Writer's Block

 After a pleasant lie-in the Gorse Fox wandered downstairs to make the coffee and catch up on the overnight news. The Silver Vixen wandered down a while later. There was no hurry. There was nothing on the agenda. Once breakfast and coffee was over, the Silver Vixen retired to her sewing room and her latest project. The Gorse Fox retired to his study to categorize his Kindle books into collections (see previous post). Once that was done, he should have returned to his writing of the Computer Guide but, frankly, he couldn't be bothered. Instead he settled down with his latest book and spent the day reading, making tea, drinking tea, reading, and making dinner.

That's it. A quiet Sunday.

Collector's Item

 Why has the Gorse Fox only just discovered the "Collections" feature on the Kindle? It's so useful. He can now group books together by series or by author or by any other random category that he might dream up!

Doh!

Reflections

 The Gorse Fox had a fairly typical start to day for a Saturday. A leisurely coffee and some toast was followed by the cousins' call. We had both of the usual Aussies on the call today, for the first time since Christmas.

Long time readers may remember the ongoing trouble we had with the mirrored doors in the bathroom. The correct doors were finally delivered this week. Darren has offered to help the Gorse Fox get them installed. In preparation for this, the Gorse Fox spent some time installing the hinges onto the anchors that had been bonded to the glass. The first one was immensely fiddly as the Gorse Fox tried to work exactly how they are fitted. Once he's sussed it out, the other were installed in no time.

After the demise of eagle (mentioned yesterday), the Gorse Fox finished his clear-up and is proud to announce that some portions of the desk top are currently visible. It probably won't remain like that for long, but it feels good for now.

In the study he returned to the computer guide for a couple of hours. He has now progressed to documenting the Raspberry Pi based systems. After a break for a couple of hours reading in the sun-kissed Orangery, he returned and managed another hour of documentation.

No football tomorrow, we have insufficient players.

RIP

 We were up and moving about before Ellie surfaced this morning. We went through the usual morning checklist and the Gorse Fox took her round to school. (It was too icy for the Silver Vixen to venture out).

Back home we had a quiet breakfast and then got on with some chores. Finally, the Gorse Fox could return to his documentation. It was time to compose the write-up for the PC "eagle". The contents of his desk were shuffled and the keyboard pulled into the open. The power button was pressed on the screen - it hurts into life. The power button was pressed on the PC, the disk started to whir and nothing. Nada. It just sat and whirred. The Gorse Fox reviewed his options and thought about the last few times he had used the machine. There was nothing on it that was anything other than transient... it was a test machine, after all. The decisions was made. It was retired. It is no more. It is now defunct. It has joined the choir invisible. It is, metaphorically, pushing up daisies. 

The Gorse Fox has pulled it out, cleaned the desk, and dismantled the PC to remove the hard drive. The hard drive will be destroyed by drilling through it a few times then everything will be taken to the tip.

The lovely bright day meant, once more, that it was warm enough to spend the afternoon sitting in the Orangery and reading.

Quiet Day

 After the usual school delivery, the Ocado delivery, and the trip to Sainsbury's, the Gorse Fox settled down to realise that he had forgotten the eggs. They would have to wait.

The rest of the morning was spent on admin and adding more text to the computer guide. This involved firing up some old machines after searching out their various power cables. Inventory done on a couple more of the beasts and document suitably updated.

Urban-Cub took Ellie swimming after school and has just dropped her in to us for an overnight stay. (Urban-Cub is working through the night tonight).

Restless

Ellie can be a restless sleeper. This is how we found her at 10:45 when we went up to bed. She was in a deep sleep but had clearly been moving about.
 

Cosy

 Though bitterly cold outside, the sun was streaming through the Orangery windows and doors. It was pleasantly warm and the Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox spent a couple of hours enjoying the sun and reading before heading out to collect Ellie.

Once home, we sat down with Ellie and encouraged her to get her homework done. This was a some self-research on the pioneer Amelia Earhart. While Ellie coloured in some pictures and wrote some sentences about her, the Gorse Fox drew and cut out a basic aeroplane made from foam board. When Ellie had coloured it and written its registration numbers on the wings, we stuck it all together ready for a short flight to school tomorrow.

Party Time

 Another sub-zero night and early morning. The Gorse Fox went round to escort Ellie to school then returned for breakfast. Normally he would be heading out for football but he decided that he had no wish to sit in huge traffic jams (A27 is still closed) so he cancelled.

Ellie has a birthday coming up in March. Urban-Cub is ahead of the curve and wants to get a venue booked for the party. With this in mind, the Gorse Fox walked round to the Bersted Park Community Centre to see if they had availability on the day in question. They have. Details of the booking administrator were given and a suitable email sent. We now await the response.

Walking to the Community Centre took the Gorse Fox past the football pitches. Looking at the state of them, he suspect they are better suited for ice hockey, or if the ice is too thin water polo.

