Spent far too much time working. But did manage a 21Km run this evening. Even managed to pop into a pub quiz yesterday for an hour and meet up with yellow people. Planning on a quiet weekend.

I planted that tree on Monday, I looked at it today, it hasn’t grown at all. I wonder if it’s faulty?

So spent our anniversary and basically my belated birthday in Brighton. I even took Jamie. We took the train, which was actually a lot less painless than I was expecting. We arrived and got an Uber to our first lunch date. Had afternoon tea, which was very nice. We then walked back along the beach to the main part of town. Checked into our delightful boutique hotel. We had a very quirky room, it was a very quirky hotel. Managed to finish off what was rudely interrupted in the morning. Had a ver nice dinner. Had a cocktail at the bar. Next day we ventured around town, the hotel was basically within a stones throw of everything. Had a lovely day just milling around. Had sushi for lunch. Met up with one of Jamie’s Youtube people for a pint. Had another nice meal. Got back to the hotel and there was an eighties band playing. Jamie went off to bed. I stayed and had another pint. The guy next to me at the bar pulled out a twenty quid note and coke went everywhere. He then swept it all up and shot it up his nose. I pointed out that he had a bloody great white patch on said conk, he promptly wiped it off and spread on his gums. Band were good. Next day we had a nice breakfast and then milled back to the station. Train to Paddington was fine, then sat on a train for two hours as it was delayed by someone who decided they’d had enough of something and chucked themselves in front of another train on the main line. That train then decided it wanted to go to Penzance instead, so we got off and did a roundabout trip via Temple Meads. We walked home from Parkway. I had a bath. Nice weekend. Planted the palm tree yesterday, it hasn’t grown yet.

It’s been a fun weekend. Friday I ate too much no doubt. Saturday we went to a friends wedding. It was my birthday, but I have one of those every year. It was a beautiful ceremony, held at a village pond. We then had afternoon tea which was the most bloated I’d felt in a long time. We made friends with a couple over a few hours. We sat at the end of a long line of tables, we did well, as we ended up with pots of tea and plates of sandwiches between four of us. It was a truly lovely afternoon. In the evening we went for a meal, if we weren’t bloated enough already. Sunday I did make it up in time to go to combat, Jamie of course had been at work since 5AM. Walked Sasha. We then drove to Staverton. I took Jamie up in the R22 for a fun flight south down to the Severn bridge and then up the valley. Unfortunately it was a hell of a wind so he felt somewhat queazy at times. We had some fun turbulence, which in a helicopter is one hell of an experience, you basically hang from a fixed point and just let the wind do what it wants to do, if you fight it you will get ‘mast bumping’ and you will chop off your own tail boom, not good. Still, it was a fun flight and very pretty. The landing and taxiing was very challenging. James doesn’t let people out over 10 knots, it was 13 knots, but thought I could handle it. I’ve now knocked up just over one hundred hours in the air, twenty-five hours as pilot in command. It’s been fun, a really good challenge. I just hope that todays fun conditions haven’t put Jamie off for good. We drove home and then had a BBQ, even if the weather did somewhat deteriorate. Four days of work ahead and then off for a couple of days which I’m really looking forward to. Then it’s about six weeks and then off on holiday.

I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I just have to live with what I have for the time being and milk it while the going is good. I’ll need to just postpone death a while longer. Still,I’ve been doing dynamic resolution, it’s actually been quite fun, even if it has sucked up about thirty hours. Weather has been nice, looks good the weekend as well, which is handy as we are going to a wedding in a field. Mother is bringing my cake round tomorrow, I won’t be eating it until about November. Did another 15Km run this evening, that’s well over two hundred miles last few weeks.

So spent a rather interesting day actually researching sinc algorithms. It’s all about scaling. Actually it’s all about signal processing, converting a low frequency sample into a higher one. Image processing, hours of fun, almost nine hours of fun actually. Settled on Lanczos6.

Spring is definitely here. Went for a run this evening, was supposed to be in London, but never happened. Oh it’s mother’s birthday, yep she made it through another year, never mind.

