I’ve downloaded it, but I wonder how many people will have phones that support it.
We have someone viewing our place on Saturday. As my husband said yikes!
I use the German one when we go there. It’s all anonymous so nothing to worry about. I found it quite satisfying to check it each day and confirm I had been sensible. 🙂
We go again for two weeks on the 1st October - yippee!
After a lot of faffing about (trying to persuade my new phone that I didn't live in either Canada or England) I managed to download the Scottish one the other day.
I wonder which Tory chums will benefit when people have to buy new versions of their phones so that the system will work? Or will it just be a total omnishambles like the previous one?
It's currently 9°, and so far it's dry, although I don't expect that to last as I'm about to head down the road to get my hair cut. I suppose it'll soon be jacket weather ...
This morning was fine and dry although significantly cooler. We went to play in the park, and a good thing we did because it now raineth mightily. Watching the rain from the 25th floor is always an interesting experience. The whole skyline just sort of disappears.
I have been accepted onto the training course for setting up a freelance translation business I start on 25th October.
I wonder which Tory chums will benefit when people have to buy new versions of their phones so that the system will work? Or will it just be a total omnishambles like the previous one?
I don't use a smartphone (or as a relative calls it, a "stroke and poke" phone). I don't like them and I don't really want one. Guess who will not be downloading any track & trace apps.... And the government are just going to have to live with that.
Right now government tracing apps are definitely at the bottom of my agenda, although my phone would cope. I've got enough on getting stuff out of the house to charity and storage from tidying up before Dragonlet 3 arrives.
It's a lot greyer now than it was doing the school run an hour ago, but not wet yet. All three weeks so far have had a different iteration of collection procedures.
Well done, La Vie - hope you enjoy your course, and it pays dividends! I'm wondering about online proofreading work - I'm probably enough of a grammar Nazi that I might be quite good at it, as long as they don't insist on the Oxford comma ...
@Piglet hope your haircut was not dampened unpredictably ...
It was.
When I set out, it was a cool but pleasant day - I was glad of the cardigan/jacket thing I'd put on - but on the way back, after a brief sojourn in the supermarket to get some CHEESE for lunch, just as I got to the other end of our road, it came on to rain, and by the time I reached our end of it, it was coming down in stair-rods. Perfect illustration of Murphy's Law.
I was pleased to note that the lump sum from D's British pension has been paid into my bank account, but less pleased to discover that tax has been taken off it, which I won't get back until the end of the tax year. What the Government giveth with one hand, it taketh away with the other.
Oh well - something to look forward to, I suppose ...
I had my first haircut since before lockdown this week and have today visited the dentist for the first time in, it turns out, three years. No problems, fortunately. I don't even have to see the hygienist and after the amount of money this afternoon's appointment relieved me of I'm very grateful for that.
We've had a mixed bag of weather today so far and yes, I did get wet on the way to the dentist. I'm looking forward to my evening - Mr Nen is out so I get sole control of the TV remote.
I set my elderly parents up with smartphones last week, ensuring they could keep the same numbers and making sure the desktop was set up to be easy to use etc - one new from argos and one my old one having just upgraded mine. (You can decent sim free Android phone for about £50 or slightly less.)
However, it turns out my old phone is also too old to work with the app - in other news my NHS work phone won't work it because it is a windows phone.
Joy. Joy unconfined.
On the upside - they were less anti the smartphones than I expected - because the functional effect of their size and the backlit screen is that the phone buttons, once made to appear, are larger and much easier to see. That and I was requested to download 'whatthreewords' app onto them both - which means that you can always find out where you are and communicate that information to someone.
I’ll have a look at the app later.
Just cooking cheese and spinach risotto and then we have a bible study group later (looking at Philippians, this term’s sermon series). I didn’t join a group over the summer and it will be nice to meet up with people again.
No! I should have made clear it was a zoom call. I have so little contact with non-family I find that exciting.
