At Long Last

The cold weather that was prevalent for the last few days seems to have gone. Today it was a bit milder, but felt damp. Ellie had, apparently, been troublesome at bedtime last night and it was nearly midnight before she settled. She was rather quiet when we left her at the school.

After breakfast the Silver Vixen had to visit Sainsbury’s and the Gorse Fox stayed at home to prepare this week’s Ocado list and await the chaps from Outside Interests.

The roof panel had failed back in July or August, but finally they were going to replace it. As it happens, one of the fitters who arrived was one of the chaps that worked on the original construction. He commented how nice it was to come back and see the finished and furnished article. He also commented on how many extensions they had constructed around the estate, but ours was the biggest and the design changes that we had made really made it stand out.

It only took them about an hour to replace the compromised panel with a new one. It was definitely a two man job though. It was alarming to see how much flex there was in the failed panel, and it would have been easy for the remaining pane of glass to shatter.

During the afternoon, the Gorse Fox returned to first principles when it came to researching the Silver Vixen’s nan. What certificates do we have? What do they say? Work back again from there and apply the family stories as possible cross-checks. This led the Gorse Fox down another path (he’s not yet sure if it’s a rabbit hole). Unfortunately, he timed out and we had to collect Ellie. He will return to the hunt as soon as possible.

After dinner we took Ellie home and the Silver Vixen got her bathed and ready for bed. Urban-Cub arrived back from work and the plan was for us to sneak out as Ellie drifted off. She didm’t drift off. She had a melt-down and it took the Silver Vixen about an hour of super-human patience to settle her down.

Disgrace

 

It was a disgrace. We woke up to ice and snow. If we had wanted ice and snow, we would have lived up North, or moved to Alaska.

Clearly, the snow wasn't too bad but the ice was certainly troublesome. The pathways between home and Ellie's school were treacherous. Whilst Ellie and the Gorse Fox could mange this, we decided that the Silver Vixen should stay at home and not take any chances.

Once Ellie was delivered to school the Gorse Fox went home for some breakfast and coffee with the Silver Vixen. We sat and chatted and read the online papers before heading off to fulfil our plans for the day.

For the Gorse Fox, one plan had already been thwarted. His phone had rung during the school run. The chappies coming to replace our compromised roof panel in the Orangery wanted to postpone for 24 hours. This wasn't a major problem, but did mean the Gorse Fox wouldn't be going to football tomorrow. He retired to the study and updated the accounts before returning to the family tree.

The Gorse Fox has, on many occasions, mentioned the problems he has with the Silver Vixen's grandmother and her ancestors. Despite years of trying he still has been unable to find definitive records that support any of the potential relations as we look back. He thought, today, that another attempt was worth a try. This seemed to go well and based on an early bit of information he managed to force his way back through the records for several generations. What's more the supporting information seemed to confirm the conflicting stories that he had recorded from the Silver Vixen's aunts. Progress was being made.

Or was it?

The Gorse Fox started his cross-checks, using other data sources. The hypotheses didn't seem to stack up. In the end, with his head spinning and his whiteboard covered in arrows, dates, and names, the Gorse Fox gave up. He will return to this tomorrow and start with a totally different hypothesis.

Interesting day

 It has been an intestine and entertaining day.

The Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen had a very pleasant and lazy start to the day. Nothing was planned and no one was expected. We were free of commitments. The Silver Vixen sat and read in bed ad the Gorse Fox read the latest news then got stuck in to the family tree. He managed to find some references to his uncles James's time in the RAF and this prompted him to request his full service record. Half way through, they demanded his Death Certificate. The Gorse Fox doesn't have copy of that. He flipped to the GRO website, looked up the information, and hopefully will have the the certificate by this time next week. He can then have another attempt at requesting the service records..

This afternoon, the Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox had tickets to see the recording of a podcast. This was "Something Rymes With Purple" and featured a fairly free-form afternoon discussion of the English language with Gyles Brandreth and Susie Dent. 

It turned out to be a really interesting and stimulating afternoon with two people who genuinely love and understand the English language and its foibles, nooks, and crannies. The Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox presented themselves at the Chichester Festival Theatre and settled down in their seats. We had a perfect view of proceedings.

It was over by five, and it took longer to get out of the car park that it did to get home. We have just enjoyed some lamb shanks, some rum, some wine, and will soon settle down for the evening.

Stormy Weather

 Storm Arwen struck the North-east overnight. There were extensive power-cuts and heavy snow in some locations. Down here in the South the only inconvenience was a strong blustery wind, the occasional showers, and temperatures hovering around 3C.

We had plans. Both having taken lateral flow tests, we checked with Betty and Barney Rubble and all concluded it was safe to meet up. The Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox set off and, sticking to the main roads, made our way up to the wilds of north-east Hampshire. It was very noticeable how strong the wind was, knocking some 15mpg off the car's usual consumption - at least it should work the other way on the way home.

We settled down with coffee and biscuits and caught up on the various news of the families and what we had all been up to since we last met.

At lunchtime we headed off to the The Hoddington Arms. We have been there many times before and it is always very good. Today, not quite up to its normal standard. The Silver Vixen had fish and chips but the chips were over cooked. The Gorse Fox had a spare rib burger - which sounded delicious but was dry and chewy and quite a disappointment. They were immensely busy, so we will give them the benefit of the doubt and conclude it was just a bad day at the office.

Back to Betty and Barney's for tea and cheesecake and more chat - air-source heat pumps, EVs, nuclear energy, health, sport, and education were all covered and put to bed.

As the wind started to whip up again, we left to head home. Again, the Gorse Fox decided to stick to the main roads. It adds 8 miles to the route but is far less likely to be littered with fallen trees or debris. We were home before seven, and settled down for a quiet evening in front of the TV.

Better

 Ellie had another very disturbed night because of her coughing. Whilst this wakes the Gorse Fox there is nothing he can do to help. At night, only the Silver Vixen is good enough. We debated whether she was well enough to go to school, deciding that she should but we had to be ready to collect her should the school call.

The Gorse Fox was a little concerned about the "cold" he had. He decided that, as cold symptoms could also be Covid-19 symptoms, he should have a test. He dug out the Lateral Flow Test kit and went through the process. Thirty minutes later he was given the all clear. It is a cold, it is not Covid-19.

Slowly, throughout the day the Gorse Fox has been feeling better. He is still congested, but feels a lot brighter in himself. He has, however, already cancelled football for Sunday. That would be asking for trouble.

Most of the day has been spent working on the family tree. There were no breakthroughs, but that wasn't the objective today. Today was all about ensuring that that some of his paper information was scanned and provided as digital evidence for various facts asserted in the tree. This also meant that the Gorse Fox had to get his big A3 scanner working. This has not been accessible since the new Condor was installed. It occurred to him that the Dell laptop may still support the device. A few minutes later everything started to hum and glow and the scanner started to consume the various paper documents one after the the other. Sorted.

Interesting

 Thursday morning followed the usual pattern. School, Ocado, and Sainsbury's.

AT lunchtime the Gorse Fox received an email from a chap with whom he has previously corresponded regarding a partial DNA match. Steven has finally tracked down his father and completed a "tree" to show where we intersect. The Gorse Fox decided to review the details as there were several names that did not seem familiar. Essentially, it looks as if his link is sound and we intersect at the Gorse Fox's Great-great grandfather. Digging deeper into the records (to verify the work that had been presented) the Gorse Fox realised his 2G-grandfather remarried after his first wife (the Gorse Fox's 2G-grandmother) had died. Steven is linked through this second wife.

The research was interesting because while verifying the information the Gorse Fox dug up several new relatives that were previously unknown, and realised that Steven had misaligned a few people.

Newspapers

 The Gorse Fox's cold woke him early again. He was up before 5:00 this morning so that he didn't disturb the Silver Vixen. By 7:00 Ellie was awake so the Gorse Fox took some tea up to the Silver Vixen and got showered.

Once Ellie was at school we had our breakfast and then the Gorse Fox retired to the study and started wading through more archives. This time his focus was on newspapers. Could he find any supporting articles which would reveal more about the people in the family tree. In short, the answer wasn't encouraging. He found some picture in Tatler which featured his uncle and aunt (before they were married), and a lot of articles about his Uncle Teddy (all of which he already had). Other than that - nothing.

During the afternoon he made several more passes through the book he had compiled yesterday. It's starting to hand together quite well. He is thinking of sending it off to his sister and some cousins so that they can provide some more information.

Little steps

 The Gorse Fox woke soon after 4 am. By 5:30 he was still wide awake and he was getting fidgety. He got up and made some tea and read the overnight news. At 7:00 he took some tea to the Silver Vixen and Ellie soon emerged. 

He decided there would be no football today. His cold is troublesome and it would be pointless pushing his luck.

