Another couple of very hot days this week, made bearable by knowing it wasn’t going to last long this time. I did have to walk the 4km to the next village in 30ºC heat because Mary was away in one car and the other, the Panda 4x4, was in for its MOT.

I had hoped to be driving home in the Panda but it’s going to need work doing so I walked back again, this time more uphill and in 33ºC. Still, not as bad as the time I had to do similar on a cold, wet, and muddy day.

I was taking my glum brain to the GP, finally. He asked lots of questions and then sent me off with a packet of SSRIs to see how that goes. So far it (and/or the heat) resulted in two half-sleepless nights, but at least they don’t seem to have reacted badly with my triptan migraine medication, which was a possibility.

This is my first time on such meds and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. Like, I expect, many people I want to be able to get through life without needing any pills or talking to strangers about feelings, and doing so can feel like an admission of weakness or defeat. And pills rather than therapy feels a little like treating symptoms rather than cause. But I’m tired of thinking about it, and even more tired of feeling like this, so let’s see how it goes.

§ This week’s website admin was switching the Pepys site’s transactional email (email address confirmation emails, password reset emails, etc.) away from the small and friendly Sendamatic because that’s shutting down soon. I only need to send a handful of emails each week so I looked for places with a free tier for small amounts of email, eventually settling on Brevo in France. I also used Anymail – a Django app – for the first time so that, hopefully, next time I need to switch provider it’ll be even easier to do.

I was also going to update my sites to the new Django 6.1 but it turns out that drops support for Postgres 14 which it also turns out I’m using. It also also turns out that this will get upgraded when the server is updated to a newer version of Ubuntu, all which is the kind of thing I pay someone else to deal with. So, soon.

A photo of two white rectangular boxes, one on top of the other, but looking like a single unit. The top one has a black circular display with green lights. Various thick black power cables snake up the wooden wall to more electrical boxes. — The battery (bottom half) and inverter.

After the installation of the heat pump last week, this week we had a different company install a GoodWe 5kW home battery and new solar inverter. (I could not tell you what the inverter does but our old one didn’t connect to the internet and we’d need a new one for the battery, so we got a new combined one.) As if to confirm getting a battery was worthwhile, the mains power blipped off and on again three times first thing on the morning of installation. Our battery should keep us going without the mains for a little while, if necessary, as well as help us make use of excess solar energy.

We now have another app to monitor (for solar panel and battery info), alongside the one for the heat pump, and the one for the EV charger. Consequently, the likelihood of me succumbing to getting into Home Assistant seems more likely – it’d be very nice to see how everything is doing in one place.

A photo of a skip, painted yellow on the end, white on the side. It is full of bits of metal, flooring, wood, concrete. The name of the company Quick Skip is on the side.

We* hired a skip (4 cubic yards, skip fans) for the first time, to rid ourselves of decades’ worth of accumulated things around the garden, shed and garage, many saved “just in case”. Very satisfying. I’m increasingly aware of the psychic weight of belongings and disposing of stuff that is not and will not serve any physical or emotional purpose lifts the spirits.

* Mary did; as with most of the things we’ve had done around here, they’ve only happened through her organisation and action. 💋

§ We continued with Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, fifth in the series. Not the best so far, but pretty good if you’re able to ignore the logically unbelievable bits (unbelievable stunts are fine, that’s what it’s all about).

§ And we finished watching The White Lotus season three. I really liked the first two, especially the second (I had to check because I couldn’t remember), but this one didn’t seem as good. It took a long, long time to get going and so felt like it really did not need eight episodes. A cynic would suggest the structure – a couple of minutes of action before flashing back to “one week earlier” and continuing from that point – was to keep the viewer hanging on through slow and repetitive talky scenes for seven episodes while thinking, “at least I know something will happen soon!”

I guess it was about the different beliefs and value systems people have that gets them through life? Which, fair enough, but I’m not sure if we’re supposed to draw any conclusion or moral from the better or worse beliefs the characters have? Is just showing “people believe different things” enough?

§ And we watched season four of True Detective (“Night Country”) which was pretty good. The snowy setting, the music, and the grim story made it feel a little old-fashioned – remember scandi-noirs from the olden days? Not sure what else to say about it. Incisive commentary there.

§ What with one thing and another I only got to the gym once this week, and skipped guitar lesson. Too much going on. But, onward.