A big one

 

First things first. Today was Kim's "statement" birthday. She had to be at the University all day, but hopefully she won't be too late getting back. I hope she has had a brilliant day (like this one on the beach in North Devon).

I was up at my usual time. It is noticeable that I need to switch on the kitchen lights when I first come down, but then Autumn starts tomorrow, so what do we expect! Once Diane was up and drinking her tea, I headed out for my morning walk. There was a slight nip in the air, but not enough to warrant a jacket or a thicker sweater. Soon after I arrived home, Di left to go to the hairdresser's. Once I had finished my breakfast and cleared away, I started on a pile of ironing, which occupied most of the morning.

Di arrived home just as I was contemplating a snack for lunch. We chatted for a bit, but then I followed her lead and went to the barber's. After all, I can't live with her hair even shorter than mine.

Once home again, I got on with some code while Di squirted some noxious substances on various weeds in the front and back gardens. After that, we both settled with our Kindles in the lounge (it was too hot in the Orangery).

Oving

It was a moderately quiet day. I was up early so that I could greet Ellie when she was dropped off, soon after 06:30. She went up to see Nana, but once they were stirring, I made Ellie some breakfast and sorted out Di's first coffee. 

Much of the morning was spent tidying everything away after yesterday. Once that was done, I sat down and updated the accounts and the statistics for the car (it is still averaging 2p per mile, but I expect that will rise during the autumn/winter period).

Late in the morning, I had to go to Chichester for my six-monthly checkup with the dental hygienist. This is not something that fills me with joy. She has the gentle touch of a gorilla standing on a piece of Lego, suffering from a toothache, while being thrashed with a bramble. Once I had escaped her ministrations, I drove home for some lunch and then spent the afternoon with some code before heading off with Di to take Jasper to the vet. While Dia and Jasper were with the vet, I took a walk around the village, I was very pleasantly surprised. It was an utterly charming old Sussex village.

Early Celebration

 I was up early again. I hadn't slept well and have no idea why.

The family were all arriving to celebrateKim's birthday. There was much to do. We worked through our mental checklists and, slowly, everything came together. Banners were put up, the table was prepared, and I worked out the timings for lunch preparations. Wine and beer were loaded into the fridges. We were poised and ready.

Zoe popped by to drop off some stuff, and then disappeared again. Kim and Jon turned up, so the celebrations were on the starting grid.

Once Zoe and Ellie returned, we were ready to launch. 

We had sourced an inflatable frame for the photos and had great fun as we all took our turns with the birthday girl.

I particularly liked this photo with "my girls". Don't get me wrong, Jon was there too, but (like me) he isn't quite as photogenic as the girls.

By mid-afternoon, everyone had gone. Di and I settled in the Orangery with our Kindles (which were not heavily used).

It was nearly seven before we stirred and moved ourselves to the lounge.

It had been a lovely day.

Frenzy

I did not sleep well. In Fact, I was tempted to get up at  5:00, but managed to lie still until just after seven. Di, meanwhile, was out for the count. I grabbed my first coffee and settled down to check that some of yesterday's changes had rippled through to the new photo library. They had, but I soon saw more changes that were required.

I had my usual call with the cousins. This included a cameo appearance from Tim and Sarah, who were on a coach tour as part of their Mediterranean cruise. Fortunately, we were on "silent", so the fellow passengers couldn't hear us. Time, however, was not on mute, so we could hear the commentary from the tour guide as they made their way through the foothills of the Italian Alps.

I spent the next part of the morning dealing with the anomalies I had discovered in the photo library. When these were finished, I spent some time clearing some of my detritus from the Orangery. I then made the most of a clear hour or so to go and have my walk.  With that done, I popped around to Sainsbury's to grab some extra wine for tomorrow, then returned to what had clearly become a cleaning frenzy, the like of which I hadn't seen since the evening before Kim was born! I tried to offer help, but stay out of the way at the same time.

I spent the afternoon buried in my code. I managed to learn a lot during this session, and it will certainly impact the way in which I develop code.

Physio

 I was up early again. The body clock seems to be shifting. Maybe it's moving with the Earth's magnetic poles, or maybe it is affected by the super El Niño! Being Friday, Diane wanted to get up early, so it wasn't a problem. Once I had finished my coffee, I headed off for my morning walk and got back just in time for Diane to leave for her Cardiac Rehab session.

When I had finished breakfast and another coffee, I caught up on some Admin before returning to my photo library project, which occupied the rest of the morning.

AT lunchtime, we drove across to Chichester for Diane's session with the physio. It only lasted about 40 minutes, but he concluded she was doing very well. We took a slow drive home and settled in the Orangery with our Kindles. I finished my book and started on a new one.

That's about all there is to report for today.

