We bought some curtains today. I’m quite happy to buy curtains as long as I only have to do it every ten years or so. And of course it lets me trot out one of my favourite jokes:
“Doctor, I keep thinking I’m a pair of curtains”
“Pull yourself together man…”
Thank you.
I’ve just ordered a new (to me) camera. Rather excited about this. It should arrive at the end of the week.
Burnby Hall is a great place to visit. Particularly if you have a boisterous four year old in tow who wants to feed the fishes…
“Last week there was a tap on the front door”
“Our plumber has a strange sense of humour”
Actually our plumber is me. And last week I got to show my lack of plumbing skills when the hot tap in the kitchen suddenly stopped delivering water.
After spending a night worrying about blockages in the pipework and failing hot water cylinders I decided to start by buying a new tap. If that didn’t solve the problem the next step would be to call in a proper plumber.
The tap arrived on Friday and I started fitting it that morning. I instantly rediscovered why I hate plumbing so much. When it leaks you never can tell quite where the water is coming from. You can only really tell that it is coming.
The most important thing I remembered though was that you only tighten things as much as you think you need to. Then you leave it for a while to see how much it leaks and tighten a bit more until it stops. By the end of yesterday I reckoned that things were staying dry and now it’s officially fitted. And we have hot water in the kitchen again.
I’ve had my mower a long time. It broke around 10 years ago when some little pins that linked the drive to the motor hub sheared off. My first repair, using the metal bits of treasury tags I had lying around was not successful, but my second attempt using steel nails worked a treat.
I got the lawn mower out last week, what with the grass starting to wave in the breeze. I had a look underneath to see how my repair was holding up. The repair was fine, but the bearing that holds the metal blades (lumps of sharpened steel that whizz around at amazing speed and cut the grass) seems to have collapsed. I can move the end of the blade up and down a worryingly long way. And since these parts are very close to my ankles when I’m mowing the lawn, I thought a new mower might be in order.
The mower has arrived. It turns out that mower technology has not moved on a great deal, but the new one does have a roller at the back. This means that I can get the same “striped” effect that you see on posh lawns and tennis courts. I hope it lasts as long as the old one did.
Well, that was fun. In celebration of a family birthday we had a barbeque this afternoon. I have a record with barbeques that can charitably described as “patchy”. Most of the time I can argue that this is down to the weather, which used to reserve special levels of downpour for our barbeque events. Although the attempt to start the fire using newspaper, which filled the neighbourhood with tiny scraps of burning paper, was entirely down to me. This time I settled for the special lighting fluid, and plenty of it. This went up a treat, and left a little pile of happily glowing coals on which we were able to prepare some sausages and burgers. Which were very nice.
I bought a CD last week. It’s one that I already “own” having bought it from the iTunes store a few years ago. Unfortunately, the 10 tracks that I thought I’d paid for turned into 2. This is probably due to licensing changes that should not in any way be my problem. I suppose there are some weaselly terms and conditions somewhere that make this quite OK.
Anyhoo, the CD arrived today. I had to find a CD-ROM drive and then use iTunes to rip the music onto my PC, and thence to Apple music share so that it reappeared on my phone. So, after spending only 9 pounds plus a bit of messing around I’m back where I should have been if Apple had kept the promise that buying something actually means buying something. Modern life eh?
Lockdown has turned me into the kind of person who wears christmas socks all year round.
I took this picture on a walk earlier in the week. Nice to see some colour coming back. I hope this is some kind of metaphor.
We went out for a walk today and found this little chap sitting on a branch.
The “mystery project that isn’t really a mystery because everyone can read backwards” is coming along nicely. I’ve printed the back panel for the leds
This is the wiring on the back……
This is the box (printed with decanted filament) with the Wemos fitted inside. All I have to do now is add the software and test.
Well, that’s it for another year. As a budding writer (who's been budding for around 40 years or so….) I have to tell the Tax People all about the earnings from my C# Yellow Book et all (by the way - the book is still available on Amazon, a snip at 9 quids) and then pay the bill.
I got some new button batteries recently. Each of them had one of these stickers on which are supposed to taste horrible, to stop babies from eating them. I really want to lick the sticker to find out what it tastes like, but I’m worried that it might be coated with the same thing that the put on Nintendo Switch game cartridges (also to stop them being eaten). Apparently that is a truly horrible taste that takes ages to go away.
I’ve just organised the MOT for our Nissan Cube. This is an important part of car ownership in the UK. The test makes sure that your car is still mostly metal and has working brakes and things, which posed significant problems for a Mini I owned a very long time ago.
Unlike the very first lockdown, this time the garages are all open and MOTs will expire at the set date. The garage where I booked the test had lots of free slots, so I’m wondering how many people know this.
One of the marbles from the marble run escaped and had found it’s way under the sofa. I’ve taken a photo so that we will know it when we see it again….
I didn’t get a marble run for Christmas. But I know someone who did. She wanted a marble run that was taller than her. Happy to oblige. And especially proud of the way that the run collects the marbles and returns them to the box.
Hope you all have a marvellous New Year. With or without marbles…
Happy Christmas to all my readers. I hope the season brings you joy, peace and not too many repeats on TV.
I’ve made some “names in lights” as Christmas presents. I hope people like them.
A while back I made a mistake asking Alexa to start the radio and ended up with Radio 2 Wales. Ever since then the device is convinced I want to listen to the station again…
“A rolling stone gathers no moss” goes the saying. Unfortunately it turns out that a non-rolling white car gathers rather a lot of moss. Our little cube has acquired a bunch of green streaks that really needed to be dealt with.
So today I did. I’d read on the internet that toothbrush is very useful for getting little bits out of the various nooks and crannies in the bodywork. And so it turned out. The Cube is now a lot whiter than before.
Although I do get a funny taste in my mouth when I clean my teeth now…..
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
A proper developer conference in Hull. Find out more here.