After the school run, we settled down for some breakfast and then the Gorse Fox retuned to the family tree. Today was focused on one branch of the family. It started with a first draft of a book and then there followed several passes of tidying up the text and the supporting documents. Each pass was a little step forward. While at it, the Gorse Fox went back to the various data sources to see if any new information was available. After several hours of searching and a lot of lateral thinking, he concluded there was nothing new. It seems that all branches of his family that stem from Ireland disappear somewhere in the Irish Sea as he can find no relevant records, prior to their arrival in England or Scotland, in the North or South of Ireland.

His cold hasn't improved much during the day so the Gorse Fox has emailed his apologies and cried off tomorrow's football as well.

Sniffing about

 The Gorse Fox seems to have developed a cold. It's not really surprising after the cough that Ellie had last week but it is frustrating. Urban-Cub dropped Ellie off as usual and we went through the usual morning routine and got her off to school on time.

Once home and suitably caffeinated the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen pottered. He hit the study and continued to sniff about among the boughs of the family tree. There were no huge revelations but a few small items bubbled to the top and were duly recorded. As is so often the case, the trails seem to run cold in Ireland. It may be different if we had any clue at all regarding the part of Ireland, or better still, the Parish where these people lived but no, there are no clues... and the names that are being sought are far too common to provide any certainty.

The Gorse Fox has spent much of the afternoon on the phone to his Aunt. It is quite a while since we had spoken and so she had lots to tell in order to bring us up to date with the comings and goings in her family. So we now know who is at which seat of learning, who is starting a job next week, who runs his own record label, who changed college without telling his parents, who won't leave the house for fear of Covid, who is going the army, and so forth. It's nice to catch up.

Birthday Lunch

 Today is the Silver Vixen's birthday. The Gorse Fox left her to enjoy a cup of tea in bed and open her cards and luxuriate in a quiet and lazy morning.

We had arranged to meet up with the girls for lunch at the Giggling Squid. We arrived first and settled down in the booth to await the others. Urban-Cub had collected Cousteau-Cub and the Coventry Hobbit on her way through and they all wandered in with presents, flowers and cards.

We examined the lunchtime menu and the main evening menu and selected dishes from both. Cousteau-Cub and the Gorse Fox asked for their dishes to be "wound up a bit, Thai style". The Silver Vixen asked for hers to be wound down, and the Coventry Hobbit and Urban-Cub both took theirs as it came.

We had a lovely couple of hours chatting about what had been going on, Jon's new job, Ellie, Cousteau-Cub's pending job and so forth. It was a fun family time and it's always nice to all get together.

Superb

 Well that was a very nice evening, yesterday. The Sonning Crew popped round for some bubbles and nibbles before we hopped on the bus into Bognor Regis. A 25 yard stroll from the bus stop took us to the restaurant and we were shown to a very comfortable table in the already busy restaurant.

As all previous visits, the food was simply superb. The Gorse Fox started with asian styled pork belly followed by chicken-stuffed halibut. It was wonderful. The others had the salmon (which the Gorse Fox tried last time) and beef cheeks which had gone down so well last time.

For the sweet course, the others all went for creme brûlée whereas the Gorse Fox chose the treacle tart with salted caramel and ice cream.

We stayed and chatted until it was time to stroll back to the bus stop. Ten minutes later we were home. 

All Clear

 Ellie had a few bought of coughing during the night, but seemed to sleep pretty well. She was awake and raring to go, soon after seven. We got the news from Urban-Cub that she had received confirmation of Ellie's PCR Test results - Negative, thank goodness. This meant that she can go to Pistol Pete overnight after all.

The Gorse Fox had his cousins' call, as usual, and soon after Urban-Cub arrived to collect Ellie. The rest of the day has been fairly quiet. Silver Vixen went to catch up on some rest and the Gorse Fox delved into some family tree research for a correspondant who was researching a derivative name. In the end he found quite a lot and has sent it back to her.

He also had the opportunity to do some more testing on some software. He has detected a few minor problems and reported them back to the author. 

We are planning to meet up with the Sonning Crew this evening. It is an appropriate time to celebrate the Silver Vixen's impending birthday.

Improving

 Ellie had a better night last night. She still had a few boughts of coughing but essentially slept well until just after seven. She still cannot return to school and must remain at home until she gets the (negative) results of her PCR test.

The Gorse Fox went along to the school at the usual time so that he could collect the homework that Ellie would have received. We spent the morning working through the phonetics, drawing the letters and spelling simple words before moving on to simple counting and arithmetic. This seemed to stimulate her and she powered through a load of online exercises. She did very well.

During the afternoon, Ellie and the Silver Vixen made some gingerbread biscuits until Urban-Cub got back from work. Normally we would expect Ellie to go off to Pistol Pete for the weekend at this point. He, however, said that because of her unknown Covid status, he couldn't have her. It would, apparently, mean he would have to isolate for 10 days before returning to work. Everyone else having to adjust their plans, Urban-Cub took Ellie home for dinner then brought her back to us for the night as she has an early start in the morning. She is expecting to be finished by mid-morning, though, so should pick Ellie up then.

Disturbed

 Ellie has a cough. In fact it is quite bad. After a bath and hair wash last night (and the accompanying steam) she settled easily. By eleven, however, she had started to cough. It was incessant and we really had to feel immensely sorry for her. She didn't make a fuss, but was essentially awake through until nearly 4 a.m. (and consequently, so were we). It was clear that she would be in no state to go to school so, once she did settle, we left her to sleep until she woke naturally.

The cough hasn't been so bad during the day, but is clearly still present. The school rang Urban-Cub. Ellie wouldn't be allowed back until she had had a negative PCR test. (Apparently, lots of children were off at present). Urban-Cub and the Silver Vixen set off to Tangmere to get the test performed. We await the result.

The Gorse Fox was invited, by email, to get his booster jab. This was a couple of weeks ago but all online bookings seemed to expect him to travel to Portsmouth, Brighton, or beyond. He dropped in to the surgery. "Are you still texting people about their booster  jabs, like you did for the Silver Vixen last month?" Well, the answer was a very guarded yes... probably meaning no. The harpy at the desk did, however, provide the Gorse Fox with a phone number to call every day until he managed to book his own local appointment. When he got home, after his subsequent Sainsbury's raid, he tried the number. He got straight through. His booster is now booked for Bognor.

Ellie's cough seems to be getting worse this evening. Hopefully, a warm bath and the accompanying steam will give her some relief.

Play Misty for me

 It had been quite chilly overnight but hadn't reached frost point. As the sun came up a fairly thick mist formed. The Gorse Fox wandered round the corner to meet Ellie and Urban-Cub and escort them to school.

Once home, it was a quick change and then the Silver Vixen went off to Pilates and the Gorse Fox went to football. We had a 5-vs-6 game today with the extra player swapping sides at half-time.  It had been going pretty well and we were defending against the extra man, stoutly. Then our goalkeeper did his usual trick of rolling the ball out straight to the opposition, giving them a simple tap-in. He never learns. Overall it was a good game though the Gorse Fox seemed to be wearing sand-wedges instead of boots. Every shot he tried soared over the cross bar. We started to get worried messages from the International Space Station, who thought they were under attack. In the second half our goalkeeper succumbed to his other regular trick. He lost sight of the ball as it hit the post, then the rebound bounced into the goal off his back. In the end we lost by a single goal, but it was fun.

We have finally heard from the energy company that will pick up our account after our previous supplier went to the wall. We are now back with E.On, who were our supplier several years ago. The Gorse Fox has set up the account and authorised a direct debit. It will be interesting to see by how much the bills have risen.

Ellie was clearly hungry after school. We gave her some crisps while dinner was cooking. Then she had fish fingers and a healthy portion of rice. Then she wanted more rice (good job the Gorse Fox had prepared plenty). She finished the lot. Then she wanted a banana. Then we sat down to some pasta with chicken thighs cooked in vegetables and a creamy chicken sauce. She plonked herself on the Silver Vixen's lap and proceeded to eat the pasta off her plate and some of the chicken. Then she asked for ice cream... we said no. She had eaten quite enough!

She's staying with us overnight.

A Little Excitement

One day last week we noticed a couple of Police cars and a Police van parked at the corner. They were speaking to a sheepish looking chap outside a neighbour's house. We found out today what had been going on.

Apparently the sheepish looking chap had clipped a car and taken off its wing mirror - and just drove off. What he didn't realise was that the occupants were two Police Officers and the car was an unmarked Police vehicle. Said Police reported the incident and chappie was stopped out the neighbour's house. He tried the old "I don't speak English ploy" but given the large Polish and Russian community in the area, that doesn't wash.

Oh yes, he's an Amazon driver too!

Crisp

 It was a bit chilly overnight and it came a s a shock to the system after the recent mild spell. Having said that, as soon as the sun was up the day soon warmed up.

