A Quiet Day

 It was gone seven before I crawled out of bed. Ellie wouldn't be dropping in this morning. I made the tea and coffee to kick-start the day and then went for a shower. 

It was dry, but cool, at only 9C. I grabbed a fleece and headed out for my usual walk. Within the first ten minutes, the sun was up, and I was glad to have stuck my sunglasses in my pocket. At this time of year, the low sun can be quite blinding. I enjoyed the walk and made good progress in the latest audiobook.

Soon after I arrived home, Diane left for her Pilates session in Angmering. I got on with my breakfast, caught up on the accounts, and continued testing some code and documenting some installation procedures. By mid-morning, I was getting bored with documentation, so I changed gear; I dug out the ironing board and worked my way through the ironing that had piled up in the cupboard.

It wasn't long after I had finished that Di returned. We sat and chatted over lunch and then retired to the Orangery to read our Kindles. Other than the odd delivery, the rest of the afternoon has been quiet.

Motoring

 We had an early start. Clearly, Ellie wasn't ready for it. She came into the house just after 6:30 and went straight up to bed for another hour's sleep. I made the tea and the coffee, and we sat and read the overnight news. At 7:30 I went up to wake Ellie and get washed and dressed myself. 

Once Ellie had left for school, we pottered around; Di went to shower and dress, I reviewed the logs from last night's backups, then got on with some documentation. Mid-morning, we set up Jasper's timed feeder and left for a pleasant drive up through the Downs, Petworth, Chiddingfold and on to Milford. We were meeting Jane and Trevor for lunch at The Refectory.

As usual, we first checked the plumbing, then settled in front of the fire for a coffee while we waited for J&T. The rain that had been so incessant earlier had faded; the sun was out, and the skies had cleared. Jane and Trevor arrived, and we settled down at what is becoming our usual table. The Refectory was remarkably busy for a Tuesday lunchtime, and service was a little slow. It was not a problem, as it gave us more time to chat. We heard all about their recent trip to Rome, which sounded wonderful, and they clearly did well choosing a private tour guide for a couple of days.

For lunch, Di chose the hake "burger" with salad. I must say that it looked lovely, with a couple of large slices of hake in batter nestling in a brioche bun. I started with some bratwurst in sweet mustard, then followed that with Chicken Schnitzel with saurkraut and fries. We also indulged in desserts. It was four-ish before we left. We had a lovely drive back to the coast, arriving home in about an hour.

We had a quiet evening (no dinner was required!), and I perused the letters and the photo that Jane had sent back with us.

Special Fried Rice

 It was gone seven before I stumbled out of bed this morning. It was a quiet start, and I had just finished my coffee as Di came down. I went to wash and dress and then set off for my walk. There was a very light drizzle as I left, but by the time I was two-thirds of the way around my usual route, the drizzle had intensified and was being driven by a strong breeze. I was soaked, so I cut the walk short and headed home to change.

I settled down for breakfast and received a text message while I was munching on my porridge. Chris (at No.7) was going away for a couple of days, but there was a wine delivery due. Could I keep an eye out for it? Of course, but we did have a trip to the vet during the morning.

The trip to the vet went without drama. In fact, Jasper has put on the tiniest bit of weight over the last week. Having said that, he is having trouble with his eyes. We were back home within the hour, and there was still no sign of Chris's wine. I phoned EE (not about the wine) and spent over an hour on the phone. In then, everything appears to be sorted out, but only time will tell.

I sat down for a bite of lunch and received another text from Chris, asking if I had got the wine, as he had been informed it was delivered. No, I hadn't, but I went and checked around the front garden to see if it had been hidden. It hadn't. I got another text: it had been delivered to a neighbour at No.3. ~Could I pop around and explain that they wouldn't be back until tomorrow evening? Of course. I wandered around to N0.3 and rang the bell. After a brief delay, a small Chinese lady opened the door. She looked me up and down. "No.7", she asked. I bit my tongue. I wanted to say, "No, I'll have the special fried rice", but somehow resisted. I explained who I was and claimed the box of wine for Chris. It is now nestling inside our front door.

