Satisfactory

That was a very satisfactory weekend, football-wise. Firstly, the England team beat France 6-4, achieving the bronze position in the World Cup. This game was played in a great spirit of fair play and competitiveness. At the end, the players all shook hands and had a chat. Perfect. Then last night, Spain beat the thugs and cheats from Argentina and were rightly crowned the World Champions. They were certainly the best team that I saw throughout the tournament. Somehow they managed to maintain their cool in the face of sheer thuggery and cheating from the opposition. At the end, the Argentine team embarrassed themselves even further by attacking the Spanish in what was nothing less than a brawl. Despite this, fair play won. The contempt in which I hold Argentina has reached a new level which I believe will never be equalled.

Back on earth, it has been a quiet day. During the morning, I popped to Sainsbury's to pick up some items that were not available (due to freezer problems) last week. Once back home, I went for a walk with Diane. We had extended our recent route, doubling the distance. She managed it without incident, and we plan to repeat this during the evening.

Chris, our neighbour who has been so unwell, went to collect some softener salt. He offered to collect some for us at the same time. I asked for a bundle of six, which he duly delivered, and we all stood outside chatting as I carried the salt through to the Orangery. We have resolved to go out for lunch some time in the next couple of weeks.

Di went to rest and do her exercises on the bed after lunch. I sat in the lounge with my Kindle and delved further into my current book.

We've had dinner now, and a short walk beckons.

Oh Yes!

 After last night's late night, watching England beat France 6-4 in the third-place play-off of the World Cup, I had a lazy start to the day. It was nearly 07:30 before I rose to greet the day. Coffee was brewed, and tea was made for Diane. There was nothing specific on the agenda; we could just float on the whims of our imagination for the day.

Once Di was up and about, and breakfast was cleared away, we went for a walk. We didn't go too far, but it gave Di the opportunity to stretch her knee and build up some resilience. 

Between various chores (and the walk with Di), I was working on a document with a working title of "Oh dear, I'm Dead". This is meant to provide all of the information that will be needed when I shuffle off this mortal coil. It is based loosely on several commercial templates which suggest the sort of things that will make life easier for nearest and dearest when the time comes. I seem to be making good progress, but there is still a way to go.

We had some Kindle time in the Orangery today. It was the first time that the temperature has been comfortable for several weeks.

Nothing to report

It has been a quiet and uneventful day. I was up just before seven and greeted by a package that Jasper had delivered in his litter tray. This, I thought, did not bode well for the day ahead. Having cleared up, I made tea for Diane and coffee for myself before wading through the overnight news.

I joined the weekly Zoom call with the Empson cousins. There was little worthy of comment.

The rest of the morning was occupied with minor domestic chores and an initial attempt to sort out the garden table. I should explain. We have a circular garden table with a glass top on the woven table top. In the last week or so, something has hit this glass, or the parasol has been shifted by the recent high winds, and the circular glass top has shattered. Being laminated glass, it has shattered into a million pieces, though many are still slightly connected by the lamination. Now that I had found a suitable, sturdy box, I began collecting the broken glass. After an hour or so, the box was full, but the glass tabletop was still 80% shattered and in situ when the box was full. When I have found a suitably sturdy box, I will continue this,

We had some Kindle time during the afternoon and plan to watch the 4th-4th place play-offs in the World Cup this evening.

End of Term

I was up early to greet Ellie on the last day of term, and her last day in Year 4. She burst through the door at 6:35, already dressed and well-pumped for the last day. She was an absolute pleasure for the next couple of hours. We headed for school, clutching the bags with the presents that Zoe had collected from the other parents. Mrs Reynold was retiring, and the parents decided a joint gift would be better than loads of individual gifts. Kelly, one of the other mums, organised and collected the donations, then gave them to Zoe to sort out. She, in turn, got a voucher for afternoon tea at The Ivy, and a collection of gifts for the garden (which is one of Mrs Reynolds' passions). I carried the gifts to school, and we presented them when the classroom doors opened.

