Tuesday 21 July - Random Witterings from Home #26

Goodness, where has the time gone? Almost two weeks since my last post and three since I last wittered. It feels like a lot has gone on, some of the most trivial of which I’ll mention in passing here. The less trivial deserve blog posts of their own (and who knows, maybe I’ll get around to writing those posts in due course?).

Scrolling through the camera reel on my phone, here’s a varied collection of trivial snippets:

I ran a new 5km PB a few weeks ago, but this snap was taken the following week when I ran 21 seconds slower overall (it was a more undulating route) but achieved my fastest mile ever. My previous 1-mile record was exactly 7 minutes 30, which I ran down a mountain road in Germany two summers ago (note: I had run up it first!).

Sorry, it's too much faff for me to rotate it

Just a few snaps to remind me that there were some sunny days in July, even though it feels like it’s been almost exclusively overcast with quite a bit of rain and some unseasonal winds:

Many people don't approve of the taking of food photos in restaurants. As you may have gathered, I often take such photos at home too. This grated salad qualified for a snap due to how loudly it was shouting ‘beetroot’, even though it was one of four equal-parts ingredients (none of the rest of which was red). Significantly more visually appealing than the pink soup I made a few weeks ago!

The second row of potatoes dug up from the garden gave a slightly better yield than the first, although not by much:

Having discovered that Mate n Lok connectors (as used in Bertie’s electroblock – see my last post about adding USB points) require a proprietary crimping tool that costs several hundred pounds, I had an educational time experimenting with how to achieve a good crimp without the tool. Fortunately, the most economical way of getting the 2 male connectors I need involved buying a pack of 12 male and 12 female and I have no call at all for the latter, giving me fodder for the experiments.

Incidentally, see that multimeter in the photo? I either left it switched on when last I used it or it got knocked in my tool box, and the battery had gone flat. Last time that happened (around a decade ago, based on the date on the battery), I was almost bamboozled as there is no battery compartment and imprinted on the back is the message that there are no user serviceable parts and only qualified people are to remove the back panel. This is what’s inside:

A 9v battery isn’t ‘user serviceable?! I think the elastic band may have to be changed next time the battery goes too.

Yay! More produce from the garden (the one on the left is huge; the others are normal-size):