Reply to: test please delete

[NickFitz]

Popped down to check the Corolla over ready for tomorrow. Oil level was OK, and such other bits beneath the bonnet as I know the purpose of seemed to be in their appointed places and at their appointed levels, so I set out to do the tyre pressures. As I do this using an electric pump powered from the car, I decided to start the engine to prevent too much drain on the battery, just in case - but it wouldn't start! Turned the key, there was a click and all the lights on the dashboard came on the way they do, but nothing past that, six times in a row

I thought it possible the battery was partially drained as, unlike some cars, that doesn't seem to crank the starter motor slowly but just doesn't crank it at all. So I came up for the little booster pack batteries. I knew where they were, but I haven't used them in years so I thought they might need a charge - except they have the USB socket that's almost never used anywhere, and I haven't seen my lead that fits them since I don't know when but probably back at the old place

So then I spent ages looking for the lead, finding all kinds of other leads but not the special one. Finally, I decided to take them both down on the off chance one of them held enough charge.

Naturally, before faffing around, I tried starting the car again - and it fired into life first turn of the key, no sign of struggling, ran absolutely fine

So I have no idea what was going on. Anyway, I got all the tyres back to nominal pressure, and just in case I took it for a quick drive around the neighbourhood so it was full warmed up and, hopefully, well-charged for tomorrow

It occasionally does that click-but-no-starting thing but always fires up on the second or third go. This is the first time it's just done nothing for six tries. Maybe it's because it's quite damp out, and letting damp air into the engine bay when I was checking the oil affected it somehow, then it dried out during the twenty minutes or so I was up here with the bonnet shut again? I don't have a clue TBH

[NickFitz]

Lunch: sardine toasties (olive oil variant)

It's a bit on the sunny side out now, though still with streaks and patches of cloud here and there

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Grey day out with traces of overnight rain, but none of that is expected today. It's mild at 12°C, which is what it will stay at until it dips down to a still-quite-mild 7° overnight. The barometers are up a touch more at 1013/1021mB

I've still got a nagging feeling there's something I'm supposed to do, but I think this may just be down to not working on what is, I am told, a Tuesday. Or maybe it's because I haven't yet "wrapped" (i.e. put into a gift bag) the remaining presents. And it could just be that I realised last night that I don't have any dry roasted peanuts in the house, and thought about popping round to Sainsbury's Local for some

The last deliveries expected before Christmas have arrived, including the cheap arm tray from Amazon. This seems adequate for its purposes, at least in the short term, and is now in position on the arm of the recliner I'm not leaning on, bearing the TV remote control and a plate with some all-butter Scottish shortbread fingers, these last with coffee being my seasonally-appropriate breakfast

[xoggoth]

Ran loony lady 1 to station this morning, she's off to her sister's. Got 12 Xmouse cards this year. Robins, robins, robins, robins...... Boring robins! I'd much rather have dinosaurs on my cards.

[ladymuck]

Morning all

It was quite bright earlier and now it's turned cloudy. My weather app says low visibility but it's not that bad. Currently 9 degrees with a high of 11 expected. Low chance of rain. Barometer at 1025 mBar.

Having a coffee before packing the car up for the drive to Mum's. I did a shop so she has food etc in the house, even though her eating is getting worse and worse unless someone puts a plate of food in front of her.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Tuesday.

Grey.

Foggy.

Misty.

Drizzly.

Sunless.

Have I mentioned it's grey?

Curiously warmish side of chilly out though it's 12.2 deg in here, 12 deg in the kitchen, 11 deg in the leanto.

1023 mBar, 30.2 in Hg, 767.3131 Torr, 14.8373 psi, (up from 1020 last night), 68% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 13th of December 2019 it was cold wet & windy in Manchester where LM was for some unknown reason, it was dryish here and the sun came out while I was doing the needful washings, and NF reminded us all that he'd been born 20 miles from Manchester so knew what the weather was like, whereas BR14 remarked that the sun's hat had blown off.

Major Luna Standstill. Who'd have thunk?

It's still grey, maybe slightly less misty, foggy, & drizzly.

Lunch: brunch.

Entertainment: book.

Walk (unabbreviated) walked in the grey gloomy drizzle. Nice enough if you like that sort of thing, like.

