it wasn’t a day off, it was a day in lieu. I amalgamated approx. 45 minutes of each of the preceding nine working days into one day. It was just a weekend day – no more a day off that a Saturday is.

OK, it was a day off if you like.

I spent a couple of hours catching up on admin and then cut and scarified my small patch of lawn. It’s probably a bit early in the season, but never mind – it was looking scraggy. I collected a small amount of grass but a huge amount of moss. It now looks a bit bare in patches, but hopefully the grass will now grow through.

Next task on the list was shopping – mostly groceries, but also some tickets for a concert next month. Coffee and cake to keep the wolf from the door until a late lunch. By a remarkable, but not very interesting, coincidence, I was having my coffee at the same time as CS2 and CS3 were having lunch in a different branch of the same chain – it was a Baker Day for CS3 so she wasn’t at school.

Then to the garden centre to buy some plants, and back home to put them in the garden. I have no idea what I bought, or whether they are suitable for the soil – I’m not a gardener. For all I know I have mixed alpines with tropicals.

I also bought some chicken manure. I have no idea whether the garden will benefit from chicken manure – I’m not a gardener. I just liberally sprinkled it all over. I chose it because it was non-chemical fertilizer in a pack that looked the easiest to carry with all the other plants I had selected. Even then I very nearly dropped everything on my way to the checkout, until a nice old lady came to my rescue and carried some of my purchases.

And finally, a haircut. The barber apologised that he’d put his prices up – “oh well, “I replied, “you’ve got to make a living”.

The local rag – that some people think is a newspaper – reported that “thousands of people” would be taking part in the Eastleigh 10km race. Well, about 2,800. Yes, I know that technically this is “thousands” (plural), but I’m not sure that 2.8 is really what people see as “thousands”.

In another article, it reported that, after 32 years, the 10km route is “still the same distance”, which is relieving to know – 10km 32 year ago is the same distance as 10km today.

I was one of the 2,800. 50:25 – not bad for an old bloke wearing some second-hand running shoes - they were given to me by a fellow runner as they no longer fitted him. He caught me up in the last 400 metres which possibly gives a different take on the “before you criticise somebody, walk a mile in their shoes” advice.

(Because when you criticise them you are a mile away, and have their shoes).

Some clickbait on Facebook (which I ignored) with photos of people who had unexpectedly met their doppelgänger. Point 1: they were not doppelgängers. Point 2: aren’t encounters with doppelgängers supposed to be unexpected?

In German, "doppelgänger" is both singular and plural, but the anglicised form adds an "s" to the plural.