In and Out

I was up early. We didn't have Ellie this morning, but I was awake anyway. It was a lazy start, but I did have to complete the shopping list. With the family coming for lunch on Sunday and Denise visiting next week, we had to get our plans together, and the shopping list needed to accommodate them.

It was quite wet, and I couldn't be bothered to put on my wet weather gear, so there was no walk this morning. Once we were both presentable, we headed to Sainsbury's. It took quite a while to complete the shopping, and the trolley was groaning as we headed for the checkout. By the time we got home and had put everything away, the morning had disappeared.

After a light lunch, Di prepared some nibbles: samosas, sausages, and quiche for an afternoon tea that she was attending in Rustington. She set off and left me in Jasper's capable paws. I managed to get in a bit of Kindle time before Ellie turned up after school. With Zoe working until 21:00 tonight and Di not expected back until six-ish, I was trusted to be the responsible adult!  Ellie was in and out a bit, but was trackable on her phone. When she was in, she had Poppy in tow. They seemed to be playing some game whereby Ellie was a hotel recptionist, and Poppy was a guest. It was really quite funny to listen to them as they played their respective roles.

I made some dinner for Ellie and me. We had some chicken drumsticks in a crispy crumb. Ellie had some skinny chips with it, and I heated up a UFO (Unidentified Frozen Object), which turned out to be a curry. Nana arrived back soon after we had finished and cleared away.

Around 19:00, we walked Ellie home and stayed with her until Zoe got in.

Double Ditto

 I was up early so that I could greet Ellie when she was dropped off soon after 6:30. She was in a bit of a mood (for whatever reason) and stomped upstairs to Nana.  Among her irritations was the fact that Mummy had forgotten her favourite water bottle. UI said that, once showered, I would go back and collect it. Half an hour later, showered and dressed, I went to find the water bottle. It was a fruitless journey. I couldn't find it. ~Ellie stomped over to her school bag and, lo and behold, the water bottle had been there all along! Grandpa put on his boots and went for his walk!

I returned from the walk with another audiobook finished, just in time to wave goodbye to Diane as she drove to Angmering for her Pilates session. I made some breakfast and settled down with "the socials" and a coffee. Once I was finished and everything cleared away, I returned to the pile of ironing I had started on yesterday. First, however, I had to run two full cleaning cycles on the iron itself. The ironing didn't take too long, and once finished, I returned to the photo library management. The code I had written yesterday seemed to work well overnight. It did, however, trigger another thought about running a full inventory on the library. That became the target project for the day.

We had a quiet afternoon, and as it had become very warm, we spent some Kindle-time in the Orangery.

Ditto

 The days are much the same at the moment. I was up early for Ellie to be dropped off. Once she had given me a cuddle, she went up to see Nana while I enjoyed my first coffee in peace. Ellie was insistent that she would do her own breakfast today, so I left her to it and went up to wash and dress. She is becoming very self-sufficient.

Just as Ellie was preparing to leave for school, I too headed out for my morning walk. It was a little cloudy, but it was pleasantly warm as I strode around my usual circuit.

Soon after I arrived home, Di set off to meet up with her friend Sheila for coffee at Denman's Gardens. That left Jasper in charge. I carried on with some admin from yesterday and started on a bit of ironing that I will finish tomorrow when Di is at Pilates.

I have been looking back through the photo library. It has revealed that whilst most photos are filed in the correct folders (by date), many, particularly old ones which were scanned in do not have valid metadata. That is now the  challenge for the next day or so.

Not Much Ado About Anything

 I was up well before seven and halfway through my coffee by the time Di came down for her tea (I did offer to take it up). Once I was washed and dressed, I headed out for my morning walk. Though this overlapped with the time when the kids are heading for school, I was surprised at how quiet the walk was and how few people I passed on my trek.

Once home, I had a light breakfast, and then cracked on with some admin before returning to my project to set up significant events as albums in the new photo library manager. I realised that I wanted a program to scan the whole library for dates where the number of assets was excessive. I described the problem to ChatGPT and described how it should work. It accepted the challenge and wrote the code for me, and it worked first time. If it hadn't needed to use Python libraries to talk to the library manager, I would have written it myself, but my view of Python is that it is an abomination, and I really don't want to use it.

We got a call from the school. Ellie was worried that Zoe hadn't ordered a hot lunch and had forgotten to prepare a packed lunch.  We quickly made a packed lunch, and I took it to the school. Meanwhile, Di had contacted Zoe, who confirmed that she had ordered the hot lunches (today was curry), but evidently Ellie had forgotten.

We had a quiet start to the afternoon. I sat and read my Kindle, and Di worked on her sewing project in her sewing room. 

AT the end of school, Ellie (with her shadow, Poppy) came here so that we could take Ellie to Chichester for her appointment with Hannah. We got there with a few minutes to spare. Ellie went up to see Hannah, while Di, Poppy, and I remained in the waiting room with our various devices for company. After the session, I dropped the girls back at Zoe's, and we went home for dinner.