Started this morning with a bit of a headache, but if you drank one and a half bottles of wine the night before it is to be somewhat expected. Rebooted the system with a black coffee and breakfast. Walked to Combat. Did that, didn’t appreciate the floor stuff as I had to look down and it made me feel dizzy. Walked home and then took Sasha out for an hour. Picked up the dog poo, had a light lunch and then spent the next four hours walking. I was planning on six, but after two hours decided that I wasn’t going to get anywhere exciting in another hour, so cut my losses. Came back and bottled the last batch of wine. Did the accounts. Skipped my bath as time was getting on. Cooked an absolutely lovely meal, recipe came from Jamie, it was a salmon dish, turned out really well. Spent most of the walk contemplating retirement, well not the actual act but when it is possible. Always wanted to retire when I was forty, failed that, I’m going to fail at forty five. It doesn’t look great at fifty, so now heading to fifty-five. the problem is though, you have to consider how long you are going to live for. I’ve decided that I’m not going to get past eighty. Or if I indeed get to that stage I’m just going to be jabbering in a corner peeing myself, so money isn’t really going to be a factor. Holidays in Florida and helicopters will not come into it, being able to get to the toilet without shitting myself will. I’ll aim for fifty-five,that gives me ten more years of work and twenty five years of pissing about, before I piss myself. Life goals.

I ended up watching a programme last night with Bill Oddie in it. I thought he was an irritating old git before, but this only compounded matters. I felt if I ever met him in real life that I’d just punch him for being annoying and that would be that.

Then I was rudely awaken by the doorbell, it was a man offering to fix the door for three grand. He was standing there with a large plank of wood. The glass to the left of the door was completely missing. I assumed someone had tried to break in. He said he’d be happy to fix it and was ‘just passing’. I asked how. He said he’d use a few thousand of those bolt catch end plate things (you know the ones you get on bathroom locks). I thought this was bodging it a bit. I asked Jamie if this guy was for real. He said he was the guy off all those daytime DIY programmes. I said that I could get a whole new door complex for three grand and told him to piss off.

I went back to sleep.

So went to bed at 4AM after a fun day kicking the fuck out of an xbox that kept wanting to reboot. Started at 9AM after searching for Sasha who had escaped. No food for her and no walk. Worked on HDR all day and finally got it finished. Went for a run, did just over a half marathon, first one of the year. Not exactly rocket speed though. I’ve done over forty hours this week and it’s only Thursday.

I won’t go into work details as it was a very long day sat on a wooden floor staring at a TV. Still, was quite a nice day though weather wise, it’s going to get shite again now though. Went to Combat, all good. Trying to work out where to go for our anniversary, got dogs booked in. Looks like it will be this country, I’m tempted by Brighton, get a nice hotel, nice restaurant, low key, but something together at least.

Bit of an odd day I guess. Woke up early but decided to milk the bed thing a bit to catch up on some very long days in the last week. Eventually had breakfast and gave JKHT a call. Managed to get a late afternoon slot. So walked Sasha, was planning on going into town but had to curtail that as I needed to bring flight forward a bit due to Shobdon closing earlier. Got there and James thought I was doing a self fly hire, I thought I’d booked for duel. He was out on an instruction flight so left me a bit knackered. Ewan a commercial pilot (not an instructor) was there so James said, ‘Just take him for the ride if you want company’. So off we went. The wind had actually picked up well beyond self fly hire levels and was up to 19Kts. James actually sent a text to Ewan and said to be very careful in the pickup as it was one hell of a cross wind. I picked up into the hover, it was somewhat challenging, but I failed to take out the fuel bay so all was good. Took off to the North. I asked Ewan if all was okay and if he was happy, he replied with, ‘Anyone who can pick up in that wind that smoothly I’m perfectly happy to fly with’. We flew to Shobdon, somewhere new but within about half hour, nice flight. Ewan is training to become an instructor so was nice for him to be in the left hand seat and see what it was like, he did point out a couple of bits about trim. He actually found it really useful for himself, having plenty of bandwidth to be able to spot some of the more obscure problems. We had a brew and cake at Shobdon and then flew back to Gloucester. So I’m all good and ‘flight ready’ again. It was good fun and great weather, even if a tad windy. Came back and did a short run, had a bath and watched the start of the new F1 season. A nice day, don’t get many of those.