm watering, I notice the Santolina, or Spanish Lavender is just about to open into thousands of gorgeous yellow buttons... lovely.

By the time I got home, and despite wearing a hat, I was hot. It definitely felt like 27° and very humid, especially at the plot where, as I say, I had watered. I get a text from Vanessa… the festoon is up and the broadband should be working… and it was! Yay!!

Richard did his Live at 6pm as planned, which was the usual fun, and then supper - pasta again for ease.

Friday night’s currently Top of the Pops reruns night, and then we finished off with an episode of The Power of Parker, which we’re both getting in to… I’d seen it in schedules and idents a few times, and with series two arriving on the Beeb I thought we’d try the first episode of the first series… and now we’ve done four episodes!


Weather: Sunny from the off, and warm - getting to pretty hot at 28°. The Met Office announces it’s got to 29.4° somewhere in Essex, and this is the hottest day of the year so far… no surprises there!

Breakfast: Bran Sticks, yogurt, and banana
Lunch: Hummus, pitta, tomatoes, carrot batons, radish, cucumber
Supper: Puttanesca Sauce with wholewheat spaghetti, and a salad of olives, tomato, cucumber and basil