Last Day

Today is the last day of the current trip. The weather is clearly sulking as we were greeted with wall-to-wall cloud. At least it wasn’t raining. We went down to breakfast and were surprised to see how busy it was. Evidently there was a flurry of check-ins yesterday. Trevor and Jane were running a bit late as Trevor had woken with a nosebleed which took some attention.

The plan for the day was fluid, but centred on Falmouth itself. The four of us walked into town and made our way to the National Maritime Museum which was hosting an exhibition on Pirates. Much of the rest of the museum was closed off as they were doing maintenance on the main display space. The ships and boats that had been there during our last trip had all been removed and workmen were scurrying about doing whatever was needed. We started with the displays on Cornish seafaring and the Falmouth Packet service then moved on to the exhibition on Pirates. It was all very well done, and very enjoyable. Before leaving the museum we went to the top of the watchtower. This afforded us excellent views over the harbour, though there were no Naval vessels nor other large ships in port today.

From the museum we took Jane and Trevor to see the small fisherman’s cottage in which we stayed during our last visit then crossed the road for a drink in “The Chain Locker” opposite. To add to the entertainment, the young girl behind the bar lit the wood-burner and promptly set off the fire alarms. A few moments of panic ensued as the staff opened all the doors to let the smoke out, and phoned the fire brigade to tell them it was a false alarm.

After our drink and all the excitement we left and continued our walk through town. Diane and I got waylaid at the bookshop… and left clutching a bag full of books and maps. Jane and Trevor had gone ahead for their own shopping. We ended up meeting over a cup of tea in a small cafe before heading for Trago Mills. To be fair, it was a lot less frantic than our trip on Monday. Diane was able to pick up the items she wanted and the 20% pensioners discount and the £7-off vouchers made the purchases very reasonable. 

Clutching our various purchases we made our way slowly back to the hotel for a quiet hour before dinner.

St Ives

We both slept well. I was awake early and showered and dressed soon after seven. A red line was visible along the horizon and as the minutes ticked by we were treated to an amazing sunrise. Diane had to use her blood analyser today. This is the first time it has been used in the situation for which it was intended, i.e. when the test is due and we are away from home. Results were submitted and we had received the response from the hospital before we went down for breakfast.

The plan for the day was to visit St Ives and the Tate St Ives Gallery. Trevor had volunteered to drive today so we settled into the back of car and were whisked across country. As we headed north-west the clouds became more prevalent and it was clear that the. Weather had not read the weather forecast. By the time we arrived there a cool, stiff breeze was blowing across the bay and a fine drizzle came and went throughout the visit.

We made our way to the Gallery, bought our tickets and headed for the coffee shop. This afforded stunning views over the town and over the bay. It also served horrible coffee. I should have seen that as an omen. With coffee under our belt we headed down to the Gallery’s 10 exhibition spaces. Po-faced attendants sat in each gallery trying to stay awake and not dying of boredom. Pretentious visitors stood in front of anything with a description-panel hoping to find some morsel of talent or artistic merit in whatever was in front of them. The most interesting exhibit was actually an installation of two buckets which caught drips from a leak in the ceiling. Whilst there was a warning notice, the artist wasn’t revealed. Trevor and I had soon had our fill and escaped into the wind and rain. Diane and Jane persevered. As Trevor and I sat in the circular outside meeting space, “The Temple of Pretension” students started to gather until the whole space was full. Their lecturers took the attendance register and they started to file into the Gallery. Bringing up the rear was one of the lecturers. I asked him “What on earth have these kids done that deserves a punishment this severe?” He laughed and responded “Not impressed then?”. He then divulged the most interesting fact about the Tate St Ives. The reason it is built in the circular temple-like fashion is that it occupies the site of the old gas storage tank (gasometer?) for the town.

When the girls emerged we pottered down the hill and into the town itself. The town made up for the Gallery. It was absolutely charming - though I can imagine that it’s an absolute zoo in high season. 

As we made our way down the lanes and byways we stopped into various shops until we got down to the harbour itself. By then the timer was running down on the car park so we had to turn back to the car. The wind had picked up and the drizzle was cheeky enough to morph into a wind-blasted rain. Diane found the walk into the wind rather breathtaking and we had to stop for a few moments to let her catch her breath.

Diane and Jane wanted to visit the “Sea Salt” factory outlet while down here so the SatNav was set and we stopped off at the edge of Penryn on our way back to Falmouth. They swept into the store while Trevor and I walked up to Asda for a comfort break and a cup of tea. We then went back and waited in the car while several glaciers melted, continents drifted apart, and Jupiter did another circuit of the sun. Eventually, the boot was opened and their purchases loaded in. The front of the car needed to be weighed down to counterbalance the new load in the boot. We limped back to the hotel for a quiet hour before meeting for dinner.

It has been another super day

Birthday

Today is the day on which the World celebrates Diane’s Birthday. And it looks as if we have a promising start to the morning. The mists of yesterday have gone and while there is some cloud drifting away to the west, there is also a lovely clear sky. Opening up from the east. Diane has just been sipping on her morning tea while opening her cards and presents.. We are planning an earlier breakfast today so that we can get on the road and spend the day in Polperro.

Breakfast was the usual feast as we set ourselves up for the day. We gathered by the car and by 10:00 were on our way (with a fuel stop in Falmouth). The route was fairly slow until we had cleared Truro. After about 90 minutes we pulled into the Polperro car park, near the Crumplehorn Mill. It is many years since our last visit, but it. Doesn’t seem to have changed at all.

We took a walk down to the village and then cut around the back to arrive at the west side of the harbour. Coffee was uppermost in our minds so we settled into The Three Pilchards for some well needed caffeine and to avail ourselves of their “facilities”. These “facilities” were nestling in the yard behind the pub, reached by a small steep staircase. I can imagine this is a source of amusement and injury as the beers flow on a party night.

We continued our tour round and onto the harbour wall. Polperro is still one of the most picturesque villages I have ever visited. (Over the years I have probably taken more photos in Polperro than almost anywhere else). We slowly retraced our steps and crossed the old bridge to the east side of the harbour and then walked along towards the Heritage Museum, which is closed until Easter - we decided not to wait.

We turned and wandered back slowly. A pasty shop leapt out in front of us. It would be rude to spend time in Cornwall and not indulge in one of their famous pasties. I am not rude. I went in and purchased some pasties for my travelling companions (declining one for myself as it takes great self-control to maintain my Adonis-like(*) physique). We were soon back at the car. The SatNav was programmed and we headed across country. Still enthused by our recent cruise, we decided to take the Bodinnick Ferry across the River Fowey. The entertainment wasn’t as good as on Arcadia and there didn’t appear to be a choice of restaurants, but as we were only aboard for about 5 minutes, we decided not to complain.

Back in the Hotel, Zoe had arranged for some balloons and cupcakes to be delivered to our room. Jane and Trevor joined us with some Prosecco and more cake and we had a little party to celebrate Diane’s birthday. Later, when we went down to dinner, our table was all decorated and again Prosecco was waiting for us with a card. This had all been arranged by Zoe (who was still chasing a package that should have been delivered - but will arrive tomorrow).

It was a lovely evening and Diane had a wonderful birthday.

(*) That isn’t the Greek God, Adonis. I reference, of course, to Arthur Adonis of 23 Railway Cuttings, Clapham.

Strolling

it was misty when we first woke up (there being an assumption that we had slept, buried in that sentence). Actually we both had a somewhat disturbed night. As is so often the case on the first night, it is a matter of getting used to the bed, the temperature, and the pillows. This does not usually indicate a good night’s sleep.

We met Jane and Trevor in the restaurant for a hearty breakfast. We discussed plans for the day. They were heading to the Lizard and on to Lands End. We have done this recently so decided to stick with our own plan which was to spend the day, on foot, in Falmouth. This would give us a chance to poke about in the shops and check on the local attractions.

Trevor and Jane dropped us off in the town as they headed to points west. Though it had looked likely to brighten up, there was a fine drizzle in the air as we marched towards the main drag. Our first stop was Trago Mills which has a 20% discount this week for pensioners - additionally today they had a £7 voucher for pensioners. We claimed our vouchers and rummaged round the store. There was plenty to see and some good deals to be found if you could find a way through the zombies blocking every aisle. I remained calm and nobody was injured as a result of my visit. Diane saw several items worth picking up, and resolved to return before we go home.

