Northing Exciting

 There was nothing that could be construed as exciting today. I was up at my usual time, consumed my coffee, read the news and made some tea for Di. We both walked around to Zoe's so that we could escort Ellie to school. Today was World Book Day, so the kids had to dress up, and this year's theme was adjectives. Elli went as "sleepy" and went to school (with her friend Poppy) in their pyjamas. Some kids were more imaginative, but I must say that it did look funny outside the classrooms this morning.

Di headed home, and I set off for my usual walk. The weather was gorgeous (as befits West Sussex), and it was a real pleasure being out and about. Back home, after some breakfast, we finished the shopping list and then headed to Sainsbury's for our weekly raid. With the current troubles in the Middle East, it came as no surprise that there were huge queues at the petrol station. Fortunately, we do not need fuel at present, so we slipped into the store and completed our usual attack on their stocks.

This afternoon was split. We started with some Kindle time, but then Jasper had to take Diane to the vet, so that he was chaperoned for his monthly injection. While they were gallivanting in Oving, I collected Ellie from school and took her home to Zoe. I arrived back home a minute or so before Jasper arrived back with Di. We settled back down with our Kindles.

A message appeared on the phone. Could I walk Ellie around to he friend Poppy's? Five minutes later, Ellie presented herself at our door, and I walked her to her friend's house. It was only when I. got there that it became clear that this was something the girls had arranged between them, and Poppy's mum knew nothing about it. After a few awkward moments, I agreed to leave Ellie there and come back to collect her in 45 minutes. I went home and started preparing the vegetables for our dinner, and marinating the chicken in a soya, honey, and sweet chilli sauce. By the time I was finished, I had to head back and collect Ellie and take her home.

We are all tucked up in our own houses now and have no intention of venturing out until the morning.

Spying

I was up at 6:30 and spent the first 10 wakeful minutes dealing with a package that Jasper had so kindly left for us to deal with. With the package disposed of and copious amounts of air freshener deployed, I made my first coffee of the day and settled down with the overnight news. Di was up and about soon after seven.

With our ablutions completed, we headed to Zoe's to take Ellie to school. Once she was safely nestled in class, Di headed home and then off to Pilates, while I took my morning walk. I finished my audiobook during the final lap of my usual route. I was prepared. The next book was dropped into the player, and I started on a new Jonathan Kellerman story.

Back home, I had my breakfast and then updated the accounts before heading to the study to do some more editing of material for the Norwegian Cruise video. Over the next couple of hours, I managed to introduce the material for another 3 or 4 days of the cruise. There is a long way to go. So far, I have not added any transitions or zoom of relevant images. I want to get the raw material constructed first.

After lunch, I received a call from Zoe.  Could I retrieve her sun lounger from her garage so that she could at least sit in the sun? I duly wandered around the corner and got her sorted. I returned home to the Orangery and my Kindle (finishing my latest book), and I started another.

The phone range. It was Zoe again. She was concerned about the petrol station at Sainsbury's and how quickly their stocks are dwindling. Could I go and check the price being advertised by our local Esso station? I headed off and took a photo of their price banner. Their price had increased by several pence per litre during the day. Zoe reported back... and has been asked to coordinate the region's intelligence regarding local fuel prices. That will give her something to do while laid up!

We collected Ellie from football practise and took her home, then we headed home ourselves to have supper and settle for the evening

Sharing

 I was up at 6:30. There was no particular reason for such an early start, but my brain was engaged, and my body was eager to move about. I topped up my caffeine stream and read the overnight news until Diane emerged. After we were both washed and dressed, we walked around to Zoe's to collect Ellie and take her to school. After the school drop, Di returned to Zoe's to see if there was anything that needed doing, while I went off for my usual morning walk.

Once back home, we had breakfast and cracked on with some admin and some chores. Then Diane. went out to the garden to potter for a while, and I returned to my video editing. I must have spent nearly 90 minutes working on a single 4-second clip from the Norwegian cruise. I was trying to overlay a text slug which would identify the location and date of the following clips. I could not construct a clip that fulfilled the image that I had in my head. I decided that enough was enough for today. I will return to this in the days to come.

With the 40+ videos I now have stored in the family video library, I thought it was time to open the library to Jane and Trevor. I have set them up an account and sent them details of how to access the library using Jellyfin. Hopefully, they will find this interesting.