Early Bird

 I slept well, but I was dozing by six, and when Jasper started shouting at 6:40, I decided to get up. I don't know why. He immediately quietened down and then stayed put when I went downstairs. I took Di a tea and settled down for a coffee, quickly followed by another coffee!

I read the news and then reviewed the changes that I had made to the Photo system yesterday. The few changes I had made worked perfectly. I asked Google to download ("Takeout") a bunch more albums. This was not an insignificant collection (one album alone had 1100 photos in it), and it took most of the day to process them and create the equivalent albums in Immich.

Di spent much of the day on one of her sewing projects. In fact, even as I write this after dinner, she is still pressing some of the seams she has sewn.

I managed to go out for a walk at lunchtime. I was out for over an hour and became engrossed in the new audiobook. Once I returned, I spent some time tidying up some of the code I have developed over the last week or two. (After all, code should be developed in a way that makes it easy to maintain, and this means checking that the commentary in the program still reflects the actual code.)

Just Faffing

 It was a nice day. Not too hot, not too cold, not too breezy; just nice. I was up around seven and took Di a cup of tea before sitting down with my coffee.  At nine, I had the weekly call with my Empson cousins. There were seven of us on the call today, and our discussions ranged from zoos, through politics, to system backup design. Geeky, but fun!

After some admin, I headed out for a walk. I headed in the opposite direction from my usual walking route. I needed a track that would loop through the village so that I could collect Di's meds on the way through. I then took the back way to our estate and did a partial loop there before heading home. My audiobook drew to a close, and I started on a new one for the last ten minutes of the walk.

Back home, I returned to my project with the photos. The main coding may be finished, but there are still many photos that need to be filed correctly. This was a good fill-in activity for whenever I had time. During the afternoon, I managed to speak to Kim about her upcoming birthday. I now have a clear plan for her present. I also spent some time in the garden pruning the climbing rose, which has become rampant.

Not much else to report.

Final Stretch

 I was up before seven, and as Di had her Cardiac Rehab this morning, she wasn't far behind me. Having cleaned up the present Jasper had left overnight, I made the coffee and tea and settled down with the news. Once the coffee was finished, I went to wash and dress and then set off on my morning walk. It was a delightful morning. The sun was out, it was about 16C and there was no wind. My audiobook kept me company and is rapidly approaching the climax.

Di headed off for her session just as I arrived home. I settled down with some breakfast and another coffee and looked at the results of the overnight scans of the photo library. The scans had worked, but the results were not what I had expected. It took a couple of hours to get to the bottom of the problem, but once the error was cleared, everything started to work as designed. Indeed, I would now conclude that the whole exercise is complete and I have a fully functional Photo Library manager running at home. Now, you may argue that I have spent an inordinate amount of time on this, but the reality is that I have between 50 and 80 thousand photos, filed by date and numerous Google Albums showing collections of the online versions of these photos. I wanted to ensure that I was not dependent on Google or Apple and that my own library was just as complete and fully backed up locally. I will probably go through and polish the documentation for each of the routines I have written, but other than that, I think I'm done.

We had a quiet afternoon in the Orangery with our Kindles. I finished the book that I started yesterday, and have downloaded four or five more.

Binning it

 I was up well before seven. Diane and Ellie were still away with the fairies as I brewed my coffee and waited to hear movement upstairs. They had both emerged by 7:30, and everything kicked into gear. Zoe, who had been away overnight because of work in Leatherhead, managed to get back here in time to see Ellie potter off to school. 

While Di got ready, I spent some time finishing the shopping list and re-creating some of the Google photo albums. Once Di was ready, we raided Sainsbury's. There seemed to be a lot of zombies there today. Several times I found myself catching the eye of some chap or other as we tried to compete as to how far we could roll our eyes or shake our heads in disbelief.

Back home, we had the usual banter with Lottie as she was finishing upstairs. Once everything was stowed away, I returned to the Photo Library where I spent much of the afternoon. Mid-afternoon, Di met up with Zoe to go to Ellie's school for the parents' Year 5 welcome briefing. I went to a neighbour's who is about to go away for 3 weeks and needed a key holder. This involved not just a bunch of keys, but also a briefing on how their security system worked. I took notes, but I hope they won't be needed.

Back home, while I cooked dinner, Di raided the fridge and checked the dates on everything in there. Anything that had passed its scheduled date was ruthlessly binned; the jars were cleaned, and they were put out for recycling.

A Birthday

 I was up soon after 6:30. We didn't see Ellie this morning as Zoe had a late start, and Ellie was able to leave from home. Once I was caffeinated, showered and dressed, I went out for my walk. It was a bit cooler today, and was very comfortable for walking (there is still no need for a jacket of any description).