The Gorse Fox had his usual football today. There was a glut of players, but not sufficient to peel some off for the 5-a-side pitches. This meant that we ended up playing 9-a-side which, quite frankly, is dreadful. There is no room to play and it is more like pinball. After last night's England team win 10-0 over over San Marino the Gorse Fox started to feel quite sorry for the losers, particularly when our games started and we were on a similar drubbing. Our team was like a schoolyard team. Everyone wanted to be the hero, everyone wanted to score, nobody (except the Gorse Fox) was will to defend. There were occasions when he was trying to keep out 5 attackers while his team were yelling at him to cover this chap or that chap, while standing on the halfway line. The score ended up about 8-2. In our second game we dragged someone else into defence and managed to hold the game to 1-0. In the final game, Pete (the organiser) change a couple of players between the teams... lo and behold, we actually won.

It was not the most satisfying session. The Gorse Fox felt as if he could have done better, but also felt the balance of the teams was way off.

Retail Therapy

 Urban-Cub dropped Ellie off just after seven. She had a busy day scheduled at work and wanted an early start. Once we had supervised the usual ablutions, breakfast, and dressing we took Ellie round to school.

We had planned a trip to Gunwharf Quays. It is the Silver Vixen's birthday at the weekend. It was time for a shopping trip. We had a good run through and the place was pretty deserted when we arrived. We worked our way around the mall, shop by shop. The Silver Vixen browsed the various rails of clothes and tried on a couple of stunning dresses. Unfortunately, as nice as they were, they didn't fit so we left without them. We did find a Radley bag that she liked, and resolved to collect that on the way back to the car.

They have got a small Christmas Market on one of the squares, and their decorations are looking lovely (though one suspects they would be more impressive once it get dark). There was fudge, there were chocolates, there was a bar, there was a stall selling Yorkshire adding wraps (?), and there was a bratwurst stall selling the biggest German sausages you could imagine. It was all so tempting.

We stopped off at Loch Fyne for lunch. We were among the very first people in, but it soon filled up. We both selected from their "specials" board. The Silver Vixen had a salmon pate to start, followed by a pan fried sea bass. The Gorse Fox had scallops on a bed of haggis as a starter, followed by tuna on bed of artichoke and n'duja risotto. These really were exceptional. We both finished off with the creamiest cheesecake (blueberry) that we had ever tasted.

After a very leisurely lunch, we did one more tour of the shops (and stopped off at Radley for the bag). Then we made our way back to the car and cruised home in time for a cup of tea and half an hour "feet-up" before collecting Ellie from school.

Circuitous

 Oh boy! it certain;y was a lazy start to the day. There was no football scheduled (we could only muster 8 players) so there was no real impetus to get up and going.

Once breakfast was sorted the Gorse Fox returned to the family tree. He had had an idea and pursued a different route into the Irish records. This proved fruitful. He eventually found access to the Irish records and, with a bit of patience, he found several marriage certificates for his 2nd Get-grandparents. This, in turn, revealed further details about them and their fathers. It was satisfying to find this new information, but still frustrating that he couldn't drive the information any further. Anyway, it was interesting to find that his 2nd gt-grandparents were both school teachers.

Frustration

 The day started with the weekly call with the cousins. None of the Aussies were on the call today but though sparse it was good fun.

After the call the Gorse Fox plunged back into the family tree. There was an immediate breakthrough - he found the names of his 3-times Great grandfathers in Ireland (Patrick Kane, and Joseph William Temple). This breakthrough was bound to open up a huge treasure trove of information, wasn't it? NO. It opened up six hours of pouring through records in English and Latin and not finding one single additional morsel of information. The Gorse Fox knows he has been doing this for 30 years now but even still it always looks so easy when you watch "Who Do You Think You Are?". In practise it can been the most immensely frustrating hobby imaginable.

Spirit Level

 It was a a slightly later start. Ellie was at home, so we didn't have to get her going, fed, washed, and dressed ready for school. The Gorse Fox did, however, have to be ready to escort her and Urban-Cub to school, as is customary.

Once home, there was a leisurely breakfast and a run through the papers and social media. Then the Gorse Fox headed over to se Old Bill. Along with Two Hats we were set to help him move a huge mirror. This should have been fairly straightforward. Remove large mirror from wall, remove fixings from mirror, fit a French cleat, mount the mirror at the the top of the stairs on the cleat that had been pre-installed. It was not straightforward. The existing fixings had been stripped and need some significant persuasion to remove them. Then it became clear that the mirror had a a backing which stood proud of the frame. This would interfere with the French cleat. We had to pad the frame before fixing the cleat. Finally, we manhandled the mirror up the stairs and hung it. It was crooked. The Gorse Fox suspected it was the cleat that had been pre-installed on the wall. The mirror was removed. A spirit level confirmed the Gorse Fox's suspicions. Cleat was remove and re-sited. Eventually, we were ready to retry the mirror.  This time it worked and everything looked level. We heaved a sigh of relief and went our separate ways.

The Gorse Fox has spent the rest of the day working on the accounts and the family tree. The former were straightforward, the latter  required concentration. The Gorse Fox created a "Descendant" book of some 400 pages and compared it to the original he had created months ago. It was spot on. Then he created a 650 page "Ancestor" book. Again, it looked spot on - with one exception. The one difference seemed to be a single photo which had bee displayed with the wrong orientation. This will require some research before the Gorse Fox contacts the author and reports a bug.

User Error

 Ellie slept well. In fact, we had to wake her so that she would have time for breakfast before getting dressed for school. Urban-Cub was still unwell, but at least the vomiting had stopped. She called to chat chat with Ellie before school.

Once we were back, it was the usual schedule for Thursday. We had some breakfast and coffee then awaited the the man from Ocado. Once he had delivered and everything was stowed away, we hit Sainsbury's for the top-up. Where this differed from the usual was a separate trip to M&S and Pets at Home. Who says that we boomers don't know how to have fun?

The Gorse Fox has spent much of the rest of the day working with the family tree software that he is helping to test. He thought he had found a fairly significant bug... which he reported. It was only afterwards that he realised that it was his own error! Grovelling apology sent to author. Software is looking pretty sound.

Having collected Ellie from school we got her changed and and the Silver Vixen took her back to Urban-Cub. She still can't return to work but is now well enough to look after Ellie.

New boy

 Ellie was good overnight and didn't disturb us until 6:40. By this time, The Gorse Fox was getting fidgety anyway, so he got up.

We dropped Ellie off at school and set about our business. A message had come through from Urban-Cub that she was unwell and seemed to have developed the vomiting bug that Ellie had had. We told her to take care and that we would sort Ellie out. This means she is staying with us again tonight.

We had a new chap at football today. He was quite good and though the first half felt a bit like the Alamo, in the second half we started to develop a lead. The Gorse Fox was disappointed that two cracking shots had been blocked by the goalie - and suspects the the second one will have left bruises - it was struck so cleanly.

this afternoon the Gorse Fox has been doing some more testing on the genealogy software that he has been  asked to help with. This new code-drop is a lot better than that of last week. He has some more use cases to try, but so far it is looking very positive.

Quiet day

 It has been an unexpected day... Well, the fact that it was Tuesday was not unexpected - in fact we had that written on the calendar. It was more the way the day turned out...

Urban-Cub dropped Ellie off, first thing. Then, the Gorse Fox had to take her to work while her car remained here for a friend to borrow. We then took Ellie round to school, only to be told that she shouldn't be there as she has to give it a full 48 hours, after sickness, before she can return. The Gorse Fox cancelled his football and Ellie returned home with us. We did various lessons with her and kept her occupied. She was very good.

Ellie is staying overnight as Urban-Cub has an early start in the morning.

A Pocketful

 Ellie had been unwell overnight and Urban-Cub had decided, rightly, to keep her off school. Fortunately, Urban-Cub had a day off, so was able to take care of her... our only involvement was the Gorse Fox having to drop off our carpet cleaner, before we went out.

We had a trip planned. We were heading east from the safety and civilisation of West Sussex and would be meeting up with the Silver Vixen's cousin over in the badlands of Kent. He had arranged a table at a restaurant in Rye Harbour.

Well, that was a drive. Despite looking at Google and the maps, the Gorse Fox still found it hard to compute that an 80 mile drive was likely to take more that 2 hours. In fact, it took 2 hours and 20 minutes. As you would expect, the Gorse Fox had allowed plenty of time and we arrived with an hour to spare - only to find that Trevor and Sue had arrived 30 minutes earlier still!

Rye is an absolutely gorgeous town. Rye Harbour, however, is downstream from the town and while quaint, lacked some of the chocolate-box qualities of its neighbour.

We settled down for some coffee and a chat in "William the Conqueror". Time ticked by as we caught up on the family. Then we hit the menu for lunch. Their specialities seem to be Cypriot dishes. This suited us. The Silver Vixen had a moussaka, and the Gorse Fox had a Cypriot Plate - souvlaki, Cypriot sausage, grilled prawns, flatbread, and tzatziki; it was wonderful. It really needed to be washed down with some wine, but the Gorse Fox won't indulge when he has the car.

We had a lovely time and carried on chatting and admiring photos until nearly three o'clock. Then it was time to head back. We said our goodbyes and hit the highways. We were clearly going to hit rush hour, so had no real expectation as to how long it would take - but we were home in about 2 hours and 40 minutes. Not too bad.

