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It was about 8 degrees in there when we turned it off last night, and about 2 degrees inside when I looked at 8am this morning. Given it's -2.5 outside (according to the CL weather station) that's better than I thought. I've turned the heater on in there now the sun's up, and we'll see how we get on!

Oooh, hang on, I've got an actual temperature logger somewhere. I wonder if I can find it!

Still waiting for Higgs to get back to me about the tiles!

Edit: Matthew and I braved the shower after school. It was only around 8 or 9 degrees when he went in, but by the time I got out it was 12 degrees! How to warm the pod up better than the heater: run the shower!

And Higgs did get back to me about the tiles, we've agreed a price for the extra labour/more expensive grout, and they've ordered them. They'll be installed on the 20th/21st/23rd of January. Which means our two week job is going to be nearly 3 weeks! But it will be done and it will be lovely.

Oh and the first batch of paint is on in Matthew's room and looking good, the decorator and I managed to move the bed enough to get at the walls and he put it back on his own :) The plastering is done in the bathroom and the walls are all lovely and smooth. So it's all getting there!

Despite having discussed tiles in early December, and had an email saying they were going to double check if there would be any extra labour charge for the design we choose (20x10cm tiles, rather than 20x20) I got a call at lunchtime *today* to say that yes, this was going to cost extra, and so would the coloured grout. So I asked how much extra, and they emailed me an additional per square metre price. Which is no good at all, because I don't know what size the whole bathroom is! (I can probably dig it out somewhere). But the extra cost is based partly on the old tiles being 30x30 - and I can't even go an measure one because they were all ripped out yesterday, but no way where they were 30cm tiles!

Anyway I've emailed them back, including an old invoice of when I picked up a couple of samples in 2018 of 200mm tiles to try and replace a damaged one. I shall have to see what they say, but now I'm just waiting again. And it's part way through the damned job and they haven't ordered the tiles yet, and *why* and I am so cross. *sigh*

On Friday Marco came and spent the morning installing a new circuit breaker board inside (as there were no spare circuits on the existing 15 year old one) and a pair of 16 Amp external sockets outside. The fridge spent several hours hanging out in the middle of the kitchen on an extension lead :) Marco has said he can come back after the work is done and replace them with normal 13A outdoor sockets, which we don't really have much use for, but you never know, and better than just a hole in the wall.

On Sunday Mike and I took down the tree a day early, and moved all the furniture except the bed from Matthew's room. There's shelves in our room, a chest of drawers in the living room, more shelves in the dining room, and I have a whole big shelf full of just Minecraft Lego in my wardrobe too (which I think is hilarious). Matthew can still sleep in his room for now, but everything else is all over the place. We had a last bath, and moved the toothbrushes to the kitchen.

On Monday a team of 3 from Higgs came to call at 8am sharp. By the end of the day they'd stripped back the peeling paints in Matthew's bedroom (it turns out the plaster was more sound than expected), and re-skimmed the affected walls. They removed the sink, towel rail, shower curtain rail and riser rail from the bathroom, and temporarily stored them in Matthew's room, and then they stripped *all* the remaining tiles from the bathroom, and took them away. There was a lot of banging and hoovering and singing of Elvis songs.

Part way through the morning another team of 2 from ICAB arrived with our bathroom pod, and carefully reversed it onto the drive, set it up level on blocks, plumbed it into the outdoor tap, set it to drain into the sewer via the drain inspection hatch in the back garden, and plugged it into the two power sockets. They also lagged all the pipes, and it has a thermostat on the outside, which runs warm water in smaller pipes along the bigger pipes to keep them from freezing. Inside is a big water heater/tank, an electric fan heater, a loo with macerator, a sink and a shower. We were recommended to just turn the heater on for 20 minutes before we want to take a shower to warm the room up. This was a ridiculously over optimistic estimate in this weather, and I had a lovely warm shower last night, followed by dressing very quickly in a very cold room! I will do some experimentation today to find out how long we realistically need to have the heater on.

No-one is due to come today, but we're expecting another plasterer on Wednesday morning to skim the walls in the bathroom, to make it easier for the tiler to tile.