Once home, with breakfast finished and cleared away, I sat down to catch up on some admin before starting on a pile of ironing. Di was insistent that she could stand comfortably now, and she would finish the pile. I settled down for some coding until lunchtime.

After lunch, we had a quiet afternoon in the Orangery until Ellie and Poppy turned up for dinner. Then it got a bit noisy for an hour or so, until I took Poppy home. Having said that, even now, the two of them are chatting away on FaceTime or WhatsApp. (Ellie is staying with us overnight tonight as Zoe has an early start tomorrow.)

Today was Jon's birthday. He had taken the day off, and he and Kim went to Tangmere Military Aviation Museum. They have just been on the phone to say what a brilliant museum it is and is a "must-do". Jon even had a go in the English Electric Lightning simulator. They spent a couple of hours or so touring the exhibits before going to Arundel to visit the castle, and then on to The Black Rabbit for lunch. It sounds like Jon had a wonderful birthday.

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.

Playmates

 I was up at seven. There wasn't a sound from Diane, so I didn't make her any tea. I made my coffee and sat down with the overnight news. By the time my coffee was finished and the news sources had been squeezed dry, Di was stirring, and I fired up the kettle.

Elli had been host to a sleepover with Ariana last night. Zoe dropped them on the doorstep at 8:20, and the girls started their day with us. To be fair, they were no trouble at all and just played nicely and quietly all day. The morning was focused on their tablets and phones; the afternoon saw them roaming the estate and roller-blading.

Mid-morning we had to drop Jasper in his carrier, and we all set off for the vet. Jasper had his scheduled monthly injection, his nails clipped, his blood pressure taken and so forth. I drove them to the vet and carried Jasper in, then I returned to the car where the girls were playing games on their phones. I explored the various settings on the vehicle that I hadn't previously examined, then wandered back and forth in the car park, thinking about my coding project.

We were back home by lunchtime, and I prepared some chicken nuggets, chips, and baked beans for the girls. They lapped them up and then disappeared upstairs to play. Di also disappeared upstairs so that she could rearrange and tidy her study. I continued with the next phase of my photo management project. I have now created an inventory of all the photos in the master library. I can use this when extracting albums from Google Photos, locating each of the component photos to squirt into the Immich system and recreating the Google Albums. There is a fair bit more thinking to go and some more code to develop, but I'm well on the way.

Zoe picked the girls up soon after five.

Who'd Have Thought

 I was up early, ready for Ellie to be dropped off. The trouble was that Zoe and Ellie weren't. Zoe had forgotten that she was meant to be on an early shift and went in for 09:00. Oh well, I suppose I had a quiet hour to read the news.

Ellie was dropped off and was clearly happy to have a lazy day. She was still in her pyjamas mid-morning when I went to collect a parcel for Diane from M&S, and when I got back and headed for the study, she finally went to shower and brush her teeth. Meanwhile, Di had finished a couple of loads of washing and was bordering on a cleaning frenzy.

I returned to the photo library. The more I examined it, the more I spotted errors. In the past, they were masked by the folders in which they were filed. Now the discrepancy between the folders' dates and the photos' dates is showing up as a problem. Several experiments and several hours of deep thought and testing revealed a change that I could apply, which should go a long way towards solving the problem. A few lines of code were changed, and I used my backup library as a reference point when re-running several of my utility programs. Now, several hours later, it looks as if I have eliminated another bunch of anomalies. Who'd have thought that my backups would prove so useful!

Zoe came to collect Ellie soon after 17:00. We have her again tomorrow morning... but not until 08:30.

Scratch it and start again

Jasper, once again, provided the impetus to get me out of bed. To be fair, it was just after seven, so I had had my lie-in. Coffee was brewed along with tea, and the tea was taken up to Diane.

Overnight, my subconscious had been processing. It dawned on me that there was a better way to organise the new photo library. I discussed it with myself and with ChatGPT and concluded that I would scratch the library manager I had built yesterday. I would then split the actual library into smaller chunks (a technical term) and then rebuild the library manager. So, for example, all the years from 1890 to 1989 are now clustered in a folder "Photos1890-1989", and there are similar clusters in 10-year and 5-year groups (depending on the quantity of photos). This now makes the management much simpler, and the library manager doesn't have to treat the many thousands of photos as one huge set. I set this plan in motion, and then got my breakfast. Various aspects of this have been running all through the day, and are still running now. I am confident they will all be finished by morning.

Di has enjoyed the sunshine and been pottering in the garden again. The garden waste bin is nearly full of all the trimmings and prunings.

We did manage some Kindle time in the Orangery this afternoon.

Heroes

 There was no need to be awake early. Jasper, however, had different ideas, and after he regaled us with several bouts of yowling and shouting, it seemed pointless to stay in bed any longer. So it was that I was up just before seven, and Di was up not long after.

