Pic of the week 10/1/21
Well, its been an eventful week.
We’re now in lockdown 3, and schools are closed so I’ve begun remote teaching again. Looking at the positives, I’m not as tired as I would have been as I can get up a little later, no duties, no Wednesday or Saturday games; I’ve got a bit more time to crack on with a few projects, and I’ve learnt lessons from lockdown 1 (mainly don’t be too rigid with a daily timetable. Teach when you have to teach, but other than that work at times that suit). But it (teaching remotely) is not as good as being in school. I reckon we could be in for the long haul, all the way to the summer term …
Its been cold, bitterly cold, this week. Indeed, that was a definite silver lining on Wednesday when I walked home at lunchtime (I taught from school for the first day, but at home from then on) – I figured we would have otherwise have been at Kingweston and it would have been perishing. Temperatures have been at or around freezing all week. Today, I thought the sun was going to burn through to give us a beautiful January day, but no, the freezing fog never lifted.
Perhaps because of the cold, the birds have been flocking to our feeding table in the back garden. On Saturday morning, whilst teaching, I was distracted by a long tail tit in the bush outside my window, so I have put a couple of feeders out there in the hope of attracted more feathered friends to break up the monotony of the teaching day.
Because of teaching from home, I felt that the time was right to furnish myself with a Windows 10 computer, in the main so that I can use OneNote for Windows 10 – much quicker than using the browser based version I relied on in lockdown 1. So I found and bought a refurbished ‘pooter on Amazon (£125, 256 SSD Hard Drive 8 GB RAM) which duly arrived, but wouldn’t start. I phoned the helpline for help, but they weren’t any good. In the end, after much intial frustration, scratching of heads by Sam and I, and swapping parts in and out, I figured the problem was one of the four 2GB Ram cards. Long story short, I now have it up and running, albeit with only 6 GB instead of 8.
Today I had another crack at the top mount on the Corsa. Using penetrating spray and a long extension pole, I manged to crack the nut holding it on. So now having loosened a number of bolts that probably haven’t been loosened fro over ten years, I reckon I’m in a position were I can remove the strut next week (Saturday?) and replace the top mount. I am enjoying tinkering with the cars.
Ran today – once again felt slow and difficult, averaging about 5 mins per K (ran 7K) but did the run in nearly 30 secs less than last week, so that is progress. Although annoyingly, I tweaked my right calf, I hope that’s not going to put me out of action for too long – with my weight spiraling upwards I really do need to establish an exercise regime to help control it.