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Morning all
Very misty when we went out, with a lot of damp on the grass and trees.
That burned off on our walk, and it's going to be another warm one.
Midweek (well, nearly) movie night’s premiere was Relay (2024) in which Riz Ahmed acts as an intermediary between corrupt big businesses and people who have information that could harm them. This is an excellent thriller, taut and suspenseful, eschewing fights and car chases in favour of an ever-building sense of paranoia and menace. Well worth putting on your watchlist
And then a further episode of Silo. I had thought I was only behind by one season but realised the other day that there are three seasons now and I’m still on S1, so I suppose I ought to get a move on
Tea has been M&S pre-digested chicken chasseur, with chips and peas. Nice enough
And lunch was an M&S steak slice, which was OK but not as good as a Greggs steak bake - maybe not even quite as good as the Pukka variant, though close
It’s sunny yet also cloudy out, and going to be a hot one: already at 24°C, it’ll reach 28° for much of the afternoon. There’s a bit of a breeze, but not as much as yesterday. The barometers are up a bit at 1007/1015mB
I slept soundly until just before 10am this morning, and awoke feeling refreshed - I think the new drug that was making me so tired must be largely out of my system now
But speaking of getting things out of my system, I still hadn’t got around to dropping off a new piss sample at the GP, though at least I got around to getting the jar for it last Friday; I don’t think they’re open for such things at the weekend, and I forgot about it yesterday morning. So I duly gathered that, and have dropped it off at the surgery - somewhere I feel I’ve visited a lot lately
There was an adult magpie hanging around next to the gate from the park to the surgery which had a vaguely hangdog air about it. Upon closer inspection, its feathers looked rather scruffy. This is the time of year when adults moult, so I think it was just a little embarrassed to be seen out and about in such a state
Cloudy and humid (81% apparently). Currently 22 degrees ('feels like' 24) and that's the high for the day. Cloud set to clear as the day progresses. Barometer up to 1021 mBar.
Sunrise 05:23; Sunset 20:54 BST
I have found many musty / dirty towels stashed in Mum's bedroom which are now all getting the hot wash treatment before I put them away in the airing cupboard.
I can't figure out what she's doing with worn clothes, as they don't go into the laundry basket. Short of going through all the drawers and doing a pants inspection, I'm not sure how to deal with that. I'll ask my brother when he's back tomorrow.
22.2 deg in here, 23.2 in the kitchen, 22 in the leanto, 20 out the back.
1013 mBar, 29.9 in Hg, 759.8 Torr, 14.69 psi, (down from 1014 last night), 64% RH (Lidl electric).
Meanwhile on the 1st of April 2020 barrydidit, BR14, LM, MrMarkyMark, NF, WTFH, and I popped in, whilst on the 2nd of April 2020 (oh, the relief: another day) Brillo popped in along with NF.
Entertainment: Dimbleby waffling on about Harry Dexter White & how he managed to help destroy the British Empire.
On the eve of the 49th renewal the AA subscription was cancelled: only took 20 minutes on the phone.
Walk (abbreviated, 3 miles) walked in the grey gloom & eventual light drizzle. Two conversations.
Irritating parking on the road: one side the pavement covered in parked cars, on the other a delivery truck parked on the pavement & a chap with a perambulator was unable to pass so I marched into the middle of the road & stopped the traffic so he could follow me through. Good deed of the day.
Lunch: brunch. Entertainment: the man thing on R4 <click> Sky Arts Movies E2/4. Noir followed by the sort of movies I don't watch such as "Singing in the Rain" etc.
TPTV: "William Tell" S1 E20 "The shrew (1958)". Not as good as Robin Hood with Richard Green but there you go.
Some minor "gardening": hacking back the brambles: some in next door were 15 feet long, grown since the spring, and thick stemmed with it. Dead headed the roses & hacked back the self planted one that, despite the warnings, failed to give me any flowers whatsoever. I think it's on borrowed time. .
Drains are blocked up the road again. Time for Dynorod aka Welsh Water contractors. Sounds like it'll be that wagon with the long hose pipe again.
Jack Hargreaves Old Country. Gathering wild horses in the New Forest. Goats.
UFO bollox on Blaze. The Zimbabwe skool UFO thing.
Sunken Ships. HMS Barham. The medium was mentioned towards the end: the last prosecution for witchcraft.
Bab5 S2 E14 "There all the honour lies". Dirty deeds amongst the Membari in an attempt to fit Sheridan up with murder. More Kosh.
Book.
Mega Disasters: more Blazian bollox: Hypercane: 500 mph hurricane produced as a result of the 65M year ago impact.
History's most shocking. All that sticks from that was "The largest non nuclear explosion" as in the Beirut fertiliser explosion which came in at about 1.1 kt, as oppose to the 2.9 kt Halifax Nova Scotia explosion which actually was the largest non nuclear detonation in 1917.
Tonight’s reading was more of Parable of the Talents in which their remote community is gradually expanding, though usually because of some hideous tragedy befalling other people
Accompanying this, a series called Homicide on Netflix which is basically NYPD detectives talking about old cases, the first being the murder of Jennifer Stahl and two of her friends in 2001
The new jump-start battery pack thing I’d bought looks a lot chunkier and generally competent than the cheaper old ones, and sure enough, it got it started without batting an eyelid and still showed a full charge afterwards when I plugged it into the fag lighter to top it up
With that done, I wanted to drive by a suitably long and circuitous route to ensure the car battery could get properly charged, so I decided to go anticlockwise round the outer ring road, such as it is. This was mainly because that gave me an excuse to take a detour up the residential road in the northwest of the city that’s lined with Giant Redwoods, which I’ve been meaning to go and have a look at for years. The road follows what was once the course of the main drive to the local big house when that area was still a village, and the trees date from then. They’re nowhere near fully mature yet, but they looked nice as it was very sunny, which really brought out their colouring
So onwards round the city, including finally seeing a bit of road lined with those flags of St. George that fascists seem to have been hanging everywhere except here. These were in the estate where you’ll find the types who rant about immigrants causing crime. For as long as I’ve been here, though, there’s been a roughly 60 to 80% probability that any story in the local paper about either petty crime or drunken murder will involve somebody who lives around there, or maybe just grew up there
I finally made it to M&S, where the phone app still resolutely refuses to self-scan things; I don’t know if it’s the rubbish in-store wi-fi, though that’s the most likely culprit. Anyway, I’m resigned now to just stuffing things in my bag like a blatant shoplifter, then having to tip it out and start again at the self-checkouts
And onwards to Sainsbury’s. I realised this morning, when somebody on Bluesky tweeted about Viz arriving in the post, that I’d got my dates mixed up and it won’t be in the shops until this Thursday. Anyway, I got various bits, though the refurbishment is still going on, which means I’m forgetting stuff because my entire shopping process has been refined over more than twenty-five years to depend on specific parts of my route around the store triggering the memory that I need something from that bit
It’s very sunny and Simpsonesque out now but there’s also a decent breeze, making it just about bearable
Another cloudy and breezy one, and I think there’s been a shower or two overnight and early morning; no more expected, but they said that yesterday and I think there may have been a brief and very light one in the evening. It might brighten up a little later in the afternoon. It’s 17°C (“feels like” 14°) with an expected high of 23°, and the barometers are back up at 1005/1013mB
I’d not got around to doing the mundane laundry at the weekend so that’s on an Express cycle; supposedly 1h50m for a wash and dry, though sometimes it needs a bit more drying once it’s done
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