Being Saturday, I had my usual call with the cousins. It seemed like a wide-ranging chat, but we did spend time talking about Tim's trip to Istanbul and the places he should visit. Obviously, Chris could provide ideas based on his experience, whereas the rest of us had to rely on travelogues and TV travel programmes.

Today was a day for heroes. Trevor and Lel took part in a 25 Km walk in London to raise money for Prostate Cancer Research. I sent them a "Good Luck" message, and another message during the walk. 

I must say that they had a nice day. Unlike recent weeks, the temperature had cooled off a bit, and though we have had some rain this week, it stayed dry.

Trevor sent this photo through showing the heroic couple at the finish line, and I know that they beat their fundraising target.  As I commented on Facebook, not all heroes wear spandex and have capes.

Well done.

Meanwhile, back here, I had re-run my program against the photo library. This time, it showed no data anomalies. This was good news as it meant that yesterday's exercise had corrected all of the thousands of anomalies that were in the library. (These anomalies were predominant where old photos had been scanned and had no date information other than the scan date - they had, however, been filed in the correct folder for the year they were taken). Confident that the library was now ok, I connected it to Immich and left it to run. Immich will now go through and create its database, identifying every photo, creating thumbnails, looking for faces in photos, and clustering faces together. This will run for hours... and is currently running all 8 processors on my iMac at 100%.

While the computer was busy, I decided (in a fit of uncharacteristic activity) to clean the car. There was debris from the New Forest in the footwells, and the outside was grubby from the recent rain. It took me an hour or so, but it looks very smart again now. Meanwhile, Di was pottering in the garden. She wanted to have a bit of a tidy-up and do some pruning before the wet and windy weather, which is forecast, sets in this coming week.

Driving Again

 Ellie was dropped off just after 8:30.  We were obviously up and about by then. It was another landmark day. Di was returning to her Cardiac Rehab sessions, so Ellie and I drove her to the Community Centre and left her to do her exercises. Back home, I made some breakfast for Ellie, and while she was eating, I ran the last few tests on my project.

Ellie came with me when I went to collect Di. This was another landmark as Diane took the keys and drove us home. This was probably the first time she had driven for about 3 months. She had been a little nervous about it, but she was absolutely fine, and it has given her the confidence and independence to plan a trip to Pilates next week.

Ellie spent most of the day in the lounge. She was cycling between her phone, the TV, and an iPad. Other than occasional hunting trips where she sought food, we heard little from her. I moved on from my testing to the full scan of my whole photo library. I ran the scan in separate chunks, but it still took the whole afternoon. I now have to consider when I should connect the library to the new Immich library manager, and when I should start to process all of the facial data I have extracted. Another aspect of this project is the retention of "albums" that were created in Google Photos. The photos are already in my library, but the collection of these into meaningful albums is not something that I currently have in my library. I think that I have a rudimentary plan for how to manage this, but I can feel some more code bubbling in the back of my mind, and a small test case is already sitting in my test library.

Zoe finished work earlier than planned and picked Ellie up at about 16:00. We had a quiet hour before I started preparing dinner.

Run, run, run

 I was up soon after six. There was no real need, but a message from my bladder suggested that some intervention was required. It didn't seem worthwhile going back to bed, so I made some coffee and read the overnight news. Di came down soon after seven. Zoe has the day off, so Ellie wasn't with us at all today.

Once we were properly up and about, I returned to my coding for a bit, adding some additional cross-references in the reports. Then I shut things down for the rest of the morning. Di had an appointment with the hairdresser, so I drove her to the salon, then stopped off at Sainsbury's for the weekly shop. By the time I had finished, driven home, unloaded the car, and put the shopping away, I received a call from Di to say she was ready. I whizzed into the town and collected her,

Early afternoon, I returned to my code and ran the first program against my whole photo library (in 10 separate runs). As I finished, it was time to take Di into Chichester for her dental appointment. I went up to the dentist's waiting room with her as the stairs are very steep. She introduced herself to the receptionist, and I announced that I was her security detail. While she was seen by the dentist and then the hygienist, I sat and read my Kindle.

It was 16:30 by the time we arrived back home. I had a quiet 15 minutes before starting on dinner. Tonight was gammon, egg, and chips (it's one of Di's favourites).

Anniversary

Today is our 53rd Wedding Anniversary. It's a day that is worthy of celebration. I can never really understand how I got so lucky all those years ago, and how we have been blessed ever since.

Talking of blessings, Ellie was dropped off at 6:30 and went up to have a cuddle with Nana in bed. Outside, it was raining. This is the first rain of any consequence that we have had for many weeks. I suspect that the ground is too hard to really absorb it, but the forecast suggests we will have a fair bit of rain over the next week, so hopefully it will do the fields and gardens some good.