Cold

 It was another cold day. The Gorse Fox strolled round to Urban-Cub's to walk with her and Ellie to the school, then headed home for breakfast.

The Silver Vixen had a phone call scheduled with a girlfriend followed by lunch with Urban-Cub and Darren's mum. The Gorse Fox retired to the study to do some more writing, thanking his lucky stars that he didn't have to venture onto the roads. What with recent flooding, roadworks, and collisions Bognor Regis was virtually cut off. The A27 was closed, the A29 was closed, the Lower Bognor Road was closed, Chalcraft Lane was blocked and all traffic was diverted onto the A259. It was chaos. It dawned on Urban-Cub that the planned lunch was really a non-started as nobody could get anywhere. Lunch was cancelled, but the Silver Vixen went round for tea and a chat.

Back home the Gorse Fox was delighted to finally receive the replacement bathroom mirrors. This time they look like the correct size. Darren has threatened to help install them later in the week.

Late in the afternoon, the Silver Vixen had a long phone chat with her sister while the Gorse Fox prepared dinner.

Road trip

It was very cold overnight following heavy rain. The Gorse Fox was glad he didn't have to go out on the roads first thing. Darren dropped Ellie off soon after 7:00 and we followed the usual procedure to get her ready and deliver her to school.

The Silver Vixen had an appointment so left the Gorse Fox to his own devices for a couple of hours. He spent a little while on his computer guide to start with. We had been asked if we could take Ellie along to the Urban-Cub's new store at Hayling Island after school. This meant that dinner would have to be ready when we got back. The Gorse Fox spent the rest of the morning preparing a batch of curry sauce. Some of this would be frozen for the future, and some could be heated up with some cold chicken when we got back from Hayling Island. (A batch of rice was also prepared).

After lunch we sat down for an hour of reading before collecting Ellie from school. Once she was home, and changed, we set off. It took about 30 minutes to get there and the Gorse Fox must admit that it is very impressive store - much larger than the Chichester store, where she was. We had a good wander around, and Ellie helped out on the tills for a while. Once done we all left together - Ellie went with Urban-Cub and we drove back by ourselves.

The weather overnight had caused havoc. Several main routes were flooded and this was filtering all traffic onto the only remaining road - the very road we wanted. The journey home seemed endless. From the Bognor Road roundabout to home (a distance of 4 miles) it took us and hour and 20 minutes. On a normal day this would have been about 6 minutes (a bit longer for rush hour).

The Gorse Fox was glad he had the curry all ready to heat up and serve.

More tapping

 With no football this morning, the Gorse Fox had a lie-in until boy 7:30. It was a couple of hours before we had finished breakfast and stirred ourselves into action. For the Gorse Fox this was a swift retreat to the study and some more time developing the computer guide. He is still on the first computer, but is very pleased with the progress as this is probably the lynchpin for his computer use.

The Silver Vixen got togged up with a view to tidying up the front of the house. There was some weeding, a lot of fallen leaves and some general plant maintenance. The Gorse Fox helped by washing down the soffits and the white paintwork surrounding the windows. He also cleaned up the garage door. With a cold snap forecast, we wouldn't want to do this during the week.

The Gorse Fox was summoned by Urban-Cub. She had a problem trying to print some photos. It took several tries, but eventually we found the correct incantation. The Gorse Fox left her to it.

After a bit more work on the computer guide he sat down in the lounge and got a couple of hours of reading under his belt before doing dinner.

The patter of tiny keys

 Though we slept well, we awoke to a dark morning being continuously rinsed by heavy rain. The Gorse Fox had his traditional cousins' call first thing. It was a nice 40 minutes of laughter and banter.

Most of the rest of the day has been spent in the study. The Silver Vixen was in her sewing room pottering, and the Gorse Fox was tapping frantically at the keyboard. Slowly a document is taking shape. It identifies the various devices that we have and is taking the reader through their use and their backups. It has been immensely satisfying. So far, the Gorse Fox is about 70% through the first system, the iMac condor. The document already runs to 15 sheets of A4 and there are 16 further computers to address. It's a good exercise because it gives the Gorse Fox a chance to review each system and how it is used.

No football tomorrow. We could only scrape 7 players together so it wasn't worth the effort.

Writing

Ellie was dropped off soon after 7. She was in a great mood this morning, full of the joys of Spring. Once all the usual stuff was complete, we took her to school. Though lovely a bright, there was a noticeable nip in the air.

Back home, we had breakfast and then had a fairly quiet day. The Gorse Fox got some chores out of the way, and updated the accounts. The Silver Vixen spent some time selecting paint for the downstairs cloakroom, then drafted an epistle to Mrs Tiggywinkle. We tried to pick up the paint in question at our local supplier, but they only sell this particular shade/finish online. When we got home the Silver Vixen ordered it for delivery on Monday.

