Trying to inject some enthusiasm into the morning. I have my “first” driving lesson in a little over an hour and I’m not feeling it today.. Attaining a driving license is of course a pre-requisite to being offered a contract and being able to move to Japan.. so I need to find reserves of enthusiasm from somewhere.. but.. cars.. meh..

Working on my assignment that is due on Monday with a view to finishing it before the weekend.. I have to critically analyse a technical patent and explain the potential benefits (or lack thereof) with regards to implementing it in a fictional brewery.. the only issue is that the only papers that I’ve found that vaguely contradict some of the claims in the patent are over 30 years old and not peer reviewed..

Modern, peer reviewed papers on the topic generally agree with the claims in the patent.. which is fine and I’ve plenty of references\citations to get the assignment done.. however, its not going to be overly critical which is a concern.

Coffee consumed, £2.40 won on last night’s Euromillions.. and sitting in front of Zotero looking at a slew of research materials I need to read and annotate.. let’s do this!

Took the day off to look after my daughter and just took delivery of a wee mushroom foraging tool that I had ordered.. now patiently waiting for a plumber to arrive (just said he’d be here in pm…) so that we can go out exploring in some unexplored (by us) woods nearby. Hoping for a little more fungi activity than our normal walking routes.

I have my morning coffee sat at the dining table in the kitchen (most days), sitting in front of my two fermentation vessels (for now). There is something about the bubbling of a active fermentation that really helps me to focus on our future plans.

Which is just as well because we have our interview date! A couple of days after my assignment due date and almost exactly a month before the driving test that it all hinges upon. Hopefully, the pressure will ease after that (not that there is any guarantee I’ll pass)..

Awesome, clearly I wasn’t busy enough that’s the intensive driving course which I had booked for the week before my test just fallen through..

I am not loving this concept of an early assignment that my course has introduced. I’ve barely finished reading week one’s coursework, have yet to start on this week’s and have only 13 days to complete and achieve my first assignment.. and it isn’t a checkbox exercise, its somewhat dependent on knowledge that we’ve not yet learned.. 25% of the course marks..

With this course, work, driving lessons (hopefully), interview with Mayor of future home village in Japan (hopefully), multiple vet appointments, and a brew schedule to adhere to, I’m not going to see the light of day for a few months! (probably as well, I burn way too easily!)

Japanese requirements for importing a pet dog are 2 rabies vaccinations..

Our (very helpful) vet says.. rabies vaccinations are given once and last for 3 years..

Email sent to DEFRA and expecting to have retired in Japan with a new generation of pets before I get a useful response..

My sister’s boyfriend built a PC for my mum, which presumably worked for a while but not doesn’t so it’s come to me to fix..

I like the chap in question and don’t for a second suspect anything untoward with regards to the amount he charged my mum and the specs of this desktop, rather I suspect he was just a little inexperienced and may have made some dubious choices with how he spent the money.

Trying to run a windows 10 recovery from usb on this device is chronically slow, I’ve been waiting for it to move to the next screen for over 30 minutes.. it’ll get there but will it be today?

(Before any fossbros jump in, I will be installing Linux (mint in this case) and have already talked to my mum about it, but I need to recover data from the seemingly fucked M2 drive which for now requires me to continue through this arduous tedious process)

I set a target to try and achieve 15 brew days in 2021 which at the time looked pretty hit or miss in regards to attainability.. today is my 14th brew day of the year, and 23rd in total.