Rain

 We woke up early so that we could be ready for Ellie's drop-off at 6:30. We were greeted by heavy rain, which lasted until mid-afternoon. Ellie bounced into the house, and after a cuddle, went up to Nana. Much of the next hour or so was shared with her friend Poppy over the phone. At 8:30, wrapped up in her raincoat, she toddled off to school. It seems strange not to accompany her on the school walk.

Di had plans to meet with Pauline for coffee, so once she was showered and dressed, she headed off to Rustington for a few hours. I did a few chores, then settled back down to my coding projects and when I reached a suitable breakpoint, switched to the ongoing capture of Google photo albums. My only interruptions were from Jasper wanting food or needing his litter tray cleaned.

It was mid-afternoon before Di returned. We sat and chatted for a while before settling in the Orangery with our Kindles.

After dinner, Zoe and Ellie popped in. They had discovered the Life 360 app, which provides much finer-grained tracking from the phone (iPhone or Android). It took a bit of faffing to get it set up (and there is clearly more to learn), but we now have the essentials in place.

Hot Water

 Yesterday evening didn't go quite as planned. Mid-evening, we received a call from Zoe to say her hot water had failed, and she asked if she could come here to wash her hair and for Ellie to have a bath and hair wash, ready for school. They were not here for too long, but it was a shame it disrupted their evening plans.

We were up soon after seven today. We wouldn't be seeing Ellie before school as Zoe wasn't starting until nine, and Ellie would walk herself to school from home. We had a quiet hour or two before scooping up Jasper and taking him to the vet for his latest checkup. The vet was running late, so there was a lot of hanging around. He was seen eventually and seems to have made a slight improvement.

Once back home, I set off on my walk. I was, however, interrupted by a shower, which caused me to cut short my original route. Once home, we sat and chatted over lunch, then I went to clear some space in the garage to give the heating engineer (Ross) easy access to the boiler for its annual maintenance inspection. I returned to my little coding exercise when that was done.

Mid-afternoon, Ross arrived and set about the annual service. As usual, we had a long chat while he worked. When he had finished, he popped around to Zoe's to check out the hot water problem. It had healed itself over the last 24 hours, and Ross assured Zoe that the intervention she had tried was the right thing to do... but she probably did it for too long, then didn't wait for at least 10 minutes to see it reset. Anyway, it's all fixed now.

Cancelled

Well, I managed to stay in bed until just after seven.  I had slept extremely well, and so had Di. I went down to make the coffee and tea, and she soon joined me. The weather looked promising, but I was in no mood for an early walk.

Once we had kicked into gear, I returned to my coding for an hour or so, then I donned my outdoor shoes, grabbed my AirPods and headed off to walk into Shripney and pop into M&S. My Audiobook chatted away in my ears as I walked, and I enjoyed the pleasant late summer warmth. (I don't subscribe to this nonsense about Autumn starting on 1st September - that is just "dumbing down" for people who don't understand when the Autumnal Equinox occurs). After picking up a gift voucher at M&S, I slipped across to Sainsbury's to use the loo (two coffees were taking their toll), before heading home. By the time I got in, I had covered over 6km and taken a bit over 75 minutes (including the shopping). 

Di was not at home. She had been summoned to Zoe's to look at the landscaping progress and help Zoe decide on the colour of grout to be used between the patio slabs. I settled back down to my code, and by the time she arrived back home, I had finished the latest program in the suite and was happy with all of the test results. I was even congratulated by ChatGPT on the elegance of one segment of the code.

Once DI arrived back, we sat and chatted for a while and then retired to the Orangery with our Kindles. I eventually stirred myself and finished the preparation of dinner.

Early Start

The trouble with the way in which my brain functions is that it finds programming a stimulating task. It continues to plot pathways through code, examines them and discards or accepts them while I try to sleep. As long as I am asleep, that does not cause a problem. As soon as I wake, however,  a light comes on in my brain, and it exposes all the overnight processing. That's it. Sleep is no longer an option. By five this morning, I was wide awake; by six I was up making coffee. 