Ah, the idea of meeting people in person again. I’ve hardly met with any real actual people outside my household since lockdown. With the exception of our week’s holiday, I think I have had 3 social visits in 6 months; a socially distanced church zoom and lunch with a family in their house two weeks ago (when still allowed), a socially distanced picnic with some work colleagues a few weeks ago and we had dinner in my in-laws garden once. Oh, I tell a lie, I have twice chatted in a friend’s garden when dropping something off.
Sorry, that sounds like a whinge. I know there are far worse off people than me regarding lockdown. I have friends who live alone and are shielding who are having a really tough time.
Today I woke to sunny skies and decided it was time to change the bedlinen. Stripped the bed and went down to the utility room. At which point someone told me he had run out of t-shirts and shirts, so I took the T-shirts, needing a whites wash and put them ahead of my stuff. Hung them out - not as white as I would like, despite the whitening stuff - and went shopping with my stuff in the machine. On leaving the shop found it to be raining. Rushed back. I now have to dry tomorrow one large sheet, one large duvet cover, four pillow cases, eight shirts (after my stuff) and eight T-shirts, which will have been having a second wash overnight. If it isn't fine, my front room and the bathroom will be full of wet cloth, and without the winter warm air heating to dry it.
Laundry at this time of year is always a nightmare, you can’t dry it outside but haven’t got the heating on inside either. Our situation has improved since putting up a ceiling airer above the stairs.
Pouring down outside, I’m having a coffee then off for a quick walk before my yoga class. I’ve changed mornings and the people on Friday (who I know from face to face classes) are having zoom coffee afterwards so it will be good to chat with them all again.
I’m hoping that student group allocations are being sent out today so I can start to make contact this afternoon.
And it will be wet clothes all over the place. It's tipping it down outside. So there will be an airer over the bath - there is a fan heater in the bathroom. I bought a number of airing devices during the invalid episode, and the two which hang on the double airing cupboard doors, and the heated one on the floor will be fully occupied.
The heated one is odd. It has a lot of heated rails, but if one hangs things over them, the part touching them dries, but the rest, below, doesn't. A lot of things I layer across the top and keep changing their position.
I have a heated rack and a non-heated rack. So my washing starts on the non-heated one and finishes on the heated one (which takes very little electricity). The heated one is on the landing so everything gets put away straight from there.
It’s a system which works really well. The only things I hang out at this time of year are our towels and the dogs’ blankets. Everything else gets hung inside from the start, whatever the weather. No point in having to hang it indoors after hanging outdoors. 🙂 👚 👕
Washer/drier and the hell with the bills. Though there is a small radiator in the scullery which does a surprisingly good job of finishing off anything up to six layers draped over it.
Dull but dry here. Having spent yesterday in post-works cleaning, and last night in repeated getting up to take pain-killers for gout, I intend to spend the day in variegated slumping.
On the laundry quandary, we live in a town house and the spare bedroom on the top floor is always warm, so much so that we have to turn the radiator off sometimes when the heating is on.
It makes a perfect drying room when we don't have any guests staying in it. Which of course is all the time atm!
The house heating works in such a way that the ducting which channels the air about all rise up the centre of the house, and the airing cupboard sits on the top of that central space, so when the heating is on, it's very warm. (So are the wardrobes next to it in both bedrooms.) The airing cupboard also contains the hot water tank, but it's very well lagged. There's a vent into the room below the cupboard. Its very good for drying in the winter. (I might take lagging off the pipes in the cupboard - the water arriving in the taps is much hotter than I think safe, despite the thermostat being at the lowest setting. That might warm the cupboard in the summer.)
None of which helps at the moment!
Our last house had warm air heating, it's not common in the UK. It has it's disadvantages but it's great for drying things and keeping down condensation.
Here it is a gloriously sunny but crisp and windy day. I walked to the supermarket first thing and quite enjoyed it.