We wandered on through the town looking in shop windows and popping in to various stores. At the far end of town we made our way onto the quay just as the rain switched from benign drizzle to malignant downpour. We ducked into a cafe for a coffee until it eased. Coming back through town we stopped in a nice jewellers where we picked up (and paid for) a very nice broach that Diane could wear to keep her roll-neck sweater’s neckline under control.

We thought of grabbing a taxi back to the hotel but in the end decided to walk. It isn’t far but it does involve a hill and after the incident in Narvik I wanted to keep it as level as possible. We took it slowly and got back in about 10 minutes with only the briefest of stops. We had a quiet hour in the room as the mist rolled in across the bay then headed down to the terrace bar for small libation.

We met up with Jane and Trevor for a drink before dinner. We had decided to eat a bit earlier and as there only appeared to be 5 other tables that would be occupied, they had no difficulty in squeezing us in! We had another sumptuous meal and hear all about J&T’s tour down to the Lizard. After dinner, we retired to the lounge where we were able to watch the football (as frustrating as that was).

Falmouth

We set the alarm so that we could get going at a sensible time. The aim was to leave home before 09:00 and we managed to hit the road just after 08:30. We had a wonderful drive across the “Jurassic Route” past Bournemouth, Dorchester, Bridport and onwards to Exeter, where we stopped at the service station for a comfort break and some coffee.

We were soon back on the road for the last 100 miles. This was made more “interesting” by the foul weather that tormented us along the route. Low cloud, mist, and driving rain beset the car as we powered on through to Falmouth. We arrived at the hotel in just under 5 hours from home (excluding the comfort break). That is about as good as it gets given that no speed limits were broken along the whole 250 miles.

The hotel is gorgeous and we have a fabulous room with panoramic views across the bay. Jane and Trevor (who arrived a few minutes after us) are in the room below us, so have a similar view.

The first order of the afternoon, having dumped our luggage, was to get a drink and a bite to eat. We sat in the lounge and Diane enjoyed an Earl Gray tea and some coconut and chocolate cake, while I had a pint (or two) of Doom Bar and a beef sandwich. Trevor and Jane came to join us and we sat and chatted while they snacked.

Back in our room, we unpacked and then set out for a walk in the twilight. It was dry but breezy as we headed towards Gyllyngvase Beach. We even went down onto the beach. As we turned to head home, it started to rain. It wasn’t too bad and we weren’t too wet by the time we got back.

We changed for dinner. After all, you have to keep up appearances. We met up in the bar for a pre-dinner drink. It was very quiet with only one other couple in the lounge. Dinner was very good. I had some red mullet with a lentil dahl to start with. Diane skipped the starters. For our main dish, she had spatchcocked chicken and I had battered cod with some chips. We sat and chatted and it was gone 21:00 before we left the dining room. (We were, of course, the last out - but then there had been only one other table occupied).

The long day and long drive had caught up with me. My Kindle and the bed were calling

Just Stuff

The first order of the day (after coffee) was the cousins' call. It went much as usual - lots of banter and lots of laughter and as usual it brightened up the start to the weekend.

Next on the agenda was packing. With Jasper already at his Spa, we could have a leisurely run at the suitcases. I even consulted several YouTube videos to look at particular methods of folding clothes so they didn't crease.  After the packing, the label maker was retrieved from my study and the various cables needed for the trip were duly identified and labelled.

I genuinely like our Skoda. It is a lovely car with some great features. Its SatNav, however, is positively hostile if you wish to plot a route with several stop-overs (rather than a single destination, which is easy). This must have taken me 45 minutes. Eventually, our route was stored and we are set to go. This got me thinking about some of the online services that are available for the Skoda (and we haven't exploited). I logged into the portal and activated various services. This should simplify several things, including the SatNav routing. In turn, this got me thinking about the fact the car has a slot for a SIM card and can remain connected. Eventually, I decided to give it a whirl. I popped to Argos and got a SIM card which I have activated and installed. Time will tell if this makes an appreciable difference and is worth the effort.

Spa

 It was a bright and sunny day, a great change from the last few days. I wandered across to Zoe's (clutching Ellie's project in a bag) and we escorted her to class. The project was handed over and put on the table at the back of the class... one of only three that had been submitted.

I walked home and grabbed breakfast while Diane headed for the hairdresser. The morning was fairly quiet. I updated the accounts and started looking for materials and plans for a medieval castle - which will be Ellie's next major project. I didn't find anything that fitted my mental picture, but there are several months before we need to start on it, so I might devise a separate plan by then.

Today was meant to be the first day of Jasper's latest Spa treatment, assuming, that is, that we could catch him. We were lucky. Diane caughte him and I provided the carrier into which he was deposited. He yelled all the way from home to the Cattery but settled as soon as he arrived and saw Mark (the Cat Whisperer). Mark has just returned from a couple of weeks in LA. He commented that he probably won't return as it is infested with drug-takers and fentanyl addicts. It has become seedy and feels dangerous. Jasper is now in Mark's care for the next week (though we did forgert to take Jasper's swimming trunks - but Mark said he had a spare).

We collected Ellie from her post-school dancing class and she sat and did some reading with Nana before daddy came to collect her for the weekend. Today is Pete's birthday so we gave him his cards and present before he headed off with Ellie.

Project

The rain had started in the early morning. It was still thrashing down when I got up. Ellie was dropped off and it looked like we were in for a very wet walk to school... and it was!

We had a quiet breakfast and then headed to Sainsbury's for some shopping. Despite the recent traffic problems caused by the flooding, we had a very quick run and Sainsbury's was relatively quiet. We were in and out in about 30 minutes. Diane then had to deal with some issues over a misdelivered and mistranscribed prescription. This meant another trip to the pharmacy and a long chat with the surgery.

We collected Ellie from school and she settled down quickly to work on her project. We have been building a Tudor style house that might have ixisted at the time of the Great Fire. Today we finished the roof, installed the door and windows and all of the supporting beams. 

There is more we could do, but Ellie is only 6 and this is more than adequate.

Parents' Evening

 Ellie was dropped off first thing. For breakfast, she ordered fried eggs and promptly got fresh egg yolk down her white polo shirt. She did, however, finish the eggs. The weather was cool but sunny as we walked her to school and ushered her into the classroom.

It was a fairly quiet day. Diane had to drop some questionnaires off at the surgery and get one of her prescriptions changed. I buried myself in the computer, updating the accounts, and researching an affordable MacOS alternative to Visio. This latter item turned out to be a fruitless task. The problem I have is that I am so familiar with Visio that none of the other (affordable) products seemed to fit the bill. Also, there is a value-for-money aspect to the research. The product is only likely to get used occasionally so I am not willing to invest large sums. 

After lunch, we had our usual hour or so of reading. Because it was so bright and sunny, we were able to sit in the Orangery We then collected Ellie from school. She was grumpy because we wouldn't let her stop off at the Messy Church and play. (This is a monthly event in which she has never shown any interest in the past). She came home and sulked in her room for an hour.

Tonight was Parents' Evening at the school. Zoe and Pete had an appointment at 17:20. Unfortunately, Zoe was stuck behind a traffic snarl-up near Horsham. It was touch and go, so I said I would attend and she could join us if she got back in time. Pet and I went in to see Miss Yardley and were delighted to hear her appraisal of Ellie's progress in English and Maths and what a joy she was to have in class. Zoe managed to get back and join us after the first few minutes.

Another wet start

 It was pouring down when I got up this morning, and the forecast suggested we were in for more rain and some thunderstorms throughout the day. 

Ellie pottered into our room at about 7:15 - she had slept well and was raring to get going. We were lucky that by the time we had to leave for school, the rain had almost stopped.

Back home, breakfasted, and fully caffeinated I got on with some admin. The most pressing item was to sort out the "Age Extension" for our travel insurance to ensure that Dine remains covered after her imminent birthday. As usual, this was a much more difficult task than it should be. Pointers to the online process proved useless as the online process doesn't cover "Age Extensions". The only solution was to telephone. I then had to listen to message after message cajoling me to do whatever I needed online. I persisted. I spoke to a human and the whole process was done and dusted in a few minutes.

The rain had restarted. Diane wanted to post a card. I put on my waterproofs and carried the letter to the postbox. As I turned back the rain reached a furious frenzy. By the time I got home, despite my waterproof trousers and shoes, I was soaked.