Much of the overnight code was committed to the MacBook as I enjoyed my coffee. Once Di had emerged, I went for a shower and then made breakfast. Being Saturday, we had the call with the cousins. We got a brief glimpse of baby Kyloe - cousin Maggie's great-great-grandson. He was born earlier this week and is a tiny little thing.

I went for a walk during the morning, looping through the village so that I could collect Di's meds from the Chemist. Early afternoon, I spent a while removing some old floating shelves and putting up some new shelves in Diane's sewing room.

I managed to get some more coding done before starting on dinner.

Noi mangiamo

My body clock decided that I should get up at 6:30, even though there was no reason why I should. Zoe had a day off, so we wouldn't see Ellie before school. I decided to go for my walk an hour earlier than usual, in the hope that I would be home before the forecast rain and drizzle. It was remarkably warm, so I didn't bother with a jacket. Unfortunately, by halfway round, it started to drizzle. I decided that was a signal that I should return home.

Di had her Cardiac Rehab session during the morning, so she disappeared soon after I returned from my walk. I grabbed some breakfast and settled down with the news, email, social media, and my little coding project.

As lunchtime approached, we got ready and met up with Chris and Maureen. I drove us around to Fino's in Felpham, where we settled down for three hours of fine food and completely random chat. DI skipped starters, as usual, but I had a plate of whitebait. Then for the main dishes, Di chose spaghetti carbonara, and I had some lasagne. The food was lovely, and the chat was fun. It was so nice to catch. up. Chris and Maureen have decided that they will not be going on any more foreign holidays or cruises. After his last health scare, they want to stay close by and will explore places they haven't visited in England and Wales.

Once home, we settled with our Kindles.

Radar

I was up early, ready for Ellie's drop-off. She bounced into the house, gave me a cuddle and then went up to Nana, as usual. The first part of the morning followed the usual pattern. It was only school time that things changed. Ellie kissed us goodbye and headed off into the morning to walk to school by herself. Grandpa gave her a few minutes, then he set off for his walk, which just happened to run parallel to Ellie's route. She saw me as she approached the school gates and gave me a wave and a big smile. She's all grown up!

When I arrived back from my walk, I grabbed a coffee and a light breakfast, then completed the week's shopping list. As soon as Di was ready, we headed off to Sainsbury's, where everything went smoothly until we got to the checkout. There, we were selected for a full trolley scan, and when that was complete, we couldn't pay at the self-checkout. It turns out that its card reader was broken.

Back home, Lottie was in full flow, and we chatted while putting the shopping away. Then we left her to finish up, and then settled down for a quiet afternoon. Di spent the afternoon sorting up her study, while I returned to my project.

At the end of the school day, we used our phones to track Ellie as she left school. It was good to know she was on radar!

You'll Walk Alone

I was up early, Ellie was dropped off at 6:31, and I was slightly surprised but ready! After a cuddle, she went upstairs to Nana (closely followed by me, with a cup of tea). We sorted out breakfast and ensured she was ready for school, then, at the allotted time, I walked her to the school gates and headed off for my walk.

I was out for an hour or so, and managed to finish the audiobook I have been listening to for a couple of months. Like the previous books in the Millennium Series, it had been excellent. As I walked the last few hundred yards, I started a new book. I am hoping that my walks will return to a daily schedule now, and I should crack through the books more quickly.

When I arrived home, Diane had already left for Pilates. I settled down with a coffee and some breakfast and returned to my coding project. This kept me occupied most of the day, but this part of it is almost ready for prime time. I think an hour or two, and it will be done. I did stop at various points during the day, clearing some ironing, sorting lunch and so forth.

Di had enjoyed her session at Pilates, and arrived home at about 13:00. She got an alert. The school had sent an email/form regarding permission for Year 5 children to walk to and from school unaccompanied. Zoe authorised this, but for today we still went to greet Ellie as she burst out of the class. She is planning to walk alone tomorrow (though I might, surreptitiosly chose that time to go for my walk).

Year 5

 We had an early start. Zoë was on an early shift, and Ellie was back at school this morning. I was downstairs unlocking the doors and making coffee before 6:30. Ellie bounced into the house and, despite her protestations yesterday, was clearly happy to be going back to school and meeting up with her friends. 