Back home, I grabbed some breakfast, then did a few minor household chores. I headed back to Sainsbury's for a couple of things I couldn't find yesterday, and picked up Di's meds from the pharmacy in the village. Once home, the rest of the morning was quiet.

After lunch, there was Kindle time for me, though Di headed upstairs to do her exercises on the bed. I tried to sneak out quietly to go to the school for Ellie's last few moments in Year 4; Zoe managed to get there with a few seconds to spare, so Ellie was delighted that Mummy had been there to collect her. Ellie is off to Pete's for the next couple of weeks, so I said my goodbyes and left her to go home with Zoe.

I think it will be a quiet evening.

Disappointment

I was up well before seven, and Di wasn't far behind me. She had her regular INR blood test to complete first thing. I walked to Zoe's for the school run. Poppy had slept over last night so that the girls could watch the football. I asked them if they had enjoyed the game, and they both said no. Well, that's hardly surprising. Having exposed the Argentine weaknesses down the wings, we finally scored, and then, stupidly, decided to take off one of the wingers and replace him with a defender. Has nobody ever heard that the best form of defence is attack? As soon as that change was made, I knew the eventual outcome.

I took the girls to school, then headed home for breakfast and to prepare for the usual shopping trip. I had to drop Di at the hairdresser's first, but then went on to Sainsbury's. I completed the shop, headed home and stowed all of the shopping away. As I finished, Di phoned to say she was ready for collection. Perfectly timed.

Back home, we tormented Lottie for a while, until she left, and then settled down for a cup of tea and some lunch. Early afternoon was spent with our Kindles before I had to go and collect Ellie from school.

Ellie is back home with Zoe now, and we have a quiet evening planned.

Nada

 I have almost nothing to report. It was a quiet start to the day at 6:30; by 08:00, Di was up and about, and I had showered and dressed. I walked to Zoe's and took Ellie to school. Today, she wanted me to come in with her. The kids (including Ellie) were all dressed in England football kits. Two kids turned up in Argentina kits and were chased around the school until the doors opened.

Back home, there was little or nothing to report. I used the time to write some code while Di went to shower and dress.

The afternoon saw the usual Kindle time until I had to collect Ellie from after-school football. She was with us for about an hour before Zoe collected her.

We are preparing for the England / Argentina semi-final of the World Cup. I only hope it turns out to be a great game that does the team proud (win or lose). I thought the Spain team from last night was simply breathtaking. Whoever wins tonight will have their work cut out against Spain.

Pressing Engagement

I was awake early. In fact, by 6:00, I was getting fidgety, so I got up and went downstairs for a coffee. It was a further 2 hours before Diane stirred. I just had time to perform my ablutions and dress in time to walk to Zoe's and escort Ellie to school.

Back home, I grabbed my usual breakfast of porridge, a banana, and coffee and then, set up for the day, I set about a pile of ironing. This took a couple of hours, but it is always satisfying to see the pile of freshly pressed clothes growing by the side of the ironing board.

The rest of the day has been remarkably quiet. I spent some time learning a new technique on one of my computers, and spent some Kindle time until I had to leave to collect Ellie. As Zoe had a day off, she was there at the school gates, and when we had collected Ellie, I headed back home as they set of to their house.

We've just finished a light dinner, and plan to watch the World Cup semi-final between Spain and France during the evening. I'm looking forward to this game as I have no particular favourite, and so I can watch the game and just enjoy the spectacle without the stress of supporting one of the teams.

Just a typical day

I was up early to greet Elie when she was dropped off at 06:30. She was awake and wanted a cuddle, but then headed upstairs to get into bed with Nana. She went back to sleep, and it wasn't until I went to wash and dress at 7:30 that she woke up and went down for breakfast.  An hour later, I walked her into school as usual and then returned home for breakfast,

We had a couple of loads of washing during the morning, and these needed to be dried. I, meanwhile, got on with some admin. I had to update the accounts, then contact Allianz regarding our travel insurance. I was concerned that the travel insurance would go up significantly after Di's knee surgery. As it happened, there was no additional cost. In fact, the overall cost of travel insurance, including our age supplements and DI's medical history, was exactly the same as last year - to the penny!