Much of the rest of the day has been spent with my book, or preparing materials for Ellie's school project.

Wet Start

There was a great deal of rain overnight. It was still thrashing down when I got up, but it had stopped by the time I went to take Ellie to school. The day dried up, and whilst there were blustery winds, there was a lot of bright sunshine.

Diane had a morning on the phone with a girlfriend. I used the time to make a few more improvements to next year's accounting spreadsheet. 

After lunch, I finished my latest book and we sat in the Orangery and enjoyed the sunshine until it was time to collect Ellie from school. Once home she did some reading with Nana and then we worked on her Great Fire project.

Ellie is staying with us tonight. 

Peace

 It has been an immensely peaceful day. I was up at seven and had a quiet hour downstairs before Di emerged. We had both slept well.

During the morning Di finished some ironing and I sat in the traffic queue to get some cat food. I was lucky, I had looked at the map in advance, and I realised that approaching from the south would be quicker than the normal northern approach. This was a major saving. Cat food for Jasper, and fruit smoothies for Ellie were stacked in the shopping bag and I left, happy.

The afternoon has been spent with our books. I tried, in parallel, to prepare dinner. The pork and crackling was a triumph. The carrots and beans were excellent. The roast potatoes were not as good as those prepared last week (they will require some changes before I chance then again.

Unexpected

 We had an "unexpected granddaughter in the sleeping area". After a bit of a meltdown yesterday evening, it made sense for Ellie to sleep here overnight. She settled quickly and slept through until gone seven. During the morning she had been invited to a party so I drove her to Chichester and deposited her at the bowling alley where one of the mums would keep an eye on her until Kim came along to collect her after the party.

Back home, we awaited the arrival of Jan and John. They had a slow journey down from Odiham, commenting on how heavy (and slow) the traffic had been through the Downs. A cup of coffee and some biscuits made everything seem better as we caught up on family news and everyone's comings and goings.

Lunch was booked at The Oystercatcher and I must say that I'm glad that we were heading in that direction. Traffic coming towards us was almost at a standstill as it stretched back for miles from the flood alleviation pumps near Sainsbury's. We would use a different route on our return.

The Oystercatcher was busy, but the meal was very good. Diane had the lasagne, Jan had fishcakes, and John and I both had their pie of the day. In anticipation of our trip to Cornwall, I also enjoyed a pint of Doombar. Back home, after lunch, we enjoyed some tea and desserts - profiteroles and cheesecake. We got on to the subject of cruises and explained how much we had enjoyed it and how simple it was compared with a flight off to some distant location. Eventually, we had answered most of their questions and seeded the idea for their future holidays.

John and Jan left us late in the afternoon and we settled down for a quiet evening.

Wet Start

 It was a wet start to the day. The overnight rain was still pounding down as Ellie was dropped off. It did, however, die down, and by the time we took Ellie to school, the rain had stopped. Before heading off to school, Ellie had demanded that she should do some maths with Grandpa. Long may this continue. We talked about "number sentences" and their inverses. This meant that for any simple sum of "a plus b equals c", you could express it as "b plus a equals c", "c minus b equals a", and "c minus a equals b". This got me thinking. Could I introduce the idea of an "unknown" represented by "x". Well, yes, I could. She grasped it immediately and, in so doing, moved from arithmetic to algebra.

Having dropped Ellie at school, we headed home for some breakfast.  Diane then got on with some cleaning while I spent a little while on Ellie's project. I wanted to ensure the construction would work the way I had planned. The glue was a little slower to set than planned, but the idea looked sound.

Most of the afternoon was spent buried in our books, except the time I spent with the spot cleaner, sorting out some stains on the carpet so kindly left by Jasper in the last day or two.

Hotels and Models

 Ellie was dropped off soon after seven. Despite her friend Sofia having tonsillitis, Elle was hale and hearty and requested two cartons of fruit shakes and a bacon sandwich for breakfast. We walked her to school in bright sunshine and got caught by a downpour of rain as we returned home.

Thursday morning saw the usual delivery from Ocado. As we had nothing planned today, they turned up early. We then headed to Sainsbury's for the top-up. Sainsbury's seemed to be fairly empty, but the corpses that were there seemed to be devoid of ideas regarding their shopping, and oblivious to the chaos they were causing around them. Somehow, I remained (relatively) calm and resisted the increasing temptation to blast my way through these zombies scattering them to the winds with my trolley. Maybe next week I should take a Katana!

The rest of the morning was spent painting the parts of the model that Ellie will build to illustrate a Tudor house from the time of the Great Fire of London. When, by mid-afternoon, we had collected Ellie from school we started the construction phase. We can now see how it will come together. Ellie, however, ran out of time and will have to do more tomorrow.

I received a phone call from the hotel in which we will celebrate Diane's landmark birthday. We confirmed our room allocation and our preferred times for breakfast and dinner. I must confess that we are both looking forward to this short break.

DNA

 We had very heavy rain overnight. Ellie was dropped off soon after seven and still, the rain was thrashing down. It looked like the walk to school would be rather wet, but first, she needed breakfast. I always ask what she would like and usually, she requests raspberries, melon, cereal, or a ham sandwich. Occasionally she throws a curved ball and I have to make her some eggs. Today was a first, she asked for a bacon sandwich. My heart swelled with pride as she tucked in and completely demolished this gastro breakfast. With proper sustenance on board, she was in a fit state to venture out into the rain with us and make her way to school.

Diane had some blood tests to sort out during the morning. I returned to the computer and started to investigate some of the recent DNA hits that had shown up. At first, progress was slow but I finally made a breakthrough and have managed to document a few of Diane's 2nd and 3rd cousins who were previously unknown.

The afternoon was spent with our books. Being Wednesday, we did not have to collect Ellie from school as she goes to gymnastics in Chichester with a friend.

Ribbit

 It was quite cool but lovely and bright. It was an excellent start to the day as I walked to Zoe's to escort Ellie to school. She was quite excited as she had a stand-in teacher for the remainder of the week. We waited for the class door to open and saw the locum. He looked about 12 years old and was a tall and skinny beanpole of a chap. He had an open and smiley face and the kids seemed delighted to file into the classroom.

We were scheduled to meet with Jane and Trevor for lunch. While Diane pottered and got ready, I spent some of the morning marking up and cutting out the cardboard pieces for the model Ellie has to make for her latest project.

We headed up to Chiddingfold. There was no appreciable traffic and we pulled into the car park alongside Jane and Trevor's car. We met at The Mulberry Inn and were ushered to our table, where we enjoyed a coffee before examining the menu and ordering our lunch. I had a flatbread with pulled pork as a starter. This may have been a mistake. Whilst it was delicious, it was also the size of a very decent pizza... and that was just the starter. For the entrees, both Diane and I selected the rack of ribs. These came slathered in a rich sauce. I do wish they would serve this on the side, instead of on the ribs. The ribs were, despite the sauce, absolutely delicious. 

The meal was just the backdrop to several hours of chat. There was so much to catch up on after all. We hadn't seen each other for a month and wouldn't see each other again for another 10 days! We caught up on the family news and recent get-togethers, on health, on ideas for our forthcoming trip, on future cruise options, and generally on the wonderful trivia of retirement. Eventually, it was time to part ways and head home. The traffic was bit busier but it was stilla good run home.

It had been a lovely few hours.

Models

 There was a gentle start to the day. The sun was strolling lazily towards the horizon, ready to climb into the November sky. The coffee was on, and Jasper was still asleep somewhere upstairs. At the allotted time, I walked to Zoe's and we escorted Ellie to school.

My main distraction today has been the fact that Ellie has to create a model that represents a building from the Great Fire of London. I looked at various models on some websites. I also looked at a couple of YouTube videos. There was nothing that leapt out at me. I started to develop my own ideas of how we might create a model that Ellie could make. Slowly, a design emerged, and after a trip to Hobbycraft, I had a few bits and pieces that would help. After collecting Ellie from school (and completing last night's jigsaw with her) she started on some crafts and I drew some templates for the walls of our Tudor building.

The other main event for the day was a trip to Bognor War Memorial Hospital for Diane's chest X-ray. We were in and out in about 5 minutes, but it is done and we must now await the analysis.

Celebrating

With Diane's landmark birthday approaching and the fact that we will be away for the big day we had arranged for the family to come to us for lunch today. 

