Bugging

 Though warm and dry, today didn't really become bright and sunny until the afternoon. We had a quiet morning, with the exception of my call with the cousins. The primary subject of contention during the call was Chris's ongoing problems with the passport office. I tuned out. There was little I could say that would have added value.

Di had a plan for the day. There was a short list of tasks (predominantly in the garden) she wanted to clear prior to Monday's hospital trip. One of them, the clearing of blanket weed from the rill, I could help with, so I dug a couple of kilos of green sludge from the rill and topped it up with fresh water.

The rest of the day was spent in front of the computer. I was trying to fill in more details regarding the home network in the NetAlertX monitor. This took ages. The final problem that I hit was that when it tried to draw the network, it wouldn't complete the names of the devices. It only showed the "wiring". This was bugging me, so I spent several hours trying to solve this and, in the end, broke the whole system. I resolved to start again tomorrow, went into the kitchen, and poured a beer.

That was it for the day. 

Summer Fayre

 We were up at our normal time. Well rested, but up and about early. We had a quiet hour or so before wandering to Zoe's to collect Ellie for school. She was running a bit late, having decided at 8:25 that she wanted some toast, and we usually leave at 8:30. ~Despite this, we got her to school just as the classroom doors opened.

Di went home to prepare for her Cardiac Rehab session while I set off for my walk. The sun was beating down, it was a comfortable 19 °C,  and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was a delightful walk as I looped around the estate a few times. When I arrived home, I had some breakfast and then got on with some domestic chores. Once Di had returned, I took the car to Zoe's and gave her a lift to Sainsbury's so she could get a Father's Day card for Ellie to give to Pete. We spent some time chatting with Jason, her manager, and then I dropped her off at home.

As I pulled up, Di was just leaving to help Zoe with the vacuuming upstairs. I sorted out a few more domestic chores and then returned to the work I had been doing on my network monitor.

After we had some lunch, we retired to the lounge (the Orangery was too hot) for some Kindle time. Today, the school had its Summer Fayre, so we collected Ellie and waited to be allowed into the festivities. They had put on a good show, with plenty of stalls, some selling treats, some offering challenges of various types, and there was an ice cream van and a pizza van. We hung around and tried our hand at various challenges. After 30 minutes or so, we left and took Ellie back to Zoe's so that she would be ready when Pete picked her up for the weekend.

Windows

 I was up at 6:30. There was no real need, but I was wide awake, and it seemed pointless to just lie there when I could be drinking coffee and reading the news. Di came down soon after seven. In theory, there was no need for the school run. Ellie had been at Poppy's overnight and went to the school's breakfast club with her. Theory is all very fine, but when Ellie forgot to pick up her school shoes, it meant grandpa had to collect them from Zoe's and deliver them to Ellie at the breakfast club.

We were able to head to the shops much earlier than usual. For some reason, we seemed to spend far more than usual. The car's boot was packed and, having dropped Di at Zoe's, I wrestled the shopping into the correct cupboards, fridges, freezers, and drawers by myself... completely unsupervised!

Di had been vacuuming and washing the floors at Zoe's. By the time I was able to go and help, it was all but done. My main contribution was retrieving the bins after they had been emptied this morning. We headed back home for a cup of tea and some lunch. We had about 30 minutes of downtime before having to collect Ellie for her appointment in Chichester. As we prepared to leave, the heavens opened. Whilst there were several heavy bursts, the rain was mostly sporadic.

Having dropped Ellie at her appointment, we strolled along to a nearby cafe and enjoyed a decent coffee and some very tasty Danish pastries. An hour later, we collected Ellie and took her home. While there, I tried to fix a faulty latch on one of the windows, but concluded it needed a professional. Zoe will have to call a fitter.

We cooked dinner for Zoe and Ellie to try to keep her off her leg. Di collected them and took them back, and I managed the cooking and clearing up. Teamwork at work.

Knees Up

 oe was off work today, so that meant we had a leisurely start. We nipped around to collect Ellie for school.  She was not her usual chirpy self, and by the time we were ready to leave, she burst into tears. She knew Zoe was due at the hospital for her knee procedure, and she was worried. We calmed her down, and by the time we got to school, she was calm and, whilst not chirpy, was at least ready for the day.

There had been some debate over whether Di was going to Pilates. The issue was that she was having some meds delivered. They phoned at nine and said they would be with us between eleven and twelve. That quashed any hopes for Pilates, as I would be at the Nuffield with Zoe. We adjusted the day's schedule and sat down for a quiet coffee.

