Hi again :-)
Today has been an enjoyable kind of a day, got quite a bit done at work, and you can actually see where I have been. Have been in an unexpectedly chill kind of a mood today, which has actually been quite nice. What will be will be, etc etc. Still am to be truthful.
Have found a song on spotify that I absolutely adored about 14 years ago, and haven't really heard since, so happy to hear it again, This Summer by Squeeze. This is a song from a long hot and beautiful summer, when I was 19 and life was brilliant and full of everything. I sang and sang this song till I was singing it in my sleep. It was the year I met MLO. It Said everything really. I cant help but feel completely and utterly contented overjoyed and happy when I hear it.

I can remember walking in the fields with the smell of freshly harvested corn on the air, hearing the insects buzz, and climbing up onto stacks of bales and watching the sun go down, running just for the fun of it. Eating lunch out in the fields on a scorching hot afternoon sitting on the bales and drinking cider, you could almost hear the heat bearing down. When we moved the stacks of bales there would always be rats underneath which used to run into the middle until there was only one or two bales left,and when it was moved they would scatter in every direction, the dogs used to love that. Going to the pub riding bikes along country lanes that were deserted (before people "discovered" Herefordshire. James the mad artist, who used to go round with his mate in a n old fiat 500 standing up through the roof with a massive water pistol soaking anyone who he saw, and shouting "I am Mr Seagull, then squawking just like one. He used to come up into the field to paint us, then went off to paint for the Sultan of Brunei. He took the paintings of us with him, so as far as I know, we are gracing the palace walls somewhere. Going for horse rides wherever I felt like, then tearing up the lane at full gallop whooping like a mad thing. MLO coming over the top lane from his farm to me no matter what time of night it was, just so we could see each other.

That was the year that the "Beast of Herefordshire" appeared. It was identified from the witness accounts as a black panther. Lots of the local people and farmers saw it. MLO and I saw it twice, once, one the Ledbury - Hereford road, by a farm called Court y parc and once on the top lane, each time it turned to look at us, so there was never any doubt as to what it was. The police reported it to the Hereford times, when they saw it at the end of MLOs farm drive. It had made some sort of a den in our top field, it had scratched all up the one tree up to higher than we could reach, and there was one heck of a stink. Earlier that year when it first appeared, and I was still working on the neighbouring farm to MLO, I used to walk round the sheep in the morning to check on them and make sure the water troughs were filling up, I did and everything was OK. Less than four hours later and we took some grain over to the sheep, and there right in the center of the field in between the wood and the bank, was a freshly killed carcase, all that was left was the skeleton the head, part of the throat and two back legs. when we looked at it, you would swear it had been stripped clean with a razor, and the throat had obviously been ripped out. Not a very comforting thing to find in the middle of rural England. I am sure I saw it in one of the cornfields ahead of of me one day about June I could see the corn swaying, and I thought one of the dogs had followed me up, so I called and it stopped. Something made me quite scared at that moment so cut across a couple of tramlines to the side and up to the top, and the lane. As I reached the top, I looked back, and saw a glossy black back disappearing down the field. As soon as it was out of sight, I shot out into the lane, and ran the fastest I ever have back to the safety of the farm. Heck I was scared, shaking all over. The beast was seen on and off after that year, and then not heard from again, but the rumour was that a local old boy had knocked it flying when he was driving home one night, and it had staggered off into an orchard, funnily enough, just by where we had seen it the once.
Anyhoo, I have work again tomorrow, despite it being my weekend off, but hey, never mind. As such, it is time I was off to bed, so night night everyone. Sleep tight, mind the bugs don't bite.