This summer and this year in general have flashed by – we’re nearly at the end of August and the good weather has returned for a while after a few days of torrential rain.

The doglets have been happy, I haven’t been away this week and apart from a scheduled arthroscopy on Wednesday afternoon, I’m going nowhere next week either.

I was away for work for two days on the 11th and 12th, going from working at an undisclosed location while armed soldiers walked the perimeter of the base around us and then spending the evening eating and drinking well whilst dipping into some philosophy.

A friend contacted me out of the blue on the 12th and we observed the eclipse before having dinner.

I met her in my new favourite bar, a little place that caters mostly to whisky and cocktails and we caught up on the various changes in our lives since we last saw each other in February, it was a good evening, although if anyone is thinking of eating in the Gordon Ramsay at the Hilton, don’t bother.

I’m spending my non-retirement wages on improving the house, so have had a new boiler fitted – with a new, upgraded wood burner to be installed next month.

New flooring will follow and I’ll see what the near future holds before making any other decisions.

There’s a dark cloud over work, it’s not on me personally, but it’ll determine whether I stop in December or renew for a while.

It’s a really dark and ominous cloud but it’s not mine and I’ll update in a few weeks.

I’ve been making sure that I get some larger home jobs sorted before my knee op, including filling a skip and climbing across a roof today to fix some minor leaks.

And I’ve made sure that the tiny (really, really tiny, almost nonexistent) pangs on my conscience are addressed as they arise.

I gave £20 to an ex soldier that I’ve seen a few times in Bath when he’s in town. He’s rough sleeping but doesn’t do drugs or booze, he’s scrupulously clean and at some point I’m going to ask his story.

He seems like a good man and it’s awful to see people like him on the streets.

I changed a wheel for an old lady in Morrison’s car park last week and was genuinely surprised that not one person asked to help at all, apart from one cunt who made a comment about how the jack could be better placed, given that the wheel was off by this point, I wasn’t impressed.

And I’ve walked the doglets in the mornings and patrolled the grounds with them in the evening.

They seem to be closer and I’ve caught them running around together a few times, looking both happy and somehow suspicious at the same time.

And I’ve cooked outside whenever possible, making the most of both the weather and the space to do things at any pace I like.

All in all, nothing much has happened and that’s rather lovely really.

No real dramas at all.

Apart from dinner on the 11th.

A lovely little Italian restaurant that offers self-cooking of steak.

On a really hot stone.

You have a choice of things to cook it with.

One of those is chili salt.

I pretty much cleared the restaurant and made it abundantly clear that I didn’t give a single fuck when anyone mentioned it on the way out of the door.

It was rather splendid.

Both the food and the drama.