Health aspects first and the week began with my next scheduled physio session. Although I felt pretty okay, he still pinned me! He did agree that things felt less tight and we have moved the next session out to 3 weeks. I also managed 3 walks this week, the first being on Monday, with 65mph winds blowing me up the hill and a time of 12:35! The following 2 came in at 12:53 and 12:47 - great to get all 3 of them under 13 minutes and I will try to maintain that pace. The final walk was Sunday evening and despite feeling tired in the late afternoon, I pushed myself to get that 3rd one in and it gave me the best non-wind assisted result. I am around 18-months into these regular walks and I have definitely found them very helpful in keeping me more physically fit / able, but also a key tool in the psychological battle.
Sandra done her first week of 5-day working week, although not full days yet. She was a little tired some of the days, but overall, good. The coming week is when she plans to return to normal working hours. We are both pleasantly surprised by the rate of recovery and forward movement (excuse the pun) continues very well.
I am firmly back into the consultancy work, with extra hours put in during the past week, where we are catching up on outstanding tasks, plus focusing on some time critical ones; nice to get our teeth into these tasks and a productive week for that.
Connected to that, on Saturday I travelled to Ramsgate with Dan, as he was attending the Ramgate RNLI / Emergency services open day. As part of their overall portfolio of businesses, Dan came up with the very innovative product of Dottie Boards (now one of their stand alone businesses). The first product released covers the UK RNLI life boat launches, set up to mimic the boat launch alert noise, followed by key info on where the launch has just taken place. A very visually stimulating product and a real conversation piece in your home. The weather was very challenging for us, which started with thunder, lightning and heavy rain, followed by winds, which resulted in us having to break down the display and marquee (others were forced to the same). We did have a nice bonus though, which was a tour around their Tamar class boat, which was fascinating and we were given a very insightful tour by the various volunteers. For me, it was nice to be able to help Dan and return the favour of his key help at our recent Military Odyssey show. If you are intrigued by the product, have a look at https://dottieboards.com/
This week seen some good progress on Volume 7 and I also managed to snag another key addition to the collection, with a Fritz Witt related document from June 1939. I did however, have some bad news on two key items that were on the horizon and becoming real potentials, but at least one is now more than certain, permanently out of reach, with another also maybe going the same way.
On Sunday we went for a drive to look at some potential replacement cars, as I have agreed to hand my current one back to Renault this coming Thursday. I am in a real quandary as to which solution / route to go down - another similar car, a cheap run around, or nothing at all and make use of just one vehicle. I ended up test driving one newer car that looked great, but did not match my needs and both Sandra and I ended up sore after the drive - a key consideration for us and a clear piece of evidence that that particular car is not for us! I have never been more uninspired and disillusioned by what is out there and available, with respects to cars. Poor build quality, ridiculous prices, performance that does not match my needs, uncomfortable seats that you are expected to sit in for potentially hours at a time. Do not know what route to take next, but at least one more brand off the board.
Thanks for your ongoing support for these Blogs.
Regards
Peter