[NickFitz]

Tonight's major motion picture was the fifth and final part of the Christmas trilogy, A Good Day to Die Hard (2013). By this point they'd given up on the notion of any kind of holiday tie-in, not even the imaginary holiday of Thanksgiving, possibly because it's set in Russia and Ukraine and they didn't know any of the holidays over there. Although I've watched it before I didn't really remember it at all, probably because it's not very good. It's full of spectacular stunts and so on, but none of them are convincing. In the first film, unlikely stuff happens all the time, but you can see that things might actually happen that way in reality; and the others tend to conform to that pattern. In this one, it's all just stuff that makes you go "No, not possible even though it looks impressive"

Anyway, the climax of the film is at Pripyat (which they insist on calling Chernobyl) which reminded me that I'd been thinking about rewatching Chernobyl (TV Mini Series 2019) so I did - well, the first two episodes. Excellent stuff

I keep thinking there's something I need to do, but it's probably just that I'm not used to not having to make a last minute dash to the shops on Christmas Eve

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

In checking for changes to the refuse and recycling collections over the forthcoming festive period, I noticed that the council have swapped the bin collections over from next year. I have two recycling collections in a row (tomorrow and next week, Thursday) before it reverts to alternating each week on Tuesdays.

Our collection (both kinds) moved to today because of Christmas and in response, some poor sod who works for the management company had to come round Sunday evening to collect any bags we'd put outside our flats, which normally would have been collected this morning

I hadn't put any bags out myself. I'm not sure if that made things easier for them, or made their weekend duties a little more futile

[ladymuck]

In checking for changes to the refuse and recycling collections over the forthcoming festive period, I noticed that the council have swapped the bin collections over from next year. I have two recycling collections in a row (tomorrow and next week, Thursday) before it reverts to alternating each week on Tuesdays.

[NickFitz]

In preparation for the forthcoming festivities, tea has been roast turkey thigh with chips, peas and gravy

It wasn't that nice though. The turkey was just Sainsbury's standard stuff and didn't have much flavour. I don't think they do TTD thighs, though

I mainly got it to make soup with the leftovers though, but I think I'll have to get and roast another one to make that worthwhile as I've eaten nearly half of this one

[NickFitz]

Last minute gifts have been purchased.

It wasn't quite the level of bedlam I expected but I am also very pleased that there is nothing else I need to get.

I just popped round to the chemist's for the monthly prescription, which is as much engagement with retail premises as I'm prepared to do until after Christmas, when I'll need some bread

They wandered off into the back as usual, then came back and asked me to take a seat - well, THE seat - while they "checked something". A few minutes later they returned and said they did have my prescription and were dispensing it now, so it would just be a few more minutes. While I waited, I went and had a look at my patient record in the phone app to check when the prescription had been sent over from the surgery: 26 November. I don't know what they get up to in that shop all day, but dispensing prescriptions ready for collection doesn't seem to be their main concern

[xoggoth]

Loony lady 3 walk this morning. Gawd, that woman, blabber, blabber, blabber. It is fairly normal to talk about time spent with relatives or friends but she yacks on about some neighbour over the road she knew about 50 years ago. Wouldn't be so bad if she didn't tell you 200 times!

[ladymuck]

Last minute gifts have been purchased.

It wasn't quite the level of bedlam I expected but I am also very pleased that there is nothing else I need to get.

[NickFitz]

In other local news, the new occupant(s) of upstairs seem to have taken up residence, so I now have upstairs neighbours for the first time since I moved here and will find out what life's been like for my downstairs neighbours

An IKEA van showed up earlier and they went down to receive various items therefrom, including what I suspect to have been boxes containing a couple of 2x2 Kallax units. I hope their hands don't end up with as many fine cardboard cuts as mine did when I was in the same situation a couple of years ago

[NickFitz]

The new recliner has been deployed. It's very wide; the seating area has six inches or more of empty space each side of me if I sit in the middle! And the arms are nine inches wide, flat topped. All this makes it a bit of a reach to get my coffee off the side table

I assumed that this must be a known problem and searched on Amazon, and it turns out there is a vast selection of different forms of "arm trays" designed for this situation, incorporating everything from swivelling phone stands and dangling pockets to, in a few cases, drawers in which to store remote controls and the like. I've ordered a basic one which can be delivered tomorrow (most of them wouldn't come until Friday), but I shall have to study this matter more closely; having what is essentially a small chest of drawers at one's right hand seems like it may be one of those things you don't know you need until you try it