So the big switch took place remarkably smoothly and all my pre-switching worries were unfounded. I am now enjoying high-speed fibre broadband and TV on demand, although inevitably I would quickly build up a vast library of recordings in a short space of time. The Rio Olympics are finishing this weekend but will live on for a few more days at EuropeCrazy HQ as I work through my backlog of through-the-night recordings!
In other news, this week has brought a little bit of clarity in what has been a very damaging few months. I am finally beginning to pull myself out of the slump and taking an interest in life again, although other personal circumstances are still very dark and sad, but I won't say any more about that out of respect to loved ones.
Regular readers of this blog will be well aware of my cycle of weight gain and emotional highs and lows so I won't go into all that again. However, between now and the end of the year I will once again be embarking on a healthy eating/fitness regime to try and salvage something from 2016, an otherwise horrible year.
There will be no gym memberships or organised diets, no targets, no pressure, no major expectations. Just common sense and keeping a food diary. It will also mean the return of the weekly Friday weigh-ins at work: my colleague and fitness guru advised me that these are going to continue until Christmas, so it's never too late to start again.
Update to follow on Friday 26.08.16 when hopefully there will be good news to report!
Sunday, 21 August 2016
Thursday, 11 August 2016
Those pre-switching blues
Forgive me for feeling more than a little agitated tonight, but as the date of the "big switch" is approaching I thought it was worth a blog post.
Having recently made the decision to "future-proof" my television, phone and broadband service, I'm also well aware that I'm taking a bit of a risk. If mum was still here she would be fighting this with a vengeance. She was always of the view that you should have separate services rather than combine all services from one provider. However I have had problems with my TV recordings over recent months and after years of a good-but-not-great broadband service, I felt that the time was right to move on.
I want to embrace new ways of watching television and recently realised that my broadband was clearly not up to the job, so after 18 years (!) I'm finally parting with my ISP and going with a new provider. It's a bittersweet parting of the ways as I can honestly say that over that time I've been lucky enough to have a very reliable internet connection, firstly as dial-up and then on to broadband, with only a couple of exceptions. Which isn't bad for 18 years. But I now need to upgrade.
Long before "on demand" viewing became a thing, I was recording TV shows and watching them at a more suitable time, firstly on video and then on HDD and TV recorder. Now, I'm impressed by the idea of watching TV on demand in new ways: either via the internet or on catch-up - with a view towards eventually subscribing to Netflix - and I'll get the best out of that with a high-speed broadband connection. And then of course there is the highlight of every year, Eurovision national finals season, so I'm making sure that my high speed broadband is up to scratch before the 2017 adventure begins.
But my life being what it is, I'm well aware that the course of installation doesn't always run smoothly. In the bigger scheme of things I suppose this is a pretty irrelevant thing to get worried about but I'm naturally feeling very anxious. Being late to the "switching" party, with the same providers for years, I can only hope that in these "always on" days that there are no problems and I'm not left without a service for too long.
I've spend recent weeks getting my backlog of recordings down and realised that I need to get better at not letting recordings mount up. And for everything else, that will be taken care of by my DVD box set Christmas wish list :) So much for reducing the backlog!
Anyway I will see you on the other side, hopefully in a few days all being well!
Having recently made the decision to "future-proof" my television, phone and broadband service, I'm also well aware that I'm taking a bit of a risk. If mum was still here she would be fighting this with a vengeance. She was always of the view that you should have separate services rather than combine all services from one provider. However I have had problems with my TV recordings over recent months and after years of a good-but-not-great broadband service, I felt that the time was right to move on.
I want to embrace new ways of watching television and recently realised that my broadband was clearly not up to the job, so after 18 years (!) I'm finally parting with my ISP and going with a new provider. It's a bittersweet parting of the ways as I can honestly say that over that time I've been lucky enough to have a very reliable internet connection, firstly as dial-up and then on to broadband, with only a couple of exceptions. Which isn't bad for 18 years. But I now need to upgrade.
Long before "on demand" viewing became a thing, I was recording TV shows and watching them at a more suitable time, firstly on video and then on HDD and TV recorder. Now, I'm impressed by the idea of watching TV on demand in new ways: either via the internet or on catch-up - with a view towards eventually subscribing to Netflix - and I'll get the best out of that with a high-speed broadband connection. And then of course there is the highlight of every year, Eurovision national finals season, so I'm making sure that my high speed broadband is up to scratch before the 2017 adventure begins.
But my life being what it is, I'm well aware that the course of installation doesn't always run smoothly. In the bigger scheme of things I suppose this is a pretty irrelevant thing to get worried about but I'm naturally feeling very anxious. Being late to the "switching" party, with the same providers for years, I can only hope that in these "always on" days that there are no problems and I'm not left without a service for too long.
I've spend recent weeks getting my backlog of recordings down and realised that I need to get better at not letting recordings mount up. And for everything else, that will be taken care of by my DVD box set Christmas wish list :) So much for reducing the backlog!
Anyway I will see you on the other side, hopefully in a few days all being well!
Tuesday, 9 August 2016
Gardening solutions for the garden from hell
The combination of 'summertime sadness' and a lack of energy and anything approaching fitness meant that the gardening a.k.a. damage limitation has been neglected even more than usual. But then this entered my life....
...a cordless grass and hedge trimmer, which I got a good deal on, and which genuinely provided one of those "where have you been all my life?" moments. Regular readers of this blog over the years will be familiar with my gardening trials and tribulations (living in an area which is an extension of a public park and therefore it's impossible to maintain anything approaching a decent garden). High grass and weeds are a fact of life where we live, even for the householders who have invested in paving/slabs, only for them to be covered over by the aforementioned high grass/weeds.
To get the best out of this equipment you need to purchase a separate compatible handle (which cost almost as much as the cordless trimmer!). It may feel like you're 'digging the desert with a spoon' in a huge, sprawling garden but it certainly gets results, effortlessly cutting through high grass, weeds and hedges. Having had weeks of constant rain, the high grass hadn't had the chance to dry out but again this was no obstacle to the magic machine. Eventually we had a couple of days without rain, sufficient time to dry out the grass and this enabled me to cut it with the lawnmower.
This summer may have been a write-off in so many ways, but at least I now have the tools to make a very difficult job much easier.
To get the best out of this equipment you need to purchase a separate compatible handle (which cost almost as much as the cordless trimmer!). It may feel like you're 'digging the desert with a spoon' in a huge, sprawling garden but it certainly gets results, effortlessly cutting through high grass, weeds and hedges. Having had weeks of constant rain, the high grass hadn't had the chance to dry out but again this was no obstacle to the magic machine. Eventually we had a couple of days without rain, sufficient time to dry out the grass and this enabled me to cut it with the lawnmower.
This summer may have been a write-off in so many ways, but at least I now have the tools to make a very difficult job much easier.
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