It had been a lovely day... and various mysteries and stories had become clear.

Win

 The Gorse Fox didn't set his alarm. His plan was to to sleep until he woke naturally. He woke naturally five minutes before his alarm would have gone off. Pah!

He left early for football. This week it proved to be the right decision as parking spaces were few and far between. There were plenty of matches being played on the outdoor pitches and all of the players and followers had come by car.

The Gorse Fox had set the teams up pretty well this week. The algorithm was pretty close. He did swap two players as both goalkeepers ended up on one side initially. We also had an imbalance to handle with 6-vs-5 which we adjust at half-time to move one player and make it 5-vs-6. At halftime, the Gorse Fox was 3-1 down but one of our key strikers had asked to play in goal. n In the second half we moved him onto the pitch and soon started to claw things back. In the end the game was a comfortable 7-3 win of the Gorse Fox's orange team.

This afternoon has seen the Gorse Fox doing a lot more work on the family tree. He has been trying to fill in some gaps in his records for one particular cousin's information. More details were found but he has not really got as much information as he would like.

Better

 Well yesterday's input was limited to a slice of toast with honey and a small bowl of porridge early in the evening. Things were clearly on the mend when the Gorse Fox experienced some hunger pangs just before bed.

This morning he has woken up feeling his normal self (whatever that is worth). As Saturdays go, it was fairly typical. There was the morning call with the cousins... always fun, but lifted this week by Helen dressing as a pirate for the call. There is now talk of doing a pirate based call in the New Year. The Gorse Fox must consider his options.

It was interesting, on the call, to hear of Chris's experiences in Turkey where they have to scan in to most venues for track and trace, but also to show their vaccine status. Without a clear response they cannot enter various establishments or use public transport. Apparently, it works like clockwork.

Once the call was done, the Gorse Fox caught up on the accounts (which had been ignored for a few days) and then switched to the family tree. On Monday we are meeting the Silver Vixen's mysterious cousin and the Gorse Fox thought she might appreciate some additional background to her family. He has produced several reports, but in the end decided that there was only one that was worth printing.

Talking of family trees, the Gorse Fox's non-cousin - but pseudo cousin - Tina had asked about her family when we met at the funeral last Monday. The Gorse Fox decided to delve into his data and see what he could find. Unfortunately, because of her Irish heritage, it was very difficult to dig up a lot of information. By switching between research tools, however, the Gorse Fox did manage to drive her family back another generation. He does find it tiresome that some priests, along with writing in Latin, had dreadful handwriting. With family names like Scanlan and O'Kelly getting much further is like searching for a needle in a haystack that's been hit by a tornado. He has sent her the information he does have.

Cousteau-Cub and the Coventry Hobbit dropped in for a while this afternoon. It was lovely to see them. Though we have spoken and exchanged the odd messages, it it probably the first time we have seen them since we went out for dinner on Cousteau-Cub's birthday. She's having a bit of rough time at present with her back and was just on the way back from the chiropractor. She's also still waiting to get a start date for her new job... which is dragging on and on.

Still rough

 The Gorse Fox is still feeling rough. Without going into too much detail, things seem to be passing through... completely unhindered. Again, he has been drinking tea, but hasn't ventured to eat anything. He may try some toast and honey later.

The Work of the Devil

 The Gorse Fox continued to feel rough during the day. He was worried that he would be unable to go the the evening's night out. He tentatively tried a little porridge for breakfast, but had no real enthusiasm for the thought of food. He did, however, drink copious amounts of tea.

The Silver Vixen had an appointment for her annual blood tests first thing. This meant that the Gorse Fox was trusted with walking Ellie to school. Having said that, we did nearly leave the house without her school books and water bottle. It was Ellie who reminded him.

Ocado delivery, as usual, but we decided to delay the Sainsbury's top-up until tomorrow. There was nothing for which we were desperate.

A software developer who has a very fine product that runs on Windows, is in the latter stages of bringing out a MacOS version. He contacted the Gorse Fox and asked if he could provide an early copy for comments, testing, and feedback. The Gorse Fox, of course, said yes. It is now nestled on Condor, and some initial tests have been run. It is looking promising.

The plan fro the evening had been that the Sonning Crew would take the bus to Bognor Regis, have dinner, then attend a show. Two Hats and Tinkerbell had pulled out. This just left 4 of us. As the Gorse Fox still wasn't feeling too great, he suggested we take the car - which would be more convenient for getting back home later. We started off at "Mustards" for dinner. The food was, as expected, superb. The Gorse Fox was very careful what he chose - sticking to something light and easily digested with salmon. The others all went for beef cheeks (which looked wonderful). We sat and chatted for a couple of hours before making our way to the theatre (all of 50 yards away).

We had purchased the tickets for this event back in May and settled down in expectation. The show was called "The Work of the Devil" and was a brilliantly crafted show from Simon Evans. Simon came on stage and immediately engaged with the audience. His humour was witty, quick, and intellectual and the first 50 minute segment whistled by, in no time. There was a brief intermission before he resumed. The second half was about the same length but slowly wove an incredible personal story into the narrative. Time and again, themes from the first half were picked up and given context. It really was a masterclass in holding, educating, and entertaining an audience. It was also a masterclass in keeping people laughing, and then surprising them.

When it was all over, we waited in the lobby to say hello. After all, the Gorse Fox often exchanges Tweets with him... and we have common ground in that he also went to school in St Albans.

It really was an exceptional night out.

Rough

Short blog today. Though the morning was similar to most Wednesdays and the Gorse Fox had football and the Silver Vixen had Pilates the Gorse Fox has been feeling very unwell this afternoon.

He cooked dinner for Ellie and then for Urban-Cub and the Silver Vixen. Then he decided he was feeling so queasy that it would be better to sit quietly in the lounge.

Hopefully all will be well tomorrow 

Frost

 We had our first morning where frost decorated (outside of) the Orangery roof. We were lovely and warm inside, but it had clearly been very cold overnight. Urban-Cub dropped Ellie off and the usual schedule kicked in. We dropped her off at school then headed home. 

The Silver Vixen planned to take some clothes to the charity shop, so we switched cars and the Gorse Fox took his car across to Worthing. There were not as many players today as usual, for a Tuesday. There had been a tournament yesterday, so clearly some were taking a rest. The teams were chosen and the Gorse Fox knew he was in for a torrid time. He was playing, like a few weeks back, with a chap that has no concept of disciplined defending. As a result he often found himself outnumbered 3-1. It goes without saying that we lost all three games. The Gorse Fox was pleased with the way he played, having intercepted and blocked several certain goals.

We collected Ellie from school. She was in a playful mood and was happy to amuse herself with the toys after we had been through some phonics with her. She is doing very well with character recognition  and associating them with the correct sounds.

The Gorse Fox keeps asking, but it isn't clear when she starts on Engineering or Physics.

Her cough doesn't seem as pronounced this evening, so hopefully she is over the worst of it.

The Only Way...

 Ellie had a disturbed night. She has a bit of a cough and it was preventing her from dropping into a deep sleep. Both the Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox were up and about before she finally woke this morning. After the usual ablutions, breakfast, and some medicine, we walked her round to school - with the expectation that she would be sent home. She wasn't!

The Gorse Fox had another funeral to attend. This time it was for the husband of his eldest cousin. He hopped in the car, set the SatNav, and headed up to the wilds of Essex. Again, he was exceptionally lucky with the traffic. Despite several sets of roadworks and a broken down truck on the M23, he still managed the journey in a couple of hours.

The Gorse Fox had arrange to meet with J&T at "The Nag's Head". He had arrived first and parked up. He wandered in to the restaurant. A young assistant looked up and he started to say that there was a reservation. Before he had got a sentence out, she pointed out that they weren't yet open and the door should not have been unlocked. He responded that it had been a long drive from Bognor Regis and he hadn't realised they were not open. She took pity and sat him down in a quiet corner and gave him a coffee to keep him happy (and quiet) until J&T arrived.

We had a lovely lunch and chatted until it was time to move on to the crematorium. Other family members and friends began to gather as the clock ticked by. At the appointed hour we entered the chapel and had a very nice secular service of remembrance before the final committal. After the long farewell we gathered back at the same hotel we used two weeks ago and had some afternoon tea before dispersing to the winds.

It was rush hour when the Gorse Fox left, but despite that the traffic smiled on him and he was home in under two hours.

Fail

 Despite our concerns regarding the change in the clocks, Ellie slept through until 7:15GMT. She had had quite a cough and was clearly very tired when she went to bed. The good 13 hours of sleep  must have done her good.

The Gorse Fox had football this morning. We had had overnight storms and there was debris across the roads and a lot of standing water on the roads. W~hen the Gorse Fox arrived at the Arun Sports Arena, he was the only car in the car park. It turns out that all outdoor games had been cancelled. Our indoor game was one of the only two scheduled matches for the day.