I'm with Firenze - I reckon one of the first things I do in the new Château Piglet will be trade in the washing-machine for a washer/dryer*. I shan't even feel guilty about it, as there isn't anywhere I could hang the washing even if I wanted to.
* There's apparently a communal tumble-dryer in the block, but I'd really rather have my own - why would I want to cart baskets of wet laundry about if I don't have to? Anyway, space will be at a premium, and if I don't need a basket, I won't need to find somewhere to keep it.
As Firenze says, it's dull but dry here, so I'll have a little amble down to the supermarket and get some chicken and mushrooms to make a risotto for supper.
We have our first viewing of or house shortly. It's never looked so clean and tidy. Husband and I are going to slope off for a coffee while they're here. I think husband is beginning to get slight cold feet over it all, but it'll be fine, if a little scary.
Our solution to drying is a dehumidifier. Laundry on airers in a closed room with one or two dehumidifiers and it dries a lot quicker while also keeping moisture levels down (a biggie in our uninsulated, stone former school).
I'm not a fan of tumble driers but then I can hang things out and our bathroom is very warm so things dry quickly in there when it's raining. Not thinking we had any viewing today I hung the washing up in said bathroom. When we did get one after all, I chucked all the damp washing in the bottom of the airing cupboard. Having just re-hung it up I realise how dusty the bottom of the airing cupboard is.
Washer driers are excellent these days, my son has one. But we wash too often with Mr Boogs gym and cycling stuff and dog towels and blankets. It would be forever drying when I needed to wash!
A number of years back, I came away from a few days away to discover that my upstairs neighbours had leaked through my flat and into the one below me. After a certain amount of to-ing & fro-ing with the insurance people, the result was that I had an industrial drying-out de-humidifier unit in place for a number of weeks. Of the sort that was able to dry your eyes, nose & throat out completely overnight. My washing has never dried so fast.....
A number of years back, I came away from a few days away to discover that my upstairs neighbours had leaked through my flat and into the one below me. [...]
Sorry to hear it. They must have been dead for quite a while then. And oh, the stench!
Our front bedrooms are very warm on sunny days like today, so we have two airers up all the time in what is Nenlet2's room when he's at home. I still have "Nenlet1's room" and "Nenlet2's room" but Mr Nen insists on "the spare room" and "the front bedroom."
I'm battling a three-day headache. I used to get migraines; I wouldn't call them that now because of their much-reduced severity and frequency, but they are on one side of the head and make me feel a bit queasy. This is day 3 so I'm hoping to be on top form tomorrow.
In other news, I'm experimenting with spelt flour and planning a sponge cake.
I feel for your head. The bedroom isn't warm enough today, though with a good morning sun it can be. There is a stiff breeze, so the washing has been out, and lost quite a bit of moisture, but I have just had to run down two flights of stairs as I spotted rain on the windows. I've not brought the washing up to finish indoors yet, just in case it gets better, but I have a feeing it won't.
I feel for your head. The bedroom isn't warm enough today, though with a good morning sun it can be. There is a stiff breeze, so the washing has been out, and lost quite a bit of moisture, but I have just had to run down two flights of stairs as I spotted rain on the windows. I've not brought the washing up to finish indoors yet, just in case it gets better, but I have a feeing it won't.
This is why I only hang out towels and blankets in the autumn and winter. I hate the in/out uncertainty!
According to the Met Office's gigantic computer in Reading or wherever, it won't rain again until 5. But it has modified this since last I looked, and acknowledged that what I can see out of the window looks threatening. Most of the wet has gone from the wash, though.
I have looked up dehumidifiers - not cheap, and the most reasonable in price advertise that they can clear 12 litres in 24 hours, with containers holding 1 litre. As if.
I am havering about one. It depends on the period for which it would be used, and I think I will rely on a fan heater and an open window until I've had the gas serviced. If I buy one, it would probably be giving in to the buying spree I sometimes get, rather than real need.
