It was a busy week this week and I’m wondering where to start.

Kevin has been here sanding the playroom floor, then applying the primer and two coats of sealer. This has meant that the room has been a no go zone and will remain so through to Tuesday next week, or if there is a need to walk on it, then socks only. The two leather sofas are in the kitchen area and the kitchen table is in the library, and this is where I have been having my meals, a different perspective, it would make a nice morning room, currently it looks like a junk room.

I thought I would be clever and lock the wing door through to Grampy’s in case he forgot and came waltzing through to do his laundry, or give me a message. Kevin asked on Monday as he was just leaving whether I had the wrong key, which I hadn’t because I used it to lock the door easily enough earlier in the day. But I couldn’t unlock it either, and I spent 15 minutes fiddling with it, hoping I wasn’t going to break the key or need to call out a locksmith. Finally with the help of a knife it came free. I could then lock and unlock it easily without it being pushed back in the door jamb, I didn’t dare risk it getting stuck again and it was left unlocked for the rest of the week.

I must admit the floor does look good finished, and I’ve given Paul our decorator a call to see if he can come next week, which he will do if the weather is looking bad, as his other job is an outside one. Paul was booked for the following week but my company meeting got cancelled, or rather postponed, which was handy as I really needed to be here in Filleigh.

Mike has returned after his strimming of the week before to add some paths to the valley area the other side of the paddock fence. He started at the top end and had soon revealed a dry stone wall under the debris pushed over from the above garden over the decades. It is far from perfect and peter out at one end nearer the stream, but it shows a definitive boundary between ourselves and our neighbour and is much nicer to look at than old tyres, odd bits of brick, concrete and metal, the remains of a shed, and an old-fashioned garden roller which was rusted through.

The new path runs down the wall to the stream edge and bends back towards the main gate just after passing the small waterfall. Another path comes down from the wall to intersect with the other path creating a loop, and this path continues down through the narrow section and then winds itself down to where we think we will create some ponds at the other end of the valley. The bottom path goes from one end of the stream as it disappears into the laurels bordering Spa Wood, and goes past the area where we will site a bench and follows along where we think the ponds will be as it heads back to where the water spills down a set of stone steps.

The idea we have got is to create two bridges with timber sleepers at both ends, the one by the laurels will be wider, enough for the mini digger, and the one at the other end wide enough for a person and a dog.

It was warm during the week and most of the stumps were burnt through, and the paths prepared and seeded with a rye grass mix before the end of the week. Some rain was forecast for the weekend. Mike makes great progress, and his regular morning and afternoon tea showed something new to see or some other aspect to discuss. Next week he will start on the ponds, this is all very exciting and I am impatient for another hour of mowing to be required to keep it all trim.

The work week has been dedicated to creating the third take of the twelve minute video on Location Types and Location Systems. This required working out a few things, and incorporating some of the comments made by a couple of colleagues. On Wednesday I published it internally for review. Danny is very pleased with it, looks professional he said. There are few more things that remain to be solved and a few additional bits of animation but basically he feels it is ready to be published on YouTube. When we publish is another matter. I think it prudent to have the second episode ready, and to know how much effort an episode will take to create. The second episode will be much faster to produce than the first, and by the time you look to do the third you should be looking for ways to improve the workflow.

The fifth episode of the podcast for ‘The Diary of a Digital Nobody’ was recorded and published, and I have the sixth also recorded. This podcast and the website is a concern for Olivia and Victoria, they think I may be opening myself up to a few social media freaks, but as I do not intend to publicise the podcast, I doubt many will discover it, and whoever does, is highly likely to be normal. I think an over reaction, but it is a valid opinion they have.

On Friday I returned to Twickenham via Bristol to pick up Polly and some of the bigger objects that she needs to move before she vacates her flat in a few weeks at the end of term. The use of technology in the form of digital devices has been a black art which has eluded me over the years. Three times I rebooted my mobile phone trying to get Google Maps to work, I had a signal but it wouldn’t play ball. Then as Polly came to rescue me from a lay-by I finally worked out that it was something to do with data roaming which had been switched off since our trip to Lisbon three months earlier. It didn’t occur to me until I just wrote this, that I shouldn’t need data roaming in the UK when I have a plan with a UK telecoms provider. But, I think the problem is that I have a Dutch SIM, and an eSIM from a UK provider, and perhaps the main SIM was dictating what was needed, i.e. being in the UK I needed to be on data roaming. This may all sound strange, and I am befuddled by it all, I could work it out, but I just don’t have the inclination to fiddle with these things, besides I don’t have a signal for the UK mobile network at home, and the Dutch signal is barely available unless I am standing outside or in a convenient window. I make calls via Wi-Fi calling, or the landline, or not at all.

It was Victoria’s birthday on Saturday and while she and Polly were on the Saturday parkrun, I collected her birthday books from Waterstones and got my hair cut so that I will look smart for future videos. Having convinced myself that iMovie had to go in favour of another video editing tool, I spent odd bits of time during the day doing some research, and concluded that Apple’s Final Cut Pro would be the first choice. The other research item was on iMac’s versus Mac Studio versus Apple Mini, this would be a harder choice, but not one I need to make yet, it would go hand-in-hand with converting the old office into a dedicated studio. My laptop is now four years old, and while it still has legs, I think it might be a barrier to better videos, especially if I ever thought I would achieve 4k. Writing to the disk fast enough without melting the motherboard or another component may not be possible, the fan sound of 1080p from a recording made with QuickTime Player was alarming and could be picked up by the microphone.

My other two chores for the day was to collect the paint for next week, two shades of green and the soft white for the woodwork and radiator, and also to take the car through the car wash. Here again was a perfect example of technophobia, or should I say mechanophobia. Having navigated the code, well I thought I had, I couldn’t get the machine to start whooshing its water in my general direction. I reversed, went forward, stopped when it said stop, reversed again, went forward again, and fearing tempting fate by getting out of the car I asked the man behind what I was doing wrong, and he corrected me. I wasn’t stopping for long enough, why it showed me a white arrow encouraging me to nudge forward, and out of the stop zone, I don’t know.

Everyone met at ours for a birthday drink and then we made our way to Shiuli, an Indian restaurant which opened this year, and a short stroll from our house in Twickenham. And, what a lovely meal we had, quite different from the normal Indian menu that you find. It was good to see Phil and Polly, Harry and Olivia, and the lovely photos of the house they have put an offer on that has been accepted. As I made my way to the till to pick-up the bill, the owner told me that it had all been settled, which was a surprise, a mistake I thought, and then she pointed out Harry, who had unbeknown to the rest of us had picked up the tab. I had quite a little chat with her and the chef, and I expect the table was wondering what I was up to, no doubt fearing a complaint, or too close an examination of the bill. It seems also, that on one side of the restaurant they accept dogs, but when we visit again, it is so close by, we would have no worry leaving Reggie for the short time. It was all back to ours afterwards, and to bed in the early hours.

Phil and Polly stayed over rather than driving back, and after they were up I departed back to Devon. The last bit of the drive was a struggle, and I had a mid-afternoon nap, with the alarm set, in case I had not woken in time for golf. Golf was of the category of a windy walk in the countryside, although I did manage to scramble up to 4 pars in the 16 holes we played, but there was at least one lost ball, and I can’t remember anything about it a few days later, which is unusual, I was physically and mentally shattered, went to bed early and slept for 10 hours.