Monthly Fat Cat meet-up again on Wednesday (that seems to have come round fast!), with Tony, Mel, Dave F and Joe. Plenty of random conversation, ranging from woodwork to the evils of “AI”.
In a short interlude from this blog consisting solely of weeknotes, I wrote up the process of narrowing down and eliminating a performance bottleneck in some code at work.
I took Friday (and next Monday) off, in a desperate attempt to use up my remaining leave before the end of March. I started the day with a before-breakfast cycle over to the Ravenswood medical centre for another blood test, as they’d recommended a fasting test to get more accurate cholesterol numbers before giving me statins. Just like the last two appiontments at the doctor’s, this was extremely efficient – my appointment was at 8.30, and I was back out by 8.32. Then a plumber came round to see if he could spot my water leak. Unfortunately he couldn’t, and is now going to arrange for someone else to come round with actual leak-detection kit, which is what I had thought was happening this time. Oh well.
Plenty of running this week, with only one more big week to go before the marathon taper starts. Club on Tuesday, then ran to work on Wednesday (and back via the route with the new toucan crossing where you get to stop traffic on the A12), followed by a steady-paced Thursday Tempo Ten with Neil (not far behind Dave, Al and Gripper, who were also taking it easy but going slightly faster than agreed!). I decided to give the Colchester 15 on Sunday a miss, as it seemed daft to pay £25 to run round slowly, probably on my own, and got my long run done on Saturday with about 20 miles including parkrun in the middle, and company from Holly and Maria. That left me a couple of miles short of 50 for the week, so I couldn’t resist a little plod round the common on Sunday to make up the extra.
I’ve been playing Star Wars: Fallen Order, which is basically Tomb Raider with light sabers, but is enjoyable enough (on easy mode because I can’t be bothered with constantly retrying fights). The sequel’s in the Steam sale at the moment, but the general consensus seems to be that it doesn’t play well on the Steam Deck. I did pick up Neva at half price though – I’ve been keeping an eye out for it to be on sale after enjoying (but npt actually finishing) Gris.
I’ve nearly finished watching all the Columbos, and just reached the bizarre No Time To Die, which completely abandons the standard formula, doesn’t have a murder, and is actually an Ed McBain 87th Precinct story in disguise. Apparently there’s another one in the same vein coming up. Oh, just one more thing …
Rounded off the week with a Sunday evening visit to the Cricketers for food and a few beers with Rob & Jo, Dave & Sally, Neil & Gill and (briefly) Ryan and Claire.