Inspiration

 Ellie slept well again last night. She popped in to us at ten-to-seven and settled down between us with the Gorse Fox's tablet. We got her up and ready for school, and, because of the showers and threatening skies, we took her to Dizzy Ducklings in the car.

Back home the Gorse Fox got ready and headed off to Worthing for football. We had a somewhat unbalanced game with all the attackers playing all of the defenders. The attackers won. In fact the Gorse Fox thinks the score was about 6-2. It was fun to play, but the score was disappointing. The Gorse Fox had the pleasure of playing at the back alongside Ian, an ex-pro. It's always good to be with him as he is very sound, and gives clear instructions what he wants. Ian finished the game by approaching the Gorse Fox and saying he always enjoys playing alongside him "It's nice to play with a defender who knows what he's doing". Praise indeed.

On the way back, he filled his little car up with petrol for the first time this year. He was pleased to have achieved 49.9 mpg over the tankful. Try as he may, he just couldn't break the 50 mpg barrier.

Back home, showered and lunched, we went to collect Ellie. We dropped her straight round to Urban-Cub. She isn't feeling too well and was off-sick. We offered to have Ellie, but Urban-Cub said they would be fine.

Lat afternoon, the doorbell rand. It was an elderly neighbour. He had been round before to see our Orangery and decided he wanted something similar. That is nearly complete now. He was, however, now looking for a low maintenance garden - or what he described as courtyard garden. He asked if he could take another look at ours. Clearly we inspired him. It was, apparently, exactly what he wanted. We explained that we had designed it ourselves, then got people in to do the work. He was getting quotes, but they were astronomical. The Gorse Fox thinks they included the design work (which inflates the prices) and apparently they were not listening to what he was saying. Anyway, he went away inspired (and with some ideas of what it cost us).