Kallie and I went for our little trot out first thing. We met some descending runners and Brenda Page with here dog as we climbed Jugg’s Road towards the windmill. It was a dry but chilly day however most of the muddy areas were easily passable and it was firm underfoot on the grass. The remainder of the route is on the pavement or road.
After breakfast I had to deal with some IT tasks so spent most of the morning anchored to the dining room table. Later, I walked into town to visit Inter Sport. My first call was to Sue above Cook and we chatted about various IT matters before I went over into the shop to reinstall John’s computer. He’s not really missed it much as he tends to spend most of his time on the shop floor anyway so uses the tills for accessing his emails. His computer is now partially reinstalled and I just need to finish it off.
My next task was to get the backup running as there had recently been a more extensive power outage which had caused the UPS to shut down. I’m not entirely sure why the UPS doesn’t come on once the power resumes. This involved getting the tall steps from the stock room and clambering up into the space above the changing room. This is not a pleasurable experience at the best of times and appears to be far worse than I remember. It’s now a horrible nightmare of wires and equipment. It really needs to be taken apart and redone. I’m not rushing to get into that either.
The embroidery machines were clattering away as I negotiated my way through the stock room. My task was to program IP addresses but hadn’t been able to download the manual from the Internet. Fortunately, there was not just one, but three copies in a box by the machines! I read the relevant sections but could see I would need to set up some static addresses so decided to do that later.
I finished off the initial installation of John’s computer, returned Sue’s new keyboard and mouse then went along to Argos to pick up my fan heater. It seems logical that if I’m creating electricity, heating with gas is an unnecessary expense. The fan heater cost £7.50 and can be used elsewhere in the camping if it doesn’t work out. I had to borrow a heater from Antonis last winter when I had people staying in the wooden cabins. I had a chat with the guy who runs Cycle Shack and looked at some of their electric bikes. He says they sell almost as many electric bikes as not with a price from around £1,500 – £3,000 although you can pay £12,000 if you really put your mind to it. This would be some super hi-tech mountain bike constructed of Kevlar and carbon fibre with Bluetooth everything connected to your smartphone. They already have the 2020 series of BMW bikes in the store as, apparently, BMW had run out of 2019 models! The latest bikes have nearly everything integrated into the frame and look like a heavy-duty traditional bike but with a more chunky frame. It seems that the electric bike is the way to go. They only sell mid-drive models which now have only one front chainring but a huge range of gears at the back. These are from 13 – 52 teeth! Cycle technology has moved on during the past few years.
I walked along to Seasons which has now taken over the former Bunce shop in the Cliffe. They have a range of bio and healthy foods as well as other green products. They sell things like chia seeds, goji berries and the like from dispensers where the customer can decant as much as required. Part of the ethics of not getting involved in lots of plastic packaging. There were plenty of customers considering it was nearly 17:30 and closing time.
I walked to Greyfriars and spent some time there, dropping off my heater until I could collect with the car. I passed through Waitrose and decided to sample some more of their vegan meals before walking back to Glebe Close for something to eat.
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