Done enough late nights and overtime this week, decided to skip the run today. This is kind of a shame as it is a beautiful day out there, I suspected it would be. Will still get some exercise in.
Won the quiz at the Three Hills Sports Centre last night, something organised by the cricket club. I have been saying "never in doubt", but we couldn't have told this until we got a nine and a ten in the first two rounds, then were confident with a nineteen out of twenty on the picture round. We had all our strongest players in the same place, I don't mind saying I was one of the weaker links today. Though I got all ten in the film round. £120 first prize between six. And, T1 disappeared part way through the quiz to go to the other bar and play cards with his friends who had spotted, so so far I have pocketed his share too! I only nursed one pint all night, not my sort of beer, fizzy IPA, so drove home.
Today I think we're going to hide from the good weather in the cinema later. Will hopefully go for a walk before that. I mean I could go for a run, but I almost certainly won't.
I checked in on my Tesco share save scheme this week, finally found it when I was looking to sign up the whole family to private health care (I get it as a perk, I can add the family at the end of the financial year if I make a contribution 1). The share scheme is looking healthier than I thought which is nice.
Sunny and a gentle breeze, 4 - 11℃.
A fairly big contribution but I won't go on about it.
Some things missing from the graph since September 2023, working on getting them back just kind of hoping someone else will fix it and they'll come back.
Another night of working from 2am to 5am. Same plan as last time, try to snooze in chair afer watching Blue Lights on TV. Did not snooze much. Up just before two and down to the study to monitor the work load test. Went very well, so we finished a bit early. Into bed again about half four, did not sleep much though, then up again at half six to take wife to work. This was just the start of my busy day.
T2 has shingles, as suspected. I did an e-consult with the doctor, they called back with an appointment and we went to the walk in centre. They confirmed it is shingles, gave a prescription for some anti-virals that I am about to collect.
Then pick up wife, eat tea, go to quiz. Oh and I fitted a trip to the dentist in there too, and this was a full work day too. I hope I will sleep well tonight.
T2 saw Legend off TV's Gladiators at school today. Apparently he's in because he's building a new PE department. I think this might have got lost in translation and he's actually made a contribution to it or something. I say it had to happen eventually because Legend is an ex-pupil of the school.
T1 did not see Legend but he heard from others that he was in the school. He has been to a gig tonight. T1 has been to a gig, not Legend. It was Myxoma at Hythe Youth Centre.
Work went well after a night of no sleep. I might have said I had no sleep at all yesterday, as my work finished just after five and wife got up about quarter past five, but I did get back into bed then, just for about forty five minutes. Not sure I slept, maybe a power nap, it was enough to get me through the day.
Close to the end of the working day someone spotted I had broken something, just turned one switch on when I had to turn two switches on at the same time. Annoying. It took about an hour to recover from this as it had actually happend earlier in the week so had to be unpicked. Then after all done, my phone went off, with the same issue, looks like someone had reopened that support ticket. All ok again, false alarm, glad that didn't happen any later.
I went to bed as normal, no more on call calls in the night. I slept well. It's ten past eight as I write this, I am still on call until nine. Now could I survive on a twenty minute power nap every day..?
Assuming there is no Octopus free energy1 in site, what with the war... our energy prices are fixed until the summer, in fact will be going down a bit because of the price cap. But after that, look out!
Sultans of Ping thirty flipping years ago today... Possibly part of my "twenty gigs in twenty days" challenge at the time, but possibly not. I'm sure the trip to Manchester was a few weeks before this and I'm sure that was part of it. Even with those old Melody Maker gig guides I found I have struggled to fill in all the gaps. Time to head to the loft.
Weather looks lovely again will try a walk before work. I can start late because of all the recent disruption, and still claim two lots of overtime. I'll save that towards the next gas bills.