After lunch, we had some Kindle time until we had to collect Ellie. She was in a very chirpy mood as she charged out of class. We took her home to Zoe, while I returned to start on dinner. Di would collect Zoe and Ellie and bring them home to dinner. I constructed a macaroni and meatball dish, which was very popular.

Spring has Sprung

I was up early, and so was the sun (though not quite as early as me.) The sky looked clear, and it promised to be a nice day. In fact, it turned out to be lovely. The skies were blue, and only the occasional contrails of passing jets broke the continuity of the canvas. 

I wandered around to Zoe's to take Ellie to school. Zoe was not going to attempt the walk (quite rightly). She was, however, going to pop into work to sign off on the payroll and enable access for working at home. Diane drove around to take her to Sainsbury's and then went on to the vets. I completed the walk to school with Ellie and then headed out for my walk, arriving home a few minutes after Diane.

The morning was spent on domestic chores, but with them out of the way, I returned to my editing suite. I decided to make a start on the video recalling our cruise to Norway in 2023. This occupied a good few hours and has only covered the first three or four days. There's much yet to do, and it should keep me out of trouble for several days.

We picked Ellie up from school, whipped her home to collect a snack and took her to Chichester for her regular appointment with Hannah. While she was being seen, we sat and read our Kindles in the waiting room. Afterwards, we were astounded by how quickly we managed to carve our way through the late afternoon traffic to get home.

Video Travelogues

 I was up just before seven. Di was awake, so I took her a cup of tea in bed. I settled down with a coffee and the overnight news. It appears that the moron Trump, who wants a Nobel Prize for Peace, has furthered his case by bombing Iran. I'm not sure that I ever held a politician with such contempt as I do Trump.

After my coffee, I had planned an early morning walk. The weather decided that heavy rain should fall. I postponed my walk, and after breakfast, I worked through a pile of ironing while Di had her shower.

It's John's birthday today. I had sent him a video during the week, recalling our short break in Granada. He commented that he had enjoyed it and would like to see one of our trip to Barcelona. I sent him the relevant video, and also another of our trip to Florence. That got me thinking, so I started to compile another video covering last summer's break at the Carlyon Bay Hotel. This took me a few hours, but I was pleased with the finished article, which I subsequently sent on to John.

With Zoe laid up, we will probably need to change things about over the coming weeks. The first step was to transport many of Ellie's school clothes back to Zoe's. Di took them around and then spent a few hours keeping her company. I took the opportunity, as it had dried up, to go for my postponed walk. When I got back, I settled down with a cup of tea and my Kindle until it was time to start on dinner.

Fragments

 Today seems to have existed in fragments. I was up just before seven, and read the news while consuming my first coffee. I had a quiet hour before Diane stirred, and I fired up the kettle for her life-affirming cup of tea. After a shower, I prepared breakfast and got ready for my call with the cousins.

The call followed the usual course, most easily mapped by a bowl of spaghetti dropped on the floor from a great height and then agitated by a kitten with ADHD. What did become evident was that Tim appreciated my write-ups and videos of our trips. He regards me as his travel advisor. This became an issue when he spoke of a trip to Madeira. After the call, I extracted a travelogue of our 2018 trip to Madeira and set it to him. I then started to develop a video of the trip. 

Time overtook me. I had to go to Zoe's, help her shift some stuff around the house, and then take her to work. I left her in the capable hands of her manager, who swore she would not leave the office and would not walk the aisles.

I returned home and realised that the video of Madeira was pointless. I had already made this video. I sent the original video to Tim and deleted the version I had started earlier. This did get me thinking, however, so I took some time to develop a video of our trip to Jersey.

Di had spent much of the day in the garden. She had been tidying up and chatting with passing neighbours. When she had finished, we settled in the Orangery for some Kindle time before dinner.

Strange day

 It turned out to be a strange day. I was up around seven and sat drinking my coffee as I read the news. Diane came down a few minutes later - she had he Cardiac Rehab session this morning, so needed to get breakfast out of the way. I wandered around to Zoe's to join the walk to school and, after dropping Ellie in class, set off for my usual walk while Zoe, who had a day off, headed home.