I was up early so that I could sear the meat and get into the oven to roast "low and slow" for 5 hours then rest in time for lunch. Several metric tonnes of potatoes were peeled and parboiled in turmeric before being coated in flour and semolina and roasted in ghee. (This was based on a recipe from Nadiya Hussein). All of the other vege was prepared and we were ready to rock.

Kim and Jon arrived first and we had a quiet half-hour with them before Zoe, Darren and Ellie arrived. We chatted and had the odd drink and some nibbles until lunch was ready. We then settled down for the feast. I was delighted with the way it had all turned out. We had a leisurely lunch followed by a chatty afternoon, though Kim, Ellie and I spent much of it working on a jigsaw.

As it got dark and the fireworks started, Kim and Jon had to head home to look after the dogs (who aren't impressed by the bangs). Zoe, Darren and Ellie left soon after and we had a quiet evening in front of the TV.

Journals and books

 Ellie slept well. It was 7 a.m. before she stirred and, after firing up her iPad, we had another 30 minutes of peace and quiet. By that time, I was washed, dressed, and downstairs making coffee. We gave Ellie some breakfast and soon after, Zoe arrived to collect her.

Diane had a quiet day with her sewing patterns.

I spent the morning and early afternoon working on the journal for the 1980s. I had yet to realise just how sparse the raw data was. One year, I only had a single diary entry. As Diane said, we were busy with the girls and our jobs. What I do have, fortunately, is a vast library of photographs from which the years can be re-created... even if the exact days are not quite accurate.

This afternoon, I finished my latest book (75th book of the year) and started on another. The book that I finished had left me on a metaphorical cliff's edge. I must download and read the next in the series.

AirBnB

 Ellie decided that she would stay with us tonight. This was not the plan, but she woke up and asked Zoe if she would collect her in the morning as she would sleep and Nana and Grandpa's tonight. Once we had received our notification we set ourselves for tonight's very welcome visitor.

The morning was fairly quiet. Diane spent the time in her sewing room. She was still working on the pattern that she had developed.

I spent the time in my Study. I had dug out our Wedding Album, having realised that I had never scanned the"official" images. It took a while, but I am very pleased that I now have digital copies of the images taken that day. I also found a copy of the speech I delivered during the reception. It seemed like a perfect time to digitise that too. Slowly the pages of hand-written verses were committed to the computer and will be incorporated in the 1970s' journal.

The afternoon was dedicated to our books until it was time to collect Ellie from the dancing class (held immediately after school). Once back here, she started on homework while I prepared supper.

Damp Squibb

Well, so far, the weather warnings have been pointless. We had a word with the local council and said that we didn't want the forecast high winds nor the torrential rain That is not the weather we are willing to tolerate in West Sussex. The weather was adjusted accordingly, and whilst we had a bit of rain and a stiff breeze, we had benign weather. That's not to say that other parts of the country were spared, but maybe their local councils are less efficient than ours.

I provided my usual school escort service and then headed home to have breakfast and await the Ocado delivery. With the shopping stashed away, we headed for Sainsbury's. We are expecting the whole family on Sunday so we ended up with a very full trolley.

Once the accounts were filed away, we spent the rest of the day with our books.

For dinner, I cooked the first stew of the season. This was very successful, and I will have to do this concoction again.

The Calm

The calm before the storm hasn't been too calm. We have had bright sunshine interspersed with torrential rain showers and blustery winds. Fortunately, it had just stopped raining when I went to walk Ellie to school. 

Diane, meanwhile, had been to the doctor's and was stuck in heavy traffic coming home. It was a fairly quick turnaround as we had to get to the hospital for her second calibration check on her blood monitor. The check went well, but the monitor and the veinous sample differed by a small amount this time. The nurse was satisfied, and the final check (to be done next week) doesn't require a trip to the hospital. We can email the results.

As we got in the car, the heavens opened, and we had a torrential downpour. We had timed it perfectly. We were soon home and had a quiet remainder of the day with a bit of reading, some tidying, and collecting Ellie from school.

Battening Down

It was predominantly dry today. This made a change after the recent rain and the floods that have hit some parts of the area.

I went to collect Ellie and take her to school. Zoe is still unwell and has no voice, so she stayed behind while I did the school drop-off.

Back home, after some breakfast and another armful of caffeine, I decided that we needed to batten down the garden. Storm Ciaran is forecast to hit and cause havoc for a couple of days. With winds forecast to reach 90 mph, it seemed like a good idea to clear the garden furniture. As we no longer have a car in the garage, all of the chairs could be squirrelled away safely.  With the garden clear, the next task was to clean up some stains on the landing carpet, which had been so carefully deposited by Jasper just after we got into bed the other night.

Finally, I was able to return to my journals. My first pass of the 1970s is complete. I will return to it at a later date as I have found some additional text and photos are worthy of inclusion. I then made a start on the 1980s. Again this is sparse, but does include some long entries transcribed from my letters during business trips and notes written when on holiday with the family.

After lunch, we both spent some time with our books before going to meet Ellie from school and take her home.

We have put up a sign on the door "Sorry, No Trick or Treats, please". Children were literally brought onto the estate by the carload in previous years and it was getting a bit silly. They have ruined it for the local kids. What we have done is tell a few families to ignore the sign and knock, as they are welcome.

Slow Progress

There was a lot more rain overnight. Fortunately, by the time I walked around to Zoe's it had stopped. Zoe's voice was still absent without leave, so Ellie and I had a very quiet walk to school. 

All of the rain has caused the Aldingbourne Rife to flood. This has inundated the caravan park near the shops, the Tesco store is shut and its car park under several feet of water, and the flood is spreading. This has caused the Emergency Services to shut the A29 through the area as the water encroaches on an electricity substation. The knock-on effect is that Sainsbury's is closed because nobody can get to it.

After washing our floors this morning (which seems a bit heartless in retrospect) I walked into the village to get my hair cut. The rain held off, but I had to stay alert to dodge any traffic splashing through the puddles. Once home, I returned to the journals for the 1970s. This seems to be grinding very slowly. The latter years of the 1970s were very sparse, in terms of journal entries, but quite busy when I review my photo library. I am struggling with the temptation to write journal entries based on the photos... but they would not be contemporaneous observations.

We dug the soup maker out of the cupboard and made our first soup of the season, for lunch. I was a little apprehensive as I couldn't remember the exact recipes I used last year. I need not have worried. It was excellent - parsnip, red pepper, carrot, butternut squash, sweet potato and onion.

The afternoon was spent with my book while Diane plodded onwards with her sewing pattern.

The Sound of Silence

 I mentioned that Diane and Kathie had been to Chichester on Friday and visited the Cathedral to see the Peace Doves. I failed to mention that, while there, Diane was stopped by a journalist and asked for her views on the exhibit. Well, it turns out that she has been quoted in the local Press. In the article "WATCH: Locals react to Chichester Cathedral peace doves", Sussex World includes: 

Dianne McMenemy said: “It’s an amazing display, it’s very well thought out. You don’t realise that there’s 15,000 doves on there. It really is a sight to see and worth coming down to have a look at if you're in the area.” 

(It is a shame they couldn't spell Diane correctly).

The weather today has ranged from bright sunshine to monsoon-like rains. It was certainly a day to stay indoors. Diane spent the day working on her sewing pattern and finding it quite frustrating.

I returned to the journals. I have arrived, metaphorically, in September 1976. that is the bulk of the '70s complete as entries become more sparse in the latter part of the decade. I have also completed the initial design and style changes required for the '80s, though haven't, as yet, looked at any content.

Ellie phoned this evening. She is back, having had a lovely week at Pete's. She phoned to say hello and to tell us that Zoe had lost her voice. She probably won't go to work tomorrow, but I will pop around to take Ellie to school.

The Early Years

 After the usual cousins' call, I settled back down to the old journals. Meanwhile, Diane returned to her sewing pattern. She is trying to develop a pattern for trousers that can be reused in multiple styles but will fit her perfectly.

It took several hours, but I finished the first pass of the 2000-2004 journal. It has left me with a "to-do" list to document various events that I had not previously mentioned but, in the grand scheme of things, really needed to be addressed.

I then moved on (or should I say back?) to the 1970s. Here, I had sparse entries covering the purchase of our first house, our marriage, and several other events. As I write, I have only got as far as 1974. What it has shown (again) is the value of the photo library that I have developed over the years. Some events are only documented through their photos, there was no accompanying journal entry at the time.