I collected Zoe and took her to the hospital. We had to wait for a little while, but she was soon called through to radiology. There, they used ultrasound to guide the procedure. The cyst was aspirated, and steroids were injected into the site. Fifteen minutes later, she walked out (on crutches) and declared, "That's it. Let's go home." She chatted to Diane on the phone the whole way home, and I helped to get her settled.

Back home, Di's meds had arrived, so we had a gap in the schedule until we had to collect Ellie. I used the time to return to a problem I had been having with the new network monitor I had installed. It took about an hour, but I finally got to the bottom of the issue, and the monitor seems to be running well now.

We had some Kindle time, and I finished another book, then we went to collect Ellie from football. We took her to her friend, Poppy's, where she will be staying overnight, going straight to school from there in the morning. (We did leave Poppy's mum our phone numbers in case Ellie had a wobble, in which case she could come back here.

Molar Mining

 There was no need for the alarm clock this morning, partly because Jasper had started yelling at us at five, and also because Zoe had a late start.  At the appointed hour, we trundled off to Zoe's and collected Ellie. We dropped her off at school, then headed home for breakfast.

There was no early walk today as I had a dental appointment. I enjoyed my morning porridge and then drove into Chichester. Surprisingly, the dentist was running to time, so I was dragged in and strapped down while she checked all of my teeth. This included a set of X-rays. I had pointed out a tooth that had lost its filling back in January. She examined it and decided it needed some attention, so I have been booked back in for late July to have the tooth rebuilt.

There was a lot of stress this morning. Some injections that Di has to start taking had not been delivered. Worse still, when she chased them, the pharmacy (at Haywards Heath hospital) said they only received the request yesterday (though it was marked as urgent). This is a process that Di started on the 1st of June. Anyway, after much to'ing and fro'ing, the situation now seems to be under control. The meds should be delivered tomorrow.

Talking of meds, Di also had a batch waiting for her at the local pharmacy. I used this as an excuse for a walk. I'm glad I took a large shopping bag with me, as she seemed to be refreshing the whole stock.

We had some quiet time after lunch. I then went to collect Ellie from school and take her home. I was going to take her to football practice this evening, but she has decided not to go.

Ache

We could have done without an early start after the very late night last night. That's not how life works, however. So it was that I was up at 6:30 to greet Ellie when she was dropped off. Everything went fairly smoothly until Ellie had finished breakfast and started complaining of a tummy ache. In the end, she was quite distressed, so we kept her out of school for the morning. Fortunately, she felt better after a while, and we were able to take her in at lunchtime.

We heard from Maureen. Chris had been operated on during the night and would have a further operation today. He was being kept sedated in the meantime.

I went for my morning walk, and by the time I got back, Diane was on one of her regular phone calls with her friend Marilyn. Ellie was watching some TV, doing some drawing and even playing some chess. It was clear that she would be fine to go to school later.

We deliberately had a quiet afternoon with our Kindles. We might even have succumbed to a nap. We collected Ellie from athletics club and took her home. The doors are now locked, and we don't expect to emerge until morning.

A&E

 We had a nice, lazy start to the day. There was nothing significant on the schedule; we could just please ourselves.

Diane pottered around, but was interrupted by Zoe calling for a long chat. In the end, it was nearly midday before she managed to get upstairs to wash and dress. I, meanwhile, had settled in the study. I fiddled some more with the NetAlertX monitor and completed the documentation for its build. I then set about installing (via Docker) a product called "PiHole". This sits on the home network and takes over the role of DNS server, but in doing so, it checks a list of blocked domains and discards any data from them. This has the effect of discarding the vast majority of advertisements that usually populate many websites. Once installed, I tested it from the MacBook and iPad and also Diane's iPad. I will leave it for a day or so, and assuming no problems arise, I will implement it across the home network. With that finished, I documented it, then performed a full system backup of "snowyowl".

During the afternoon, Di pottered in the garden while I had some Kindle time.

As we were finishing dinner, we got a call from Maureen (our neighbour). Could we take Chris to A&E? Well, of course. The trouble was I had had a couple of beers, so Di had to do the driving. Chris (who had had significant surgery a couple of years back) was in absolute agony. We got him to the hospital as quickly as we could and wheeled him into A&E. As soon as he was taken through (as an emergency) we left, giving Maureen instructions to call us when she was ready to come home.

Back home, we settled down and watched the World Cup football and several follow-on programs. In the end, it was gone 1 o'clock before Maureen was ready to come home. They were going to operate on Chris, and there was nothing she could do until morning. She had called one of their sons, and he was coming down to be with her overnight and take her back to the hospital tomorrow. We climbed in the car and collected Maureen to bring her home. 

It was nearly 2 o'clock before we got to bed, but at least Chris was in good hands, and Maureen was safely home.