During the morning, we had to go and collect Jasper from Mark (the Cat Whisperer). Ellie was intrigued by the whole setup and stopped to greet all of the cats and kittens in their runs. Jasper was soon tucked in his carrier and started to complain the whole way back home. As usual, he leapt from the carrier and did a full circuit of the house to ensure nothing had been changed.

Ellie was very good throughout the day. She was clearly tired after the day with Natalie yesterday. She spent most of the day playing quietly in the living room. I managed to get time to make some significant progress on my coding challenge, and I'm now ready to run some serious tests before letting the code loose on the whole photo library.

Ellie was collected soon after three. We settled down for some quiet time with the Kindles before getting ready to go out.

An upmarket Italian restaurant, "Piccolino's", has opened in Chichester. I used to eat at their outlet in Bristol when I was working down there, and always liked it. It seemed that on a day as auspicious as today, it was an ideal opportunity to try this local establishment.

We were shown to our table in the plush surroundings. Despite being early evening, there was a buzz about the place. We settled down and examined the menu. Garlic Focaccia with rosemary and sea salt made a good shared appetiser. This was followed by bruschetta gamberini for both of us. Then Di selected a dish with meatballs (mixed beef and pork), and I had chicken Milanese. We both finished off with gelato. The food was exceptional. This was definitely a location for special occasions - and we will be back.

We were home by eight, and settled down for quiet evening.

Codeface

Ellie stayed with us overnight.  Zoe was on an early shift, and Ellie couldn't be bothered to get up early. She was still fast asleep when I got up at seven, and Di was snoring quietly as well. I snuck downstairs and made a coffee, then sat and read the overnight news. The sleepy heads emerged at eight; I went to wash and dress and headed off for my morning walk. I took a slightly different route today, but it added up to the usual distance.

Once I was home, I grabbed breakfast and chatted with Ellie until her friend Natalie knocked. She was with us for the rest of the day. This was Ellie's first exposure to other kids since she came down with chickenpox. She was somewhat overexcited, and two excited nine-year-old girls can squeal at a pitch that would send bats mad and make dogs howl from several miles away.

I settled down with my little coding exercise, which had been on the back burner since we went away last week. Various bright ideas had percolated up through my consciousness, and today I got the chance to implement them. I would say that this particular part of the project is two-thirds complete, but this last third should be fairly quick to write, but a little longer to test.

I got on with the ironing after the girls had their lunch. There wasn't a huge amount, and I was soon finished. By mid-afternoon, Zoe had arrived to collect the girls. We waved them off, and then settled down with our Kindles in the Orangery for an hour or so before dinner. (I did manage to finish another book and start on a new one).

Walking again

 We were up just before seven. Ellie was due to be dropped off at 8:30, but we got going early. In fact, once I was washed and dressed, I headed out for a walk. This was the first proper walk since before Di went into hospital. The first ten minutes or so were spent with my brain trying to get the context back for the audiobook I was listening to. I still have 3 hours to run in the book, but slowly and surely the little grey cells put everything back into context. Now, I can't wait for the next episode.

I charged the car overnight. People talk of "range anxiety", but these few days away have eased any such concern. I charged the car to 100% before we went away. We struggled with traffic; we whizzed along motorways; I pottered through the forest, and yet I still arrived home with about 50% charge. It gives one a little more confidence in the EV.

By the time I arrived home from my walk, Ellie had been dropped off. We will be taking care of her for the next two weeks, until she returns to school. (As a side note, I am sure that my school summer holidays were at least 8, if not 10, weeks - but maybe that was a benefit of going to school run by Americans). 

We had a quiet afternoon with Ellie. She is still recovering from her chickenpox and coping with it well. She has gone home with Zoe for some supper, but is coming back to sleep here tonight so that she doesn't have to get up at the crack of dawn when Zoe goes to work.

(I have updated the blog entries for the last few days so that they include the photos I had originally curated for inclusion, but was stymied by the poor WiFi at the hotel.)

Home again

 After a decent (though not exceptional) night's sleep, we rose soon after seven. I showered, then made the tea and coffee that would keep us going until breakfast. We managed to get the packing finished and then headed down to the restaurant. Di concentrated on the continental breakfast, while I enjoyed a couple of poached eggs on some brown sourdough toast. 

Back in the room, I grabbed the cases and ferried them to the car, stopping to pay the bill on the way back. We started the car just after ten and headed out through Brockenhurst and Lyndhurst towards Cadnam and the M27. It was strange as we headed eastwards on the M27, with no westbound traffic. The road was, of course, still closed as a result of the fires. As we approached the last open junctions, it was clear that the tailbacks were significant and I was very glad we were eastbound.