By the time I arrived home from my walk, Diane was already at the Community Centre for her exercise session. I settled down for some breakfast and skimmed the social media. D~i arrived home, and we chatted while starting on our various admin tasks. These took most of the morning.

It was during our admin session that Zoe turned up. Her knee had "popped", and she wanted a knee brace. Needless to say (did you see what I did there?), we had one, and she went back home. A little while later, she phoned. The GP had told her to go to the hospital and get an X-Ray. I collected her from home and dropped her at the War Memorial Hospital. 

After we had some lunch, we settled in the lounge with our Kindles. I was awaiting the call from Zoe to say she was ready to be collected. As all was quiet, I went to collect Ellie from dance practice. It was while I was waiting for Ellie that Zoe called to say she was ready. Ellie and I hot-footed it to the hospital and collected Zoe, who has a damaged Medial Cruciate Ligament. The doctor tried to sign her off for 6 weeks, but she was having none of that. She intends to work, even if she is confined to the office.

I dropped Ellie and Zoe back home. Ellie is with Pete for the weekend. Zoe intends to rest, but will discuss work with the store manager, Jason, in the morning.

Editing

 Though there was no pressing need, I was up soon after 6:30. Coffee was taken, and the news was consumed. Once Di had come down. I performed my morning ablutions and prepared for my assault on Zoe's. I walked around to Zoe's and joined the girls on their walk to school.

Leaving Ellie in class, I headed off for my morning walk. It was grey, cool, but bright. I enjoyed the hour or so, and finished my latest audiobook and started another. As I arrived home, Diane left to go to the hairdresser's. I tucked into my usual breakfast, and as I finished, Lottoe arrived for her weekly cleaning session. After a brief (well, not so brief) chat, I headed to my study and started to work on the source videos I had received from Alex and Mary Louise. Today, my focus has been on videos featuring my Uncle James and his wife and family. This has taken many hours and still awaits some form of music track, but that must wait until I have improved the video from the original cine data.

After lunch, we settled in the lounge (it was a bit too cool for the Orangery) and read our Kindles. I finished a book and started a new one before we had to go and collect Ellie from school. Once home, she went to her room and spent an hour or two reading her latest school book. Zoe turned up soon after 5 pm and collected Ellie. I started preparing dinner as soon as they had left.

Booking

I was up before the 6:30 alarm (but not by much). Ellie was dropped off, but was barely conscious. She went straight up to Nana and went back to sleep. Jasper decided that sleep was not an option and started to yowl. Ellie was not amused. (Now she knows how we feel.)

The rest of the run-up to school followed the usual pattern, and we dropped her at the classroom door. Di headed home for some breakfast and then to head off to Pilates, while I enjoyed my usual morning walk. This was completed in the warm sunshine for a change.

Di had left for Pilates by the time I arrived home. I grabbed some breakfast and then, after completing the accounts, I set about a stack of ironing. This took the rest of the morning.

After some feedback from Brian, one of the Band of Brothers, we decided to have our Spring Lunch at The Betjeman Arms in St Pancras Station. I booked the venue and sent out the invitations to my distribution list. During the afternoon, I had RSVPs from all of the regulars. I'm hoping for a few responses from the "irregulars", but nothing has come through so far.

Once Di was back from Pilates, we grabbed a quick lunch and then headed off to Sainsbury's for the weekly shop. It may have been a day early, but it was an excellent time to shop. The store was deserted. Once we had arrived home and unloaded and stowed the shopping, we had a quiet hour before I started on dinner. Di, meanwhile, had a telephone call with her friend Pauline.

Sunshine

It seems strange to get up at 6:30 to greet Ellie. It has been a while since I last had to do that. I was suitably delighted by the small package that Jasper had left for me to clear up before I got around to making my coffee. Just as I started the coffee maker, Ellie arrived, gave me a cuddle and headed upstairs to get into bed with Nana. The rest of the morning procedure ran on time, and it was lovely to see sunshine when we left for school.

The sunshine lasted most of the day and certainly made my morning walk enjoyable. Everyone I passed seemed to have a spring in their step, and we exchanged a hearty "Hello" as we passed.