After lunch, and a quiet hour, I collect Ellie from school. We hot-footted it home, then grabbed a snack (that I had already prepared) and headed into Chichester for her last appointment with the counsellor. Traffic in Chichester was dreadful, but we managed to arrive within 60 seconds of the appointment time.

I dropped Ellie back at Zoe's and then headed home. Di was chatting to Denise on the phone, and when they had finished, I made some chicken and prawns in red wine and tomato sauce on tagliatelle. We now have a quiet evening planned.

Gardener's World

Despite the very late night, I was up (thanks to my body clock) before seven this morning. I took Di a cup of tea and settled down with a coffee and the overnight news. ~Di emerged before eight, which seemed pointless, but her body clock is as accurate as mine!

After breakfast, I returned to my study to look at the results of the synchronisation of my media files overnight. It had not gone well. Instead of copying A to B, it made a new copy of B in A! I spent some time debugging it and tried again. I can now report that all of the files on A have been replicated to B. I now need to tidy up the rogue files copied yesterday.

Whilst all of this was going on, Zoe phoned Di. Hannah, from Muddy Boots, had been round and they had designed Zoe's back garden between them. Di was asked to attend and give her seal of approval. I walked her to Zoe's and left them to it. I had an anomaly in my accounts spreadsheet that I needed to clear.

I waded through all of the statements for this year, eventually finding a payment that I had made, but failed to record. All was correct once that was in the spreadsheet. ( I used the CoPilot AI features of Excel; I asked it to create a table from the separate sheets, recording each month of the year. It needed to show certain columns, but only if they were not empty. It worked brilliantly and made the cross-referencing with the statements so much easier). 

By the time I had finished, Diane was ready to come home, so I walked around the corner to collect her. They had tweaked the original plan, and were quite excited by what they had come up with. Hannah is hoping to get started in the next few weeks.

We have had a quiet afternoon (well, as quiet as it can be with Jasper in full voice). Dinner is now done, and we are preparing to settle for the evening.

Whew

 We had a gentle start this morning. The first thing of note was my call with the cousins and the tales from Down Under regarding Sarah's broken shoulder and hospitalisation, and Rolly's wife, Helen's, gallstones. It seems that I am not the only one touring local hospitals this year.

I spent a while in the study, working on my storage rationalisation. Whilst I found it interesting, nobody else would care, so I'll move on.

Di had a long chat with Jane, catching up on all of the gossip after their holiday in Portugal.

After dinner, we watched a film on TV up until the World Cup quarter-final between Norway and England. It didn't kick off until 22:00, and with extra time, it ran on into the early hours. Like so many England games, it was torture to watch. Though we won 1-2, I agree with the manager that we were lucky and just not good enough.

Reports

 We had another quiet morning where I could take my time and stroll to Zoe's just in time to walk Ellie to school. She was full of the joys of spring (summer) and charged into school, having dismissed me at the gate.

I cleared some domestic chores before we had to leave to take Diane for her first post-Op physio appointment. I was a little concerned about the traffic, being the Goodwood Festival of Speed this weekend, but we were going against the traffic and had no problems. We sat and waited in the cafe area of the Nuffield Health Centre until Dean turned up. He whisked Di away, and I sat and read my Kindle. About 45 minutes later, they returned. He was delighted with how well she was doing, and it was clear she was well ahead of where he had expected her to be. She was already doing some of the advanced exercises that he would not have expected. She still has to use her crutches when out and about, but can ignore them when pottering around the house. She was very relieved, and I was not in the slightest surprised.

Back home, I returned to my storage rationalisation. I have now changed all but two of the Raspberry Pis to use the new storage for their code libraries. I may take this further over the coming weeks.