We sorted out some breakfast, and she got herself ready for school. Despite the plan that she should walk to school by herself, she texted me last night to ask if I would walk with her this morning. I told her that I would be honoured to accompany her, and in the end, Diane came along as well. Like the first day of previous school years, it was chaos as so many parents and new starters milled around. Fortunately, with Ellie moving into Year 5, we were able to skip the melee and head to the correct door immediately.

With Ellie wandering into Lime Class (Year 5), Di headed home for breakfast while I headed off for my traditional walk. The latest adventures of Milkael Blomquist and Lisbet Salander kept me company for the next hour or so. I thoroughly enjoyed the walk, and look forward to repeating it tomorrow,

Back home, I grabbed some breakfast and then cleared the accounts ready for the new month. Then I returned to my project. I managed to create a couple of albums in Immich, but discovered that one of them had some images where the dates were wrong. This led to some further analysis and, in the end, I started to develop a program that cross-referenced the EXIF dates in an image with those in my backup images. Because of the approach I am taking, this is being written (with significant help from ChatGPT) in Python. (I should explain that whilst I have written a number of Python programs, I feel that my competence is much the same as my grasp of Spanish, French, or Latin - rudimentary.

Mid-afternoon I went along to collect Ellie from school, but fortunately, Zoe arrived in time, and the two of them went straight home. I returned to my coding, while Di chatted to Denise on the phone.

Projects

 I was delighted, as you can imagine, to be woken by Jasper at 2:30 this morning. He was yelling at the top of his voice and eventually quietened down, but just as I was drifting back to sleep, he started again. As a rule, when he gets like this, he is hungry, and his overnight feeder hasn't opened on time (or, more to the point, when he thinks it should have opened). I got out of bed and went down to the kitchen, only to find that everything had opened on time and he was just being obnoxious. It took me ages to get back to sleep.

I was up soon after seven. I think I managed to sneak down without disturbing Di, so I made myself a coffee and waited until I could hear movement from upstairs before I made her tea. We had a quiet breakfast, and after some domestic chores, returned to our respective projects.

I had downloaded 16 more albums from Google and spent much of the day processing them. I didn't finish because, needless to say, I found some examples I hadn't thought of and hadn't catered for in the coding. I made more changes, and bit by bit, the albums emerged. I must say that I wrote some pretty slick code and even ChatGPT responded, "That's clever," to one part of the development.

I popped along to the local store for some white wine for the sauce I made for tonight's dinner. I did chuckle when a BMW drove past the "Road Closed" signs, weaving in and out of the barriers, only to be thwarted and have to turn around and come back the other way.

In preparation for tomorrow's return to school, Zoe and Ellie popped in to bring some school uniform items here for the morning. Now that Ellie is moving into Year 5, she can walk to school by herself, so we don't necessarily have to get involved beyond pushing her out the door,

Success

We had a gentle start to the day. Jasper didn't wake us, and it was after seven before I emerged. As I made the coffee, I heard Di stirring and prepared her tea. With breakfast done and a few domestic chores ticked off the list, we returned to our respective studies.

Di carried on reorganising her study and tidying it. I returned to my code. Without going into huge detail, I am delighted to say that I now have the code working such that I can export an album from Google Photos, then replicate the album in Immich (the photo library manager). Now, there are many albums to ingest, but I will do them one bit at a time. The next major development I will have to manage is the injection and merging of facial data. That, however, can wait for now... I want to savour my current success.

Nothing else to report from here.

Study

 We had a significant amount of rain throughout the day. It seemed like a good excuse to stay put and spend the time in our respective studies. I had the morning call with the cousins, which seemed a little quiet today, and then opened up the MacBook.

Di retired to her study (sewing room), and I spent the next hour or so trying to wrangle a problem on the MacBook. It turned out to be a bug in the Surfshark VPN I run. It provides a degree of security and anonymity when using WiFi networks away from home. Evidently, it also blocks a load of my traffic when it goes rogue! With that sorted, I returned to my photo library project. My mate ChatGPT and I had a frustrating afternoon unpicking the interface to the Immich library manager. The documentation seemed to be lacking for this latest release, and we had to resort to first principles and hack our way through the code. By the end of the afternoon, I had the first interaction with the library manager working. 