Bandit Country

 After a decidedly lazy start to a glorious, sunny morning, I unplugged the car, which had been charging overnight. I ran my little program and found that the car is still averaging out at 2p per mile. Long may this continue.

At nine, I had the call with the cousins. There was no general theme for the call, but we did hear a lot about Sam's trip to see Paul Young and how she became really emotional when she had the opportunity to meet him. It did make us chuckle when Helen started to refer to her as Mrs Young.

Once the call was over, set up the feeder for Jasper and headed off for the day. We went up to Odiham to visit Jan and John. It would be the first time we had seen them for months. The traffic was a bit slow around Chichester, but other than that, we had a good run. I noticed when I parked the car that it almost filled the parking space, and it is clearly a bit wider than the Karoq had been. 

We settled down for some coffee and an initial catch-up. We were eager to hear about their recent river cruise along the Douro in Portugal. They commented on how different it was from the Moselle. It was quite rocky, and most of the stops required a coach to get to the various locations. They also commented on some of the engineering, with one lock raising the ship by 115 feet (it is the deepest lock in Europe and one of the highest in the world). They were not as lucky with the weather as we had been. Overall, they enjoyed the cruise (and have booked two more), but think the Moselle was the most scenic.

We drove across to "The Falcon" in Rotherwick for lunch. It wasn't as busy as it had been on our last trip, but that could be because it's Saturday rather than Sunday. We had a super lunch. Di opted for the Sea Bass while I started with a Caesar salad, and followed up with local sausages with colcannon mash. We didn't linger over a dessert as Jan had some Tarte au Citron and strawberries waiting back in Odiham.

We chatted all afternoon, shared photos, and reminiscences. We talked about plans, diet, exercise, and ailments. We finally said our goodbyes and headed into the early evening sun. We had an excellent trip home, taking about 70 minutes. I plugged the car in for an overnight charge, and we went in to be greeted by Jasper, who was delighted to see us and followed Diane around like a shadow.

No Hospital Trips

 We were up early. Zoe dropped Ellie and her friend Poppy off with us just after 06:30. To be fair, they were no trouble at all, and the morning ran smoothly. I walked the girls to school while Di got ready for her Cardiac Rehab session. Having left the girls in class, I set off for my usual walk.

Once home, I spent some time examining the MetAletrX software I had installed on "snowowl". I realised that there was far more that I could do with it than the raw data displayed when first installed. I took the opportunity to conduct an inventory of the switches I have installed around the house. I decided to change one of them for a "managed" switch to see if I could get additional information regarding our network. The nice man from Amazon should deliver this later this evening.

I had to take Di to the local surgery for a blood test at lunchtime, and we stopped off at Sainsbury's on the way home. After some lunch, ~Di headed for the Orangery with her Kindle, while I vacuumed the car and gave it a wash. (I'm not sure what came over me... but I've probably got it out of my system, now).

I joined Di in the Orangery and managed some Kindle time before we went to collect Ellie from dance class and take her home.

Monitor

We had a gentle start to the day (unlike Zoe, who found out that the fridges and freezers had gone down in the store overnight). We wandered around at the usual time, collected Ellie, and we walked her to school. Though it wasn't forecast for several more hours, it started to rain. I wasn't dressed for it, so I skipped my morning walk. 

Back home, I decided that I would spend the morning updating the documentation on the "snowyowl" build and extended this to include the installation of a network monitor that can look across our network and highlight any machines that have dropped offline. It took a while to get going, but now it seems to provide an excellent dashboard for our home systems.

This afternoon, we had to go to the hospital again. Di had to see the anaesthetist to discuss her medical history and determine if the procedure could be done at the Nuffield, or whether the risk was such that she needed to be at St Richard's. Fortunately, she was given the all-clear, and the procedure can be performed at the Nuffield.

Dovetails

 Ellie was dropped off soon after 06:30. She was already dressed and ready for school. She had a cuddle and quick chat with me before heading upstairs to see Nana. When the time came, we escorted her to school and dropped her off at the classroom. Di headed home to get ready for Pilates, and I set off on my walk.

By the time I arrived back home, Diane had already gone. I settled down with some breakfast and then worked through my mental list of things to do. None of these items took long, and I was just finishing up when ~Di arrived back home.

We had a quick lunch and then set off for the hospital. The first appointment of the afternoon was for a blood test. Then we had a short wait before "Joint School". This wasn't quite what I expected. I had been hoping to get some lessons on making sliding dovetail joints and box joints. I was disappointed. It was a 90-minute presentation discussing replacement knee joints. We had the opportunity to examine one of the implants and had a very thorough discussion regarding what to expect, how to prepare, and the recovery process from surgery. The session was run by one of the physios and demonstrated many of the exercises that the patient would have to do post-op and during the recovery. It was a very good session, and as Diane said, it is so much better to know what to expect, rather than speculate and guess.