The sides, on paper, looked quite even. In practise this was not the case. The algorithm had failed. The two best players on the yellow team decided to play in defence. This threw the algorithm. By half-time the Gorse Fox's orange team were 12-3 ahead (including at least two goals from the Gorse Fox). At half-time the Gorse Fox moved players between the teams in an effort to even things up. It helped. It didn't solve the problem, though. The Gorse Fox isn't sure what the final score was. He certainly scored in the second half, and so di the opposition. If he was to guess he would say they final score was in the region of 18-8... but then again, he suspects we had all stopped keeping score.

Urban-Cub brought Ellie back to us this evening. She will be staying overnight as Urban-Cub has an early start at the store.

Part time

The Gorse Fox was even later waking up this morning. Wonderful!

The morning started with a somewhat sparse call with the cousins. There was the usual banter and a quick catch-up on latest news and jab status.

The morning was blessed with a call from Cousteau-Cub and a visit from Urban-Cub to drop Ellie off. Urban-Cub has a Spa evening booked with some girlfriends, so Ellie is staying with us over night. 

This afternoon Ellie was due at a party with Bonnie. We took her round to the party and then had a couple of hours before she needed collecting.

She had obviously had great fun while she was there and was still charging round the garden when we arrived to collect her.

The Gorse Fox is not too sure we will see too much of the extra hour in bed overnight. Though the Gorse Fox has explained the concept of clock change and the angle at which the earth is aligned with the sun during this part of the year, he is not convinced it sunk in.

All up

 The Gorse Fox was surprised to find that it was 7:45 before he awoke. Maybe he is slowly adjusting to retirement!

It has been a very quiet day. Urban-Cub and Ellie popped in a couple of times, but other than that the Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox have just pottered in our respective hobby rooms.

The Gorse Fox has managed to update all of the Macs, all of the iPads, and all of the iPhones to the latest versions during the day. There was a bit of a hiccough with the Silver Vixen's iPhone, but that was soon cleared (she needed more space). We are now perching on the bleeding edge of the technology.

Nothing else to report.

Pop

 Fairly typical Thursday with the morning Ocado delivery followed by the top-up trip to Sainsbury's. Once home, the Gorse Fox settled down with the accounts while the Silver Vixen zipped round to the surgery to book her annual blood-tests.

Once the admin was out of the way, the Gorse Fox decided to update Condor to the new MacOS "Monterey". It was a 12GB download, but once nestling on the machine, it didn't take long to apply. So far, everything the Gorse Fox has tried has worked flawlessly. Well done, Apple.

(For the young reader, why "Pop" as a title? Back in the day (1967), when music was good and festivals were legendary, there was a "Monterey Pop" festival - performers included Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, and many more. A film was made and released in 1968 and maybe the most iconic moment was when Hendrix set fire to his guitar!)

Benched

 The Gorse Fox decided that it would be unwise to play football today. Whilst his back was feeling better, it did seem a little unstable. A quiet day was in order. He "benched" himself. The Silver Vixen, however was up and about and raring to go to Pilates. He left her to it!

The morning was occupied with a few domestic chores and then some time in the study filing photos. While he was doing that he decided to update his phone to IOS 15. As usual, this took a little while but installed without incident. Having seen the update on the phone, he then fired up the same update on the iPad. It will be interesting to see if anything crawls out of the metaphorical woodwork over the next few days.

Talking of updates, the Gorse Fox may consider updating his iMac (Condor) to "Monterey" tomorrow.

It was a quiet afternoon watching the budget updates come through. It looks as if Rishi Sunk has managed to walk a tightrope and deliver a pretty positive budget, in the circumstances.

Oooof

 It seemed very dark when the Gorse Fox got up this morning. Jasper was still asleep somewhere upstairs so there was no hurry to open the door for him. The Silver Vixen was soon up and about. She was meeting up with a friend today, and needed to set off soon after the Gorse Fox.

The Gorse Fox drove across to Worthing for the football. He was selected on a well-balanced team today - though we didn't have a goalkeeper. The first game went well, with a 3-0 win. The second game saw the Gorse Fox take his turn in goal. Unfortunately, one of our team conceded a penalty. Though the Gorse Fox was able to get a hand to it, he couldn't keep it out. We lost 1-0. The final game was expected to be the hardest. The other team had some very good footballers. We defended resolutely and picked up and early goal. It was tense and relentless, but we held on, scoring two more goals and conceding just one. Final score 3-1 to us. Mighty fine morning's work.

The Gorse Fox drove home, stopping yet again for petrol. This must the the third time he has had to fill up his car this year. Once home, all was going swimmingly until he started to strip off fo his shower. He must have twisted awkwardly. Now he can't straighten up properly. Stupid, painful, and very uncomfortable.

Not a lot

 A lovely leisurely start to the day and the Gorse Fox was greeted by rain. By this he means that, whereas. he usually hears the rain and is not surprised, today he hadn't heard it and was quite surprised when he went out to the Orangery to open the blinds and saw that it was pouring down.

The Silver Vixen had some clothes, purchased last week, that she wanted to exchange. We made the most of our bus passes and zoomed in to Chichester. The Silver Vixen sorted out her purchases and the Gorse Fox went into M&S to replace some ageing underwear. Once we had met back up we then went on a hunt for a new everyday coat for the Silver Vixen. We tried a number of shops before finding the ideal coat in "Cotswolds". It was a bit more than she had expected to pay, but it had a good guarantee, and was 100% waterproof and the right length. Job done.

Back home it has been a quiet afternoon. The Silver Vixen has been sewing and the Gorse Fox has been in his study looking to see if there are any options for a short break around the time of the Silver Vixen's birthday. There are several candidates, but we also have to consider whether we need to care for Ellie that weekend, and what we would do with Jasper. No decisions have been made.

Crane

 It was a lovely gentle start to the morning. The sun was bright and there was still some warmth despite being mid Autumn.

The Gorse Fox set off for his Sunday football. He had allowed plenty of time in the expectation that parking would be a nightmare. No. Nothing. There was hardly a car in the car park and the Gorse Fox was able to park wherever he wanted.

He was expecting to get pounded today. In order to accommodate a request from one of the two best players, he put them both on the same team. The opposite team to the Gorse Fox. Despite his worst fears, he managed to mark one of them out of the game, and his team managed a good passing game. At the end of the first half his team were 5-4 ahead (including a goal from the Gorse Fox). The second half was harder, but we stayed in touch. They scored a few goals and we got a couple. The final score ended up as 7-6 to the other team. It wasn't quite the pounding we had expected.

Back home the Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox finally got round to finding a nest for our crane.Huge galvanised stakes are holding it down, and hopefully the wind will not dislodge the wings.

The rest of the afternoon was spent ripping the final DVDs onto the Plex server. As we have no DVD player (except on the computer) this is the only way in which we can watch the films in question.

The Gorse Fox does have a problem with Plex. It works fine on the TV in the lounge. It works fine on the iPhone. It works fine on Urban-Cub's TV at home. It won't, however, work on our TV in the kitchen, nor on the Gorse Fox's iPad. This is driving him to distraction as it used to work on every device he tried.

Road Closed

 We had a leisurely start to the day. There was no hurry. The first item of the day was the "cousins' call" on Zoom. We had the most of the usual suspects and had a nice chat about all and sundry... jabs, boosters, Aussie lockdowns (or the release thereof), masks, and all the usual general silliness that makes the calls such fun.

Late morning the Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox headed out. We were due to meet J&T in Chiddingfold for lunch. This is usually a 40 minute drive, but not today. There were traffic controls at a junction near Boxgrove which added and extra five minutes or so to the journey. The we found the A286 was closed near Duncan and had to divert off down some single track roads. These meant numerous dips into passing places to accommodate oncoming traffic. It also meant hitting a pothole that went all the way down to earth's core. The Gorse Fox was amazed that the wheel stayed on... in fact it remained intact and inflated, somehow. This diversion must have added a further 10 minutes to the route. Further along the (now rejoined) A286 we were caught by more roadworks just south of Petworth. In the end it took us just over an hour to get. to The Crown Inn.

J&T were already there and we sat down for a coffee before lunch. The chat started immediately and didn't really stop until we left around 16:00-ish. We caught up on subjects from health, jabs, family, relationships, entry-level schooling, holiday plans, to Christmas plans. As usual it was easy conversation accompanied by good food. Saturday lunchtimes don't get much better.

The Gorse Fox chose a different route home. This was far more successful and, including a stop for petrol, was still significantly quicker than the outbound route.

Service!

 We had the usual drop-off and school run this morning. Today is the last day before half-term, but Ellie was as eager as usual to get to school.

Once home, we grabbed our stuff and headed in to Chichester. The Gorse Fox dropped the Silver Vixen in the town and then drove on to the Skoda dealership. The car was due for its second service. Dropping the car off he confirmed that they would check on the recent fuel gauge problem and the fact that the key was occasionally undetected. They said they would look at these items, and the car would be ready by 17:00. The Gorse Fox left the car in their capable hands and walked back into town.