I collected Ellie from school. She came out of class clutching her report card. When Zoe arrived to collect her, she opened up the report and read out the highlights. Ellie is doing brilliantly in so many different aspects of her lessons, scoring "1" (the highest) in several of the subjects and behaviours. Best still, she scored 100% in her Maths. We are so proud of her.

We had a quiet evening and watched the Spain / Belgium game from the World Cup. I think it was the best game we have seen so far.

Perambulating

 It was another glorious start to the day. Zoe had a day off, so there was no hurry to get going. I did wander around in time to conduct the morning walk to school, however.

The morning followed a typical Thursday pattern, in that I had to raid Sainsbury's. I was a bit earlier than usual, which meant that I was in and out before the delivery of zombies. The local roadworks that have (and continue) to plague us have moved to the next section of road. This means that we can now get in and out of the estate via the main spine road, and turn left towards Bognor Regis. This makes the trip to Sainsbury's a lot quicker than the diversion we have had to use for the last few weeks.

Once the shopping was tucked away, Di went to do her exercises, and I returned to the job of rationalising my data storage. I did some experimenting and believe I may have come up with the ideal solution. Whilst it has worked perfectly, I will return to this tomorrow as I think it is very elegant.

I didn't have to collect Ellie from school, as Zoe was available. I did, however, take Di for several laps of the Italian Gardens. She was fair galloping around as she becomes more mobile and more confident.

More... you want more!

 Ellie was dropped off at 6:30. She had a lot more sparkle than yesterday morning, and we embarked on a couple of hours of general chat while she was fed and she prepared for school. She had decided that, as she had an evening performance of the school production, she wouldn't go to the after-school girls' football club. By the time we left for school, she had changed her mind.

After breakfast, I got on with various domestic chores, filling the washing line with a couple of loads from the machine. Once the chores were finished, I returned to my study to continue with the implementation of the new NAS drive. I had a couple of outstanding problems with the way in which my backup was using it, but after a short bit of bug hunting, everything burst into life. It will now probably take about 24 hours to populate the drive from other backups.

I took Di for several laps of the Italian Gardens. Her walking is getting better every time we go out. She wanted to get this walk in before she removed the last of the wound dressings. When we got home, she removed the dressing to reveal her scar in all its glory. I think she said that she had counted the sites of 34 staples along its length.

I met up with Zoe outside the school. We had seats in the 2nd row for the performance of "Oliver!". Ellie was one of the street urchins and was on and off the stage throughout the performance. The show was excellent, and it is incredible to think these nine-, ten-, and eleven-year-olds can perform with such accomplishment. Photos and video were taken, but we were asked not to share with Social Media, as parents had not been asked for their consent. Fair enough.

The show finished at 19:20, we collected Ellie from the classroom and headed home. She was absolutely buzzing, and I expect. it took Zoe a while to bring her down so that she could go to sleep.

Storage

Ellie had an early drop-off this morning, though she wasn't awake enough to realise it. She wandered straight upstairs and got into bed with Nana. She was still there when Nana came downstairs, and I had gone up for my shower. She woke up slowly and hadn't really switched her brain on until we arrived at the school gates (where I had to leave her, again).

After breakfast, I got on with some domestic chores to get them out of the way, giving me a fairly clear day. DPD had messaged me to say my packages would be delivered by 10:00, and I wanted to play! Just after the packages arrived, Kim arrived. She had been for some blood tests, and dropped in on the way back. We had a lovely hour or so, chatting and hearing about their recent holiday on the riverside near Ripley. As she has finished University and her various placements until September, we hope to see a lot more of her during the summer... though she is taking on some bank work.

I finished unwrapping my parcels and set up the new NAS device during the afternoon. Having changed the layout of the storage (from the old, failed drive), I spent some time tinkering with the backups so that I could get the most from them and simplify the way in which the storage was laid out. I hadn't finished by the time I had to collect Ellie, so this is something that I will return to tomorrow.

We watched the Argentina / Egypt match from the World Cup. I was sorry to see Egypt lose. They had played so well, and their goals were so well taken.