The whole thing is expected to take a fortnight, and I suspect a few bits of that are just waiting for plaster to dry. But I'm going to be so pleased when it's finally done, and it's a relief to have the work actually happening!

Doing almost no exercise (beyond a few gentle walks) since a week before Christmas, and then cycle a 10km round trip twice in one day, the second time pushing it because you were late, and filling up the time between the two rides with moving furniture around, all on no breakfast. Um.

I'm OK, just a bit tired of lung!

Matthew had a nice time at his friend's house, and we got all the furniture (bar the bed) out of his room and into other bits of the house. It's been a bit of a tetris puzzle. Probably just as well I didn't make any full lines and make bits disappear!

Oh FFS. I asked Nationwide/RSA a fortnight ago to arrange a bathroom pod for January. Cue radio silence. I rang them today: they'd appointed someone to provide one. Only it turned out that for the *third* time this claim they *thought* they'd appointed someone but it hadn't gone through on the computer. It has now apparently actually be arranged, and I should hear from the bathroom pod people (um) soon. I emailed them my notes of this conversation, for a record, and discovered the email address I have for them no longer works. Bloody hell but I'm tired of this.

They have however, as promised, just sent me an email confirmation as I was writing this, from the address that just bounced. What?

(With apologies to those who have just read this on Facebook too. Why the hell does *nothing* happen unless I ring tham up! I hate ringing people up.)

Weight loss talk

So Tuesday was a) my birthday and b) my second online class with the Tier 3 Weight Management "Eat well, move more" Healthy You programme.

We have a workbook to accompany the course, and I was somewhat surprised to discover us jumping ahead to session 4, which was entirely about exercise. So this fortnight's session didn't contain anything about food at all. We had about half an hour talking about exercise recommendations, and about half an hour of gentle exercise. And a suggestion at the end of making another SMARTER goal around exercise "snacking" again. I did mention that last week's goal had made me cross, and the course leader for exercise sounded surprised, but did ask why. I explained that the goal did not seem very relevant to me, as I already meet and exceed most of the NHS exercise suggestions, and that this was adding 5 minutes a day, burning around 17 calories, and not getting my heart rate into even the moderate zone. With an inadvertent pun I said that while I'd done it anyway it felt like a bit of a pointless exercise. So, I have suggestions of things to do this week - increasing the time or distance of my existing exercise, or to increase the intensity of my cycling if it's safe to do so. I can also up the weights or intensity of my "snacking" but if I do I should make sure I had a proper warm-up and cool down to make sure I don't cause any injury. Which I suppose is fair enough.

So at the moment I don't have a SMARTER goal (I can't remember the ER anyway, Evaluate and Review? Something else?) but just a woolly thought of OK, I'll add 5 minutes throughout the day, I'll try to add something flexibility and something balance and a squat or similar for legs and something with weights for arms and something like their seated plank for core muscles. But 5 minutes a day still feels pointless. I think what would *actually* be good would be finding a pilates class, preferably on a Friday late morning or early afternoon! Plus trying to actually notice when my watch tells me I haven't moved enough this hour. It buzzes at xx:50 every hour during the day time, and I ignore it.

Second dose of Wegovy taken. No effects or side effects noticed yet. I do have a bit of a stiff neck today, and I think maybe he was right about not waving round a pair of 2kg weights without warming up. Or maybe I'm just not very well, I have a slight headache too.

I've also noted another new change bloody Google have made to the Fitbit app. As well as removing the web pages where you could look at your data they've now also update the weight tracking bits of the app itself. It no longer has a BMI over time chart (which I liked to use/screenshot when sharing information with health professionals) but also it's changed the number of points it displays on the "All time" graph. I've got weight numbers going back to 1994. Sometimes only one or two entries a year, but sometimes a reading every week. It's showing about 30 or so points in total, and the rounding as a result means some things you could point to on the graph are no longer visible. You can't see my sister's wedding any more (losing weight to fit in my bridesmaid dress). It's hopeless! So I'm going to have to export all the more recent data which isn't also recorded elsewhere and start constructing my own graphs again. Gah!

We have a date for the repairs to the house! Starting on 6th January.

They're going to have to strip out everything in the bathroom, in order to re-tile it completely. This means we'll be without the use of a bath or shower for a fortnight. So I've been on the phone to Nationwide/RSA to discuss options for what we do during that time. For once I actually got straight through to our claim handler, rather than one of her team, which helps.

