M&S Gingerbread and white chocolate cookies are going to be responsible for an awful lot of tea and biscuit breaks between now and Christmas... 🍪

Just had a hedgehog knocking over the empty milk bottles outside - good size one too 🦔

Yes, I started singing "thank you for being a friend" too when the Golden Girls came up as an answer on #Onlyconnect

Breakfast first for me- Staffordshire oatcakes!

Away for work - things are looking up! Custard creams and a coffee machine! Will help make up for an earlier start tomorrow 😊

That's been a good weekend - day out at the Newbury show yesterday, good excuse for a wander round and a decent pie for dinner. Also got to look at traction engines - got to love a traction engine! Even little ones!

Looks like summer has departed - had to dig out some jumpers for work this coming week!

Bloody hell - Bohemian Rhapsody at the last night of the proms was something else!

Had some padron peppers out the greenhouse for dinner tonight - mine have grown to be a tad on the spicy side! 🌶️🔥🌶️🔥🌶️🔥

Wasn't expecting it to be a hi viz and hard hat kinda day, but there you go, life is full of surprises.

Found on the interwebs; possibly the best hummingbird feeder ever.

Rhythm Nation by Janet Jackson on the radio - a song with the ability to crash some Windows XP laptops due to the song containing resonant frequencies of a 5400 rpm hard disk. Thank heavens for vibration testing and solid state. 🤓

Alert received. I've received proper ones in South Korea (trash balloons and missing persons) and one in Poland (severe weather - and it was!).

Not sure what I've done, but I'm in trouble...

Just did far too well on the final round of Only Connect when they got to the farm machinery questions...you can take the girl out the country...

#Caturday vibe - sharing is caring, even if it's a snooze on a box.

Proper bank holiday stuff today - road trip to the seaside, walk on the beach, fish and chips. Home and feet up for a cuppa 😊

Me heading in the pool on a Saturday morning...

Away for work tonight - bit of a view and a nice dinner, so can't complain.

the scenario we all feared

Highlight of the day - new box.

When your arm needs an acupuncture massage combo...

Found out this evening that my cats are embarrassed by me singing and dancing (it was to September by Earth, Wind and Fire - tune!). This is not going to stop me - sometimes singing and dancing is what gets me through getting the washing up done.

For a day which started with a swimming bag full of shower gel 🤦, today definitely turned out better than I thought.

😳😳😳

Someone has had a licky drink and is wearing some very sparkly water drops on her face.

Motherfucking wind farms…

What a collection - some really beautiful and well crafted instruments in there. BBC News - 'Accordion man's' collection up for auction - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/...

Our neighbour's cat has taken to having an afternoon nap in our front garden. Our neighbour has just fetched his cat in - our two were looking out the window like a friend was being kidnapped.

Thinking of dinner me: spicy ramen noodles and gyoza sounds good! Cooking dinner me: yes, top idea - quick to cook in this heat! Eating dinner me: 🥵🍜🥟🌶️🔥🥵 Post dinner me: don't see what all the fuss is about with this hot weather...

Meteorologist: Dress for mid 80s Me and the guys:

Fran putting in the extra effort this afternoon...

Driving home down the M4 tonight, saw a warning sign: SLOW - cyclist on road. After a couple of miles, there he was, on the hard shoulder being escorted by two traffic officers 🚓🚴🚓

A nice view and a sea breeze for a couple of days for work.

Day off and it's too hot to do too much - so this fine thing has been checked over and tuned. It's been a while! All generally ok - have had to repair bits over the years, but not today - it's survived three generations of my family! Didn't inflict any playing on the neighbours!

Morning! This piece of music became the old theme tune to Panorama, and it’s just gorgeous, isn’t it youtu.be/mJwaaXNzDEU

Got a few audit reports to write up this week - let's hope everyone knows what they're doing otherwise who knows what type of language could appear in there...

Fran summing up the general mood.

Leftover Friday dinners can be some of the most interesting - tonight, a pretty good take on a Caesar salad 🥗

Present and future Claire are thanking past Claire for having the forethought to make sure there were cold cans and a couple of bottles of cider in the fridge earlier 😊🍻

Note to self: Haribo do not like being left in a car on a hot day. I hit my emergency bag of Haribo while stuck in a queue on the M25 - ended up chewing on a mega-Haribo consisting of about 6-7 stuck together.

Stellar UX!!

Friends and family round for roast dinner today - yes, the kitchen doubled as a sauna, but it was worth it 😊.

Back at King's College today, making the most of the roof terrace at Bush House, catching up with fellow engineering alumni, enjoying the view and the flypast.

When I was about 4 a friend was visiting my gran. I kept staring, so my mum asked if I knew who she was - I said she worked at the swimming pool. No, she was a reporter/presenter on BBC news (Linda Alexander). I met her again at my Gran's funeral and was still embarrassed 25 years later.

I once helped David Suchet and his wife get coffees from one of the coffee machines at Membury services.

Kudos to the person from the council who mowed round the patch of ox-eye daisies on the verge near our house 😊

Most Sussex thing I've seen today - a parked up shepherd's hut at the side of the road just up from the hotel I'm stopping in. Old school towing hitch (big metal bar with a hole in it) and a couple of blocks to stop it rolling away. Classic!

Visiting my county of birth - seems rude not to drink the local tipple, which is no hardship 😊

A busy week of not playing golf with my colleagues (left handed ex-hockey player - not a good starting point), travel safety training (nerd points for me for knowing why you hear a crack and a bang when shot at - hoping not to need that bit) and a driving safety course yesterday. Safe all round!