The Gorse Fox met up with the Silver Vixen and we did some shopping before the Gorse Fox had to pop off for an appointment. We joined back up afterwards and stopped off at "Ask" for lunch. We were lucky. We were the first customers in and managed to get seated and placed our orders before they filled up, which they soon did. There were customers being turned away before long. We had a lovely lunch then made our way to the bus stop. The plan was that we would home in plenty of time to collect Ellie, and the Gorse Fox would make his way back into Chichester around 16:00. It was 13:55 as we got off the bus and started the walk home. It was 13:57 when the Gorse Fox received the text message to say the car was ready. We dropped the shopping off at home and the Gorse Fox turned on his heels and headed straight back to the bus stop.

Once in Chichester, the Gorse Fox went to the dealership. The car had a clean bill of health. There was a video of the inspection and comments that it was "like new". They did, however, find no problem with the key nor with the fuel gauge. The Gorse Fox got in the car to drive home and the key immediately failed. He went back to the service desk and they concluded it must be a battery problem in the key. (The Gorse Fox had put a new battery in a couple of months back... but though it was the right size and specification, it wasn't a Skoda battery). The service rep changed the battery for a Skoda battery. Everything worked. That doesn't prove anything, because the problem is intermittent, but at least we got a new battery out of it!

Just stuff

 There was a deluge of heavy rain overnight. It was, however, dry by the time we got up - which was a surprise. The Gorse Fox went round to Urban-Cub's to walk Ellie to school, then headed home from breakfast.

It was a typical Thursday morning with a delivery of shopping from Ocado, followed by a whistle-stop tour of Sainsbury's for our top-up. The rest of the morning was spent on domestic chores and admin. 

After lunch the Gorse Fox dropped into multiprocessing mode. In the background he continued to rip down some DVDs for Ellie. In the foreground he processed some recent photos, some photos provided by his old school, and spent a lot of time searching on Google for particular old friends. The latter task proving fruitless.

The plan is to return to the photos when time permits. They need to be provided with more accurate metadata including GPS locations and approximate dates.

A bit narked

 The day was grey to start with. There had been a lot of overnight rain, but it had stopped by the time we had breakfast. Urban-Cub dropped Ellie and headed off to Southampton for a meeting. Ellie had her breakfast and, once ready, we took her round to school.

Back home, the Silver Vixen got her stuff together and headed off to Angmering for her Pilates. The Gorse Fox followed a few minutes later for his football.

Football started well. The first half was very tight and quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, we didn't have a ref today, so it was ref-by-committee. This was fine in the first half, but as people tired in the second half it started to get silly. People claiming for non-existent fouls, people calling out running, and strangely, all of the imaginary offenders were on the Gorse Fox's team. You may have guessed that we were winning. The Gorse Fox snapped about ten minutes from the end when he jogged off the pitch to collect a ball that had gone out. "Running" went the cry... The Gorse Fox turned round and told them that he didn't give a **** as all sense of fair play had clearly been lost. He carried on doing his defending and, when necessary to catch a runner, lit up his after-burners. Nobody got passed. If nothing else he got some exercise.

Back home we had a quick lunch as we were due at the school for a 6-week workshop. This was aimed at the parents of the new starters to help them understand what was being taught and how they could help. Well, that was the theory. In actual fact, the meeting had been cancelled but we had not been informed.

Urban-Cub was back in time to collect Ellie, take her home, get her changed, and take her back for a Halloween Disco with her class. Though she was apprehensive, apparently she thoroughly enjoyed it in the end.

Good run around

 Gosh, it was dark this morning when we got up. Ellie was convinced we had got up too early, so we had to explain about the fact that in Autumn it gets dark earlier in the evening and stays dark longer in the morning but in a couple of weeks the clocks would be changed so that it's lighter when we get up.

The Gorse Fox headed off to football once Ellie was delivered to school. At first it looked as if we wouldn't have sufficient players for a 4-way tournament, but some stragglers turned up in time to make up the numbers. The Gorse Fox's team did well. We won the first game 2-1, drew the second game 0-0, and won the final game 4-0. Very satisfying, and some lovely passing going on across the team. It was a good run around.

Back home, the Silver Vixen was trying to get on with some sewing. The Gorse Fox settled down to do the online shop, then caught up on a couple of weeks of admin.

Ellie's back at home now for a run of nights.

Farewell

 The Gorse Fox had to leave early this morning. He left the Silver Vixen taking care of Ellie and headed off. He had checked several times over the weekend and Google suggested that the journey would be about 2 hours and 40 minutes. If that was the estimate at the weekend, the Gorse Fox decided he should allow even more time on a Monday morning during rush hour.

Well, the Gorse Fox isn't sure if there had been a major catastrophe, or a new lockdown, but the roads were relatively empty. He shot across country to the M23, then up to the M25, and round to Brentwood. By nine-thirty he was parked up and considering where to go for a coffee. Suitably caffeinated, he wandered around to the Cathedral to await the arrival of the other mourners. His cousins Peter and Tina were first to arrive so we were able to have a nice long chat.

Tony's funeral service was well attended and was a very comforting for the family. It was only after, when we gathered outside that the Gorse Fox had a chance to talk with Liz and the rest of the family. From the Cathedral, close family were invited to the crematorium. The Gorse Fox was included in the number and, along with J&T, we went to see the final farewell. It was a sad moment, but probably cathartic for the loved ones.

From the crematorium we convened in a nearby hotel for a wake and a chance for everyone to swap reminiscences and support the family.

The Gorse Fox left mid-afternoon. His journey home wasn't quite as quick as the journey up, but at least there were no major hold-ups. He will have to return in a couple of weeks for the funeral of another cousin's husband. Sad times for that part of the family.

Ranking

The Gorse Fox had football this morning and the Silver Vixen had her Covid-19 booster jab scheduled. (The Gorse Fox's second jab was a few weeks later than that of the Silver Vixen, so he is expecting to wait a couple more weeks before he is called.)

The Gorse Fox's football team selection algorithm was fairly accurate today. The teams were very close, and in the end there was only one or two goals in it. The computer had decided that the Gorse Fox should be on the winning side this week. It was great fun and we "blooded" a new player.

Once home, there was a bit of shopping to do. We had run out of strawberries for Ellie's school lunch. (The champagnes and oysters were fine, but we needed new strawberries). As he went off to the shop, Tinkerbell appeared with an armful of DVDs. They were all kids' shows and were appropriate for Ellie. We no longer have a DVD connected to the TV, so the Gorse Fox would have to rip them down onto his Plex library. This needed to be considered as he hadn't tried this on the new Condor. As it happened it went without a hitch. The first three DVDs are now nestling in the family media library. There are several further DVDs to rip, but he can do those during the week.

Pistol Pete dropped Ellie back with us late in the afternoon. She will be staying with us overnight as Urban-Cub has to do her quarterly inventory, starting soon after 4 a.m. tomorrow morning. The Gorse Fox has an early start as he has to get up to Brentwood, in bandit country, for a funeral mid-morning.

Ageing

 We were all up and about at 7:00 this morning. Ellie was in a good mood and after breakfast played quietly until it was time for Pistol Pete to collect her.

We left soon after Ellie. We were heading for bandit country, way up north in Milton Keynes. The journey was estimated at 2hours 12 minutes, but though the first 50 miles went smoothly, the M25 conspired to screw up the timings. In the end it it took about 3 hours to get there.

We wandered into the "The Old Beams" pub and after making ourselves comfortable, went and said hello to the family. 

There was a good turnout and the buffet spread looked (and indeed was) incredible. We had a lovely four or five hours standing and chatting with the Silver Vixen's nieces, her sister, her brother, and the birthday boy Dom is 60 tomorrow). It was so nice to see them. With the exception of Becky, this was the first time we had seen them since before Covid. Obviously, there was a lot of catching up to do. We wanted to know what they had been up to, they wanted to know about us, the girls, and Ellie. 

There were some group photos, copies of which the Gorse Fox awaits, but mostly it was all about the chat.

We made our excuses late afternoon and headed home. The journey back was far better, only taking 2 hours and 20 minutes. Now it's time for a quiet sit down with a glass of wine and some TV.

Old Boys

 The Gorse Fox ws up early and dressed in his finest. Old Bill gave him a lift to the station and he started his journey up to St Albans. The journey across to Brighton was accompanied by some Simon Evans' Podcasts. Brighton had a 30 minute layover... which gave him a chance to grab a bacon roll and some coffee the the almost empty train left to take the Gorse Fox to St Albans. He used this time to catch up on some "Ted Lasso" episodes that he had downloaded to the iPad. The time whizzed by and the train pulled in to St Albans at 11:41, exactly on schedule. The taxi was waiting, and a few minutes later the Gorse Fox was walking into school.

As before, we were greeted with beer and canapés and accompanied by a singing from the school choir. It was especially nice to see that girls had finally been allowed into the school and were part of the choir. The annual old boys over-65s lunch was as interesting and stimulating as ever. Old friends - Richard Butt, Laurence Rossiter, Paul McNally, Paul Tominey, Andrew Mower, and many more all added to the camaraderie. A film loop was playing showing photos of the school from our era. The Gorse Fox realised that he was featured in several of the pictures and has asked for copies.