I snoozed in my chair until about quarter to two, then found myself awake. So cancelled my 2am alarm and waited for the work to start. I was going to stay in my armchair, that's what I did last time, but set myself up in the study instead. I had an idea to make a coffee but thought it would be too noisy. Work went ok, a little dull, mostly just watching dashboards. Successful though, and we finished at five. I was going to go to bed but thought wife would be getting up fairly soon and I wouldn't want to disturb her so tried to snooze in the chair until I heard her moving about. Then on to another day, back to work as normal.
Tomorrow hoping to avoid the commute to make the most of the sleep then do the same thing again 2am on Friday morning. But then heading into the weekend...
Just did pasty, chips, and beans in the Ninja1 for my lunch, what a delicious treat. And thinking about that coffee I didn't have in the night I might make another one now.
Sunny and a gentle breeze, 5 - 13℃.
Guessing 3096 cups of coffee from my espresso machine2 prob'ly comes to 87.1p per cup (including 4+ years of the actual coffee beans and servicing2 but not the 'leccy).
Never mind the war in Iran, the other thing in the news right now is a sudden outbreak of meningitis in the vague area. A couple of young people have sadly died, there's maybe some connection to a social even in Canterbury. Not really near to us, we weren't there, we don't know anyone who was. But there's panic going around the schools, maybe someone who knows someone who was there. Probably not.
Anyway we got a call from the school, T2 is ill, and he has a rash, come and get him and take him to the walk in centre. Wife phoned the clinic for advice first, they said take him to A&E instead. From all our recent experiences we know going to A&E is just the norm now, the best option. Not just for A or for E, just for getting seen by someone. So wife took him to Ashford, and sat in a waiting room for five hours or so to see someone. We did not think it was meningitis, and it wasn't. Better safe than sorry.
Wife took him as I was in the middle of calls when the call came. I think I have done a good share of these things. Main thing is he's absolutely fine. They have given some cream for the rash.
Today is a busy day, and now when it should be bed time it's not over yet. I'm working again from 2am to 6am, if it goes well... hopefully just sitting and watching while someone else cranks up the dial on our systems to see how much they can take. Last time we did this there was a failure so hoping it's better this time. Various other teams have made tweaks, so we'll see.
Not worth going to bed, would be hard to get to sleep and then hard to wake up. So I'll sit up and watch some of the TV that I usually fall asleep in front of. Alarm set for 01:55.
Weather looked nice today, though I didn't get a chance to go out in it. Will be nicer tomorrow, though I'll be working and sleeping again.
Lovely meal yesterday, a very nice setting there, though the food was only so so I think. My starter was good, some sort of selection of mushrooms with matchstick potatoes. Probably miso flavouring, could have done with some bread too though. Ah found it now I've come back to add a picture, Seasonal mushrooms, shoestring potatoes, fermented chilli, spring onion.
My vegan main was called "dirty burger" and it didn't look inspiring, did not look dirty enough! I wonder if they had run out of some stuff. Dirty vegan burger, brioche bun, Monterey jack cheese, tzatziki, pickled red onion, chipotle mayo, fries 1.
Wife enjoyed hers well enough, and the couple of beers we had before the meal. We got there early, there was room in the bar, so we sat there and played cards for a while. It is a nice spot. Hope the food is better next time we go. Next time is a wedding!
Back to quite busy work today, taking it cautiously though and should be OK. I am primary on call today and Wednesday, but then still don't know if I have to do that 2am shift Tuesday into Wednesday. Waiting on another team to do a fix, if they can't make their change no sense me staying up overnight. Got a day off Friday, and then days off next Thursday and Friday too, and then the year starts again.
Light cloud and a moderate breeze, 8 - 12℃.
This was all on the vegan menu so I am assuming these re vegan equivalents...
Paulʼs weblog - I live in Hythe near Folkestone, Kent. Wed and dad to 2, I am a full stack web engineer, + I do mostly javascript / node, some ruby, python, php etc. My hobbies are pubs, parkrun, eating, home-automation 🤖 + other diy stuff, history, genealogy, telly 📺, squirrels, pirates ☠️, lego, + time travel.
