mintybloggydiarythingy 2.0

Week from Monday 16th June 2025 - For once, I have no actual NEED to go anywhere this week; no pressing MEDICAL or vitally important FINANCIAL visits. Which is nice. But the WEATHER is rather spiffing at the moment, so it would be a shame to waste it. A DAZE-OUT to a 'different' shopping centre is called for. I hopped on a train to EASTLEIGH. Not the most picturesque of settings, I'll grant you. But I do recall that there are a goodly number of CHARITY SHOPS on its streets, so the browsing's often good. It is also the home to one of the best "FURNITURE & ELECTRICALS" branches, so plenty to ponder over. RESULT!!! I now have a 'new' CASSETTE DECK, a PIONEER CT-S609R, to replace my dead Yamaha. It's packed with interesting features that I'm probably never going to use, but most importantly, it SOUNDS splendid through my amp. I have a couple of quality cassettes that I usually favour for 'testing' tape machines, namely RICHARD THOMPS...

Week from Monday 2nd June 2025 - My INTERNET connection was working appallingly S-L-O-W last week, so I reported it to the TALKTALK concern. They "guarantee" speeds of never less than 10Mbps, but a few days ago it dropped as low as two-and-a-half for a while! It didn't affect my activities TOO much, and it didn't make any difference to the landline phone (Yes! we still have a landline!). But we shouldn't have to put up with it, considering how much we pay them every month! Several text messages were exchanged and I think that they eventually fixed it from their end (I also did the "try-turning-it-off-and-then-on-again" thing with the router). It's now a lot more stable than it had been... but today, a man from OPENREACH came and checked things over anyway. I'd planned on doing a 'BITS'n'BOBS' shopping trip into town, but I stayed in for his visit. Just as well really, 'cos the weather's horrible... I spent a day failing ...