Battery boon

Oh dear, rain overnight, followed by more rain all morning. I woke up at the usual time and listened to the Today programme until I got up for breakfast at eight thirty. Former Prime Minister Sir John Major gave an interview in which he talked about his life-long love of cricket and how it consoled and allowed him to have a life outside of politics. Interesting for a change to hear an interview that didn't treat a public figure as if they were an adversary.

I'm often annoyed at how often interviewers are unnecessarily confrontational, asking questions for which there's evidently no answer, because respondents are duty bound to work through a process which isn't yet complete, and it's vital for everyone's benefit not to speculate about a conclusion. It's often said there's no such thing as a stupid question but what happens is inappropriately timed questions are fired at the subject in the hope that chipping away at the issue until something newsworthy is uttered.

It stopped raining at midday, so I went to the pharmacy to collect the remainder of my prescription order. On the way I called into the King's Road Co-op for a three grocery items, two of which they didn't have, which meant walking to the Tesco store at Canton Cross on the way home. Clare cooked some fresh sardines with veg for lunch, succulent poached in a pan that sits on top of the veg steamer. 

After lunch I spent an hour figuring out how to extract photographs from Instagram postings. It wasn't as straightforward as I imagined, but in the end I was able to extract decent sized screenshots from the app on my Windows PC. That was before I found an easier to use facility on my new Chromebook. I've used it every day since I first charged it on Monday this week, for one to two hours, and it still about two hour's use in it before it needs another charge.

It didn't start raining again until half past five, so I had a couple of hours for my walk in the park without needing a raincoat. Rain continued right through the evening. Reports of flash flooding in some Valleys towns

After supper I watched another 'Lolita Lobosco' episode which successfully combines domestic comedy, romance, glamour, nostalgia, Italian, cuisine and a serious criminal investigation in one story. It reminds me of 'Inspector Montalbano' stories, except it's strongly feminist in character. Luisa Ranieri who plays the part of Lolita is married to Luca Zingaretti. Gabriela Ginesi the author of the original detective novels was inspired by the Montalbano novels, and Zingaretti's TV production company was involved in making the series, which helps explain the similarities of dramatic form and content.

After this, tonight's suspenseful episode of Swedish hostage drama 'Hostage', which seems to be turning out to be a spy drama. A bit confusing as it's laced with flashbacks.