It's a sunny, but not very warm day here in Embra, and S. and I are going out shortly to meet my brother and sister-in-law for a late lunch/early supper at the Balerno Inn (isn't it mental that that we can meet up in a pub or restaurant, but not in each other's houses?).
The idea is to toast David's memory, as it's a year today since he died - I hope my tear-ducts behave themselves.
Good food and a glass or two of WINE should help; as eating out was our favourite thing to do, I think D. would approve.
((Piglet)) be kind to yourself; there’s nothing wrong with crying.
The logic about being able to meet in restaurants but not at home is that there is a limited number of people allowed and you are likely to do it less often. Whereas at home it would be more regular with possibly a wider range of people, and you are more likely to touch each other/be in a confined space. But it is difficult.
We are also heading out for an early dinner. I’m finding the restrictions difficult mentally so we are eating in the local gastro pub for a break. We could only get a 5:30pm sitting, all 3 of the village pubs appear to be busy.
Icy rain on my walk this morning and since then I’ve been having a clear out of my office/sewing room.
What with the Works and the back door being blocked by guys up ladders, I've not been in the garden. Today however I made a start on bulb planting, working down from the messiest, most overgrown corner, now cleared and dotted with daffodils.
What with the Works and the back door being blocked by guys up ladders, I've not been in the garden. Today however I made a start on bulb planting, working down from the messiest, most overgrown corner, now cleared and dotted with daffodils.
Comments
We have someone viewing our place on Saturday. As my husband said yikes!
We go again for two weeks on the 1st October - yippee!
I wonder which Tory chums will benefit when people have to buy new versions of their phones so that the system will work? Or will it just be a total omnishambles like the previous one?
It's currently 9°, and so far it's dry, although I don't expect that to last as I'm about to head down the road to get my hair cut. I suppose it'll soon be jacket weather ...
I have been accepted onto the training course for setting up a freelance translation business
I don't use a smartphone (or as a relative calls it, a "stroke and poke" phone). I don't like them and I don't really want one. Guess who will not be downloading any track & trace apps.... And the government are just going to have to live with that.
Yea, verily, ye Sky doth leak mightily here as well, forsooth.
It's a lot greyer now than it was doing the school run an hour ago, but not wet yet. All three weeks so far have had a different iteration of collection procedures.
It was.
When I set out, it was a cool but pleasant day - I was glad of the cardigan/jacket thing I'd put on - but on the way back, after a brief sojourn in the supermarket to get some CHEESE for lunch, just as I got to the other end of our road, it came on to rain, and by the time I reached our end of it, it was coming down in stair-rods. Perfect illustration of Murphy's Law.
I was pleased to note that the lump sum from D's British pension has been paid into my bank account, but less pleased to discover that tax has been taken off it, which I won't get back until the end of the tax year. What the Government giveth with one hand, it taketh away with the other.
Oh well - something to look forward to, I suppose ...
We've had a mixed bag of weather today so far and yes, I did get wet on the way to the dentist. I'm looking forward to my evening - Mr Nen is out so I get sole control of the TV remote.
However, it turns out my old phone is also too old to work with the app - in other news my NHS work phone won't work it because it is a windows phone.
Joy. Joy unconfined.
On the upside - they were less anti the smartphones than I expected - because the functional effect of their size and the backlit screen is that the phone buttons, once made to appear, are larger and much easier to see. That and I was requested to download 'whatthreewords' app onto them both - which means that you can always find out where you are and communicate that information to someone.
Just cooking cheese and spinach risotto and then we have a bible study group later (looking at Philippians, this term’s sermon series). I didn’t join a group over the summer and it will be nice to meet up with people again.
Ah, the idea of meeting people in person again. I’ve hardly met with any real actual people outside my household since lockdown. With the exception of our week’s holiday, I think I have had 3 social visits in 6 months; a socially distanced church zoom and lunch with a family in their house two weeks ago (when still allowed), a socially distanced picnic with some work colleagues a few weeks ago and we had dinner in my in-laws garden once. Oh, I tell a lie, I have twice chatted in a friend’s garden when dropping something off.