This afternoon we had to take Ellie into Chichester for her regular appointment. Once I had dropped her and ~Di at the venue, I walked into town and stopped off at the dentist's to collect the meds that Di has to take before any dental treatment. I went back to join the girls and read my Kindle until the appointment was over.

Slated

 I was up at my usual time. I checked the overnight logs as I sipped on my coffee and, satisfied that everything had run properly, I switched the news feeds. Di came down about an hour later and sat and chatted over breakfast. For me, that was just a banana. Last night's curry had filled me, and I really couldn't have managed my usual bowl of porridge.

I spent much of the morning looking at the best approach for updating my existing documentation for the various systems and applications I have developed. After considerable debate and consultation with ChatGPT, I decided to use my existing note-taking system, Obsidian, and convert the documentation to "Markdown" from the existing MS Word. This can then be rendered as documents or as a website for quick and easy access. I am just getting started, but I think this is a good solution.

After lunch, I helped Di in the front garden. She wanted all of the slate lifted from one of the flower beds so that she could dig in some good soil and plant some shrubs she has been nurturing. It is a lot easier to explain this in words than it is to actually shift so much slate. It took a couple of hours to clear it all, and my leg muscles are as taut as violin strings!

When I came in to make some tea, I was greeted by the unmistakable aroma left by one of Jasper's gifts. I set about cleaning it up, but pondered my good fortune that Jasper was just a small cat, and not a Shire Horse.

Welcome

 I was up at my usual time. It was still very dark, and clearly, the sun was still waiting for its lift to work. There had been some light rain overnight as part of the World's cleaning crew, but it had dried up before dawn. It was a quiet start and, though there was a scheduled Zoom call with the cousins, I had sent my apologies. This morning was our opportunity to go to the surgery and act as a dartboard for the Practice Nurse with her tray of flu darts. She did an excellent job, and we both commented that we hadn't felt a thing. 

Back home, I had a few chores to complete, the most important of which was to lubricate the window fixings as they were becoming very stiff. I suspect I may need to get the chaps to come in and adjust the locking mechanisms because, though the handles are moving easily now, the windows are still proving stiff to lock in place.

Kim had been for her flu jab later in the morning and popped in to see us on the way back. She was here for about an hour, and it was good to catch up. When she left, I grabbed a bite of lunch and then set off for my walk. It was strange in that when the sun was out, it was too warm for a jacket, but when the sun played hide-and-seek behind the clouds, it was very chilly, even with a jacket. I finished my audiobook "The Girl Who Lived Twice" (part of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series) and moved on to my next book, another Jonathan Kellerman audiobook.

We had been invited to our new neighbour Colleen's for a bit of a housewarming. Though she actually moved in back in May, she has been having some extensive work done on the house, and it is only just complete. I must say that she has done a superb job, and it has certainly transformed the house and garden. What hadn't been clear to us was that "come in and have a few drinks" was really a "come in and have a few drinks and an absolute feast with friends from all over". We hadn't anticipated what a "do" this was scheduled to be, and I had already started preparing our dinner before we went. In the end, we stayed for nearly three hours, but it was clear that people were settling in for a bit of a session. It was a lovely few hours, and we met some of her family and friends from Bournemouth, and some local friends.

Back home, I finished cooking dinner, and then, having cleared away, we settled down for a couple of hours in front of the TV.

Official

 I was up just before seven. Coffee and tea were made, and I settled down with the news. Diane was soon down, so when my coffee was drained, I went to wash and dress and then head out for my walk. Though it had rained overnight, it was okay when I went out, though it was windy.  I followed my usual route and arrived home just over an hour later.

Diane had already left for her Cardiac Rehab session, so I settled down for some breakfast and reviewed some code. I had decided, during my walk, that the idea of waking the MacBook up to run some code in the middle of the night was pointless when I already had a Raspberry Pi (barnowl) which does exactly that. I spent the morning shifting the code and the database so that it would run on either platform.