Because of the session at the hospital, Zoe had to collect Ellie from football. Ellie went off with her friend, Poppy and Zoe came round to see how Di had got on, and tell us that she now has a date for her treatment. She will be going into The Nuffield next Wednesday. The treatment is only expected to take about 20 minutes, but she has to assume she will be very tired for a couple of days afterwards. So within the next two weeks, both of the family's flaky knees should be on the mend.

Up Town

We had an early start. We both needed to get up, dress, and have breakfast before taking Ellie to school. We had a day out planned. We walked Ellie to school as usual, but then, as soon as we got back home, we hopped in the car and drove to the railway station.

We made ourselves comfortable in the 1st Class compartment and began the trip to London Victoria. The train was slightly delayed, but it was a comfortable trip to the capital. We dropped down into the Underground and took the tube to Oxford Circus. From there, it was only a 5-minute walk to "Vasco & Piero's Pavilion Restaurant."

Paul, the owner, greeted us like family, and we were shown to a table where we could have a coffee and sit and wait for Paul and Cathy. We had only been there for about 10 minutes when they arrived. They are on their way to Poland, where, along with Ellen and Mark, they hope to explore some of the villages and towns from whence the family came originally.

We sat and chatted, catching up on the family news from across the pond... Laura's engagement and pregnancy, Michael and Emily's Eloise, and Andrew's new girlfriend. We also heard about their "bolt-hole" in the Eastern townships of Quebec. The photos Paul had on the phone brought it all to life. We had a lovely lunch, and sat chatting for a couple of hours or more. (In fact, we had been so busy chatting that I forgot to take any photos). Eventually, we stirred and headed back towards Oxford Circus. Paul and Cathy wanted to visit Marks and Spencer, and planned to go to the Royal Albert Hall this evening. We dropped back into the tube network and found our way back to Victoria. We had ourselves comfortable in the 1st Class compartment again, and headed back to the coast.

It had been a lovely day, and it was so nice to catch up with the family for a few hours.

Wet through

 It was decidedly damp, but not raining this morning. We trotted around to Zoe's to manage the school run. Dropping Ellie at the classroom, Di headed home, and I set off for my walk. It was important to catch up with Lisbet Salander, and I was tempted to do an extra lap of my walking route, but the early morning coffee put an end to that.

Once home, I settled down for breakfast as Di prepared to visit Specsavers to collect her new glasses. Once I had cleared away, I set off to the barbershop to get my hair cut (and listen to another chapter of my book). I also tried to drop off some expired meds at the pharmacy, but they would not take them because they contained needles. Once I had been papered in the barbershop and was looking like a film star (Bell Lugosi), I headed home, and as I left, it started to rain. By the time I was halfway, it was pouring, and the bag in which I was carrying the meds had disintegrated. By the time I arrived home, I was soaked through and had to get changed. (You can't beat the British Summer... at least not without escaping to Portugal).

After lunch, I returned to yesterday's exercise regarding cruises. I faffed about looking at various options, various routes, and various cruise lines. In the end, Di and I home in on one and I sent the details to Jane and Trevor. Would they be interested? Should we consider it?

The way things worked out, we have accidentally booked a 14-night cruise to Norway and Iceland on Arcadia during the summer of 2028. We have also managed to book the aft corner suites with the wrap-around balconies. Now, other than paying for it, we just have to wait for 2 years!

Stuff

 There was no real theme to the day. I was up soon after seven and read the overnight news. Di came down sometime after eight.

The morning was focused on rewiring the man-cave. ~Fortunately, the crucial panel was attached with a French cleat, so once everything was unplugged, I could remove it and take it to the kitchen to work on. It took a while to make everything neat and tidy, but once it was back in place and switched on, everything burst back to life. 

With the man-cave sorted out, and bearing in mind we had to move a large picture to mount the new TV, I rejigged the pictures in the Orangery so that the homeless landscape could nestle on the wall in the Orangery and the pictures that had been in there were remounted in a vertical stack by the door.

I experimented some more with the photo gallery function on the new TV, adding a new batch of photos to the collection. Later in the day, I added more still. The afternoon was fairly quiet. We spent a lot of time looking at possible cruises for 2028. One particular cruise has caught our attention, so I sent a link to Jane and Trevor to see if they were interested, but given that they were en route to their hideaway in Portugal for the next month, they may not have seen it yet.

We have a busy week coming up.