Maths Challenge

The day started much the same as any Wednesday (if a bit colder). The Silver Vixen got ready for Pilates and headed off a bit early to drop some stuff in to Urban-Cub that had been forgotten yesterday. The Gorse Fox left soon after to go across for football.

The football was a close run thing with a final score of 2-2. The Gorse Fox scored the first goal for his team and felt that he had played a lot better than yesterday. He was happy.

Back home and showered he was interrupted by the phone. It was Barney Rubble. Barney is a volunteer for the Coast Guard watch. This group mans the old Coast Guard stations and provides local eyes and ears to augment the centralised, official, Coast Guard organisations. It seems they have a problem. A lot of the volunteers cannot calculate the bearing of a reported distress call from the local station - particularly as the locations can be given in different formats (Degrees/Minutes/Seconds, Degrees/Decimal minutes, or Degrees/Decimals). He asked if the Gorse Fox could help.

Needless to say, this got the little grey cells firing and the afternoon was spent playing with ideas, with code, and with spreadsheets. This will keep the Gorse Fox out of mischief for a few days.

We were scheduled to go to the John Lewis Christmas Preview this evening. Rather than worry about getting dinner prepared in time, we decided to eat out at lunchtime. We tried a recently owned restaurant in Shripney called The Charlie Purley. Considering it was mid-week it was very busy but we found a table and indulged in their carvery. It was not what you would call "fine dining" but it was  very good and exceptional value of money. It is certainly worth a return visit.

The evening was spent at the John Lewis event. We had a chance to wander round and look at the Christmas displays but ended up buying normal stuff - new towels, an omelette pan, some greetings cards, and so forth. Our basket was heaving (because of the towels) and one of the Partners came up and said we clearly had bought a lot and gave us a personal invitation to spend an hour in the store with one of the Partners as our personal shopper. Not sure we would use that, but it was nice to have the offer - and we have kept the invitation, just in case.