The Gorse Fox started on the new documentation that he had envisaged yesterday for the "West Sussex Data Centre". It is planned to be a complete manual on the systems that the Gorse Fox has installed here, what they are, how they are organised, where they are, and how they are protected. He spent several hours on the task and is pleased with the progress and the content. This, however, is not a quick project. It will take quite a while to complete a first draft.

We collected Ellie from school and brought her back to get changed and to have dinner ready for Pistol Pete to collect her. She will be with him over the weekend.

Wakeup Call

 E~llie gave us the wake-up call at 6:45 again this morning. That's perfectly acceptable. The usual pre-school choreography took over. Breakfast, wash, teeth, uniform, shoes, coat, book bag, lunch bag.... and off.

We returned for breakfast and to await Ocado. Clearly Ocado were running a little late (though still within our delivery slot). The Gorse Fox decided to accelerate matter. He went up to the study and opened the accounts spreadsheet. This is the rain dance for Ocado deliveries. Within moments he pulled up outside and we could continue the Thursday programme of events.

Sainsbury's was next, and we took Lady Penelope with us. Though Old Bill is now driving again, the effort of wandering round the aisles of a supermarket would still be too much. He is, however, threatening to attempt it next week.

Once home, the Gorse Fox finished the accounts and then had a quiet hour or so with a new book. The book that he had been reading was the second in a 20 book series. Whilst he liked the main characters the underlying storyline was based around perpetrators who practised some for of devil worship and were threatening the main character's family. The Gorse Fox has a redline for stories, be they written or film. The family is sacrosanct. These books crossed the redline.

The new book was from a different author and was a much more cozy murder mystery (if murder can ever be cozy).

Two Halves

 It really was a day of two halves. The morning was bright, sunny, breezy and a little cool. The afternoon was dark and very wet. In fact we had some thunder and lightning late in the afternoon and the rain was so heavy that it was bubbly up through the drains on the Chichester Road.

After taking Ellie to school the Gorse Fox returned home to collect the Silver Vixen and take her across for Pilates. He carried on to Worthing for football. The sun was bright, but low in the sky and it made the identification of players on the south side of the pitch almost impossible. All we could see was shapes and shadows against the background sun..

It was a good game. Teams of 6 vs 7 with only player switching sides at half-time. It was, like the day, a game of two halves. We lost the first half 4-0 (though the Gorse Fox was not playing as a defender), but in the second half we won the half 2-0 (and the Gorse Fox was playing as a defender). The lesson is that the Gorse Fox is a better defender than he is midfielder.

After we picked Ellie up from school, the Gorse Fox was thinking about this evening's menu. He asked Ellie if she had ever had fish and chips from the fish shop. No she hadn't, but she has them on Friday at school. Does she want to try? Oh yes! So it was that the Gorse Fox ordered fish and chips for there three of us. Ellie lapped them up and said she would definitely like to have them again. Result.

Urban-Cub has an early shift in the morning so Ellie is staying with us tonight.

Like the old days

 Ellie, though a bit late going to bed and settling last night, slept through until 6:45. From then on, the first part of the morning followed the usual pattern. Urban-Cub was able to pop in and walk with us to school - but given the heavy rain, the Gorse Fox suspects she wished that she hadn't.

The Gorse Fox, having seen the weather forecast last night, had decided to skip football today. He knows he is likely to get wet tomorrow and was certain he would get soaked to the skin today. Not fancying two soakings in two days, he chickened out. Instead he spent much of the day at the computer. It was like the old days. Diagrams and documentation and now that the Backup Strategy is back up to date, he has realised that the is a more holistic way in which he could have written this had he started from scratch. This is a serious temptation.

Two Hats messaged. Was the Gorse Fox busy and could he spare some time. The Gorse Fox presented himself at the door. The migration of his old PC files to the new MacBook had appeared to go well but now he couldn't find the files. The Gorse Fox delved into the machine. The files were not there. Well, we could recopy them from the old laptop. No we couldn't - he had wiped it. He had, however, taken a second copy of the files on an SDCard. He handed over the SDCard - there were no PC file on it - only DashCam footage! We searched through his box and finally found a likely candidate. Whew! The files were there. The Gorse Fox copied them to his MacBook and then gave the usual lecture on backups. For simplicity he has suggested getting an SSD that he can attach and use as a TimeMachine repository.

Tip

 A gentle start to the day, though the temperature was a few degrees down on last week. The Gorse Fox wandered round to Urban-Cub's and escorted her and Ellie to school. 

After some breakfast the Gorse Fox grabbed the step-ladder and started stacking the Christmas crates away in the garage along with the tree and various bags. Then, feeling smug, put the car away and headed upstairs. The last few items are stored in the loft so that they don't get damp. While he was up there he finally disconnected an old NAS drive that hasn't worked for several years. This got him thinking about a review of the backup strategy... but that would have to wait.

