test please delete

[NickFitz]

I popped back over to the flat with some kitchen stuff and a couple of bags of books. I went via the self storage place, which is roughly halfway there and an extremely minor detour (not even a detour at all coming back, due to the vagaries of the roads). I had a vague idea of how much junk I had in there but was pleasantly surprised to find that in terms of volume, it was a bit less than I'd remembered. So it won't be a problem getting it all in the new place, pending disposal of about 90% of it once I go through it all

I had a quick rummage through a few boxes looking for the remote for my parents' old telly, but it must still be around here somewhere. So while I was waiting for the rush hour to decline so I could come back, I started playing with the four enigmatic buttons on the back of said telly, thinking that now it's hooked up to the aerial, I might be able to get it tuned in.

First surprise was that it auto-discovered a solitary analogue channel, which was a CCTV camera looking down at the front door of the block. But wait… the block has two front doors! And once the post came without anyone showing up on it only for a postman to appear a couple of minutes later, it became clear that this camera is looking at the door for the other half of the block

More fiddling got it to autotune, but only analogue, and that camera was the only analogue station broadcasting. I downloaded the manual and skimmed through it, but that was very much predicated on the notion of having the remote.

But then I went and tried a bit more pressing and finally managed to get it to autotune for digital TV. So at least I know that's working now, and which channels I'll be able to get once I move - all of them (the Freeview ones, that is)

[xoggoth]

First surprise was that it auto-discovered a solitary analogue channel, which was a CCTV camera looking down at the front door of the block

Many years ago now but had a wireless CCTV to keep an eye on my neighbour's antics, had fascinating views of the gas tank at the brickworks down the road.

[NickFitz]

Tea: chicken in red wine sauce with chips and peas. Very nice

Not a lot of stuff in reserve in the freezer now - a couple of soups, and three portions of bol. I need to get on the spag bol and use that up

[WTFH]

Off to Exeter in the morning to get the car serviced (first time in almost 3 years). Yes, it’s an Alfa, no it hasn’t been to a garage for anything other than a service. Leaving it with them for a week while I go on holiday. They have to replace the aux belt at 4 years old (it’s approaching 5), which they claim involves dropping the engine out.

Anyway, TFBSZ.

[NickFitz]

The car earlier was a Volvo Amazon, and the gold hunters were mostly doing OK.

And later, a couple of new episodes of the increasingly misnamed 24 Hours in Police Custody, both covering cases that took a fair bit longer than 24 hours to investigate

Goodnight all

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Cold. Very cold. 10 deg in here, 8 deg in the kitchen, 4 deg in the leanto.

Sunny.

Blue sky.

Dry.

1009 mBar, 29.796 in Hg, 756.8 Torr, 1466343 psi, (untapped), 69% RH (GDR hair), 60% RH (Lidl, electric).

Friday.

Brrrrrr. Never mind, only another 3 months of this. .

Meanwhile on the 17th of March 2019 I was railing about the idleness of the new neighbours, gifted them a radiator key, as one does, whilst NF was busily letting a lady out of the carpark at the flat, much to the irritation of her "partner", apparently a weasely sort of chap.

The security camera system in the garage died some months ago and I've never bothered fixing it. It'll have to wait coz it's far too cold in there now.

Walk (unabbreviated) walked in the wan sunshine and perishing cold.

Shopping trip to Wilko's for birdfood succeeded on birdseed but failed miserably on fatballs so I'll make some using the lard that's graced the fridge since Strangelove Mater went into a home.

Some idiot mother****er has filled one of the potholes in the back lane with wood ash, which, in & of itself, is a waste of time, augmented by not taking the nails, screws, & other fixings out so providing an excellent puncture potential for the cars this end of the lane.

I took a magnet down there before lunch & got a flowerpot full. I'll try again a little later.

Lunch: scrambled egg and poached tomato on Morrisons soya & linseed toast, blackcurrant jam & marmalade on slices of toast, a red corner yog, 0.91*1.57 pints of good Glengettie tea.

