Day: 21 July 2024

Weeknotes #78: Wifi issues and a birthday party

A week of journeys, tech challenges, and interesting new discoveries.

Week commencing Monday, 15 July 2024

A view of Hammersmith Bridge, just before dusk
Hammersmith Bridge

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 2/7 and Move 5/7. (62%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 44,085

Life

  • Bringing back a pungent Subway sandwich to Raynes Park on a table-less train wasn’t the most enjoyable experience!
  • On Saturday, we went to the Riverside Studios Bar & Kitchen for dinner before E’s birthday celebration at a nearby pub. The lack of the Underground to Hammersmith delayed us because we took the replacement bus service. We found a smarter route home.
  • On Sunday, we had a nice walk around Wimbledon and stopped at a health food shop for things I never knew existed.
  • The barbecue came out of the box for the summer. Lovely. When it’s just the two of us, we often decide to grill in the kitchen and eat outside. So, today, we agreed we’d do it properly and use the barbecue to grill some burgers that were the freezer.
  • The rest of the week wasn’t eventful except for my Wi-Fi, which was causing issues. I bought another range extender to create a better mesh, but I am convinced something else is happening because it’s intermittent. I did confirm that the speed to the router is good; the drop-off is frustrating.

Media

  • We’re back in Bridgerton mode this week. Although we’re on series two, we’re powering through them.

Try the M11

With apologies to all my neighbours who were woken by the noise.

I feel it was an interesting weekend. Some of it I don’t want to repeat, but mostly it was good fun and the kind of things you should do at weekends if you slave all week in an office. It started yesterday afternoon when my brother arrived, and we spent two hours in a car driving round south London roads to get across the river and on to the M11 motorway. It’s not the easiest thing from South West London and should really start another rant about the state of London’s roads, but I am too tired for that! (It’s also good to see somebody else wondered what the strange tower was)

Arriving in Takeley for a family christening, and all is well. It is nice to see some of the family members I do not see too often. We had planned to leave around 8pm and head back to SW17, but we were having a good time and partied until 11pm. It’s hard partying and drinking only water, but I still had a good time.

So, off we set. 10 minutes on the M11 and the radiator overheats; I lose all power on the car and just about manage to get it onto the hard shoulder before it grinds to a halt in the middle of the carriageway. Then, 50 minutes later, a bloke from the RAC arrives and, without really looking at the engine because he can tell it would do no use, loads the car onto the back of the truck and me & my brother into the cab for the ride south. Then we hit the Blackwall Tunnel. At 1am (Sunday) we are caught in a traffic queue for an hour as traffic tries to negotiate one lane in the tunnel (cue for another rant about London traffic). Eventually, the car is unloaded outside my house at 2.45am (with apologies to all my neighbours who would have been woken up by the noise).