test please delete

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Overcast and wet out. Currently 13 degrees with a high of 14 expected. Rain forecast off and on in varying levels of enthusiasm all day. Barometer down to 1006 mBar.

Tired today. I keep waking up in the 4am hour, overheating. Then I spend ages trying to get back to a comfortable sleeping temperature (too cold, too hot, too cold) and never properly get back to sleep before the alarm goes off.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Windy day out and with a damp feel, despite there being no rain until this evening. As predicted it's 12°C at the moment and will remain there until it starts to get colder around sunset. The barometers have plummeted to 990/998mB

[WTFH]

And lo, the coffee machine descaler arrived, and the machine took me through the process step by step. It is currently on the rinse cycle.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Wednesday.

Grey.

Sunless.

Damp.

Dreary.

Chilly in here at 13.8 deg, 12.5 deg in the kitchen & leanto.

1005 mBar, 29.6776 in Hg, 753.8119 Torr, 14.576 psi, (up from 1003 last night), 70% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 12th of December 2019 NF was off to vote & visit Greggs, voting early & often, LM was tidying the flat so she could return to a tidy flat after a trip, WTFH woke an hour early by mistake, and Scruff gave advice on how to run a bead of silicone around the kitchen sink, something I've never successfully achieved ever.

Walk (unabbreviated) walked in the grey gloom, timed correctly because it's drizzling now.

Lunch: brunch. Really getting through those Weetabix (BBE 14/11/2014) now.

Entertainment: Y&Y waffling on about water bills, followed by imported Septic snacks with illegal food ingredients. Who knew that mineral oil is a food ingredient?

Forgot about the book of the week so listened on line.

Thing about the feet found in the sea off British Columbia.

Freecell score: 72%, running average: 80%. Gave up. Not in the zone.

Tea: chilli con carne etc. nice enough.

Entertainment: PM.

Didn't bother with the UFO bollox.

Read book. Found Yet Another Book & read bits of that: looks like this one will be read backwards. Read more of first book.

Maigret: Cecile est mort. More Bruno Cremer. I seemed to zone out here & there, probably due to watching Shooter until 01:55.

Arena: Alan Bennett at 90. He uses a manual typewriter & hunts & pecks, though quite how he manages to get the keys to stick is remarkable. Probly needs servicing. The typewriter not him.

[WTFH]

This was followed by a second rinse cycle, a steam wand clean, and finally a nice Paris blend coffee. (all billable time)

[NickFitz]

Lunch: a bacon butty

Still gloomy and breezy out. Soon, I shall venture forth on sundry missions. First, I need to pop up to the bank branch where I paid off the mortgage to pay in a tax refund cheque, as HMRC print them in a format that isn't supported by either of my banks' phone apps. Then to Big Sainsbury's. And from there, rather than the usual route home, I go the opposite way round the ring road to get to the parcel depot. It's very near Glenfield Hospital, so at least I know the way back from there

[NickFitz]

Missions accomplished!

I got off to a bad start by turning the wrong way out of the flats, having forgotten I needed to go to the bank. But I remembered before I was off our little backwater of a neighbourhood, so just had to turn right instead of left down the road to get back on the right track

I found a place to park just up the hill from the bank, directly opposite a place the Dutch GF and I lived in twenty-five years ago and more, so I was able to get a bit of nostalgia in as well as dealing with the cheque

Then back out of Spinney Hill via a circuitous route, because the road network around there was deliberately made very complicated to deter kerbcrawlers when it was adjacent to a red light area back in the 1970s and 1980s, and has never been fixed. This took me past or near various places I used to live even longer ago - back when the ladies of the night were still all over the place, in fact, such areas being the standard spots for students to rent rundown properties in those days. I don't think today's helicopter parents would be very happy with Jocasta or Jocelyn living in such districts now

Onwards then to Sainsbury's, past the old place. I may be wrong, but I think whoever's living there has managed to break a second window. I don't know what they're playing at; I lived there for eighteen years without breaking any, and to judge from the aged appearance of the panes, so had everybody else who'd lived there since it was built around 1880

I ended up popping into M&S as well, and generally did OK in terms of getting the shopping. Most importantly, perhaps, I got myself a tin of Quality Street as required by law at this time of year

I'd forgotten, though, that the meat tends to have short use-by dates at this time of week. I assume they aim to get stocked up on Thursday and Friday ahead of the weekend crowd, so Wednesday is the time when they're trying to flog off the last of the week before's batches

Anyway, onwards from there to the parcel company depot. This is out on an industrial estate, not too far from the huge Walker's Crisps factory, and they clearly don't expect many visitors. When I entered the "reception area" there was another chap already waiting, a typical Leicester lad off the estates I reckon, who'd already tried to rouse them by following the printed instructions concerning calling some extension, or trying a bell on the wall. Nothing happened so after a few minutes he rang again, and this time someone answered! They told him to ring the bell on the wall. We waited another five minutes or so, with the occasional warehouse worker spotting us through the small glass window of the "No Admittance" door behind the counter and hastily looking away, and the local lad was just trying the phone again when a chap finally appeared, full of apologies for the delay. The lad very politely told me I could go first even though he was already there when I arrived, and the bloke managed to find my parcel eventually, so I was good to go. The warehouse chap even offered to carry it out to the car for me and, though I assured him I could manage, insisted on rushing out from behind the counter to get the door for me. So it took a while, but at least everybody displayed excellent manners

And so home, where I was relieved to discover none of the neighbours had nicked my favoured parking spot near the front door, meaning I didn't have to carry everything too far

[NickFitz]

There were a few spots of rain as I was heading home from the parcel place and it's settled in now, raining steadily. Despite this I ventured forth, driving down to the VAT fraud chip shop; so tea has been fish & chips

[NickFitz]

First up on the box tonight was Mary Beard on iPlayer talking about Caligula. I thought she didn't look any older than the time I saw her in the pub in Cambridge, and it turns out the programme was from 2013 so she probably wasn't

Then a rewatch of Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995). I like this one, though IIRC they're all good

And then a further episode of The Plot Against America in which life for the Jewish community is starting to get worse in various insidious ways

The rain persists

Goodnight all

[WTFH]

Morning all
Late night yesterday as we ended up watching a Christmas film featuring Bruce Willis.
Very stormy in the evening, but by 6am the sky had cleared and the morning walk was enjoyably cold and dry.