| Last Week |
Monday, 1st April |
Remembering the problems I had with the new DAB/DAB+/FM/MP3 player, a Walkradio K1, I looked out the old Sansui DB-100, that I retired becase the scroll wheel is unreliable, to see if there's any way it can be improved. And it's just unusable, the cursor jumps about randomly. But the Walkradio may have resolved its problem with how it sorts tracks within a directory - directory sorting is still weird, though. It appears to display a top level listing essentially at random - or is it chronological|? I just can't tell.
Blood pressure 110/63, pulse 51, SpO2 98%, temperature 35.1 at lunchtime.
Tuesday, 2nd April |
This morning came the phone call, "Your sewing machine is ready." This is actually Sarah's, but I took it to the service place, and left my number as contact, so I get the call.
Collection was routine, so the machine now awaits Sarah's collection - probably Wednesday, after Guides and Brownies. And Sarah Monzo'd the cost to me, so that's all well.
Next major event will be the Hawker Typhoon Members Open Day, on Sunday, down in Uckfield, which is a quarter of the way around the M25, and further with the A22.
Wednesday, 3rd April |
Blood pressure 135/73, pulse 100, SpO2 99%, temperature 35.3 this evening.
I've decided that I'm going to do at least one more steam rail excursion this year, over and above the Christmas present from my daughters. This now stands confirmed as London Victoria to Portsmouth, on July 20th, and while I'm in Portsmouth (for many hours) I'm planning to visit at least one of H.M.S. Victory, Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, and Henry VIII's flagship the Mary Rose, if not both.
The second trip, which I've just booked, is the "Cumbrian Mountain Explorer", organised by the Railway Touring Company, which is London Euston to Carlisle, via Shap Summit, and return via the Settle and Carlisle Line, with the "Long Drag" ascent to Ais Gill Summit, the two highest points on the UK rail network.
Electric traction from Euston to Carnforth, steam via Carlisle to Preston on the return, and electric traction thereafter to London. Reading the blurbs, I suspect this will be a remount of the previous trip, in September 2017, in other words, 86259 Peter Pan from London to near Preston, and 45690 Leander or 45699 Galatea further north, both LMS "Jubilee" class 4-6-0. Or possibly, 35018 British India Line, a Southern Railway "Merchant Navy" class Pacific (i.e. 4-6-2) If it is Leander or Galatea, I hope they'll be painted in LMS Crimson Lake livery, rather than BR black.
And I've booked Premium Dining, as well. Might as well have a little luxury.
Incidentally, that's an insecure link. There's no excuse for that these days - not with Let's Encrypt. The actual payment page is secure, but the general pages, not so much. And they autosubscribe you to their mailing list, which is not allowed under GDPR. I might call them and complain.
Thursday, 4th April |
Friday, 5th April |
Blood pressure 120/75, pulse 84, SpO2 99%, temperature 34.6 late morning, after a battery change.
Saturday, 6th April |
Jane and Sarah have gone to the Ideal Home Show at Olympia, which runs until tomorrow. I have no idea when they'll be back.
Meanwhile, blood pressure 114/77, pulse 87. SpO2 98%, temperature 35.6, mid-afternoon.
And she's back, at about 17:45.
A couple of days ago, I bought Kindle-format e-books of another trio of Anne McCaffrey's Pern Books, specifically the Harperhall series, featuring young Seaholder girl Menolly. They're slight, but good stories - slight as in short, 200-odd pages each - well-written, and a worthwhile description of hidebound conservative attitudes to change.
Of course, being Kindle-format .azw files, they're encrypted, and unreadable on my Nook. So, as is my wont, I imported them into calibre, with the aid of the DeDRM add-in, and converted them to .epub for the Nook, fixing up the cover artwork in the process. Now there's no danger of my losing them because of a snafu over licencing, unlike those purchased via the Micro$oft Store, which has just decided, in its semi-infinite wisdom, to withdraw from ebook sales, and nuke the downloaded files in the process. There will, allegedly, be refunds.
Sunday, 7th April |
So today is the first Members' Open Day for the Hawker Typhoon project, held at their base in Uckfield, which is an 80-odd mile drive.
I set off at about 10:15, with the intention of filling up en route. That fill-up came on the A22 (you do not buy petrol at motorway service stations, the price is exorbitant) That was all fine, until I stood in line to pay, and discovered that I hadn't brought my plastic money cards. Nor did I have sufficient cash.
Luckily, the garage is part of a scheme whereby you can drive away without paying, after giving exhaustive details of who you are. You then have 4 days to pay, for a fee of UKP6. After that, the fee rises to UKP100. This for UKP40-worth of petrol. So that's one bullet dodged - I can get home.
At Uckfield, we got an exhaustive briefing on the state of the restoration project. The extant rear fuselage is about to be sent away to a specialist restorer, Airframe Assemblies, on the Isle of Wight, for an expected 2 years of work. They also announced a crowdfunding campaign, target UKP50,000, on a UK crowdfunding campaign site, Crowdfunder, which launched at midday. By 15:00, when all wrapped up, the campaign had reached about 31% of target - in 3 hours? With effectively no publicity? There's evidently serious love for the Hawker Typhoon.
Then it was the drive back up the A22 to the M25, and southabout round London to get home.
When I got home, I tried to pay for the petrol, but the scheme's website security is broken, "No or invalid security certificate", even on the "pay here" page. I'm not putting my credit card number into an insecure web form, so they can wat until tomorrow, when I can phone up.
| Last Week |