Going Swimmingly Well.

 I'm becoming a bit of a grouting expert.  In this particular case, a limestone flooring grouting expert.  Of course, what I mean is that 'expert' is relative to what I was a week ago when I started it which was rubbish, so any improvement is a massive jump.  I probably underestimated the grouting part of the 24 square metres of flooring job I had to do.  The tile laying was quite physical for a weakling like me but fairly straight forward, but I've found that the grouting needs a good technique to get it looking right and staying in right place to reduce the amount of cleaning I need to do.  A bit like swimming v. running - anyone can run and some can run fast, but swimming fast and efficiently takes a lot of technique.

Highway to Hell.

 They have finally opened the road that I normally take to the office after 9 weeks.  That's 9 weeks of a detour that takes around 10 mins extra each way, so about 45 days @ 20mins,  900mins, so about 15hrs if my maths is correct (which it is because I verified it on a spreadsheet).  That's a lot of wasted time, and of course multiplied by everyone that uses it whether they travel 10 or 100 miles it's still 20 minutes per day so in short - quite a lot of time.

I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about the highways at the moment, since I reported a road issue a few weeks ago - a major subsidence where we have to make sure we don't catch the bottom of the car, but they replied back that it wasn't bad enough, but that I could report it again if it got worse.  It's not so bad in my car which is slightly raised, but the Mini is impossible to drive over it without making sure one wheel is on the high bit of the road, the other of course ends up on or nearly on the grass.   Even writing this makes me annoyed that they think it's suitable to cars.  ..so that has made my mind up I'm going to put another report in.

Tanked Off.

 I drove the last 10 miles to so into the office without using any fuel.  Amazing I hear you say, was it downhill?  I have to confess that I probably did use some fuel, it was just that my 'miles to empty tank' indicator was showing zilch at about 10 miles to go.  I guess it would be quite difficult to build the correct algorithm that could calculate miles to go with all the variables it would have to take into account - current consumption v. previous consumption are the basic inputs, but it has to make some sort of decision based on a time period.  I read somewhere that the VW group 'current fuel consumption' calculation is based on the last 35 metres, which seemed to me to be a bit of a short distance to use, but using a longer distance would average it out too much.

Anyway, 100 quid took me just over three quarters of a tank which a bit depressing.  

Back to The Future

 It's a wet old day today.  Not surprising given that it is Autumn and Winter looms large.  We are told to prepare ourselves for a cold early winter, followed by a milder second half.  I'm writing this now so I can refer to it in a few months time to see if it comes true.  I'm always very sceptical about forecasts of any kind - weather, economic, fashion, where an almost limitless lists of experts predict the future and we then repeat it as if they actually can see into the future..

Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask.

 'Everything you need to know about can't remember her name's love life', so ran a headline on Yahoo today. I genuinely can't remember her name, but I think she is/was an England football player.  Thanks goodness Yahoo thought this was useful putting this on the 'news' feed otherwise we would have spent hours trying to find out.  Seriously though, why do news outlets drive their reporters to make up absolute tosh in the hope of someone clicking it?  (I didn't, by the way in case I managed to finance future articles).

Running news now - I have half heartedly set a target to do a marathon next year and still debating how seriously I  should take it.  I'm a bit cautious about overdoing my dodgy knee, it's already a bit sore when I'm trying to get to sleep, but at the same time I need to up the miles to see how bad/good I feel when I do it.  Currently running up to 8 miles quite comfortably although not more once a week, interspersed with 5 or 6 milers.  Early days yet, so I will put off a decision until the new year.

Steady As She Goes

 So, Mrs. Truss is consigned to the back bench, and I can't see her winning any more competitions that reply on a vote.  Our new leader Mt Sunak seems to have 'steadied the ship' as they say, if by 'steadying' we mean 'averted one disaster but steering inevitably towards another'.  Time will tell.

On another matter, one of the many thing that continue to surprise/shock me is the rise and rise of 'influencers'.  Weird really.  I struggle to see why companies think its money well spent paying these people.