Monday

Okay, l admit it ... it can be quite hard to remember to write "2016" instead of the "2017" now the New Year has started.  And we'll know for sure on Tuesday when work starts again.

In the meantime I have been doing a job a day - a 100% improvement on my recent efforts.

Fan knobs re-marked with Sharpie to make it easier to know where the off setting is? Check!

Screens on all devices cleaned? Check!

And there are plenty more jobs where those came from.  The trick is not to do them all at once.  I don't think that is going to be a problem.

Sooz and I went down to the Broadwater this afternoon for fish and chips.  We had been planning to go down yesterday but it was far too hot to even consider it.  We ended up staying it - making abundant use of the fans and air conditioning - and feasting on just about the last of the leftovers.  

But it was cooler this evening and we managed to get a table ... and the rain held off for most of the time we were there.  The seagulls were out in all their glory but we saw only one Pelican.  The children were out as well and we were unlucky enough to have an empty table next to us which then served as a base for a couple of rather noisy lads who were racing up and down, jumping on the safety wire fence and generally being a nuisance.  The older woman with them did nothing to curtail their exuberance - and didn't even appear to look up from her mobile phone.  Maybe having the four children was too much ... or maybe she was trying to wear them all about before she took them home. 

But, that aside, it was a wonderful interlude.  And the perfect setting for "The Holiday Quiz" where we ask questions relating to the holidays.  The questions can be about anything and one of my questions almost stumped Sooz ... who was Margaret Knight ... or, more correctly, Margaret E Knight.  We had heard a program about her on Radio National on the way to Ferry Road Markets Christmas Eve ... making her fair game.  One of her inventions is still very much in use today ... a machine to make flat-bottomed paper bags ... before her work, paper bags came in the form of an envelope - making it quite difficult to fit a fair bit in.  She was the first woman awarded a US patent and she was the holder of 87 patents in all - including for a compound rotary engine (filed in 1902).  Come to think of it, that was one of the few Holiday Quiz questions Sooz didn't get right straight away!  

Broadwater