Di had bumped into Zoe at the surgery and been summoned for a confab later in the day. We sat and chatted up until lunch, then Di headed around the corner to Zoe's, and I settled down with my book in the Orangery. At one point, I took a break and started looking at Facebook. This revealed that VW/Skoda had just started the release of a series of official interfaces to allow you to interrogate data from your car. Obviously, this is what I had been doing, but using an unofficial interface. I can see there will be some code changes required over the next few days.

Di came back from Zoe's to reveal the various plans she has to change her lounge furniture and to lay a carpet. It all sounds very interesting, and it seems that if she orders soon, she can have delivery in time for Christmas.

SOC

 I was up just before seven. Zoe had a day off, so Ellie was leaving from home. Once Di was up and having her morning cuppa, I got ready and headed out for my walk. There was a marked difference in temperature today. Whilst I wouldn't characterise it as wintery, it was certainly a lot cooler than recent mornings. I was glad of my fleece. As my audiobook is taking place predominantly in Stockholm, the weather added to the atmosphere.

Once home, I grabbed my second coffee and then completed the week's shopping list. Once that was tucked away, I spent some quality time at the codeface. It was only some preliminary code and sketching of a few ideas. The real work could wait until later.

We raided Sainsbury's. Whilst there seemed to be fewer Zombies, there were still many trolley dumpers. These are the people who dump their trolley to go searching for something, but don't think to actually find a convenient place to leave the trolley, often just leaving it in the middle of an aisle, blocking access. Several of these abandoned trolleys were moved out of the way!

We had our usual catch-up with Lottie when we got home. She does make us laugh, telling us this week how she was reduced to tears when the loan car she has been driving was finally collected by the garage. She's now driving about in her Fiat 500 again, which seems small after the VW Tiguan!

After lunch, I returned to the codeface. After a couple of hours, I now have a routine that will interrogate Skoda every night to record the "State of Charge", thus giving me some metrics for how many kWh of energy the car has consumed in the previous 24 hours. I'm not sure how I will use all of this data, but at least I have it!

While I was tapping away on the MacBook, Di was upstairs finishing off the hems and sleeves of her latest creation.

Data day

 I was up at my usual time. For a change, there were no surprise packages from Jasper. Zoe had a late start scheduled, so we didn't see Ellie today. It was very dark, and it was raining heavily. It did not encourage me to have my usual walk, so I read on the iPad, drank some coffee and had a late breakfast.

Di headed off for her Pilates session in Angmering. I spent the morning considering the information that I had kept regarding the Skoda. I have records going back to the day we took delivery. I had written some code to extract data from the manufacturer's database, but it works on a sliding window of the last 60 days. I decided I needed to extract the information and store it in a more robust form. The morning, therefore, was spent writing the data to a database and writing code to dump the manufacturer's data dumps straight to the database. It took a while, but it now seems to be working well and provides me with a trip-by-trip history of the car's journeys and a session-by-session summary of charging activity.

By mid-afternoon, the rain had almost stopped. I grabbed my jacket and put on my waterproof shoes and headed out for a walk. I looped around by the village so that I could get some cash from the ATM, and was soon home (having only covered half of my usual distance).

I heard today that one of my old IBM friends, Jon Hartmann, had died over the weekend. He was an incredible man, and a force of nature. I learned so much from him, and when we were working together in Poughkeepsie, we hung out in the evenings and visited NewYork at the weekend. It has been many years since I have seen him, but he will be missed.

Tea

 I was up early again. Again, it was just as well, as I had some clearing up to do, thanks to Jasper's ongoing generosity. I had only just finished when Ellie turned up at 6:30. She was still suffering from a cough, but was clearly feeling better than yesterday and had every intention of going to school. After the statutory cuddle, she went up to get into bed with Nana, and I followed her up with a cup of tea before sitting down with the overnight news. When the girls came down, I went to wash and dress and then set off for my daily walk. It was very misty again when I first set off, but it soon cleared as the sun took control.

