Reply to: test please delete

[NickFitz]

Tonight I finished A for Andromeda, in which it transpired that whatever sent us the message may not have had our best interests at heart, or was at least likely to prioritise its own agenda

Next up: Andromeda Breakthrough (which the back cover mistakenly prefixes with The)

Thursday tomorrow!

Unfortunately, it's "tech debt" Thursday, when the various project teams in our subsection are supposed to put their work on hold and come together to deal with the kind of stuff that gets put off otherwise: security updates to dependencies, version upgrades for libraries and frameworks, and boring stuff like that. Shame, as we've made excellent progress on our stuff this week and it would be good to get it wrapped up. But with luck, there won't be much tech debt to deal with and we can get back to it later in the day

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Tea has been battered cod with chips and beans

This was accompanied by the remainder of the motorbike cops thing from yesterday

[WTFH]

Currently watching the latest Travelling Turtle which "dropped" (as the young people say) yesterday.

[NickFitz]

Lunch has been salt & chilli chicken thigh fillet in a wholemeal bap, with a bag of plain crisps

There was a bit of sunshine earlier but now there's big clouds with little gaps, so only a glimmer now and then. There's even been a few spots of rain, but that seems to have given up

One of the flats in the adjacent block is being vacated this week - they had a Transit van (hired or maybe borrowed, I assume) here over the weekend, including parking down there at night, and the last couple of days have seen a box van coming, loading, and going. I reckon it's the people who had a lot of guitars on view in their estate agent photos

Anyway, this inspired me to have a look on Rightmove and there are six flats up for sale at the moment: three of them in that block, two in the block opposite, and the one downstairs and across the hall in our block that went on the market a couple of months ago. I think that's the most to have been on sale simultaneously since I moved here!

One of them is the old lady on the ground floor opposite, who has the paper delivered around half-seven each morning and a delivery from Wiltshire Farm Foods every week. They're still coming and there are lights on of an evening, so at least she hasn't popped her clogs

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Another sunny start to the day. Currently 10 degrees with a high of 26 expected. It is likely to cloud over as the day progresses with a slight chance of a shower mid-afternoon. Barometer steady at 1031 mBar.

Sunrise 07:07; Sunset 19:11 BST

That's 4 minutes of daylight less than yesterday . Looking at the times down at home, it's shifted 16 minutes earlier there (06:51 / 18:55). Oh the joys of latitude!

Feeling pensive today. Not sure why.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Wednesday.

Dry.

Sunny.

Blue sky.

Chilly in here at 16.7 deg, 16 in the kitchen, 14 in the leanto.

1024 mBar, 30.24 in Hg, 768.1 Torr, 14.85 psi, (unchanged), 55% RH (LIdl electric).

Meanwhile on the 18th of February 2020 eek's daughter's interview lasted 22 minutes, eek, wattaj, AndyGarbs and SimonMac popped in, and it was hammering down old women & sticks in Neath.

Just managed after a mere 7 minutes to arrange the next flu jab for 16:00 on the 4th of October. First time I've used the landline since it was changed to that interweb version.

Walk (unabbreviated, towpath) walked in the slightly wan sunshine.

Managed to twinge my back doing up the shoe laces before going out.

Lots of butterflies on that ivy bush again today.

Lunch: brunch. Entertainment: Y&Y waffling about something I've completely forgotten, though I think 40 year mortgages came into it at one point, plus Yodel.

Just spent some time in the deep history of the Book Thread: I can't remember many of those books, thankfully most have met Oxfam.

More gardening: much ivy & brambles decimated. Looking forward to the next bonfire: it'll be a good one.

Tea: Tesco battered haddock etc. Nice enough.

Entertainment: PM <click>

Back is still complaining but at least I'm still more or less mobile.

Scotland River thing.

Digging for Britain. Very small chance this lasts longer than last week's ep.

Maigret and the 7 little crosses.

[WTFH]

Morning all
Cool out, but overcast. A pleasant walk earlier. Now just sorting out a couple of playlists for the holiday.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Grey and somewhat misty start out, so I suppose we're squarely in the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. It's 8°C out there right now, rising to 16° this afternoon, but it'll remain cloudy or mostly cloudy all day. The barometers are steady enough at 1017/1026mB

I wonder what Wednesday will bring? I know it'll bring everybody at work back from yesterday's day out, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are meetings to make up for the meetings that didn't happen yesterday because everybody else was in one really big meeting

[NickFitz]

In A for Andromeda, the military are getting involved. That's bound to turn out well

Today was very peaceful, having no meetings at all, no emails other than a few automated things from GitHub, and about three posts on Teams channels, none of which were any of my concern

But it'll be back to normal tomorrow. At least I managed to get some stuff done, so it won't look as if I completely wasted the day

Goodnight all

[xoggoth]

Just back from me karaoke. Loony lady 3 WhatsApped me, we got a date on Saturday.

[NickFitz]

Tea has been ribs and chips, the former made with my homemade mango-centric BBQ sauce

This was accompanied by new delights from 5 in the form of Traffic Cops: Pursuit Squad One, which is a longwinded way of saying it's about motorbike cops

[ladymuck]

The Southern Reach trilogy has a fourth book coming out in October. To my disgust, the cover doesn't match the books I have.

I am undecided as to whether to buy it, and read it, considering I wasn't exactly bowled over by the ones I have read. Or, maybe I need to re-read them and give them another chance before I finally donate them to NF.

[xoggoth]

Arty thing this morning. Coffee machine turned off due to some charity tea and cakes thing in the hall full of loud nattering old farts. Went to get one in village and both local cafes closed down! Bah!

Loony lady 3 has messaged me re a walk but suggested day already booked with loony lady 1. Just got a text message from nephew asking if he could stay for a few days.

[NickFitz]

Lunch: roast beef butty

This was made with the bread baked yesterday, which turned out very nicely. In addition to adjusting the ingredients for the smaller quantity of flour, I'd reduced the amount of sugar in there by a bit more as my white loaves have, if anything, been a bit too light! This one was just about right in terms of density; maybe just a touch more sugar next time, but not as much as I have been using. And the smaller size makes for a squatter loaf, as the width and length are constant due to the size of the tin in the breadmaker, so it's almost square in cross-section and should fit the toaster

I've been quite productive this morning! Probably not as productive as my colleague seems to be, but I need to double-check a lot of things when making changes which she already knows all about

And there's ongoing washing of various bits of bedding. I even considered washing pillows, but the table in the manual suggests that the builtin two-phase detergent system isn't suitable for them, so I'd need to go with either the custom capsules, which are suitable but which I've put away somewhere I can't remember, or just normal capsules, which are also not yet unpacked from when I cleared the cupboard under the sink. Furthermore, my pillows are quite thick and though it claims to support doing two at a time, I think that would be pushing it, based on having tried to cram them in there. So I'll do them individually some time when I'm better prepared for the task

It's turned nice and Simpsonesque out now; very scenic

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Blue sky with occasional fluff. Currently 13 degrees with a high of 25 expected. Barometer up to 1031 mBar.

Sunrise 07:05; Sunset 19:13 BST.

A meeting was cancelled so I used the time to nag people. They all responded which left me with a flurry of things to do. Those things now done, I may make a bit of toast.