Journalling

Diane's friend Kathie came to visit and after a chat, and some tea, they headed off to spend the day in Chichester.

I made use of the day by returning to my journals and starting on the first pass for the years 2000-2004. These journals are not as copious as the more recent ones. The entries are quite sparse. Indeed, there are some months with no entries at all. I was able, however, to use my photo library to fill in many of the blanks with small collages of relevant photos. It has been very time-consuming and I still have about 6 weeks of 2004 to finish.

I need to think about the overall format of these sparse journals. As they contain multiple years, I must provide a clear separation between entries for each year but do so in a way that looks appropriate.

Jabbed

We were very proud to hear, last night, that Ellie has received a badge and the "Gymnast of the Month" award. That's pretty good considering she's only been going to gymnastics for about 5 weeks.

We had a yellow weather warning in force from 04:00 until midday. The threat was heavy rain. Whilst I did hear some rain overnight, it was dry when I came down this morning and stayed that way for most of the day, though we did have a few showers just to provide some punctuation for the weather.

It was a predictable start with Ocado's delivery and then the raid on Sainsbury's. We parted from the usual regime after that. We had appointments for our Covid jabs so we made our way into Bognor and made ourselves known at the reception desk. We were quite early, but they were hardly overrun! We queued for a few minutes and then after a few questions, the paramedic used us for darts practice. Hopefully, we are now protected against any surge in infections.

We had a quiet afternoon with a bit of reading, Diane did some ironing, and I updated the accounts before updating the software on Condor and my iPad.

Calibration Time, Come On

 Here in Sussex, we don't tolerate rain during the day. It would be too inconvenient, consequently, we arranged to have our allotted rainfall throughout the night. It did overrun, however, and it was probably 9 o'clock before it switched off.

We had an appointment at the hospital. Diane needed her regular blood test and had arranged for the first of three calibration checks on her blood analyser. We had a bit of waiting around as they only had 2 of 3 phlebotomists working today. Once the blood test was done, the appointment with the Anticoag Clinic was almost immediate. The nurse walked Diane through the self-test process and as we watched the result pop up, the lab delivered the hospital's results. They matched perfectly. We have two further calibration checks to complete before the hospital will accept the self-test results as accurate. The next test is scheduled for a week today.

We left the hospital and went into Chichester. I had a cheque (yes, what a quaint idea) to pay in from DVLA. The online app should be able to do this by photographing the cheque, but this failed every time I tried it. I decided I would report this to the Bank. We went through the process with the assistant. It failed again. I gave him the phone. It failed again. I suggested trying it against a dark background (as recommended). After several tries, it worked.

We stopped off for a coffee before returning to the car (picking up a Turner's Steak and Ale pie on the way) and heading home.

Shopping

We had a free day with nothing to constrain our time. We decided to head for Gunwharf Quay in Portsmouth and spend the day looking in the shops and grabbing a bite to eat while we were there. The traffic getting into Portsmouth was dreadful. Some roadworks near the Cathedral were causing a tailback onto the M275. We were in no hurry, so we sat patiently and eventually pulled into the underground car park.

We did a complete circuit of the shopping centre to get an idea of what shops were available. (So often, nowadays, you find town centres and malls with loads of empty units where businesses have moved out or gone bust). We were pleasantly surprised. It was awash with outlets for plenty of brands and had a real buzz. Having scouted the stores we returned to the start point and worked our way around again, this time going into relevant stores to see if we could find a smart autumn jacket for Diane. It was not easy. If you wanted puffer jackets or anoraks of some kind the choice was huge. If you wanted a smart, dressy jacket then you really had to search. W~e were up to the challenge and finally found the ideal jacket in Ted Baker.

With the jacket clutched in our hands, we made our way to get some lunch. The restaurants on the front by the Spinnaker Tower were heaving. We did an about turn and headed across to the quieter part of Gunwharf and settled down at "Loch Fyne". We had a lovely lunch and then strolled back to car and headed home. It had been a nice outing.

Just pottering

 A bit of a grey start to the day but it soon brightened up. We were not intending to go out, so the weather had little impact.

Diane had a phonically scheduled with Pauline so that accounted for the morning. She had another call arranged with Jan Mabbott so that accounted for the late afternoon.

I started the morning by attempting to implement a Plan C for the transfer of data from the blood analyser. My thought was that if I could use the browser to see the reports that it generated, then I could open a terminal window and explore what else was on the device and hopefully find the data. Well Plan C did not work from the MacBook. I then decided to try it from a Windows laptop. Again, no joy. I spent some time with Google but failed to find anything useful. I suspect we are going to have to make do with the reports and records on the device itself.

I returned to the spreadsheet for 2024's accounts. A few more tweaks were made. Any further changes would be gilding the lily. I think it's ready for prime time. Now, I just need to await the New Year.

I prepared the Manzo Piccante for dinner this evening. I think it was a lot better this time. I left the mozzarella until I was almost ready to serve up. This was much more stringy and juicy.

Doing Lunch

We had a very leisurely morning. After reading the news and catching up on social media I returned to the spreadsheet for next year's accounts. A few more tweaks here, a few refinements there, and some formulae optimised, it is approaching readiness.

As it was Darren's birthday last week, Zoe had arranged for lunch at The Black Horse in Binstead. They came with us in the Skoda as it is always a problem parking at The Black Horse. Darren's Mum and stepdad came, as did three of his brothers, two of his nieces and two of his nephews. It was quite a gathering. We had a lovely lunch with lots of laughter and chat. Before we knew it, it was 16:30. We had been shooting the breeze and eating a fine roast for over three hours.

We dropped Zoe and Darren back and then came home. I tried to link Diane's blood analyser to the iPad to look at the data and the reports. This failed miserably. I then tried Plan B by linking it to the MacBook. This was more successful as I could view the reports, but I still couldn't transfer the data. I have had another idea and will try a Plan C tomorrow.

Sentient

There was some heavy rain overnight. (This is the time when rain should be scheduled, rather than during the day). My day started with the cousins' call. There wasn't too much to report, but there was a great deal of banter as usual.

With the call over, I decided to start crafting the accounting spreadsheet for 2024. Each year, this is refined further, and then during the year, I spot additional refinements that can be incorporated in the following version. Today, I started to work through those refinements on the 2024 template. I am already convinced that this is a significant improvement on the 2023 spreadsheet. It's not quite sentient but it is certainly much more automated and much clearer to view and update.

The other long running task for the day was to cook up another batch of curry. A curry base was developed and cooked before a kilo of beef was added with 750ml water and it was allowed to simmer for 4 hours. I had one portion of this for dinner (which was superb) and managed to portion up 6 more to be stored in the freezer for future weeks. 

Service

 We were up early again, ready for Ellie to be dropped off. Today is the last day before half-term. Ellie was "up for it" and eager to get to school.

When we returned from the school escort duty, I took the Skoda around to Richmond Motors for its annual service and MOT. I dropped it with the service department and then was collared by a salesman, eager to entice me to upgrade. I allowed him the time to talk and suggested to him that he might not be making the best use of his time. I had, after all, spoken with another of the sales staff a couple of months ago and we concluded that the best they could offer was a car that had a lower specification than ours at a price that was 33% higher. I might be old, but I'm not senile (yet).

I walked home, It was a pleasant 30-minute stroll. Diane was focused on the laundry, so I buried myself in the accounts spreadsheets with a view to planning the changes that I would make by the time I cut the template for next year.

I received a video analysis of the car - nothing to report. By mid-afternoon, I had heard nothing so assumed that everything was tickets-boo and set off to walk back to the dealership. The car was waiting for me and the service had cost nearly £150 less than the original dealership would have charged. That seemed like a win,

Soon after I got home, Pete arrived to collect Ellie. She will be staying with him throughout the half-term holiday. When she had gone, I wasn't in the mood to cook so we ordered an Indian takeaway. Perfect end to the day really!

Not Much

 There is very little to report, today. I was up early so that Ellie could be dropped off. She was in her usual chirpy mood and hungry with it!  For breakfast, she demolished a huge bowl of watermelon, a ham sandwich, a further slice of ham, and a fried egg. She was well set up for the day by the time we delivered her to school.