The route home was, otherwise, unremarkable and even the Chichester traffic seemed benign. We unloaded and, after a cup of tea, unpacked. I then whizzed around to Sainsbury's to get some lamb shanks for dinner.

The afternoon has been spent quietly reading our Kindles in the lounge. Zoe phoned while I was preparing dinner, but had finished the call by the time I served up. I think we will be having a quiet evening before Ellie descends on us tomorrow morning.

Jekyll and Hythe

We were up soon after seven. Again, chemical influence helped Di sleep well, and I had a fairly good night also. After a shower and an early coffee and tea, I read the news while Di prepared for the day. We had booked for breakfast at nine, and set about deciding on the day’s agenda as we broke our fast.

The first stop of the day was Bucklers Hard. We had visited before, but when the girls were young. The location was an old shipbuilding slipway, where wooden ships were hewn from local oaks to serve in the Royal Navy. Some 55 ships were built there over the years, including Nelson’s favourite, Agamemnon. They have been doing further archaeological excavations there this year, and though they have now closed down, there was a marquee showing what they have achieved. It was quite gripping.

After a coffee, we returned to the car and headed to Hythe, on the west bank of Southampton Water. We parked up and walked down towards Hythe Pier. This is 700 yards long and one of the longest in the country. It is also home to the world’s oldest continuously running pier train. We paid our £1 entrance fee and walked out over the water. To the north-east of us, we could see P&O’s Iona in port along with Celebrity Cruises’ Apex and another smaller ship. I must say that it was quite tempting. I felt that a cruise would be quite pleasant right now! 

As we walked along the pier, there were several plaques explaining some of the local history - the Supermarine factory, the home of T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), the berths for the Empire Flying boats, and so forth. Hythe was also home to Sir Christopher Cockerill, who invented the hovercraft. It was really very interesting. When we had finished on the pier, we had a stroll through the town and then stopped in a pub for a drink before continuing today’s explorations.

Leaving Hythe, we headed back towards the hotel, but drove straight past in order to go to the Blackwater Arboretum. This is just 3 miles from the hotel and tucked in an area of the forest with the most amazingly tall trees. That may sound a bit obvious, but much of the New Forest is wide open clearings with gorse and heather; then there are wooded areas with moderately sized trees, but nothing I would consider tall. Then we arrived at Blackwater and found one of the rails marked as “The Tall Tree Trail”, and this was fair and truthful advertising. We didn’t follow that trail, but even at the trailhead huge cypress trees and sequoias were soaring into the sky. Offhand, I can’t think of any other arboretum or even woodland that I have visited in the UK that has quite such a collection of huge trees. 

We actually followed a different trail. This took us round the periphery of the arboretum and gave us a chance to see the wide variety of trees that the Forestry Commission tends in this part of the Forest. Though there were other people about, they were few and far between, and our walk was immensely tranquil.

We spent a quiet couple of hours in the hotel garden. We were accompanied by some lovely cold drinks and our Kindles. I finished the book I had started yesterday, and started on a new one. Soon after five, we returned to our room to get ready for dinner. Like yesterday, we skipped the main dishes on the menu. We both made do with a starter, while we sat and chatted.

With dinner finished, we returned to the garden with our Kindles and sat in the warmth of the evening, enjoying our books until it started to get dark. It was the last full day of this short break, and it had been lovely.

Out and About

 We slept well, despite the heat. (There is no air conditioning in this old hotel.) We surfaced soon after, and while I showered, Di dozed waiting for me to make some tea. With tea and coffee on the go, I returned to the conundrum of the Internet connectivity. I can connect easily enough to the hotel’s WiFi and can access the Internet on my iPhone, but cannot get through to the Internet on the MacBook. Every idea that I have come up with (and AI has suggested) has failed. I decided I would try again after breakfast when I was closer to the WiFi hub.

We went down for breakfast. Di chose Eggs Benedict, while I went for a “Lite English Breakfast”; this was like a full breakfast but skipped the baked beans, the tomatoes, and the hash browns. Once that was finished, we went to the bar, and I resumed my battle with the Internet—which I lost. I did, however, manage a “Plan B” whereby I did a copy and paste from the MacBook (where I had written the post) to the iPhone and then emailed the blog post to the blog. This is all very fine, but it does mean that there are no photos embedded in the text on the day it is posted. I will have to retrofit the photos when I return home (or maybe post them individually).

While I was struggling with this, Di was chatting with a lady who sat nearby. She had a small dog which she was raising with a view to it becoming a companion dog for people who need some emotional support. She was a very nice lady, Polish originally, but living in South West London while working remotely (in tech) for a Norwegian company. She, like us, is staying until Sunday, so we will probably see more of her before we leave.

