Christmas Card

Despite it being well scheduled, with reminders appearing since before Halloween, somehow I have failed to notice Christmas creeping up on me.

I do have an excuse, what with starting a new job at the end of November and that involving a lot of travelling. Also, with my cable box I can pause live TV and then fast forward through the ads so I haven't been tempted by all that commercialisation.
But there are those who would say that in the 3 months gardening leave prior to the new job starting, I could have done a lot of preparation for Christmas. To them I say Bah Humbug.

To everyone else ( OK, in the Christmas spirit, to them also) I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.

(only 1 more alarm clock 'til Christmas holidays!)

November Update

I think I did all right for November.
I did have a big gap in weigh ins in the middle of the month, curling weekend at Stranraer, Fiona's birthday, Rachael's birthday, then a few days away in Arran, but in the end I did OK.

I dropped another 1.4 kg in mass, bringing me to a total of 18.4 kg lighter than at the start of the year. That's almost 3 stone in old money.
I certainly feel a lot better for it. I'm definitely fitter as the guys at badminton are noticing since I can get from corner to corner at least twice now before losing the point.

Activity-wise, its been busy too.

Distance-wise, its been the furthest I've done this year. Only October had more workouts, and only July had more time spent. Again I struggled with not much weekend cycling.
Also by the end of the month the new job had started so I missed a few cycles in which would have pushed my stats even higher.

The worry with the new job is a combination of sitting around not exercising and eating dinners out. So far I've tried to be good, and limited what I've had to eat. But there has only been one cycle despite being at home for 3 different days. Also the change in hours is affecting my attendance at both badminton clubs.

December is going to be tough for the obvious reasons. Already bad weather and domestic trouble have kept me off the bike. And then there's the expected eating.
I really want to hit the 100kg mark by the end of the year though...

Pretty Cool

I had a new central heating system put in a few years ago. Something that should have been straight forward ended up being more complicated but it was worth it in the end.

After one of the strongest storms to hit Scotland for a while (most of Scotland was closed) I headed out to badminton on Thursday night. When I got back in the house was a bit cooler than I would have expected. I felt the radiator and it was cold. When I checked the boiler there was a solid red light shining from the wireless receiver. this receiver talks to the thermostat in the sitting room and tells the boiler basically on or off. Digging out the paperwork, which I had kept in a place I remembered, there was no mention of a solid red light. I headed off to bed in the hope that it would sort itself.

When I woke on Friday I soon discovered that it hadn't sorted itself.

After hitting Google it suggested that the thermostat signal wasn't being received any more and that the solid red light was a loss of signal signal. Flashing red light indicates communication. It seemed a logical step. There was a process to re-connect them. I decided to hit the override button first to see if I could get some heat. That worked so I let the house heat up. Just as well.

The reconnection process was convincingly ineffective.

After at least 10 separate attempts. All the while the house slowly cooling. More Google reading suggested that the batteries in the thermostat may be running down. There is a low battery alert on the thermostat and I had only changed that last year, but off to the shops at lunchtime for new AAs despite having 8 AAAs in the drawer and 9 AAAs in the torch pack I had just bought.

Finally the receiver was receiving again. Flashing red light to show the signal was locked. Good. Reattach the thermostat to the wall and hit the on button. Nothing. Then a few minutes later a solid red light. Argh.

Then the phone call the Scottish Gas, who installed the system. After almost 90 minutes, which involved being transferred from customer support to tech support to the Geek Squad (yes, that's the actual term used) and back to customer support I was in possession of an appointment for an engineer visit and a new maintenance plan.

Quite quickly the engineer arrived, took a look and smiled knowingly. "Have you tried re syncing the wireless?" but he had to try anyway. "There's been a lot of trouble with these boxes. We have new ones now" Out came the old wireless receiver, with its fragrant burnt smell. In went the new one. Heating back on. Sorted.

Considering how much I've already been away in just my first 2 weeks wit the new job, I am so glad that this problem occurred when I was home and was able to get it fixed so fast.