Ocado were late this morning. It doesn't happen often, but they missed their slot by 25 minutes today. This was all very fine but did mean that we got to Sainsbury's later which means we arrived after the hearses delivered all the zombies who infest the aisles late morning on Thursdays. Fortunately, we did not have a great deal to get so I managed to maintain my sanity and hardly anybody was mown down by my trolley.

I set up the online banking app for Diane's phone. (Previously she had always logged on from the Mac rather than using the app).  Having completed that, I applied (on her behalf)  for another ISA and moved some of her savings to seed the account.

The rest of the day has followed a predictable course. We read for a while, then collected Ellie from school and looked after her until Darren came to collect her.

Plans Change

 Today is Darren's birthday. We had started the week with a plan to meet ups at Gunwharf Quays for lunch. We were going anyway, but Zoe had separately come up with the idea of lunch. By Monday, the plan had changed. Darren's mum, Barbs, was unwell and couldn't make it. Lunch was cancelled. We would go anyway, as was the original plan.

Tuesday even revealed a dreadful weather forecast for today. By the time I walked round to school with Ellie, the rain was just starting. Discussing it with Diane when I got home, our trip the Gunwharf was also cancelled. There's no point in going out in fouls weather when there is no need. We will rearrange for next week.

A delivery driver knocked on the door. The blood analyser that Diane ordered yesterday lunchtime was here by 10:30. We started the setup process and did as much as we can without performing a blood test. I tried to install some software on the iPhone to capture the readings, but it only seem to work in the US and the advertised Bluetooth connection feature, according to manufacturers Tech Support, doesn't work! Never mind, we have e a Plan B, and will connect the device with a USB cable. The question we stall have to answer is "Will this connect to iPhone, iPad, MacBook, or will I have to use my Windows laptop?" This question can't be answered until we have performed a blood test and the adapter I ordered arrives.

In order to use the analyser, it must be calibrated, and Diane needs to be guided in its use. The calibration is done by running normal veinous blood test at the hospital, and a test on the analyser. The results are compared. This has to be done 3 times over 3 weeks. Only then, assuming calibration is satisfactory, will the results be accepted by the hospital.

The weather forecast was correct. The rain has been torrential all afternoon. I'm very glad we changed our plans.

Afternoon Tea

 Well that's a turn up for the book. Having woken us at 06:00 yesterday, Ellie was still fast asleep when I got up for a shower at 07:00 this morning. In fact, I was dressed and downstairs making the coffee before she woke up. We completed the pre-school rituals and then walked her round to the classroom.

During the morning I focussed on the accounts in general and opening a new savings account. I was delighted to see that the money from the sale of the Fiesta was already nestling in my account.

Diane, have returned some items to Next, spent the time investigating the acquisition of a home INR testing kit. It took some digging around and realising that there were vast differences in the price of the same device, depending on who was supplying it. We eventually found a supplier whoo appears to be a main distributor for the manufacturer. A bit more research and a follow up phone call settled matters. The device is on order and should arrive in the next few days.

This afternoon, the Sonning Crew met up for the first time in ages. We were booked into The Ivy for afternoon tea. 

It was a bit noisy in there, it was one of the Chichester University graduation days and people were in there celebrating, It did make conversation a little difficult at times but it was nice to have the crew all together.

A couple of hours later we headed back to the car park and made our way home. It had been a very pleasant afternoon.

A bit carless

The patter of tiny feet woke me. It was just after 06:00 and Ellie wanted to watch her tablet. That wasn't going to happen. It is set up such that it won't switch on until 06:30. At 06:30 she came back and got into bed with us (and her tablet). That was the cue for me to get up and get going.

Zoe finished her night shift and headed back. We tracked her online as she came across country from Horsham. The question was "would she be home in time to take Ellie to school with us?" Fortunately, the answer was yes. She pulled up just after 08:30 and we traipsed round to school.

The main scheduled item for the day was the valuation of my Fiesta. I had been offered a good price online, but this had to be verified by an inspection at the dealer. Diane and I set off in convoy. We pulled into the garage at Portsmouth just before eleven and started the process. After the car had been examined, the online price was confirmed. I was delighted as the 9 year old car has only lost about 50% of its original purchase price. The whole process took an extraordinary amount of time because the dealership clearly hadn't mastered the link between their computers and printers. Eventually, with the help of a couple of additional salesmen, the printer burst into life, I got the requisite paperwork and we drove home. For the first time in nearly 50 years we are back down to a single car.

The afternoon was spent with our books.

Zoe has just dropped Ellie off with us. She has another night shift tonight so Ellie is sleeping here.

Trees and Books

It was very cold overnight. The heating came on for the first time in months.

We had a very quiet day. Diane spent time in her sewing room developing a pattern for some trousers. I spent time in the study refining some of the notes for the cruises I have been researching then switching over to do some work on the Family Tree. The afternoon was spent with my book.

I experimented with dinner. We had a small beef joint which I cooked in the Air Fryer. It only took 36 minutes at 165C. It was perfect, slightly pink, nice and ,moist, and had a good crust. A very successful experiment.

Zoe is working a night shift tonight. She got Ellie bathed and ready for bed then brought her here to sleep.

Before putting her to bed we spent some time listening to her read. She is doing very well, and we allowed her to read us another book when she got into bed.
 

Still Cruisin'

The temperature had dropped overnight. Despite this, we had a glorious day with wall-to-wall sunshine. I was up before 07:30 and had my cousins' call at 09:00.  That was about it, in terms of pre-arranged activities for today.

I spent much of the remainder of the morning and early afternoon doing further research into future cruises. I went through the offerings from 5 or 6 additional cruise lines, looked at their itineraries, looked at their prices, and reviewed YouTube videos of their accommodation. My spreadsheet grew but not by much. At least it gives us a decent starting point. 

Rant On:

By the way, if you are a person who posts YouTube videos of staterooms on ships (or anything else, for that matter), please use landscape mode and please keep still or move slowly and steadily. Some of the footage I have seen today was dreadful and was more likely to make you motion-sick than a Storm Force 11 weather event. Pick a spot, stand still, pan slowly; stop and pick another spot and pan slowly. Edit the two clips together. If you insist on moving about or filming while you walk, get a stabilizing gimbal (DJI do a nice one which will even stand on its own and track you as you move).

Rant Off.

Just Cruisin'

There has been a fair amount of rain during the day. It came through in pulses interspersed with some lovely sunshine.

 Zoe had a later start today. This meant that Ellie wasn't dropped off, but I could go there to provide the school escort service. I was also a sherpa for the walk. Ellie had her school photo, then PE which required a change of clothes, and after school, she had dancing which required a further change of clothes.

Diane was off to the hairdresser for the morning. I spent the time (and much of the day) researching cruises for 2025. I sent a shortlist to Trevor, who has come back with some further alternatives. I shall look at those and add them to the spreadsheet.

We collected Ellie from dancing and gave her a snack before Pete came to collect her for the weekend.

A Visit

 Ellie was dropped off for breakfast and the school run as usual and was chirpy and eager to get to school. We dropped her off and went home for our breakfast.

Being Thursday we had the Ocado delivery scheduled and then the top-up at Sainsbury's. Kim was in Bognor for her Covid jab so we arranged for her to drop in when we returned from the shops. It was lovely to see her and to sit and chat and hear all about her recent holiday on the Amalfi coast. We had seen all the photos on Facebook, but it was nice to hear the story of the holiday itself. She was with us for an hour or two before heading home.

We collected Ellie from school and stopped off at the park for a while. We were not home for long before Darren came to collect her as she had a play date arranged with her friend Ariana.

Nothing else of significance on today's page in the Book of Life.

Clean up

 Ellie was full of beans when she burst into the house this morning. She was "up for it" as they say! We deposited her at school at the allotted time and wandered home for breakfast.

Our day was focused on cleaning, dumping, sorting, and swapping. The chap from "Wash 'n' Gloss" was due this afternoon so I had to switch the cars around. I also had to check the various cubby holes and the boot to remove anything that would get in the chap's way. It was when I opened the boot that I remembered that I had dumped six metric tonnes of my old clothes in there after I last sorted out my wardrobe. A trip to the dump was required... and the mention of the trip begat more and more detritus that needed to go. Eventually, I headed off. I suspect the front wheels hardly touched the ground as I had so much in the back. It didn't, however, take long and several industrial skips were now full.

