Home alone, relaxing

Another dull day of cloud with occasional appearances of the sun. I was surprised last night at how quiet it was during the Blackweir Fields concert a mile away to the east. Normally when there are concerts in Cooper's Field nearer the castle, the sound is audible in Pontcanna, although it's a mile and a half away. The gig was over by ten thirty necessarily, to enable people to leave and catch late trains and buses or get to their hotels. There's been no shortage of complaints about using Blackweir Fields as a concert venue, but it seems planned arrangements were mindful of the proximity of the Cathays residential area. That's the first of four Blackweir concerts this fortnight. We'll see what kind of community feedback there'll be at the end

I made pancakes for breakfast, a third of the recipe ingredients was just right for me on my own, with cooked mushrooms and tomatoes to go with them. Linda arrived mid-morning to collect the small ASUS Chromebook I no longer need. I gave her a spare USB-C to B adaptor as this Chromebook has USB-C ports only, in case she wanted to plug USB-B peripherals into it, flash drive, printer. I realised that I'd not actually tried to print directly from it using a cable, only with a wi-fi printer when I was in Fuengirola. so I tried to do this with a cable from my ACER. 

It immediately recognised my ancient lazer printer and gave me a long menu of printer driver options to sift through. When I found a close match, it worked perfectly. I remember that it was equally straightforward working indirectly with another printer attached to another computer on the same network when I was in Nerja last year, but never needed to try this out on my home kit. It's good to know that you have alternative options in case there are problems with habitual ways of getting stuff done. If anything is going to go wrong it's most likely to when you're in a hurry. I rang Linda and explained how to go about printing with the ASUS once she has it set up for use. So much easier to do than with a Windows or Linux device.

I went out for a walk in Llandaff Fields, and was pleased the wind had blown much of the cloud away letting the sun shine, as ever there were three serious cricket matches going on, a few more games played by a few friends and family, and an assortment of picnic parties. It's lovely to see the park so well used. I waited until I got back to have lunch as I didn't feel hungry. Having cooked some chicken pieces yesterday I made a simple salad with couscous, which felt just right for a summery sort of day.

By the time I'd eaten, the sky had clouded over again when I went out for another walk in Thompson's park. The moorhens have certainly started another brood on theur floating nest as one bird sit on them while the other forages for food to feed the partner. It became humid and stayed warm until after sunset.  

I spent the entire evening converting the HP mini to Linux Mint with the device attached to our telly, using the wireless keyboard bought last week. For most purposes it behaves fine, but it's not a standard UK keyboard. The @ sign was on the opposite side of the keyboard from where it was indicated. Mint is great for swopping keyboard layouts, but there are a couple of dozen slightly different setups to chose from. Getting the correct one takes time. 

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. 

Bargain acquisition

Another cloudy day, though not completely overcast. I had a dentist's appointment to go to mid morning, and drove to in Llandaff North surgery. The roads were quieter than I expected, given that schools are due to re-start this week. Inexplicably got the time wrong and arrived an hour early. Better than an hour late I guess. Fortunately Mr Benfield was free and able to see me, as it was just for a checkup. He spotted some decay around a back tooth filling so I booked in for a repair in two weeks time. £60 in advance nowadays. 

With time in hand, I popped into the Lidl's store nearby for nuts, rye break and crispbread, the returned home, did my share of this week's housework and cooked a courgette and butter bean dish with rice for lunch. I decided last night to take advantage of the discounted Chromebook offer I saw in John Lewis' and went catch a 61 bus into town. I saw two buses heading to Pentrebane, but two buses in the other direction didn't show up, so I walked to Canton Cross and caught a 17 instead. Afternoon buses on this route don't seem to run to the state timetable, apart from the school buses along this route between three and four.

The Chromebook salesperson checked the stock inventory and found there was one available, although it took a while to hunt down. It was too big to fit into the rucksack I'd brought with me, so I had to carry it in a plastic bag with an uncomfortably thin handle. I went to the bus stop, and only had to wait five minutes for a 61 to arrive. It wasn't very full until we reached Canton, and then a lot more people got on and the bus was quite crowded, mostly with older people. Many seem to find it easier to shop in Canton High Street as it's often called, with its variety of small shops of every kind. The city centre with all its big and prestigious retail outlets demands too much energy for older shoppers to navigate routinely.

I walked for an hour in the park when I got back, and left unboxing and setting up the new Chromebook until later. It was 60% charged, and I topped it up to confirm the charger works. The initial setup process is quite ingenious in conjunction with a smartphone. On boot up, it downloaded the most up to date version of the Chrome operating system which took fifteen minutes. Installing the several Google accounts I use meant repeating the initial set-up procedure each time, and each requires you to jump through all the usual security hoops. It's a pain if you can't remember all the passwords and have to go and look them up, but the end result is worth having. Full customisation of the set-up took longer than expected so a break for supper intervened.

A 14.5" touch screen, a couple of useful USB-B ports plus one USB-C and a SD card slot. Display options offer the possibility of changing the colour of menu and tab background to match your chosen wallpaper. My colour at the moment is a pale lime green, but there are several ways in which I can change this on top of options for mouse pointer display and speed, plus touchscreen gestures. A tad more sophisticated than the Asus, which'll retain for use on my travels, as it's smaller to pack. I can't believe that I paid £20 less for this than the last one I bought five and half years ago. 

I watched the fourth episode of 'Sherwood' this evening. A plot about rival gangs I'm finding difficult to follow, not least because some of the characters' regional accent is at its broadest and sometimes dialogue is delivered almost sotto voce. It may be in an effort to sound natural, but it may be the director is unaware that the dialogue isn't easy to follow. But this isn't the first time that mumbled dialogue in films and TV dramas has been hard to follow, and it's something critics and viewers complain about.