Tire pressure

Electronic tire pressure monitoring - great for detecting if you have a puncture, not so great when you have a spell of cold weather and the low tire pressure warning keeps on popping up on your dashboard even when you've manually checked the tire pressures and they are fine.  I've had the warning pop up 2 days in a row now, even after recalibrating the system after the first warning.  Classic overengineering.  Perhaps I'm just a Luddite, but I don't understand or care for all the bells and whistles that come with newer cars. 

60th Anniversary Coin

Another James Bond-related item for sale, but I might have to pass on this one.

The coin may look very pretty with all it's gold and diamonds, but it's price sure ain't pretty.  That's a 22 thousand GBP coin.  Yikes.  

Axis of Evil

Dang those mice.  I checked the mousetraps I had set yesterday, and I discovered that the cheese was missing from both but neither trap had gone off.  They've outsmarted me!  Am I the Tom to their Jerry?  I haven't heard any scrabbling behind the wall today, so I'll have to check again tomorrow.  But I do have a backup if necessary - I bought another glue trap, which has proved successful in the past.  But I fear the mice have formed some sort of coalition with the moles to make my life miserable.  I'm fighting a losing battle against the moles - the molehills are popping up all over the place at the moment, with no discernible pattern - so I hope I fare better against the mice.        

More Animal Activity

It is perhaps a sad indictment of how little is going on in my life that I am doing so many blog posts about the local wildlife.  But here is another one.

- Mice are back.  I can hear the scrabbling behind the walls - specifically behind the downstairs wall right near where I work from home.  Naturally.  So often within earshot, hence driving me absolutely crazy.  I've put some mousetraps down underneath the house - but I think I might need better bait than just some regular cheese.  Apparently mice love peanut butter, so I might have to go out and get some tomorrow if the traps don't catch anything tonight.

- The hummingbirds are going crazy right now.  Very loud, very territorial - I am frequently seeing them chase each other off the various feeders.  I don't know what was going on with this particular hummingbird, but I saw her (I think it's a female Anna's Hummingbird) just sitting on the step underneath one of the feeders.  I thought she might be dead, but she moved a little bit when I got near.  Perhaps just tired or injured after a territorial battle, I let her be and she had gone when I checked later on - so I hope she's okay.

- And lastly, there was some more deer action today.  And as you can tell from the antlers and bigger size, this was a buck.  You don't tend to see them so much - so that was kind of cool to see him just hanging around by my patio.  I haven't checked my trailcam yet, but there might be some interesting photos since he was lying down right in front of it.

Is it Thanksgiving yet?

Only 2 weeks until Thanksgiving.  How time flies!  Thank god, I think I need the break from work - which has got a bit more stressful recently.  I don't have much planned for the Thanksgiving break, but if the weather is cooperative then I might consider crossing the border for a short trip into Canada.  And I think I will order another pre-cooked Thanksgiving meal - which has worked out before, and I'm too lazy to cook for myself!  

Contradictory

We had an "employee information session" this week at work, to discuss the new rules for working from home.  And it didn't go well.  Basically, our company now has 2 policies.  The first, as they made abundantly clear, is unchanged in that we are allowed to work from home for up to 3 days a week.  The second policy, the new one, is that we have to be in the office for 3 days a week for what they are terming "collaboration days".  And they said that these policies are complementary.  Ermmm, no they are not - in fact they are the polar opposite of complementary, they are contradictory.  One says we are allowed to WFH for 3 days a week, the other says we are only allowed to WFH for 2 days a week.  It's farcical.  What else did I pick up from this meeting?  Well it was interesting that there wasn't a single mention of COVID, despite its continuing presence (and risk) and despite it being the cause of all these new flexible work procedures.  It feels like - once again - these are the kind of decisions being made by people with offices, with little to no consideration of the increased risk and inconvenience for those of us in cubicles.  I could perform my role 100% remotely - I shouldn't be required to go into the office at all.  Even if I'm not a fully remote employee, most of the people I work with are based in California - so I have no necessity to go into the office.  Basically, one rule for all DOES NOT WORK.  And the core collaboration days are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - which guarantees that everyone who doesn't have to go into the office every day will only come in on those days and not Monday and Friday.  I don't even know whether we have enough spaces in the garage when everyone is there, but conversely Monday and Friday will be absolutely dead in the office.  Ironically, if it wasn't for the free lunches on Tuesday and Thursday then Monday and Friday would be my preferred days for going into the office.  If I have to go in at all...        

TV Theme Tunes #3

Ronnie Hazlehurst.  If it's not a name you're familiar with, you will do - because I suspect he will be featured heavily in this series.  As BBC's "Light Entertainment Musical Director", he was involved in making many of the most iconic and well known theme tunes of our time.  This is the first one I'm going to feature - from a sitcom that I barely recall (Language Timothy!).