Jeff Barrett and Caught by the River was a rather rewarding start to Thursday morning with Late Junction.
It set me up for the morning cycle along the Trail and out towards the Hythe for the daily swim.
The Trail remains bone dry.
If you time it just right to avoid a train, you can go from one end to the other without seeing or hearing from another human.
I did ring my bell around the corners. This triggered a wave from the Rowhedge side of the water, with a fellow cyclist thinking that I was greeting him with a good morning.
Maybe I was?
The tide was just starting to turn upstream as I reached the Hythe. The brown muddy banks have become the orange muddy banks over the summer months.
I’m not entirely sure why this is. I’d rather not ponder to be honest.
A choppy swim followed.
It was with a sense of poor swimming timing that I entered the pool at the same time as the aqua-aerobic ladies were about to start their flotation session.
I managed forty lengths, and then a catch up with West Ham Wanker.
He has never spoken about any partner in the past three years of our daily shower ritual. have always assumed that Mr Wanker is high maintenance.
But then quite casually, as we were leaving the gym he introduced me to Mrs Wanker who had also been in the pool.
It was quite a sweet moment to be honest.
I had stop / start work throughout the day.
The stop part was filled with explorations into the garden. There is no sign of the autumn months ahead - in fact quite the opposite.
The daily watering since mid-May is now paying off. We still have a dazzling green patch as a back garden. I found an unexpected courgette that has grown over the past couple of days.
Work involved some prep for a couple of new projects coming up in September. The briefing notes are getting longer and more detailed. This is no bad thing. Prepare for every eventuality…
I did ponder for something a little more rewarding to read however.
I’ve got a bedside table piled up with books in the estuary wilds, and then a similar scenario back in the Sunny Stockwell flat.
What is this telling me about my reading abilities?
Probably that my book choice isn’t quite working out for me.
I remembered that I had my Essex Libraries membership card. I’ve also got an Evernote To Read list filed away.
I logged on to the Essex site, and then within minutes had placed a reservation online for some more stimulating reading material.
I should try and keep this routine up over the autumn months. It’s got to be better than reading bloody Lambeth Council Planning agendas.
More work, and then I had the fortune of another two hour break in the work schedules.
Which once again meant only one thing:
To White House Beach!
With a book!
It seems like this summer has lasted forever. It is almost eight weeks since I last showed my face in a South London school.
That will soon change, but whilst the weather holds, it really is a case of getting out there and doing whatever puts a smile on your face.
Which for me on Thursday morning was the bicycle ride along the Quay, and then the absolute emptiness of White House Beach as the tide slowly started to turn once again.
More work into the early evening, and then I headed to the train station to meet Anna off the train.
It wasn’t exactly romantic - we both went straight to the village hall to vote in the Town Council by-election.
The fag end of the England Vs Pakistan ODI ended a fine Thursday.