Entertainment: TWAO, before which there was some nonsense or other about a previous prime minister of little brain and even smaller talent.

The washing frenzy is on hold until the temperature in the salting house rises a fair amount above 0.7 deg. . I've damaged the WM once before because of that.

Thought I'd trying a new installation of Win2k on the printer server box thing: naturally enough it dies during the install. I think the box is toast though it runs win98 ok.

Tea: battered haddock, Xmas pud & custard, very toothsome, 0.91*1.66 pints of good Glengettie tea.

Entertainment: PM.

Wheeler Dealers S15 E21 5th gen Ford Bronco, the one with the broken inlet bolts. Bought: $10k, Total: $10,925, Sold:$15k at auction.

Last 15 minutes of "It's a Wonderful Life (1947)".

10 minutes of "Starman (1984)".

Code Breakers on Blaze: Walking through history with Tony Robinson.

The trail of destruction continues.

Turned on the ancient Toshiba Satellite 2100CDS laptop & it booted veeeerrrrrryyyy slowly into window 98.

Worked ok until I tried to read the floppy disk in the A: drive whereupon it all went to pot & now it's in bits.

However, the HD is readable so I'll back that up in case the cat photos are irreplaceable (since the cat is no longer extant) and there's some ancient software on there that earned me about £15k or so back in the long ago.

Had to search the interweb to find out how to get the battery out: definitely non obvious.

I'm getting reluctant to touch anything else since everything seems to be going tits up at the moment, starting with that window light shattering the other day..

Maybe I'm cursed.

I see the association football match in that hot place overran yet again, so the Ghosts Xmas ep was bumped.

One is used to this with the Beeb, they loved doing that with STNG and cricket matches and I actually complained a couple of years ago when the commandeered BBC4 for tennis halfway through a Horizon repeat.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Another cold but sunny start out there, frost on the usual places, currently -2°C despite the sun, and no better than +2° predicted. The barometers are down a bit more at 1001/1009mB

Today, I think I shall shift assorted smaller odds and sods to the new place, as they can be moved down to the car in manageable portions and my lower back feels OK but like a bit of a break from heavy lifting wouldn't come amiss after yesterday's sofa-building. I assume all this exertion must be at least gradually improving my fitness or limberness or some such, but the scales reckon it's not done a single thing for my weight

Once over there, the primary business of the day will be getting rid of all the Ikea packaging. I still haven't found out where the bins are but this amount of cardboard and plastic would overwhelm their capacity, so I'll cram it into the car and take it to the tip. The tip is about halfway between here and there, but much easier to get to from there, being almost a straight run down the nearby main-ish road, and on the same side of the river which means no bottleneck at the crossing point.

And as it's just over the road from the storage place, I might as well start shifting stuff out of there on the return leg.

But first I shall pop along to Sainsbury's for a few more bits to tide me over as the reduction in freezer stocks continues

[NickFitz]

Meanwhile on the 17th of March 2019 I was railing about the idleness of the new neighbours, gifted them a radiator key, as one does, whilst NF was busily letting a lady out of the carpark at the flat, much to the irritation of her "partner", apparently a weasely sort of chap.

Although he continued to seem rather weasely, we ended up on slightly better terms after he left his key in the back gate one night and I found it and returned it to him. I also wonder whether the reason he was so keen for her not to get her car out that night was that she'd been drinking or getting stoned or something and he thought she might be unfit to drive? I didn't notice her smelling of drink or seeming impaired at all; but they seemed to get along OK after that. Anyway, they finally moved out about a year later so they're somebody else's problem now

[WTFH]

Morning all
Car dropped off, and now I’m on a train back home.

[NickFitz]

Small amount of shopping done

Sainsbury's was well busy; car park rammed, I had to get a trolley from the car park corrals as there weren't any by the doors, not many scan-as-you-go handsets left, and they had to switch a bunch of self-checkouts to scan-as-you-go checkout mode

I suppose it'll only get worse for the next couple of weeks