So far options look like: a hotel for a fortnight. A gym subscription so we can use their facilities. Being paid some money to go round and use our friends or family's bathrooms. Or possibly a "bathroom pod" parked on the drive. I'm not sure how well that works in January! Personally for me, I'd quite like if they can provide a hotel room with a bathroom for us to use, but for us to actually *live* at home, provided we still have water for the loo/kitchen - which I'm confirming with the builders. We shall see if that's possible!

It's all just an extra layer of complication which hadn't occurred to me. But we do get to pick any tiles up to £25 per square metre, so it looks like the bathroom will look lovely when we're done! And we did get the money through for the electricity used powering the dehumidifier too. Progress. Slow, but progress.

Weight loss talk

Prescribing nurse on the phone: so what do you know about Wegovy? Me: well, it's a GLP-1 agonist, and it was originally developed to help diabetes, but it was also discovered to help with weight loss, even in people who don't have diabetes. And it helps with appetite. Nurse: OK yes. :)

The outcome is I have a prescription at the lowest level, which will arrive by post tomorrow. 4 weekly doses in an injector pen, with a sharps box. And I need to watch out for eating too quickly, as it may cause nausea, and keep an eye out for low blood sugar, which is slightly more likely given I'm also taking Metformin. And she'll talk to me again in a few weeks to see how I'm getting on, and whether to increase the dose or not.

Again, having been told it would take 6 months, and not everyone would get Wegovy, I'm a bit startled how quickly this has all happened. Diabetes check up on Thursday this week too, so will make sure I let them know.

I'm still doing my 6 minutes of exercise every day. (5 different exercises, 1 minute each, I cut the rest intervals to 15 seconds). I have decided that in this particular SMART goal the R stands for Resentment. I'm going to try and insist that future goals are actually more Relevant.

Weight loss talk

So today was my first 90 minutes session on the Tier 3 "fresh start programme". It consisted of about 45 minutes of nutrition information and 45 minutes of physical exercise information, and that's the shape of the next 11 sessions too - one a fortnight

The nutrition part talked about diets we may have tried before, and then introduced the Eat Well plate, and its friend the Weight Loss plate, which differs in having more fruit and veg, and leaving off some of the finer details. Basically eat lots of fruit and veg, lean protein, preferably wholegrain carbs, healthy fats in small quantities, and everything else (e.g. cakes, crisps, sauces) occasionally in small portions. So far so nothing new.

The exercise part suggested we try "exercise snacking" - building in 5 sets of 1 minute exercise, alternating with 1 minute rest. Once a day for the next week, aiming to increase to twice a day next week. Try doing a set while waiting for the kettle to boil, or during an ad break! Example exercises were done with or without a chair, and with adaptations for if standing up from the chair is a problem. Grab a couple of cans of food! (I picked a pair of 1kg weights instead as they were more convenient). To be fair, doing this sort of thing a couple of times a week, making sure I include a variety of things, will be good for muscle strength and flexibility. But not cardio. And I'm skeptical about weight loss. I did not need to worry about my blood pressure. The actual time exercising was about 10 minutes, much of it stretches.

I was very polite, and did not outright say that I thought they were wasting my time. But I thought they were wasting my time.

My personal goal for the next couple of weeks: try and eat more fruit and veg. Aiming for 10 portions a day instead of 5 would probably make a difference, especially since I don't always manage 5 anyway. And I'll do the exercise snacking. I did some more ankle rotations in the bath, since I could. I'm very glad this programme also offers some one-to-one sessions with dietitions, exercise specialists and a psychologist, because otherwise it appears to be just the same advice we've all seen before. Apparently you need to attend 80% of the sessions to be eligible for Wegovy. And we'll need to have a session with a nurse practitioner for that, which should happen sometime after the second session. What I need to *not* do, is start obsessively calorie counting, because there lies unsustainability. No counting!

I won't be allowed to take part in the physical exercise sessions of my group until I provide a blood pressure reading. Never mind that I'll have already cycled 10 miles during the day before it takes place... <eyeroll>

Just as well I have a machine at home, and the Diabetes annual check up papointment notification has asked for a week of readings too if possible, though they never actually seem to want them when I go in, they're still generally usefully lower than I get with the nurse.

