Reply to: test please delete

[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?

[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

[NickFitz]

I thought I'd used all the chicken, tomato and lentil soup, but I found some more at the back of the freezer and decided to have that for lunch. However, once defrosted in the microwave something seemed a bit odd… turned out it was chicken madras, which I'd somehow mislabelled as soup

So lunch has been chicken madras, watered down a bit to make it soupier, with a crust of wholemeal

[NickFitz]

Links are up

[NickFitz]

The new La-Z-Boy recliner has been delivered!

Interestingly (for certain values of interesting), it's three years and one day since the much cheaper recliner from Wayfair was delivered to the old place. That was dropped at the front door and had to be unpacked in the hall then brought upstairs by myself. IIRC it arrived at about seven in the morning too, so I had to get it done before other residents of the property wanted to do things like come out of their flats

Anyway, it hasn't aged well, with the release cable having had to be replaced not long after I moved here, and large and spreading cracks starting to appear in the pleather

The new one is, frankly, huge; I need to rearrange the living room a bit so I can get past it when it's pointed towards the telly, which it will be. For now it's towards the back of the room while I ensure the space is ready for it

At least the old one was delivered in two pieces, but the new one came assembled, and the delivery chaps made an effort at getting it in that way. I knew that was never going to work; I'd taken measurements. After a couple of minutes of shoving, they too accepted the inevitable. So then it also had to be unwrapped in the hall, and they had to work out how to detach the back, not helped by the fact that DFS have only just started selling La-Z-Boys so they don't have much experience with them. One of them had to go back to the van and fetch a long screwdriver with which they were finally ably to reach the catches holding the back on and take it off, and with that done it was a smooth enough process to get the separate bits in, then reassemble it

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning Afternoon all.

Monday.

Dry.

Grey.

Wanly sunny if you use some imagination.

Calm. Windless (aside from me).

Chilly in here at 11.9 deg, 12 deg in the kitchen, 10 deg in the leanto.

1022 mBar, 30.18 in Hg, 766.56 Torr, 14.8228 psi, (up from 1019 last night), 62% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 13th of December 2019 WTFH was packing prior to going on his hols, BR14 popped in, according to LM there was A Storm Coming, while according to me The Future Was Not Written, DaveB recommended the AK, whereas I preferred the more concealable Glock (nasty plastic thing).

Shopping trip to Tesco done dusted washed dried sanitised & put away.

Walk (unabbreviated) walked in the grey. Knackered now.

Lunch: brunch.

Entertainment: this nonsense plus other browsing.

Tea: soup etc.

Entertainment: "Smoke & Steel" on U&Eden: Brunel's tunnel under the Thames. A massive Dutch pumping station the like of which I've never previously encountered. And, to round it all off: Bletchley Park, Enigma, Colossus, Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage and the Jacquard loom.

Doctor Who S6 E10: "The War Games (in colour)". Apparently some can't cope with B&W but there you go.

Xmas Ghost Story by M. R. James "The Ash Tree". Meh.

The bits of "The Equaliser" that I like though I should have gone to bed earlier. I may be turning into NF. .