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[WTFH]

Wood volunteery thing this morning followed by coffee and mince pies. Mince pies, what else matters in life?

Did you have a candle in the mince pie?

Happy birthday!

[xoggoth]

Wood volunteery thing this morning followed by coffee and mince pies. Mince pies, what else matters in life?

[NickFitz]

Having a massive takeaway brought to me after eating a full Christmas dinner at lunchtime would have been overkill, so tea has been a roast beef butty and a bag of plain crisps

[NickFitz]

Home again!

We'd booked a table at the pub-restaurant where we had both wakes, and they do a good Christmas dinner

[ladymuck]

The clouds have cleared and it's been a nice, sunny day so far. The forecast is still for rain later.

I did the market shopping, then went to Sainsbury's to see what gin was on offer and pick up a couple of bottles. Lone Wolf for £20 is a bargain.

I then stopped for a cuppa before getting the SL8 to Westfield shopping centre to return some trousers at Next. My aim was to get in, drop off, and get back onto the bus home within a hour in order to only pay 1 bus fare. Mission accomplished with 15 mins to spare.

HWMBO has landed at Heathrow and is doing a tour of T5 while BA figure out what stand to put him on. On his third at the moment.

[NickFitz]

Right, time for me to set off!

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Quite bright out, compared to previous days. Mostly cloudy with the occasional flash of sky. Damp but no precipitation at the moment. Currently 6 degrees with a high of 8 expected. Rain forecast early evening onwards. Barometer down to 1022 mBar.

HWMBO is on his way down ahead of his last TOGAF indoctrination session of the year. There's been a lot of demand this year, and next year is looking good too.

I had a rubbish night's sleep and have woken with a headache. Not booze intake related which means I can complain about it.

Off to the farmers' market in a bit, once HWMBO confirms he is settled in the lounge at Glasgow airport. I am to choose my protein of choice, look for some mushrooms and receive instructions on what veg to buy.

[WTFH]

Morning all

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Sunny with a clear blue sky today for a change! Not very warm though: 4°C feeling like 0°, rising to 6° later. It'll be getting cloudier then, too. The barometers are back up a little at 1009/1017mB

I need to get ready for the journey south, including sorting out presents for those I won't see at Christmas. This just involves putting things in Christmas-themed gift bags though, as I can't be bothered to do any more than that

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Saturday.

Poor night's sleep with lots of dreams, none of them particularly good.

Dry.

Chilly in here at 11.8 deg, 10 deg in the kitchen, 9 deg in the leanto, 6.8 deg in the saltinghouse.

1021 mBar, 30.15 in Hg, 765.8 Torr, 14.8 psi, (up from 1019 last night), 66% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 11th of December 2019 Brillo posted a lot.

Shirts in the WM.

Smalls in the WM.

All out of the WM & pegged out on the line.

Walk (unabbreviated) walked in the wan sunshine.

The rain began as I walked in through the back door.

Can't be arsed to bring the washing in, feck it.

Lunch: brunch.

Freecell score: 100%, running average: 80%.

Shirts in off the line, in the TD, out of the TD, iRoned, airing upstairs.

Smalls in off the line plus a towel, in the TD, out of the TD, airing upstairs.

Remaining socks & two towels in off the line, in the TD, out of the TD, airing upstairs.

Not a successful drying day by any means.

Found the hd caddies with Win95, Win3.1, Win3.11 on. I wonder if the scanner i/f card will work with these: Nope. That was predictable. .

Tea: chicken in white sauce etc.

Entertainment: PM.

Massive Engineering Mistakes: New York river bridge: crane collapse during pile driving: due to worn teeth on the gripping thing for the hammer. 2000 feet tall transmision tower in Texas: collapse during construction due to U bolt failure as the final section was lifted: 5 killed. And they had plenty of time to watch the ground coming up to meet them. Boston Massachussetts water pipe failure. Ullevi stadium, Gothenberg, Sweden: nearly brought down by the audience for Springsteen in the 1980s due to resonance in the clay of the pitch when they were jumping up & down.

[NickFitz]

Two major motion picture premieres tonight, starting with Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) in which the Royal Navy deals with the French, as was their wont back in 1810. Very good stuff if you like seafaring adventures in the days of sail, and who doesn't? (Well, as long as it isn't The Onedin Line, obviously.)

And then a new one from Apple: Fly Me to the Moon (2024) in which a shady character (Woody Harrelson) associated with the Nixon government brings in advertising expert Scarlett Johansson to bolster NASA's public image ahead of the Apollo 11 mission. One cannot say that this is based on a true story; in fact, it's barely even adjacent to the true story it's supposed to be centred around. Still, it's not claiming to be true (or I hope it's not) and it's an entertaining yarn; so it's not that dissimilar to the preceding film in a way, although I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was more historically accurate

Time for bed now as I need to head south for the pre-Christmas family gathering tomorrow

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Tea: ribeye steak with chips, fried onions and beans

And as I finished it, I remembered that I'd put the mundane laundry in the machine earlier but hadn't started it. So I just got that going

[NickFitz]

Oh you’ve discovered the number of the person who stole your points

Quite possibly! Though I'm not sure - from what Sainsbury's said, it sounded as if my account was nixed when the people on the Nectar side shot down the original account; for example, my order history vanished. But it's possible some information somehow made it across. Anyway, I changed it to mine immediately in case of messages saying the delivery was delayed.

Speaking of which, the van pulled up at the front door downstairs at 16:12, right at the end of the hour they'd appointed so technically on time. So that's done, and one less thing to fret over

Today's final delivery was going to be a couple of HomePods from Apple, which I'm going to use as a stereo pair hooked up (wirelessly, of course) to the Apple TV. I ordered these around ten last night so I thought the assertion that they'd be delivered today seemed optimistic, and became even less convinced as they remained in "Preparing to ship" status all day. Sure enough, they just shipped and will, in fact, be here on Monday

[WTFH]

Lunch has been leftover slow-roasted belly pork in a wholemeal bap with apple sauce. When doing the roasting I chuck a few star anise in there, which gives it a really nice flavour (n.b. may not be nice to those who dislike aniseed)

It occurred to me that although I'd got an email from Sainsbury's telling me when the order will arrive, they always used to send a text message. Then I remembered that my account was messed up by all the Nectar fraud stuff earlier in the year, so I went to check if my phone number was on there. Not only was it not there, a different number was there in its place. No idea where that came from; maybe they just stuck some random customer's number in there for fun

That makes me think I should check with my dad. He had his nectar points stolen earlier this year, he saves them up then uses them to fill his car with fuel. The day before he was going to use them he thought he would check how many were there, only to find that it had gone from 5000 down to 500.
He phoned someone up, and it appears his points were used in Folkestone. Dad was quickly able to show that he wasn't in Folkestone and they refunded him. He then changed all his credit cards cause he was sure that if they got into his Nectar, they would have everything.

[eek]

Lunch has been leftover slow-roasted belly pork in a wholemeal bap with apple sauce. When doing the roasting I chuck a few star anise in there, which gives it a really nice flavour (n.b. may not be nice to those who dislike aniseed)

It occurred to me that although I'd got an email from Sainsbury's telling me when the order will arrive, they always used to send a text message. Then I remembered that my account was messed up by all the Nectar fraud stuff earlier in the year, so I went to check if my phone number was on there. Not only was it not there, a different number was there in its place. No idea where that came from; maybe they just stuck some random customer's number in there for fun

Oh you’ve discovered the number of the person who stole your points