Building company say they are waiting on approval of their new scope of works. Nationwide say they system says "approved". Building company say some specific new costs are still not showing as approved on their system. But they've promised to do the chasing. Argh! We haven't had a usable shower at home since July.

Weight loss talk

Last year I did a Tier 2 adult weight management course via the NHS, with a team called Healthy You. It's a programme you can self-refer for. Lost 10kg over 12 weeks, put it back on again over the course of the year. In the final 12 month follow-up call I asked if I could be referred to Tier 3 services, and heard nothing. That was June.

In late September I got back in touch via my GP practice's team, and asked again if I could be referred for Tier 2. The Healthy You team finally got back to me, and it turns out for referral to Tier 3 you have to talk to your GP. So I made an appointment, the GP agreed I met criteria for it (just) and made the referral. (I'm right on the 35 BMI with diabetes boundary, but having done Tier 2 and not succeeded is also relevant).

On Tuesday I got an initial screening call, to check some details, and was told that at the moment there could be up to six months wait. Today I got another call, to check some more details, and make an appointment to start a 12 week course. Next week. !

I've got a phone appointment on Monday morning to talk through what it entails, and then group sessions online start on Tuesday evening. Which is a bit sudden to say the least. I've said I'm not interested in weight loss surgery, but am interested in weight loss injections. (Given I'm a) type 2 diabetic and b) *always* hungry Semaglutide sounds like a no-brainer to me). I may or may not be eligible. Apparently I should expect a 5-10% weight loss in 12-weeks, even without, but we'll see.

I honestly wasn't expecting to hear for months, so I'm a little blindsided here!

I'm not clear exactly which if the Tier 3 Programmes I'm starting, but I'm sure they'll tell me on Monday! Tier 3 programmes summary

Thankfully this one is much shorter :)

I took my bike in for a service last Saturday. First one since I bought it about 15 months ago. Bike shop rang me up to say the rear wheel was cracked. They noted that they wouldn't expect this sort of damage for a bike of this age/wear, so was I OK with him taking it up with the manufacturer as a warranty issue.

Just got an email today: Ridgeback *will* replace the wheel under warranty, new wheel is arriving tomorrow, and is otherwise finished so I'll be able to collect. Brilliant.

So big non-complaints to Cambridge Cycle Company in Pampisford for being so pro-active about defective parts!

Bathroom woes continue

Nationwide RSA have now out and out admitted that the reason they don't respond to emails is because their customer service agents are simply completely overloaded, and don't have time. Perhaps this is why my claim for the *second* time was referred to an external service, but the "system" failed to actually pass it on until I rang up several days later and asked about the delay. Or perhaps their systems are just rubbish.

Anyway having spoken to Nationwide/RSA again today they have *actually* referred my claims to MA Assist, who have in turn referred me to Higgs Building Services, who in turn have run up and made an appointment, and then rung up again and asked if they could come sooner. It'll be another survey appointment of some sort, but will actually e.g. discuss replacement materials, and get the work booked in to take place.

Which could take two months. This is a bit longer than the 26-40 day estimate given to me by Nationwide/RSA on 28th September. I can see that complaint letter getting longer

Thanks to Rachel for finding the <details> tag for me to use here :)

In my last post there were a whole series of house woes. The good news is the satellite dish cables are repaired, and no longer leak. And the two double-glazed units whose seal had gone have been replaced, with shiny new ones. That leaves the leaky bathroom wall.

( Bathroom walls )

In other news I had a nice weekend:

We watched The Mask with Matthew - I'd never actually seen it before because Jim Carrey gets on my nerves a bit, but it was good
I blocked my lovely Sweet Dreams shawl, and now I just need to weave in the two ends and it's done
I started another shawl, called Trillian, in green, and it's going to be lovely too but *much* simpler
I took my bike to be serviced, and it turns out the back wheel is cracked, so it's waiting to see if it's covered under Warranty, since that's not normal for only 15 months wear, even over 2600 miles. Bike shop is closed Sun/Mon so I won't hear until tomorrow or Weds. Just as well I can WFH!
We played lots of Core Keeper and a bit of modded Minecraft (1.20.1 Forge, with the Create mod, in survival)
I made my own potato bread thing using left-over mash!
And today Matthew was meant to be doing a new club after school, but has just appeared at home, having come straight back because he couldn't find it! We will try again next week, but I've had to message Mike to let him know, since he'd already gone out for a roundabout route to meet him!