We decided that we would visit Milford-on-Sea. It was only about 25 minutes away, and we followed the SatNav down to the car park at the beach. It was really quite delightful. Having paid the fee (more about this later), we walked along the promenade towards Hurst Castle for about 100 metres, then turned and walked the opposite way.

Across the water, there was a good view of The Needles, at the tip of the Isle of Wight, but in the other direction, we could see across to Mudeford and Hengistbury Head. Though it was hot, there was a lively breeze, so it seemed very comfortable. Clearly, the sea was a big draw, as many people were enjoying the water and swimming between the breakwaters. We did an about turn and stopped off for a coffee and a snack. Di chose a Dutch Apple cake, while I had a rock cake with clotted cream. It was a good snack to see us through until dinner.

We returned to the car and programmed the SatNav. The next stop would be Exbury Gardens. We had visited before (in 2009), but the gardens warranted another visit. The gardens were laid out by the de Rothschild family and are quite spectacular (even if a little stressed by the continued hot weather). 

It was while we walked through the gardens that my watch “pinged”. I had a message, ostensibly from RingGo, the parking company. It claimed that I had an outstanding payment and demanded I log on to the website they quoted and provide my car registration and my payment details. I smelt a rat. I checked Apple Pay and could clearly see that my payment for this morning’s parking had gone through. I also checked where the message had originated, the Philippines. I think not. The message was ignored, but clearly RingGo has a data leak.

We drove back to the hotel. Di’s needed to lie down and elevate her knee. We headed for our room and I went in search of cold drinks. We had a couple of hours with our Kindles before getting ready for dinner. We weren’t too hungry, so both limited ourselves to just a starter, before retiring to the garden for a few more quiet hours with the Kindles. 

New Forest

The day started around seven. We both slept well, though in Di’s case, chemicals were involved. Though we are off for a few days’ break, there was no hurry to get going. We had a very leisurely breakfast and then pottered around until Lottie arrived. We were then distracted by the latest disasters and tales from her family.

I had charged the car to 100% overnight. This was the first time I had successfully done this. When I unplugged the charger, it estimated that I had a range of 368 miles. When, however, we set out some time later, the estimated range had increased to 406 miles. There’s no way the car would achieve that, but I admire its optimism.

I finally loaded the car, and we set off at about 11:00. It was not a smooth journey! After 35 minutes, we were still on the Chichester bypass, less than 6 miles from home. Further on, we hit the traffic filtering off the M27 because of the A31 closure (caused by the recent fires which have destroyed the equivalent of 240 football pitches in the New Forest). From that point on, we were in a slow-moving convoy all of the way to Brockenhurst. It was gone 13:00 before we arrived at the Forest Park Country Hotel. We were too early to check in, but sat in the bar with a beer and snack.

Refreshed, we went for a short walk to see the ponies who were sheltering from the blistering sun alongside walls and under trees. They were quite content and very happy to hold up traffic when they were in the mood. Being on foot, this didn’t trouble us. 

We returned to the hotel and checked in properly. I fetched the cases up to the room, and we unpacked. Then, we retired to the garden and sat in the shade of a large parasol and made the most of the glorious afternoon.

We had an early dinner, then went out for a walk in the forest. We found a quiet spot in an open area and sat down to call Ellie and see how she was faring. She hadn’t slept well last night, and spots were still coming out, but she was feeling okay in herself.

We returned to the hotel and settled in the garden with our Kindles. I spent some time writing this blog post, only to find that I couldn’t get connected to the Internet. Pah!

A Break

We were up soon after seven. Di had not slept well, but that seems to be par for the course at present. She will be taking some Oramorph tonight to help dull the ache from the knee replacement. 

While we had a leisurely start, we were surreptitiously gathering Jasper's stuff together. By mid-morning, it was time to drop him into the carrier and take him to see the cat whisperer. Mark, at Treetops Cattery, was his usual caring self, and Jasper was immediately feeling at ease. He now has a quiet week's Spa break with Mark to look after him. I dropped off 10 boxes of cat food to ensure the flavours that Jasper has been ignoring were put to good use.

We had timed the trip well. By the time we headed home, the traffic coming towards us was queued for several miles (for no apparent reason). Once home, we did a full clear-up before stopping for some lunch. I then cleared out the fridge and filled the food-waste bin with food that will be out of date by the time we get home from our upcoming trip.

We had some Kindle time during the afternoon and managed to get our cases packed. It's not that we have an early start; it's just nice to get it done and out of the way. I plan to charge the car to 100% overnight in the hope that we may not need to recharge while we are away on our short break

Ellie is still feeling rotten as the spots continue to come out. Chickenpox is no fun, particularly in this heat.

We were going to take her out to watch this evening's eclipse, but have decided that it is not a good idea. We will go round to Zoe's and watch the feed from the BBC.

We'll have to wait until 2090 and watch the next one with her. (She might have to hold me up as I will be 138 by then.)