During the morning, we drove across to Yapton to see Trudy and Ian. Some post had been misdelivered to their old house (next door), and the new owners dropped it off to us. We had a lovely couple of hours with them, catching up on their news and drinking their tea. We also took the opportunity to get them to witness our revised Wills. We have resolved to get a lunch organised for us all sometime soon.

We had a quiet afternoon enjoying the autumn sun in the Orangery. We did get a call from Zoe to say she was just back from A&E. They had diagnosed an infection and loaded her up with some antibiotics, but she does need to see the GP on Friday.

I see that our favourite cruise ship, Arcadia, is being retired from the P&O fleet in 2029 and will be replaced with Cunard's Queen Anne. That could be nice for the future.

Sick-note

 I was up early so that I could greet Ellie when she was dropped off. Unfortunately, I had to start mt day cleaning up after Jasper's generous overnight contributions. I had just finished that and got the kettle boiling for Diane's tea when the front door opened, and Ellie arrived. She wasn't well. She was feeling a bit dizzy, had a slight temperature, and a cough. I agreed with Zoe that we would see how she got on before deciding on whether she would go to school. She didn't. Zoe phoned the absence line, and Ellie went back to bed.

It was very damp and misty when I went out for my walk. Having said that, though it was cool, it wasn't cold, and I was tooo warm in the fleece I had chosen to wear. An hour or so later, I returned home to collect a bag of donations for the school's Harvest Festival assembly and get over to the school nice and early.

The rest of the morning was spent on bits of admin and some ironing. Ellie got herself up and had almost lost her voice. We told her to keep drinking, and by mid-afternoon she could talk, though she was quite husky. She might have a virtual sick note from school, but we were not going to let her waste the day. She settled down with some homework (MyMaths) and did well, coming to check answers every now and again. Then, with Nan's supervision, she started on some extra project work on the subject of Egypt and the Pharaohs.

While she was doing that, I spent some time updating some programs and culling others. It was quite satisfying. I also helped Diane get to grips with ChatGPT so that she could use it to take a picture of a dress pattern and of some material and create an image of the finished article in the material she had selected. It worked remarkably well.

Visitors

I had a bit of a lay-in.  I was still up by 07:00, but there was no need to be lazy and get up any later. After reading the overnight news, I settled down to write some documents using an approach I hadn't tried before. I wrote the document is my Obsidian repository using the simple Markdown language. Then, I used "panic" to convert the documentation to a web page. It should also allow me to create a PDF file from the same source (but I haven't tried that yet). It looks promising, but I'm not going to get carried away until I have tried a few examples and worked out how I will link it all together in the long run.

We were expecting Jan and John, so we had a bit of tidying up to do before they arrived. I also went through the latest version of our Wills with the intention of having them witness our signatures. In the end, we forgot all about that until after they had left.

They turned up just after 11:00, and we sat down for coffee and biscuits while we started catching up on the family news. An hour later, we went across to "The Lamb" at Pagham for lunch. While there, enjoying a wonderful Sunday lunch, we heard all about the trials and tribulations of their recent river cruise. There was nothing wrong with the cruise. The problem was that Jan was taken ill and ended up in hospital. It was a couple of days later that they eventually rejoined the boat further downriver. It appears that the Cruise Director did a fabulous job of getting things sorted out for them, and their insurance company has stepped up to ensure everything was sorted.

Back home, we settled in the Orangery for the afternoon and drank tea, ate some dessert, and chatted about all and sundry. By late afternoon, John was flagging, so they headed off home. I must say that John is not looking as robust as last time we saw him. He is hoping to have a hip replacement, so we hope that reignites his sparkle.

We had a quiet end to the afternoon followed by a quiet evening.

Just Admin

 I was up soon after 6:00. I had slept well, but was wide awake, and my mind was reviewing some of the code I had written yesterday. I snuck downstairs, made a coffee, and opened the laptop. Di wandered down a couple of hours later.