Diane took the opportunity to do her 6-monthly clothes swap. The autumn/Winter collection was retrieved and the Spring/Summer collection was stored away. This took most of the afternoon, much to the consternation of Jasper whose sleep was being disturbed (Karma, eh!).

"Wash 'n' Gloss" arrived and set to work on the Fiesta. I had requested the "Full" valet service and boy was he thorough. All in all, it took him 3 hours during which he crawled through and cleaned every crevice, every bit of glass, every millimetre of paintwork, the wheels, the tyres, the boot, and every millimetre of upholstery, the interior fittings and switchgear.  When he washed it, it looked as if he was contemplating giving the car a shave! 

I was immensely impressed. The finished item looked like a brand-new car, straight from the showroom. As soon as he had finished I put the car back in the garage as rain is forecast for the next couple of days.

While the valet was underway, I took some time to call "The Art Den" in Sidmouth and order a companion painting to the one that Jane and Trevor gave us for our Anniversary. The owner of the shop remembered Trevor - though that is hardly surprising - and promised to dispatch the artwork tomorrow for delivery on Friday. 

Nothing else is scheduled for today.

Domesticity

Diane was out the door early this morning. She had a health assessment at the Cardiac Rehab clinic to determine how much progress had been made. This was followed by the usual exercise session so it was mid-morning before she got home.

I took Ellie to school and then came home for breakfast before wading into a pile of ironing (much of which was mine). When Diane arrived home and we had chatted about the assessment over a cup of tea, she took over the ironing as it was getting to the fiddly, delicate items (with which I cannot be trusted). I retired to write down the recipe from last night's dinner.

After lunch, we had an hour or so with our books before going to collect Ellie. As usual, we stopped off at the park which seemed unusually busy today. While standing and watching Ellie we returned to a conversation we had started a few weeks ago. Was it really sensible to have two cars? Would it be better to sell my Fiesta? When we got home, I arranged to have the Fiesta valeted and contacted Evans Halshaw to get an idea of its value. I was pleasantly surprised, so I have arranged to have it inspected by them next Monday for an accurate quotation. Let's see what they offer.

Imitation

Ellie was dropped off at the usual time. She was very chirpy and after her usual bowl of fruit, asked for some porridge. She made short work of that and two fruit smoothies. It's good to see such an appetite for breakfast.  We dropped her off at school and got on with our morning. Diane had an appointment for her "MOT" with the nurse and I wanted to do some accounts and sort out the road fund license for the Skoda.

After breakfast, I usually go to the freezer to retrieve some meat or fish as the basis for the evening meal. Diane said she fancied some meatballs and I remembered the dish I tried at "Ask:Italian" last week. Could I replicate it? Could I find the recipe? The answer to the first question was open to debate. The answer to the second was a resounding "no". I looked up the menu online and reread the description. How hard could it be?

I needed a trip to Sainsbury's to pick up some items we didn't have in the store cupboard. I then set about planning how I would proceed. With a firm idea in mind, I retired to the Orangery for an hour of reading before collecting Ellie.

Ellie bounced out of school and asked for a stop-off at the park. We were there for quite a while and were just preparing to leave when we got a call from Zoe to say that Ellie had been invited for a play date with Neve. That was it; she was, metaphorically, off and running. I dropped her off with Manisha and Neve and went home to start on the evening meal. Meatballs, roasted red peppers, roasted balsamic red onions, tomato and red wine sauce and mozzarella found their way into the pot; meanwhile, garlic bread toasted. It was a huge success. I must sit down and write the recipe tomorrow.

While all this excitement was bubbling on the hob, Di was on the phone with Jan Mills as they caught up with each others' health status and the latest family gossip.

Success

 It was another lovely day. Diane made the most of it, spending more time tidying up in the garden. Before going out she alerted me to the fact an update had failed on her iPad. It needed more space. Finding and removing some old or irrelevant data took a silly amount of time. Eventually, it was done and the update was applied.

I returned to the exercise that I had started yesterday. It seemed strange that the bridging component I installed had no test or sample programs. Eventually, I asked the programming community and they confirmed that those files should have been installed. I uninstalled (removed) the component. I downloaded a slightly different installation package and installed that. Voila! The test cases and samples appeared and the code burst into life. Now I feel a little more confident about installing it on the iMac (Condor).

I was feeling smug so I shut the MacBook and spent much of the afternoon reading in the Orangery, while Diane sat and read in the garden (I have explained before that I am not a great one for sitting in the sun).

Renovation

I had a lie-in. It was 07:35 before I emerged. I couldn't lie there all morning there was coffee to drink and tea to make for Di.

Being Saturday, there was the cousins' call. This was the first one that I had attended for several weeks. It was nice to see them all, and good to hear about Tim's recent trip to Venice. In turn, they were interested in our cruise to Norway. While the call was in progress, Zoe and Ellie turned up. Zoe had brought back my MacBook as she no longer needed it.

The call completed, and I pressed the button to allow the iMac to upgrade to Sonoma (the latest release of the OS). I then went back to the family room and erased the MacBook before reinstalling it from scratch. The upgrade of the iMac was very quick. Surprisingly so. It seems to be just fine and everything I have tested is working as expected. The rebuild of the MacBook took longer but was completed without incident.

The fresh MacBook was deliberately reset so that I had a clean platform on which to download and try some software. BSF4ooRexx creates a bridge between the ooRexx language and Java. In the past, I have tried to install it once or twice and always ended up with a bit of an unsatisfactory mess. This time, with a couple of false starts, it appears to have been installed properly. I will test it further tomorrow. If it works, it will open up some new coding opportunities for me.

While this was going on, Diane was in the garden. She was pruning and dead-heading as she tidied up for the autumn (making the most of the lovely sunny weather).

Peace

Ellie was very excited when I went to join her for the walk to school. Her class had a school trip planned today. They were visiting Goodwood Farm. Off she went, rucksack on her back and clutching a bag with her wellies.

We headed to Chichester. Diane wanted to look for a jacket and a new dressing gown, and there was an exhibition at the Cathedral that we wanted to see. We hit the shops. M&S, SeaSalt, Crew Clothing, Oliver Bonas, TK Maxx, Mountain, Black's, Cotswold, and several others. Diane could find nothing that quite matched her requirements.

As an interlude between shops, we went to the Cathedral. There is an exhibit on display by the artist Peter Walker. The display contains 15,000 paper doves of peace. Each dove contains a message of peace, love and hope, written by local community groups, schools and members of the public.

It really was an extraordinary sight. We wandered back and forth beneath the cascade as it filled the nave of the Cathedral. Apparently, they changed the lighting occasionally, but it remained violet the whole time we were there. I suspect that it is even more of a spectacle as it gets dark outside, and the impact of the coloured spotlights becomes more marked.

We had a quiet hour or so back home before going to collect Ellie from her dancing lesson (this had nothing to do with the farm visit - just a normal after-school activity for Friday). She bounced out of the gym and then as we walked home, her face turned to thunder. We got the silent treatment for about half an hour. Eventually, she explained to Nana that she didn't know who was collecting her from dancing. I pointed out that the last thing that Mummy had said when we dropped her at school this morning, was that Nana and Grandpa would collect her. "Oh, I forgot", she said, and all was right with the world.

Pearls

I did the usual school escort service with Zoe and Ellie before heading home for breakfast. Being Thursday, the morning was fairly well mapped out. Ocado dutifully arrived with the bulk of the shopping and all was stowed away. Then we headed for Sainsbury's for the traditional top-up. So far, the day had followed a well-trodden path.

After lunch we slipped into the car and headed across country to Basingstoke. We had a good run and were parked up and entering the shopping centre soon after 16:00. We had time to have a good wander around and see how much it had changed over the years. It would be nice to have such a "destination" shopping centre near us.

We made our way towards the top of town, where all of the restaurants are situated. Each of the menus was examined and finally we decided to eat in "ASK:Italian". It was only 17:00 and the restaurant was very empty. Despite this, we were asked if we had a reservation. A smart comment flashed across my mind, but was quickly suppressed. We sat down and had a tasty meal. Diane chose Lasagne (A new recipe of Italian fresh egg pasta sheets, layered with rich beef and red wine ragu and topped with a creamy bechamel sauce and aged hard cheese. Served with beef meatballs, coppa ham, extra ragu and cheese.) and I chose Manzo Piccante (Short rigatoni with beef and red wine ragu, beef meatballs, fresh chillies, roasted peppers and balsamic red onions, topped with mozzarella.). Both meals were very good and I would certainly choose the same again.