Pouring down outside, I’m having a coffee then off for a quick walk before my yoga class. I’ve changed mornings and the people on Friday (who I know from face to face classes) are having zoom coffee afterwards so it will be good to chat with them all again.
I’m hoping that student group allocations are being sent out today so I can start to make contact this afternoon.
The heated one is odd. It has a lot of heated rails, but if one hangs things over them, the part touching them dries, but the rest, below, doesn't. A lot of things I layer across the top and keep changing their position.
It’s a system which works really well. The only things I hang out at this time of year are our towels and the dogs’ blankets. Everything else gets hung inside from the start, whatever the weather. No point in having to hang it indoors after hanging outdoors. 🙂 👚 👕
Dull but dry here. Having spent yesterday in post-works cleaning, and last night in repeated getting up to take pain-killers for gout, I intend to spend the day in variegated slumping.
It makes a perfect drying room when we don't have any guests staying in it. Which of course is all the time atm!
None of which helps at the moment!
Here it is a gloriously sunny but crisp and windy day. I walked to the supermarket first thing and quite enjoyed it.
* There's apparently a communal tumble-dryer in the block, but I'd really rather have my own - why would I want to cart baskets of wet laundry about if I don't have to? Anyway, space will be at a premium, and if I don't need a basket, I won't need to find somewhere to keep it.
As Firenze says, it's dull but dry here, so I'll have a little amble down to the supermarket and get some chicken and mushrooms to make a risotto for supper.
A number of years back, I came away from a few days away to discover that my upstairs neighbours had leaked through my flat and into the one below me. After a certain amount of to-ing & fro-ing with the insurance people, the result was that I had an industrial drying-out de-humidifier unit in place for a number of weeks. Of the sort that was able to dry your eyes, nose & throat out completely overnight. My washing has never dried so fast.....
Sorry to hear it. They must have been dead for quite a while then. And oh, the stench!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bq_abof4lg
I'm battling a three-day headache. I used to get migraines; I wouldn't call them that now because of their much-reduced severity and frequency, but they are on one side of the head and make me feel a bit queasy. This is day 3 so I'm hoping to be on top form tomorrow.
In other news, I'm experimenting with spelt flour and planning a sponge cake.
This is why I only hang out towels and blankets in the autumn and winter. I hate the in/out uncertainty!
😝
I have looked up dehumidifiers - not cheap, and the most reasonable in price advertise that they can clear 12 litres in 24 hours, with containers holding 1 litre. As if.
I am havering about one. It depends on the period for which it would be used, and I think I will rely on a fan heater and an open window until I've had the gas serviced. If I buy one, it would probably be giving in to the buying spree I sometimes get, rather than real need.
https://tinyurl.com/y4dmok7e
The idea is to toast David's memory, as it's a year today since he died - I hope my tear-ducts behave themselves.
Good food and a glass or two of WINE should help; as eating out was our favourite thing to do, I think D. would approve.
The logic about being able to meet in restaurants but not at home is that there is a limited number of people allowed and you are likely to do it less often. Whereas at home it would be more regular with possibly a wider range of people, and you are more likely to touch each other/be in a confined space. But it is difficult.
We are also heading out for an early dinner. I’m finding the restrictions difficult mentally so we are eating in the local gastro pub for a break. We could only get a 5:30pm sitting, all 3 of the village pubs appear to be busy.
Icy rain on my walk this morning and since then I’ve been having a clear out of my office/sewing room.
We had a chilly walk round the reservoir - it’s a cold north wind! 🥶
But Echo’s recall is getting good and it was a nice, relaxed walk.
https://youtu.be/1Eb-i4QNoBw
What a year it's been for you...next year MUST be better...
Something to look forward to in the Spring. 🌼