I joined the weekly call with the cousins, and we heard about the cruise that Tim and Sarah had been on with their respective (if not respectable) partners. It certainly sounded nice, but they had concluded that these fly-cruises are too much hassle. In future, they would cruise from UK ports (though that does limit the itineraries).

The rest of the morning was spent on admin. We both had a lot to review and get through, and we were both delighted with some decent wins on the Premium Bonds this month, and I took the opportunity to transfer more money into Diane's ISA. The more we can stick in tax-free savings, the better, even if there are slightly better interest rates for other investments.

I spent the afternoon doing some more coding and tidying up from the testing I had been doing. I think my next bit of work will revolve around improving the accessibility of the documentation. While I was sitting at the MacBook, Di was doing some pruning in the garden and then sat down with her Kindle in the Orangery.

We had dinner at the usual time, while watching the Croatia-vs-England Nations League game, and enjoying one of the best England performances we have seen in a long time. A 0-7 win is a good result.

Pooh!

 I was up at 6:15. I needed to be available for Ellie's drop-off, and was aware of aroma infusing the house. I went downstairs in the dark (a mistake I won't make again) and found that Jasper had been generous with his presents overnight in the litter tray. It took a while to clear this up, and then I awaited Ellie. She arrived, full of the joys of Autumn. We had a chat and cuddle, and then she went upstairs to see Nana. I took some tea up, then returned to the kitchen. 

It was only when Ellie came back down (with the light on) that she spotted the fact that Jasper's generosity had spread to the hallway. He had left a deposit on the doormat which, unfortunately, Zoe had stepped in and spread through the hall as she brought Ellie's clothes through to the kitchen. Out came the pooh bags and the Dettol wipes, and the next 10 minutes were spent cleaning up. The doormat was moved to the back door for treatment later.

After I was washed and dressed, I was preparing to go for a walk when Rllie had a nuclear meltdown. It was all about nothing: whether she had her hoodie, whether her shorts were too tight, and goodness knows what else. As she stomped around and bashed things about, I had to yell at her. I then went to get the missing hoodie and some alternative shorts... she didn't end up bothering with any of them. Zoe ducked back from work and took over. In the end, we got a very sheepish apology and a kiss and cuddle before she headed for school.

I got the hose out to deal with the doormat, and Di got on with some laundry. I also caught up with the accounts for the first time in a week. We were both pleased to see some nice winnings on the Premium Bonds this month. With the accounts in order, I transferred some money into Diane's ISA, and I will transfer some more tomorrow.

I took the opportunity to go out for a walk, but had to cut it short at the 4.5km mark as my bladder was suggesting that my morning coffees had not yet fully drained away.

The rest of the day was spent tidying up some code to manage the automatic extraction of information from this blog into my private blog. By the end of the afternoon, that was finished, tested,  and put into production.

A Pinch and a Punch

 Another month begins. I was up late this morning. It was nearly seven o'clock. Coffee was taken, and the news was read before Diane came down. We had both slept well. It was a good start to the day. Once I was washed and dressed, I headed out for my walk. It was a nice day for walking. The sun was bright (if rather low in the sky), clouds gave the sky some decorative contrast, and the temperature was cool without being cold. I still haven't required a coat for my morning walks... and long may that continue.

Once home, I grabbed breakfast and completed the usual Sainsbury's shopping list. We had to make a stop at the local charity shop on our way to get the shopping. Diane had culled four bags full of clothes and other items that were no longer required. We dropped all this off, then spun around to raid Sainsbury's. We were a bit later than usual and, whilst not busy, the aisles were choked with Zombies and the nearly dead. I reflected on Boudicca's chariot as I entered the melee. I wondered whether scythes could be added to a Sainsbury's trolley and fantasised about charging down the aisles... but I digress.

Back home, Lottie was finishing her session, so I made myself scarce and returned to my latest coding project so that I could stay out of the way. In fact, that has been the focus of the rest of the day for me. Di, meanwhile, has been in the front garden tidying up and weeding. She tells me that there is a task for me so I will have to get on with that in the next day or so.