Once home, I tucked into my porridge, then, as Di went up to her sewing room, I went to the study. Di spent much of the day rearranging the sewing room. I helped when a bit of muscle was required. The rest of the day, I spent working on my video editing. Well, actually, it wasn't so much video editing as creating a simple way of creating a common branding for my title pages. I had tried this yesterday, and it wasn't bad. Today, I wanted to refine the process and document the whole thing for the future. I explored several different approaches, and I am now fairly happy that I have found a good method.

We collected Ellie from school and stopped off at the park for a while on the way back. We were not there for long, as Zoe was ready to collect Ellie and take her home. After they had gone, we settled down in the Orangery (which was delightfully warm) for an hour before I started on dinner.

Video

Jasper was noisy again last night, but not quite as noisy as the night before. He woke us both several times through the night and snuggled down on Diane's pillow between his overnight periods of roaming. Ellie seemed to sleep through it all. I was up and about (clearing his overnight deposits) soon after seven. I wrote my blog entry for yesterday while enjoying my first coffee.

We left Ellie to sleep, but once I was dressed, I headed out for a morning walk. This allowed me to get back into my audiobook while strolling around the estate. Once I was home, I had some breakfast, then settled down to do the accounts. Di took Ellie to Bognor to get some new school shoes and to collect her medication on the way back home. It was while she was there that Zoe revealed that she had been hacked at the pub yesterday lunchtime, and her Santander accounts had been emptied. This is the problem with public WiFi, and why I use a VPN when connecting to anything other than my home network.

While Di and Ellie were out, I returned to my video editing. I watched another YouTube presentation and then got stuck into the short video that I was producing as an exercise. One problem that I had on previous exercises was the ability or technique to create a title page that looked like those I had used in the past. I like the idea of some common branding. This was my target for the day. It took me a couple of hours to crack the challenge, but I am now confident that I can reproduce it at will.

Zoe collected Ellie soon after three and took her to Chichester for her Monday appointment. We had a quiet hour in the lounge with our Kindles before I prepared some linguine with prawns in white wine and cream sauce.

The Ageing Process

As my birthday dawned, I realised that the ageing process is not helped by a cat yowling "Happy Birthday" all night. After numerous interruptions to my beauty sleep, I gave up just after 6 am and went downstairs for some coffee. I had a quiet 90 minutes with my coffee and the overnight news before Diane came down. This was the opportunity to start opening all of the Birthday cards that had accumulated over the past week. I must say that I received a great deal of abuse in the cards, but suspect it was well deserved!

I spent much of the morning trying to refresh my video editing skills. This involved watching several YouTube videos and playing with some sample video clips. Much of the general workflow is coming back to me now, but I do have many hours of video to work with.

As lunchtime approached, we drove across to Pagham, where we met up with Kim, Zoe, Ellie and her friend Poppy for lunch at The Lamb. By booking an early table, we had no trouble parking, nor waiting for our meal.

Previous visits had told us what to expect. We were not disappointed. There was a wide selection available for Sunday lunch, and it seemed that everyone chose well. Certainly, all the plates were scraped clean. (Diane and I both chose the roast pork, Kim had some Sea Bream, and Zoe had roast beef).

As we sat and chatted over lunch, the restaurant filled up and got quite noisy (and that wasn't due to Ellie and Poppy).

We had a lovely couple of hours there, and I was immensely blessed with the gifts, cards, and love that I received from everyone. We said our goodbyes and headed home.

The afternoon was spent with our Kindles in the lounge. Late in the afternoon, Zoe called. She was performing the usual school uniform check to ensure that the right items of uniform were (or would be) available throughout the coming week. Ellie asked if she could sleep at our house tonight, so that she wouldn't have to get up early tomorrow. (Tomorrow is an INSET day, so there is no school.)

Unravelling

I slept in until about 07:15. Other than making coffee, the first order of the day was to complete yesterday's blog. That took me longer than expected, and by the time I had finished, Di had come down for a cup of tea to start her day.  

I had the usual call with my cousins. After the news about Andrew Mounbatten-Windsor this week, we had the entirely predictable anti-monarchy diatribe from Chris (who has lived abroad for about 30 years) and Tim. We let them rant and duly ignored them.

