We were set for a trip to Coventry this weekend, for Paul’s cousin’s 21st. In light of a bad back, though (his), we found ourselves stranded at home. Not a bad thing since it meant we didn’t have to tackle the roads. Not a good thing since it’s V weekend, when most of the Chelmsford population is advised to get out of town to avoid the crowds.

In fairness, we barely ever go into town, so it’s had very little effect, but one year they were using sniffer dogs to hunt for drugs at the station, trapping me and two friends on the back staircase as they sniffed everyone going past. Old people were allowed down the main staircase, because they were apparently above the law. It wasn’t a good introduction to the town for the friends who were with me. It was their first time here, and after fifteen minutes spent standing on a grubby concrete staircase the dog sat down after sniffing the person in front of us. This was clearly a sign, as the policemen roughly grabbed him and threw him in the back of a police van, clearly with no concern for how he may be injured. I guess the dogs have to have a rest when they’ve found one, as the woman holding its lead looked up at us and said ‘consider yourselves lucky. Very lucky.’

Rude rude rude. If we had had drugs on us, perhaps I would have considered us lucky. As it was, though, it was just a major inconvenience.

So anyway, we had dinner with Andrew, mum and Viv last night. Viv paid, and took us all out to The Angel. Very yummy. Lots of goats’ cheese and Mediterranean vegetables, then back here for coffee and a repeat of the wedding photos. Inspired by a talk of fresh peas at the table (don’t ask why), I bought some on a trip to Somerfield this morning and so spent half an hour this evening shelling them.

It’s quite therapeutic, and really, the way peas grow is very clever. As you pop open the end (it looks like the mouth of a gasping dolphin when it’s open), you can split it down its length with your nail and open it out. Inside, the peas are more like little drums than perfect spheres, and as you pop them off they pull little root-like stalks with them, which you don’t see on the frozen ones you get out of a bag. They are interleaved, like interlocked fingers, so that as you pull apart the two halves of the pod, they unfold from one another. It’s a work of genius.

They don’t taste any different to the frozen ones, but they do seem to be far more substantial.

It was a day spent working, mostly, but by evening I was twitchy from sitting at my desk all day, so went out for a long walk across the fields. It may have been gone seven, but there was enough summer left in the air for the crickets to still be singing to one another, but the birds were circling ominously, as though they were doing flight-checks on their wings before the long journey off to a warmer winter in the south.

Batten down the hatches.

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