I Was Tapping Away On The Laptop Preparing The Blog,

when the front door buzzer sounded,

the BT engineer had arrived,

in no time the Internet and telephone feeds were being checked, then a bit a of bad news, the problem was outside,

after some time he returned, he had found the fault in one of the relay boxes I guess they are called, all was now well, Internet connection back to normal,

in the afternoon Diana was off to work so I accompanied her to the bus stop, her 354 taking her to work, my 354 taking me to Bromley,

arriving in Bromley I noticed The Royal Bell now newly refurbished had opened,

as it was Friday there were lots of stalls here,

this one selling plants bigger than ever,

and one stall I had never seen here before, I had a few things to do in Bromley,

and this was one of them, to look for the chestnut man,

and here he was, I had called in not only a couple of weeks ago, but I also bought some chestnuts from him last year in January 2020,

we will enjoy some these as we watched television on Sunday,

I carried on walking to The Glades shopping mall,

looking at some of the other stalls on the way,

there was a distinct Christmas feel in the air,

a little early I know,

but with all the restrictions of the past year,

it almost seemed like this Christmas was the light at the end of the tunnel,

the High Street even had a Ferris wheel,

into The Glades,

my next stop, drop off two bags of used coffee pods to be recycled, that is our bit to save the planet!

a new stall, I had never heard of then before,

the Christmas tree, but no Santa, yet,

I thought for a Friday afternoon The Glades were not very crowded,

the same for the walk to it from the market square,

next stop exchange our CO2 cylinder for a new one for our soda water, next stop Primark to buy a couple of white shirts, they had lots of them, all short sleeves, which is not what I wanted, I asked one of assistants as was told they only have short sleeve shirts and can not order any more long sleeve ones, so that was that, Marks & Spencer it was then, then a slight snag, they only sold them in packs of three, so I bought a pack of them, onto the 354 bus stop and home,

sitting on the bus I was thinking how all of this shopping made me thirsty, and by shear happenstance the 354 bus stops opposite the club, so in I went and bumped into Roger and a few others passing the afternoon away,

refreshed I made my way home,

past the newly roofed cricket pavilion, it must be me, I really can not believe that whoever signed off on the tiles thought the new tiles matched the old ones above them, it will be hell for the cricketers if they have to see the red cricket ball against that background, but there it is, I must be colour blind!

it was soon time for my evening sherry and read,

I finished the chicken pâté I had started last night,

main course chilli-con-carne,

eyes down and tuck in,

raspberry & cream mini roulade, all of which was delicious,

meal finished back to the club to meet up with Steve, we chatted the night away as the English kneelers beat Albania 5 - 0 in the background, Steve kindly dropped me off home, Diana was already there, so it was feet up for a New Tricks, then we were off to bed.