With the call out of the way, we headed to the Cattery to collect Jasper. As usual, he had been well cared for, and we had a long chat with Mark. Our route to and from was somewhat circuitous due to the flooding, but we managed without incident. Jasper, however, kindly presented us with a toxic, foul-smelling gift as we got within a mile or so from home. The less said, the better.

Chunks of the day have been spent downloading old cine film (which has been digitised) from Alex & Mary-Louise's NAS. The idea is that when I get time, I will try to clean it up and cut the huge recordings down into manageable chunks. My rule of thumb is that they should be less than 15 minutes, and ideally less than 10.

Sainsbury's kindly delivered our weekly shop at lunchtime. After we had eaten, we retired to the lounge for some Kindle time. 

Zoe has taken Ellie and her friend, Poppy, to see the laser show at Chichester Canal Basin this evening.  I'm sure they'll have a great time. It's a shame, however, that it is drizzling.

Around and About

I was up just before seven. It was our last day in Jersey, but our return flight was not until early evening, so we had a full day. I opened the curtains, and the sea was battering the sea wall beneath us. Someone had obviously topped it up again overnight. At least it wasn't raining, and there was sky to be seen beyond the clouds.

We went down to breakfast. Clearly, the hotel had a lot of new guests in the preceding 24 hours, as the dining room was quite busy by the time we were ready to leave. Alina, the woman in charge of the dining room, came to give us a hug, wished us a safe journey and hoped we would be back. I think that it's fairly certain that we will! We returned to our room (250) and packed our suitcases, then went to reception to check out and to leave our cases with the concierge. It was pointless carting them around with us all day.

We took a walk along the promenade, soaking up the sun and watching some brave souls swimming. We later found out that there was a sauna near the cafe, and the brave swimmers would head straight for the sauna as they came out of the surf.

Near the cafe was a lovely little garden scattered with benches where you could sit and absorb the view. It was very peaceful and an ideal spot for a tranquil coffee in the morning.

We crossed the road to the bus stop and hopped on the 12A into St Helier. We hadn't got a specific plan, but thought we'd mooch around the town for a few hours.

The first order of the visit was to find a little gift to take home for Mark, the Cat Whisperer. We walked along to the main shopping area and found a store that specialised in Jersey produce. The assistant, who was recovering from a personality transplant (clearly she was the donor), helped us select some honey and chocolates. We moved on, zigging and zagging through the streets and squares. 

Approaching midday, we stopped at a cafe for some coffee. This was near the waterfront and was evidently very popular, nestled at the foot of several modern office blocks.

With a fresh shot of caffeine coursing through our veins, we crossed to the waterfront. The view across St Aubin's Bay was excellent, and with the tide out, the vast expanse of sand was very inviting.

We walked along the wall that protected the Marian from the worst of the weather. A strong (and chilly) wind was blowing, and despite the sunshine, it felt cool.

We walked to the end nearest to the Elizabeth Castle. Elizabeth Castle is a large historic fortress built on a tidal island in St Aubin’s Bay by the marina. It's cut off twice a day by the tides. It was built in the 16th Century and named after Queen Elizabeth I, and it was the home of Sir Walter Raleigh during his tenure as Governor of Jersey. It also provided refuge to King Charles I during the Civil War.

It is only open from March through to October, so we were unable to visit. 

We wandered back to the bus station and made our way back to the hotel. The clouds had swept back over the island, and rain was expected. We settled down in the lounge with a sandwich and our Kindles. Our taxi arrived just before five and whisked us to the airport. As we went through the security checks, Diane was stopped, and the honey we had bought for Mark was confiscated as it was over 100ml. That was a shame, particularly as it was thick, not runny honey. We started to walk to the lounge when the security operative chased us down and handed the "honey" back to us, explaining that it was honey at all; it was a honey-scented candle! Well, you wouldn't want to spread that on toast.

Considering how empty the flight to Jersey had been, the return flight was full. We took off a few minutes late and headed north over Guernsey toward Southampton. As we approached the airport, it became obvious that the people who install the potholes in our local roads had been moonlighting and doing the same in our bit of sky. The plane was chucked about all over the place as we descended to terra firma.

Once we had collected the suitcases, we walked through to the car and headed home, where we were greeted by Zoe, a very excited Ellie, and her friend Poppy. We had a mad 15 minutes, and then they left us to relax. It had been a superb few days.