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The bed is airing and a bedding wash is on, as I decided a nice comfy clean bed would be conducive to a decent night's sleep ahead of the resumption of remunerated labour tomorrow
Though the morning I'm really looking forward to this week is Tuesday. That's when the mortgage payment would come out of the bank, and it appears from anecdotal online sources that the Halifax can be a bit slow about cancelling the direct debit and then even slower about refunding the overpayment. I'm not really bothered about the money as such, just curious to see whether they've improved this aspect of things as the anecdotes are from a couple of years ago, or older
It was fairly sunny not long ago but is clouding over, and apparently it'll get windier later too. On the cooler side again at 9°C (feels like 5°) and aiming for 14°, with the barometers down the tiniest bit at 1010/1018mB
Today there was a bunch of Monkey Life and then assorted other wildlife stuff, though I suspect the latter is sliding into endless repeat territory now - unless the wild dog thing is a new series, which I don't think it is
No other telly this evening, but I finished reading Burmese Days
And now it's time for bed, as I have to be up early for more Monkey Life tomorrow
Sunny and dry! Lumps of fluff abound. Currently 14 degrees with a high of 15 expected. Barometer notably up to 1021 mBar.
Yesterday I had the silly notion of meeting friends at Heathrow who were off on holiday to Singapore. This meant finding either a redemption flight ticket or buying a fully flexible ticket. The latter ended up being the better option. HWMBO and I met them in the First Lounge at T5 and guested them into the Concorde Room. We had a very lovely evening until we realised we couldn't actually travel to Paris that evening would have to cancel our ticket! Shame. Ticket cancelled, we had to get an escort landside which involved being dumped in the arrivals corridor and passing through the UK border. I didn't have my passport on me so I had to use my driver's license and a photo of my passport to prove I wasn't an illegal immigrant. The whole evening, including train fare cost £29 each. Bargain.
This morning HWMBO and I went to the farmers' market for essentials like venison, bacon, and chicken.
Sunny with the merest wisps of cloud here and there today, though still a bit breezy. The temperature continues to be autumnal though; 10°C now with a high of 13°. The barometers have soared to 1011/1019mB
Tonight's major motion picture premiere was Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), being the origin story of the eponymous character from Mad Max: Fury Road. It was excellent, though it didn't achieve the same sense of utterly battulip insane non-stop mayhem from start to finish that the earlier film evokes. Then again, there's probably a physical law that in all the innumerable galaxies with all their innumerable stars with all their innumerable planets, in the unimaginably immense duration of time that they have existed, do exist, and will exist, something like Mad Max: Fury Road can only happen once or the entire cosmos will implode from the mass of awesomeness created thereby. So that isn't a criticism of Furiosa, just an acknowledgement of the limitations of the Universe
And then a further episode of the final season of The Wire
I received an email from the Halifax at around half past midnight, advising me that there was a Very Important Message that I had to go and read. So I did, and it told me that I'd registered my voice for the Voice ID feature on their phone line, which I already knew because it was me that had registered my voice for the Voice ID feature on their phone line
However, on backing out of the Inbox bit of the app, I realised there was something different about the home screen: my mortgage has vanished! Gone, leaving not a trace behind
I think they should give you a day or two of it still showing up with a big fat "£0.00", so you can go and look at it and feel smug, or relieved, or whatever it is you feel upon seeing that the millstone is no longer around your neck. But it just isn't there any more, and I suppose that'll have to do
I've just remembered I was going to have a glass of champagne with it, but I forgot. I don't really feel like champagne tonight anyway. Maybe I'll save it until I've finally got the official written confirmation from the Halifax that the mortgage is done and dusted
Just prodded the work laptop into life in case anybody had any messages for me about my resumption of service next week. No, it turns out, but the mouse battery was flat so that's now recharging. Better charge the keyboard before Monday as well
That done, I have put some bedding in the wash and made myself a coffee
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