Back to work today, tidying up loose ends after student registration. I reckon it went quite well, considering we changed the process only a week before it happened, but there are always a few who simply didn't register, and a handful where there were technical issues with the registration process. We're getting there.

Sometimes owning a house is a series of annoyances.

( Satellite dish )

( windows )

( Shower wall leak )

Phew, if you read all that I'm impressed!

In 1993 Cambridge University introduced a new mail server for its users, called hermes. In December 2021 it officially closed, with end users moved to a new system on Exchange Online. And on Monday July 22nd 2024 it was switched off.

I didn't get a hermes account until 2002, and I've not been involved in running it, but I've worked closely with those who do. I helped hundreds of people migrate from using the Engineering department's mail server to using hermes instead, and then helped support the team migrating hundreds of people from hermes to ExOL nearly 20 years later.

Now it's gone I've been reflecting a little on its history, and found this excellent paper from 2004 about scaling up the system to cope with the many thousands of users it then had. It was one of the two authors who switched off the server last week.

https://fanf2.user.srcf.net/hermes/doc/talks/2004-02-ukuug/paper.html

Looking through the references of that paper I spotted a familar one, relating to a "thermal event" on one of servers making up hermes, and tried to follow it. The server hosting it in Cambridge also no longer exists, and while the page is still available via the Wayback Machine, the excellent photos of the poor DIMMs seem to have been lost. I wonder if Tony still has a copy?

http://web.archive.org/web/20181110142000/http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/fanf2/hermes/doc/misc/orange-fire/

A reminder that the web too is impermanent!

I shall raise a glass to hermes tonight, with thanks to Tony and David, and to the other David who had a vision of where it could go next:

https://dwm37.user.srcf.net/2019/email-strategy-submission/dwm37.pdf

So long hermes, and thanks for all the phish!

We did the CamCycle Reach Ride today, for the first time in 10 years!

2014

( ride report )

2024

( ride report )

Quick refresher: tried to give blood 16th Feb Hb 112, told to talk to GP. Normal range is 120-150, blood donor cutoff is 125.

Notified GP on 20th Feb via their web triage form. Text back same day from Dr Clark: she said my results have generally been low 120s for some time, normal in menstruating women, but book a blood test and we'll review.

Blood test booked for 6th March (earliest available date). Text next day from Dr O'Leary - he's reviewed my results and asks me to book a routine telephone appointment. I checked them online and noted my Hb itself was back to borderline normal (120) but Ferritin and one other related number were still low.

Routine telephone appointment was today (18th March), with Dr Manek. We noted the results being borderline normal. She didn't seem to have a record of the 112 from the Blood service, but since I'm not menstruating seems worth investigating other reasons I might be a bit low. Could just be from giving blood regularly, but we're going to do a urine and stool sample to look for anything suspicious there, take a high dose iron supplement for 6 weeks, and then come back for more blood tests: to include coeliac test.

So tomorrow (as well as going to the dentist in town) I need to get to the GP in Shelford to pick up sample kits, and to the chemist to pick up meds.

Note to self: check blood donor records so I have a list of dates when I'm above/below 125.

Today is the last day to respond to the Government's proposed Guidance for Schools on Gender Questioning Children. I found it very flawed, and have said so. https://consult.education.gov.uk/equalities-political-impartiality-anti-bullying-team/gender-questioning-children-proposed-guidance/

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A slight case of overblogging

Recent Entries

Pod temperature update

One step back

The work is in progress!

Things I do not recommend:

House update

Healthy You - second session

House stuff

Wegovy time

Well that was a thing

Oh that is hilarious

FFS

Gosh, that escalated quickly

Bike woes

I am mentally composing a very long complaint letter

Recap, and weekend

House stuff

Nothing lasts forever

Now and then

Iron

Consultation

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March 2026

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