I called it a day and went to prepare dinner. Roast salmon and salad for Di, and chicken jalfrezi for me.

Duck

We were up at about seven. After sorting out the little package that Jasper had left, I made the coffee and the tea. Di was eager to get going as she had to have breakfast in plenty of time for her Cardiac Rehab session.

Zoe turned up with Ellie at 08:30. Ellie was in a bubbly mood, but quite content to amuse herself. As Di left the house for her Cardiac session, I started on the week's pile of ironing.  I timed it to perfection, just putting everything away as Di returned.

This morning I read about a database called "duckdb". The write-up was very encouraging and triggered my design neurons. I spent an hour or two getting it installed on my MacBook. (The installation did not go smoothly, unlike the iMac, which was easy.) Once installed, I wrote some test code and was amazed by the speed of this database. This, my design neurons said, was a better way to complete the program I had been writing. The rest of the day was spent rewriting parts of the program, testing. and being amazed by how much faster it was when run.

Alongside all of this, there were the usual interruptions from Ellie and requests for snacks and drinks. All I really had to do was give permission, and she managed it all herself. Zoe collected her soon after 17:00, and she has a weekend with Pete before going back to school next Tuesday.

Shopslinger

 We tried to have a lie-in, but Jasper had different ideas. A few minutes before seven, I was making our tea and coffee to start the day. Zoe had the day off, so we were not expecting Ellie. W~e had a quiet breakfast as we consumed the overnight news and scratched the surface of social media.

Once the day had actually kicked into gear, I completed the shopping list, and we headed to Sainsbury's for our weekly festival of excitement. All things being equal, it was a fairly good trip with little interaction with zombies or morons. By the time we arrived home, Lottie was in full swing, doing some cleaning for us upstairs. Needless to say, we paused for an update on her holiday, the traffic, and the ongoing saga of their new car. She really is one of those people who can brighten the day.

We had a quiet hour or so before having to head for The Nuffield. Di had another physio session booked. The physio was delighted with the progress she has been making, particularly with her return to Pilates and the Cardiac Rehab sessions. He couldn't find the words to describe how well she was doing.

Back home, we had a quiet afternoon with our Kindles. There was no coding for me today; I needed to allow some ideas to percolate into a plan. Hopefully, tomorrow will see a return to the codeface.

Walking home

 Yesterday evening, plans changed. Ellie had decided that she didn't want an early start today, so it was decided that she would sleep here. This was good, because it meant there was no need for an early alarm; in fact, it was just after seven before I got up and headed for the shower. By the time I went downstairs, Di was already drinking her tea and munching on some toast.

It was another landmark day. Di took the car and drove across to Angmering for her first Pilates session in several months. Ellie stayed behind to look after grandpa. After some breakfast, she got herself ready, and we headed to the bus stop. We were on our way into Bognor to collect her school uniform from the local suppliers. I was impressed with the size of the shop, the number of staff, and the number of people in there browsing or collecting their orders.

With the uniform bag in one hand, we headed to the beach. (It seems a shame to go to Bognor and not stroll along the promenade.) When we got there, we could see the local showmen setting up their attractions for this Bank Holiday weekend's funfair. Ellie loved it and immediately texted Zoe, asking if they could go tomorrow. Meanwhile, we arrived at the palypark where Ellie spent a while on the swings before we stopped off for a drink and then headed for the pier.

After strolling around for a while, we headed back to the bus stop, only to find we had at least 20 minutes to wait. While we stood there, the time increased. I suggested to Ellie that we walk. It's only 3km, so she was up for it. We strolled back slowly, chatting as we walked, taking about 35 minutes (including a stop in Tesco Express for some lunch snacks).

Once home, Ellie sat and watched the TV, and I returned to my little coding challenge. Di arrived home and had clearly had a very good session at the Pilates class. I'm sure that now she has ventured to try it, she will be back every week,

Zoe came to collect Ellie soon after three, and we settled down with our Kindles until it was time to make dinner.