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August's Journal
October's Journal
30/09/2024
Whoops! I completely missed doing a September entry (or an October one, but
I'll get to that). Call it a combination of just being busy, not being in the
office, and being so out of the habit of doing these entries now that I don't
do them as the last thing on my list before leaving work (from whatever
location). Anyway, herewith what went on in September...
My parents visited! Was it that long ago? Seems like only a few weeks ago
that they came down on the train(s), I met them at the station, and we ambled
home together. Admittedly they arrived at the end of August, but they didn't
leave until September, as it were. I had a half marathon (and Rel had a 10K)
on the weekend they were here (my HM went OK, but there was plenty of broken
ground so it still wasn't a sub-1h30m one. I also had some rowing on the
Sunday afternoon, which was a nice way to work some of the stiffness out.
September also marked the beginning of week two of my proper half marathon
training plan. It remains to be seen how effective it will be in getting me
the speed/endurance I need to achieve my aim.
The first full week of September also had a pub dinner with Shaun (and Fran and
Rel). That was rather lovely as everyone got to have a nice natter in a nearly
completely empty pub. The following weeks had a lot of patching (end of Q3,
basically), and a visit to one of the data centres to show some of the new
people in my ever-increasing team how we rack up and commission new hosts
(these were new VMWare ESXi hosts).
Also in the second week of the month was an end-of-week train up to see my
parents and a day watching Davis Cup tennis. That was a lot of fun, even if
Rel and her mum arrived late due to trains, and there wasn't really an
opportunity for conversation. Not only that but our tickets (whilst cheap as
chips) turned out (like many other people's) to be in an area of the arena
which was closed off, necessitating us getting new tickets for new seats.
Happily the new seats had a _much_ better view. So that was good.
The weekend after that Rel and I had a long weekend up to the lower lakes area
to run part of the Dales Highway that nearly undid Rel in the middle of the
night when I was with her for her race. In daylight (although completely
clouded in at the top) it wasn't quite so hairy, but still definitely nothing
to be sneezed at. We had a night in a tiny, cozy, AirBnB, with plenty of pub
grub and greasy-spoon breakfast, and then drove on to Penrith to see my brother
and my nephew in their new house (which we'd seen before, but only whilst it
was an under-construction shell). The following day we then headed on to
Windermere to see Rel's brother's family, and then drove all the way back to
see her mother. Something of a whistle-stop tour of the relatives.
The last week of September had a failed smart meter upgrade (due to the
fitter being unable to remove the house breaker because of the boxing of the
fitted kitchen (I've since had the boxing modified)), more OS patching at work,
and a journey back up to Rel so we could both run another half marathon (this
would be September's for me). It wasn't particularly well attended, so Rel
won (awesome!) it and I came third (and second man).
And then suddenly it was October!