We left and wandered back through the shopping mall to The Anvil. This is a theatre we used to visit when we lived in the area, but haven't been back for about 25 years. Kim had bought us tickets for a show. Originally, it was scheduled for April, but due to an attack of Covid-19 it had to be postponed until tonight. The seats that we had were in the third row and we had the most fantastic view.

At 19:45 Elkie Brookes came on stage with her band and proceeded to rattle the rafters with her amazingly powerful voice. She might be 78 but my goodness could she belt them out.

In the first half of the show, she concentrated on her well known and well loved classics, including: Nights in White Satin, Pearl's a Singer, and my favourite, Lilac Wine.

After the intermission, she came back on and did a few new numbers and some old blues classics. The audience lapped it up. Many were up and dancing. I think she must have known I was in the audience because she finished off this Bob Seger's "Night Moves" (and I love Bob Seger's music).

It was all over too quickly. We were walking back to the car soon after 22:00, and having fought our way out of the car park, headed home on almost empty roads. We walked in the door about 23:20. What a night.

Refinery

No alarms were set this morning. Not that they were needed. I had been awake since the early hours and even though we weren't expecting Ellie, I couldn't lie in. Diane had to slip out for her blood test when I wandered to Zoe's for the school escort service.

I returned to the codeface. I had realised that a lot more data could be mined from the Health data dump. The problem was knowing how to identify the correct records for each type. Yesterday's program was refined to perform a one-off run against the whole dump and extract each unique identifier. These were scraped from the output and inserted into the program documentation for future reference. I took it a stage further and ran several extracts of different data categories. All those tested worked well.

I had to pop around to Zoe's after school. Ellie was having a meltdown and needed some external intervention. I followed her to her room and managed to calm her down after a few minutes. She even went and apologised to Zoe and Darren.

Always learning

 It was a fairly usual start to the day. Ellie was dropped off for breakfast and to get ready for school. I walked her to the classroom while Diane got ready for her Cardiac Rehab session. She disappeared off to the Community Centre just as I returned from school. Her session went well and she had a chance to talk with the cardiac nurse for an update. All seems to be going well and is on track even though her pulse is still spiking occasionally.

I returned to the codeface. A few minor mods were made to the data extract program and I re-ran it. This produced a very serviceable CSV file which, in turn, became the basis of an Excel spreadsheet. The extracted data then had to be summarised and a facility was provided to examine small date ranges. Now, I'm a little rusty but was convinced there was a good way to do this. Several hours with YouTube educated me about the use of "Dynamic Arrays" and the subset of commands that can work with them. These are new features, introduced in 2019. I had never heard of them before but fell in love with them immediately. The hours they would have saved me when I was still at work would have been considerable.

After trying a number of different designs, I came up with one that suited our needs and should allow the data to be presented to the GP if necessary. Diane has just taken a look and given it the seal of approval.

The Codeface of data mining

Zoe's training continues this week with time in the petrol station. This meant an early start so Darren dropped Ellie with us soon after 07:00. She was in a very chirpy mood and seemed eager to get to school. We walked her to the classroom and then headed home for breakfast. Little was planned for the day.

Diane spent the morning catching up on her admin and making some appointments. I retired to the study and did some research into future cruise options. I was looking for cruises that start and end in Southampton or Portsmouth. There were plenty of options, but not necessarily choices that we would select. There is no hurry. I will return to this another day.

Diane set me a challenge. Can I get the medical data off her iPhone so that she can present relevant measurements to the doctor? Yes, thought I. But how. A little bit of Googling told me that I could not extract specific items, but I could export the whole data set. I experimented with my own data. A couple of gigabytes of data was compressed into a ZIP file and dropped onto my iCloud. Now, what could I do with it?

I went to the iMac - this would need some power. I unzipped the file and found the various subfiles. The one that I needed was nearly 2GB in length and contained all of the raw data records for all of the measurements the Health Data app captures. I scanned through the file until I found the relevant identifier for the data she requested. Now that I could see the structure and knew the identifier, it was a matter of writing a program to select it and dump it into a separate, more manageable file.

It was nice to be back at the codeface. An hour or two later, I had a routine that would power through the many millions of raw data records it would select the ones I wanted and would create a CSV file. This meant that I could easily do further processing using Excel. It was a very satisfying bit of work, but I have already thought of some minor improvements I could make. That will be a project for tomorrow.

Chilling

 It may be the beginning of October, but it is still warm, if not sunny. I lazed about in bed until 07:40 this morning and felt guilty for not being up and about. We sat and enjoyed breakfast while reading the press and social media and then, finally, started to stir.

Diane wanted to do some tidying in the garden and disappeared out the front of the house. I wanted to file the photos from the cruise and from yesterday. They were already backed up in Google Photos but hadn't yet hit my master database locally. The rest of the morning was spent downloading over 500 photos and videos in batches, then processing them with my "photo filer" program that creates all of the relevant subdirectories and corrects the creation dates to match the EXIF data. It also creates copies of video clips in a separate video clip library. Once all of the photos were filed I went through them (using Adobe Lightroom Classic) to make sure that all of the featured faces had been identified. Job done. Overnight tonight the backup routines will take two further copies of all of these images and videos and store them on other devices in my NAS farm.

The afternoon has been fairly quiet. Some reading, some resting, and the preparation of Sunday Lunch (dinner). This week we had roast pork with crackling, sugar snap peas, roasted potatoes, and roasted carrots. We have enough left over for another one or two meals.

Meeting up

We had a disturbed night. For the first time in ages, Ellie woke after a bad dream and came into our room for comfort. I was going to take her back to her room but Nana told her to get into bed with us. She cuddled up to Nana and then fidgeted for the next hour. By that time she should be well comforted and we were wide awake. I took her back to bed and she drifted straight off to sleep. 

We had to be up and out before 090:00. Our flu jabs were scheduled at the local surgery. We were in and out in a few minutes and headed back home for breakfast. Ellie strayed from her usual breakfast selection and had scrambled eggs in a sandwich. This was a good choice as we would be having lunch late.

We set off for the wilds of Berkshire. We had lunch planned with Denise and Dom, Emma and Louis, and Rebecca. The last time we met up at "The Craven Arms" we had been seriously delayed by the seemingly interminable road works at the bottom of the M3. I deliberately allowed some extra time and aimed to get there early enough to allow Ellie to run about before we sat down to eat. We were delighted to find no hold-ups or delays anywhere along the route, and the roadworks are now complete.

Ellie headed straight for the swings. Our table was reserved in their "Tipi Tent" which you can see in the background. We have eaten there before in high summer, a year or so back. Today, the end of September despite a favourable weather forecast, this was a little cool we wished we had worn warmer clothes.

The others soon arrived and on assessing the situation, Rebecca returned to her car to bring some spare coats and jackets, while Diane and Denise raided the pile of blankets and fleeces provided by the venue.

All we have heard from Ellie during the last week was how she would be seeing her cousin, Louis. Finally, they met up and went off to play until lunch was served. There was clearly some hero worship going on. They played well together (at least until Louis had the chance to play some football with some other youngsters).

We sat and chatted, catching up on everyone's news. Lunch was served. The kids and most of the adults went for the burgers (which were huge). Rebecca chose the beef rendang (which she really enjoyed). Diane selected the ham, egg, and chips (one of her favourites). I had half a chicken in piri piri sauce. The food was excellent and the portions were large. After lunch, with the cousins still playing (though Ellie had grazed her knees falling from the swing), the chat continued along with an examination of the photos from our cruise.

It was after 17:00 before we packed up and went our separate ways. We again had a quick and trouble-free journey home and dropped Ellie off at Zoe's before settling down for a quiet night with the TV.

Iron Filings

 Ellie was dropped off nice and early this morning. We gave her breakfast and got her ready before walking her to school. Back home, having had a lazy breakfast, we snapped into gear and got the day underway. The first order was to get and post a Birthday card. This meant that we took a nice walk to the nearest shopping outlet. Having got the card, we found that we had missed the day's postal collection. We separated, Diane went home, and I headed in the opposite direction to the village where there should be an afternoon collection.

Once home, Diane worked through a pile of ironing while I went to the study to start filing the holiday photos.

We collected Ellie from dance class and brought her home until Zoe collected her. She went home for dinner and then returned here, where she will sleep tonight.