We eventually had to call it a day and head back. Richard Butt travelled back on the train as far as Farringdon and we continued to chat. We have concluded that it is time that we tried to reconvene the "Band of Brothers"... and the Gorse Fox has volunteered to arrange something. (Heaven help him).

The Silver Vixen and Ellie collected the Gorse Fox from Bognor Regis station just after 18:30. It had been been a great day.

Running about

 Urban-Cub's car is due for the renewal of its annual Road Fund License. This requires an MOT. There is such a backlog of MOTs at present that it is hard to get one scheduled. She was lucky, she managed to find a garage near the Bognor Hospital that could sort her out today. This meant that the Gorse Fox had to follow her to the garage and then drop her at work. Meanwhile, the Silver Vixen sorted Ellie out and took her to school.

After the initial excitement we settled down for breakfast and and waited for the Ocado man to knock. Once the shopping was put away we headed to Sainsbury's for our usual top-up. Talking of topping up, we also filled the car as we have the drive to Milton Keynes and back on Saturday. (Saturday is Dom's birthday celebration and Denise has organised a buffet lunch in a pub there).

The Gorse Fox was conscious that it was a while since he had applied any updates to the Silver Vixen's MacBook. We had a couple of hours before we were scheduled to collect Ellie, so it seemed like the ideal time. Well, it would have been had the update not hung... three times. In the end, the Gorse Fox rebooted in Safe Mode and reapplied the update. This time it worked.

We took Ellie to the park straight from school and she was able to play with her school friends for a good 45 minutes before we headed home.

As we sat down for dinner (we tend to eat early) we got the message from Urban-Cub that her car was ready for collection. The Gorse Fox and Ellie hopped into the Skoda and whizzed in to Chichester to collect Urban-Cub. he dropped them both at the garage and drove home. Dinner finished, dishes done, now for a quiet evening!

Better Defence

 The Gorse Fox was up and about before Ellie stirred this morning. She was chirpy little soul and, having had breakfast, was getting washed and dressed when Urban-Cub arrived to walk with us to school. Urban-Cub has a day off today, before a long run of 8 days or so.

Once back home, the Silver Vixen was heading off for her Pilates and, once she had gone, the Gorse Fox headed out for football. The sides seemed well balanced today, so it was destined to be a good game. Unlike yesterday, the Gorse Fox was defending with an ex-professional. We worked really well together, covering each other when necessary and driving forward when the chances opened up. This is the sort of game that is really fun, particularly when we had to work really hard. (In fact, the Gorse Fox managed to get his heart rat up to 171 bpm... this is about 20 beats higher than usual). We lost, in the end, but only by the odd goal. It was a very enjoyable session.

Back home, the Silver Vixen has been to a cake sale at Ellie's school. The Gorse Fox has been fiddling around on the computer and getting his taxi booked for Friday in St Albans.

Nothing else scheduled for today, so we should have a quiet evening.

Defender

 It was a bright but cool autumn morning. The Gorse Fox had his coffee and breakfast then went round to se Urban-Cub and Ellie and walk with them to school. Once back home, he changed for football and headed off to Worthing.

The teams were very evenly balanced today, though the Gorse Fox's team had three players who were carrying injuries which were limiting their mobility. Despite this, we managed an unexpected 0-0 draw in the first game. In the second game we managed a 3-0 win. The last game, however, we lost 3-1. There are times when the Gorse Fox really wishes that some players wouldn't "help" by saying they will play as defenders. Today was such a case. Two players insisted on helping out. Neither had any idea what they were doing and the Gorse Fox found he was having to cover more attacks than if he had been a lone defender. It's just a case of discipline and that was seriously absent.

We've just had a nice long chat with the Coventry Hobbit. He started his new job on Monday and is absolutely full of it. He get his own toolkit tomorrow, but has been working on parts for an Aston Martin today. The Silver Vixen commented to the Gorse Fox that she had never heard him so enthused.

Ellie is with us overnight tonight. She is busy getting ready for bed under the close supervision of the Silver Vixen.

Shaken

 Urban-Cub had the day off. This meant that the Gorse Fox could stroll round and escort her and Ellie to school, but that we didn't have to get her ready, so it was a quiet start.

There were several domestic chores to clear in the morning but then we headed for the bus stop to catch a ride into Chichester. It's an easy walk from the bus station to the cinema snd we arrived with time to spare. The Gorse Fox had chosen a lunchtime showing in the hope that the auditorium wouldn't bee too full. With our seats booked, we settled down and the Gorse Fox counted in the other punters. In the whole auditorium there were only 25 people. This was ideal, particularly when nearly all of us wore our masks throughout.

Like all Bond films, "No Time to Die" was a real blockbuster. Lots of action, wonderful cars (Aston Martin DB5, a DBS Superleggera, V8 Vantage, and apparently a Valhalla - through the Gorse Fox didn't notice that),  and car chases, plenty of gadgets, a good underlying story... and some wonderful locations.

When the film was over, we stopped in for a cheeky Nando's (is there any other type?) and then strolled back to the bus station. We had timed it to perfection, stepping straight onto the bus and off we went.

Games everywhere

 The Gorse Fox decided that he should leave early for this morning's football. He is pleased that he did. The car park was already full and the overflow was almost full also. He slotted into one of the few remaining spaces. There were loads of kids matches going on across the external pitches, and they had already started with all of the accompanying parents, siblings, and coaches - and their vehicles.

We had 6-v-6 today. He prefers 5-v-5 on these pitches. It was very tight at first. In the first half the Gorse Fox's orange team, having been 4-2 behind, just managed to claw things back to 4-4. In the second half things changed. The Gorse Fox isn't quite sure what the yellow team did, but they seemed to slowly lose the plot. The oranges started to build a lead and in the end the score was about 10-6 to orange. Though the Gorse Fox didn't score any this week, he had a handful of assists and had the chance to go on some lovely maze-like runs with the ball. He did have about 5 shots on target but each was parried by the goalie.

Back home he got the text message from John Lewis that the "pen" for Ellie's "Surface" was ready for collection. He whipped in to Chichester and collected that, then settled down for a quiet afternoon.

Surface

It was nice that we didn't really have to get up for any particular time. The Gorse Fox was only in bed for an extra 30 minutes, but it was nice.

A message popped in while the Gorse Fox was reading the news. Urban-Cub was considering what device Ellie should use for her schoolwork. The school had set some work for the weekend that could/should be done on an "app" called SeeSaw. We looked at tablets, at laptops, and at all-in-one PCs. We considered Windows, MacOS, IOS, and Android. We had to pick something that would have some longevity. We had to pick something that was simple and portable, as Ellie spends as much time here as she does at home. This was a research challenge that suited the Gorse Fox.

In the end, we decided that a Microsoft Surface Go might be the best solution. The Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox went in to Chichester to have a look at the options, now that they had been narrowed down. We wandered back and forth between John Lewis and Curry's... a decision was made and John Lewis provided the best solution.  Ellie is now the proud owner of a Microsoft Surface Go 2.

The Gorse Fox brought the new device home and over the next hour it was set up with an account for Ellie. He then took it round to Urban-Cub. On the way he chatted to Ali, who lives next-door. She is a teacher at a private school. She commented that the device we had bought for Ellie was the same as the device they were handing out to their Year 7 and Year 8 students. Clearly, there is some longevity in the choice we had made. He completed the stroll and explained it to Urban-Cub. Within a few minutes, we had it set up for "SeeSaw" (a teaching app) and we had responded to the first challenge that Ellie's teacher had set.

With schoolwork sorted, the Gorse Fox logged on to his "Scratch" account. We played the game that he had written for Ellie. She did really well and in the end Urban-Cub asked "What is this?". The Gorse Fox explained that it was a game he had written for Ellie. She seemed impressed. The Gorse Fox explained that the objective was to entertain her, challenge her, and get her interested in the underlying code.

First edition

 Usual start to the day with Urban-Cub dropping Ellie off at about 7:30. A usual she was eager to get to school and needed a bit of a push to get some breakfast inside her before getting washed and dressed. We dropped her off at the usual time then headed home for breakfast.

The Gorse Fox took the opportunity, while eating breakfast, to book some tickets to go and see the latest Bond film (ion Monday). The Gorse Fox picked an early showing in the hope that the cinema would be sparsely occupied.

Once some administrative chores were out of the way, he returned to the construction of the computer game for Ellie. After a and hour or two, we had a version that fulfilled his original brief. The problem is that, as usual, he has thought of a series of improvements and extensions that he could make. This will have to wait for tomorrow.

We picked Ellie up from school. She was clearly very tired. She hardly spoke during the walk home. When she did get home there was a bit of a melt-down over whether the banana she had requested should have bee cut in half or not. It had been. It shouldn't have been. Then she wanted her dummy. This was back at her house. We let her rant for a while until she calmed down. After that, she was as good as gold. Clearly the full school week pushes her to her limit and she needs to reset when she finishes.

