Category: The Week That Was

TWTW#5 A Necessary Spectacle

On By TontowilliamsIn The Week That Was2 Comments

This week has been a bit of a busy one with several trips to and from the vets as the mystery around whatever is wrong with Wilson continues. The good news is that the vet has ruled out a lot serious things but we’re still not 100% certain what is wrong. We’re now waiting the results of some other tests which we should get on Monday or Tuesday.

When I’ve not been doing that I’ve been working on a client proposal and a few business development things.

I’ve been re-reading Empire Games by Charles Stross, mostly because this is the first book in a trilogy and I have the second book to read, but couldn’t remember what happened in the first book or how it ended. It involves multiple timelines, and I understand it better now having reread it. Not altogether sure what’s up next, as I want to read something else before I get started on the second book in the trilogy. The final book should be out later this year but has been a bit delayed already as the author wrote about on his blog.

Will Burrard-Lucas caught a rare black leopard on film for the first time in a while.

I had to get my glasses repaired. They were a new pair that I bought following an eye test just before Christmas and they fell apart almost instantly. I returned them to the opticians and they agreed to replace them free of charge. As I hadn’t heard from them I followed up with a phone call, and miraculously they were ready that afternoon.

Whilst I don’t think the opticians was at fault for the glasses I was a little underwhelmed by their customer service.

A Warm & Damp Sensation (TWTW # 3)

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Dog, The Week That Was, Wildlife/Nature

It’s been a cold week and we’ve seen a little bit of snow, although we seem to have escaped the worst of it there have been some quite significant falls just a few miles up the road, so very localised. Fortunately I’ve not really had to go anywhere too far or when I have it was before the snow fall.

We took our dog Wilson to the vet this week, nothing serious we think but it did necessitate gathering a wee sample the next morning. As with human samples this had to be collected from the first “wee of the day” mid stream. When I’ve had to do this in the past I’ve just improvised but the vet provided a collection kit this time. It was nothing glamorous, effectively a sample tube with a scoop attached to it. The only downfall with it, is the ability to see whether the sample tube is full. The warm and damp sensation on the back of your hand is a good indicator though.

I found this interesting infographic on the daily routines of creative people.

In this series of online articles the author has been cutting out one of the big 5 tech companies (Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple) from her life each week, with some fairly scary results (particularly with Google), she’s yet to do the final week when she cuts out all of them at the same time but they all make interesting reading.

I was given a copy of Maigret at Christmas for a Christmas present, and thoroughly enjoyed it having not really read any Maigret novels and only really coming across him through TV adaptations (Michael Gambon and more recently Rowan Atkinson). I thought I’d get another one and I’ve been reading that this week.

It was another good read and Georges Simenon has a really smooth and economic writing style.

 

 

I also watched a couple of episodes of the series “The Last Resort”. It’s a simple premise – nuclear submarine is order to launch a warhead via a recognised back-up system, but questions order as it appears there is no war / conflict going on. It is then attacked by it’s own side and goes on the run.

There’s some interesting parallels to it and what else is happening in the world (even though it appears to have been made over five years ago). I’m not sure how well it will stand up as a series, but I’m likely to watch a couple more just to see.

It seems that the US government shut down was good for the elephant seals.

The Week That Was # 2 (Experiments With Sourdough)

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Cooking, The Week That Was, work3 Comments

I’ve been wanting to do some sourdough baking for a while now. I already bake quite a bit of our own bread (mostly in a breadmaker), and regularly make pizza bases, rolls and other things and I wanted to give sourdough a try too.

I got a starter (you can make your own but I opted for the slightly easier option) from the Wild Baker and it arrived earlier in the week. I feed it (with flour and water) a couple of times and then it was ready to go.

There are a couple of quite long pauses for rising etc. in the sourdough process and I think next time, I’ll shift things around a bit so that these happen overnight rather than try and squeeze things all into a day-and-a-half.

That said the resulting loaf was fantastic (see above). Great tasting and a definite success. It’s always good when cookery of any kind goes well, but this was especially pleasing.

It’s been a pretty chilly week, with temperatures dropping below 0°C on most nights. This had meant that my home office has been a little inhospitable some mornings and so I’ve moved to our lounge to work.

I’ve been assisted by the dogs to keep me company (and warm), although I must admit they have been a little more distracting than normal. I assume that this is as much the change of routine for them as it is for me.

I’ve been asked by a potential client for a proposal for a piece of work, so I suspect that most of the coming week will be taken up in pulling that together. They have ambitious plans so it’s good that potentially I’ll be a part of that work.

I’m between books at the moment, but a quick visit into town to post a parcel took me past the secondhand bookshop.

I always try and leave more books with them than I take away, and this time I succeeded, although I have to admit to be quite pleased with the ones I found.

The Week That Was #1 – I’m Back

On By TontowilliamsIn The Week That Was

So I’ve made a decision to try and get back to posting at least once a week. I’m going to ditch the old format of the “Quick Links” posts but stick with the premise of reviewing the previous week. We’ll see how that goes and what comes out of that in terms of topics, but my suspicions is that the overall content will broadly be the same. So here we go!

Continue reading “The Week That Was #1 – I’m Back” →