We have been storing various items in the garage and the Orangery which needed to be disposed of at the local tip. Today seemed like the perfect day. The car was loaded and an appointment made (yes, you need an appointment to use the local recycling centre). The Gorse Fox pulled up, gave his secret reference number, and parked up. He did, needless to say, park in the spot that turned out to be farthest from all of the skips that he needed. Never mind, it was good to get rid of it all.

The Gorse Fox reviewed his backup strategy. The text was all correct but he realised the diagram was way out of date. This got him thinking (always a dangerous thing). When he was working (all those years ago) he would use Microsoft Visio for these sorts of diagrams. There isn't a version that runs directly on the MAC. There is, however, a version that run in a browser. While looking at the details (cost) he also noticed a tool called "Lucidchart". It too runs in the browser and whilst you can pay for additional features, the functions that were needed are all in the free version. Browser was pointed at the site and the Gorse Fox got stuck in. It was immensely simple to use and he created the diagram that he wanted just as quickly as he would have in Visio. The document has now been updated... and the Gorse Fox will use Lucidchart again in the future.

Urban-Cub has just dropped Ellie off. She will be staying with us overnight.

Overrun

The Gorse Fox had football this morning. We had a late drop-out so he decided not to choose the team in advance but to decide by consensus when we had all gathered. This worked out fairly well. We had the 3 of the most mobile players on one side with a less than average player. These 4 would play the other 5, all of whom were pretty good. It was hard work, playing for the yellow team of 4 but we managed to go in at half time with the scores and equal 3-3. In the second half we switched one player between the teams, but we were tiring. Slowly they started to get goals - and even more slowly, so did we. None of us had a clue what the final score was, but the assumption was that the Orange team had won by 2 goals. The Gorse Fox did manage to get 1 goal in our tally.

Back home the Silver Vixen had started squirrelling the decorations away into the various boxes within boxes within crates. It was pouring with rain by the time she had finished so the Gorse Fox stacked everything in the Orangery ready for taking to garage tomorrow.

Order restored

 After a superb curry last night and an evening of channel hopping - trying to avoid programmes that the Gorse Fox would watch with the Silver Vixen, he had an early night and read before switching the light out. Jasper had spent the evening climbing onto the arm of the Gorse Fox's chair, staring meaningfully into his eyes, and wondering where his normal perch - the Silver Vixen - was.

The Gorse Fox was up and just finishing his first coffee before going up for a shower. The doorbell rang. That was inconvenient! It was DPD with a delivery for a neighbour who had clearly not heard, or ignored the bell. It wasn't a problem - the Gorse Fox was, after all, up.

The first item on the agenda was the cousins' call. Nothing too much to report - just 30 minutes of inane banter, as usual. The Gorse Fox then returned to decorations. A final sweep to find the one item that always gets forgotten. No sight of it. It will remain hidden until everything is packed away. Then there was the annual "stuff the Christmas tree back in its box" exercise. This should be an Olympic sport as it involves a number of skills including wresting, tying, stuffing into a box, wrestling the box closed and tying it closed. This is something for which there should be a training program and points awarded for speed, neatness, and storability.

After lunch the Gorse Fox watched the FA Cup game between Spurs and Portsmouth. A 1-0 win for Spurs. He then watched the Silver Vixen and Cousteau-Cub make their way home from London by following their GPS trace online. 

The Silver Vixen is now home and the fabric of the Universe is, once more, complete. It is clear that they had a wonderful time... and recommend the Premier Inn at Wimbledon South as a good base from which to raid the capital.

Own devices

 Ellie was awake soon after 6:30. Normally she would just play in her room but this morning she needed grandpa to unfreeze her tablet. Once that was done, she went back to her room until 7:00. Once we were all up and about Ellie had breakfast and got ready for school. The Gorse Fox took her round to class and deposited her for the day. Urban-Cub would be collecting her later.

Back home, the Silver Vixen was getting ready for some mummy/daughter time. She would be leaving to collect Cousteau-Cub and they would drive up to Wimbledon. The plan is that they will check into a Premier Inn and park the the car there. Then it's a tube up to Charing Cross and a short walk to The Colosseum. The stopped for lunch at Prezzo (opposite the Colosseum) then went across for a performance of The Nutcracker. Messages exchanged during the interval indicate that they were having a great time. Subsequent messages, now that the ballet is over, inform the Gorse Fox they are off to Covent Garden now. When they have finished all their gallivanting, they will get the tube back and stay overnight at the Premier Inn.

While under Jasper's direction and watchful eye, the Gorse Fox has taken down all of the Christmas decorations. Tomorrow he start to pack them away, leaving the fiddly ones for the Silver Vixen's return.

Curry is on order for tonight.