More scratching

 It was about 6:45 when Ellie presented herself in our room and asked for her iPad. She had seemed to stir about an hour earlier, but fortunately she didn't wakeup.

There was a dull grey sky and there had been drizzle overnight. This had helped wash the new stones in the garden and they looked a lot more vibrant this morning. The landscapers returned just after 7:30 to stake the Cryptomeria Japonica and move a few bit around for us. They were all done by the time we had to take Ellie to school. Both were tipped well, and the Gorse Fox must now do a write-up for them and pay the final invoice (when it arrives).

Ellie's friend Bonnie was dropped off with us just before the school run as her mum had an appointment. We walked both the girls to school and then headed back for some breakfast and coffee before Ocado arrived. After the delivery, we had our usual Sainsbury's top-up and then settled down for a quiet day with some domestic chores.

Once everything was done, the Gorse Fox returned to the study and his little project writing a game for Ellie in "Scratch". 

He must admit that it is a very impressive little system and he can see how this can get kids enthused about the basics of coding. The more he writes the more ideas he gets. Whether they are all possible or not, he doesn't yet know but it doesn't take long to try the ideas out and dismiss them if unworkable.

The picture shows the opening screen with and avatar called "Zoe" about to introduce herself.

Almost done and scratching an itch

 It was a bright and sunny day. Hardly a cloud dared show its face against the wintery blue background. Urban-Cub dropped Ellie off as usual. We gave her breakfast, got her ready for school, and took her to the class. As usual she was first there and first to run in.

The landscapers were back. The water had drained sufficiently, thank goodness. 

They laid some more scalpings and a resinous powder to help consolidated them. It was all flattened with a plate-whacker, then they started wheeling in the bags of stone. It didn't take long and, by late morning, the bulk of the work was done. The Gorse Fox showed them where various items should be placed and then they cleaned up and left for the day. They will return tomorrow or Friday to stake one of our trees... but that's it.

We are very pleased with the outcome. The "Flamingo" stone looks to have been a very good choice.

The Gorse Fox spent some time this afternoon looking at a programming system called "Scratch". This was developed at MIT as an educational aid to help kids become code-literate. It may be just too early to start scratching that itch with Ellie, but the Gorse Fox thought he would try to get to grips with what could be done with it. It only took a few minutes and he had a small game written that he plans to expand as time permits. The idea is that the game is a quiz taking part in a jungle and the player (Ellie) has to identify the animals we find and click on the right letters that start the animals name. (It may change - it's just that was his first idea for a little a project).

The Silver Vixen went back to Angmering today for Pilates. The Zoom sessions on Wednesday have now ceased. After the Pilates, she was meeting up wit Gracie Fields for coffee and a chat. It was nearly 14:30 before the Gorse Fox saw her.

Ellie is back with us overnight tonight and the Gorse Fox can hear her splashing the Silver Vixen in the bathroom as he writes.

Little movement

 Good heavens we have had some rain in the last 24 hours. The bottom corner of Urban-Cub's garden is under about 5 inches of water - fortunately, the builders are returning today to try and sort out the drainage problem. Our garden too is waterlogged and after trying to make progress for and hour or two this morning, the landscapers had to give up. They hope to return tomorrow, assuming we don't get too much more rain.

Because of the landscapers, the Gorse Fox had decided not to play football today. Now it appears that he won't get to play tomorrow, either.

Much of the day has been spent in the study. The Gorse Fox had a bee in his metaphorical bonnet. There must be an easy way to select teams from a pool of players, without influencing the selection with your own preferences. An algorithm was required and a program to implement the algorithm. It has taken a couple of hours, but now the Gorse Fox can provide a list of players along with a predefined ranking for each. The program will then go through a choose teams, attempting to keep the overall skill index for each team as close as possible. We'll see how it pans out as the Gorse Fox will use it for Sunday team selections.

Under construction

We had quite a storm during the early hours. The thunder was loud enough to wake the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen. Unfortunately, the Gorse Fox didn't really settle again afterwards. It wasn't a major problem as we had to be and about sharpish. We were expecting Ellie just before 7:30 and the landscapers were due  very soon after.

The Silver Vixen took care of Ellie and took her too school. The Gorse Fox took care of the landscapers, making sure they had been correctly briefed regarding the job and also asking that they bury the new conduit that the Gorse Fox has been fiddling with for the last couple of days. They cracked on with the task, only delayed by the late arrival of their truck (which had been off searching for diesel).

The old cotswold stone chipping were removed first, then they dug down and removed soil to a depth of 100cm. A new membrane was put down, then they started bring in scalpings to restore the original level. They slogged away all day and despite being offered frequent coffees and teas, only accepted one. (Maybe the Gorse Fox makes bad coffee). 

They have now finished for the day, but will return tomorrow. The Gorse Fox suspects they will complete the job tomorrow. 

Close... not really

 It was a little grey to start with but the day brightened up and we have had full sunshine since mid-morning. Having said that, there are some threatening looking clouds just to the north of us.

The Gorse Fox set off early for today's football. The last two weeks have taught him that you have to be early to get a convenient parking space. One by one the lads turned up and were allocated their team colours. The Gorse Fox was playing for the yellows. His algorithm for selecting the teams had been thrown out by their best player deciding to play in goal... so, by half time, we were 7-1 ahead. Just as the whistle blew, however, one of the orange players pulled a muscle and had to leave the pitch. We now had to deal with a 4-v-5 situation and move a yellow player to orange to rebalance the sides. That didn't work. Before long it was 9-9 (two goals from the Gorse Fox) and they were pounding them into our net at will. It didn't help that our goalie kept rolling the ball out to their players! We adjusted the teams again, moving another player. This improved the balance. We eventually lost 11-9.

Back home and showered, the Gorse Fox returned to the conduit. He decided that the more robust rope he bought from Toolstation needed to be in place for tomorrow. The conduit was laid out in the garden and the new rope attached to yesterday's string. It only took a couple of moments and the new rope was in place. He then fed some of this rope through the off-cut from yesterday. This gives hime two lengths that he can have buried by the landscapers.

The Silver Vixen is busy in her sewing room this afternoon.

Conduit

 The Gorse Fox had thought about getting up early to get some fuel. He was too comfortable. He didn't bother.  After breakfast he did have his usual call with the cousins. This was a little more subdued than usual, probably because Tim (who tends to be the life and soul of the calls) was suffering from an inner ear infection which was giving him vertigo. Let's hope he's better by next week.

Once the call was over, the Gorse Fox did go out for fuel. He was prepared for a long wait but was pleasantly surprised that there was no queue and no restrictions. We now have a full tank, and the Gorse Fox was only out for about 15 minutes.

We had some underground conduit delivered this week. It was time to unreel it and try to thread some string through so that a power cable could be pulled through. This proved to be a tiresome task. The Gorse Fox got a steel nut from the garage and tied the string to that. The nut was dropped into one end of the conduit and then dragged through using a strong magnet. The problem was that this was very slow and the conduit kept kinking. After the first 15 metres it was becoming impossible. The Gorse Fox trapped some more twine between two small strong magnets and dropped them into the other end. Dragging them through with another magnet, they soon met the steel nut. The Gorse Fox hoped he would then be able to pull it all back, but no. He had to return to the big magnet and fiddle it along the conduit centimetre by centimetre. Eventually it seemed to free up a bit and move more easily. The nut popped out the end. Its string tail was nowhere to be seen. It had clearly broken somewhere in the 25m conduit. The Gorse Fox remembered roughly where it had started to move more freely. It was well beyond the length that he really needed, so he cut the pipe. There was the string.This was quickly tied off so that it did disappear back up the pipe. The other end was also tied off. Now the reality of this is that the fact that string broke probably means that it isn't strong enough to pull the power cable through. Plan B was needed. The Gorse Fox has just returned from Toolstation with some polypropylene rope that should be more that strong enough.

Expensive

 Urban-Cub dropped Ellie off at 7:30 and we sorted her out ready for school. We were lucky. There was an absolute cloud burst at about 8:15, but by 8:40 when we had to head round to the school, the rain had stopped and it has stayed dry and fairly nice throughout the day.

It has been an expensive day.  The decorator finished up, and the Gorse Fox had to settle the balance of the invoice. He also received and invoice from the landscapers, who start on Monday. They are expecting 50% of their fees up front. This was not really a good start to balancing the books for October.

By mid-morning the decorator had cleared everything away and was gone. The results were better than we could have expected. We then spent some time putting back the mirrors, artwork, furniture, and lights. Some of the artwork is still on the floor as the colour palette is wrong for the wall colour. We'll sort the landing out tomorrow.

We picked Ellie up from school. The week has clearly worn her out. She was getting quite fractious for a while and actually asked to go to sleep. It only lasted 5-10 minutes, but it did give her some renewed energy. Urban-Cub has just been along to collect her and take her across to Pistol Pete for the weekend.