Life, Doorstepped

The sense of anti-climax continues as my long break from my employer gets underway in earnest.  My achievements today, in spite of my new found freedom, were depressingly modest.  Having spent half the day asleep (despite vowing not to do so), the best I could manage today was some modest clearing up of the areas of the house worst hit by months of lockdown sloth and slovenliness.  Not that I was allowed to do that uninterrupted, being doorstepped by a couple of those bloody salesmen trying to get you to change your energy supplier.  Quite apart from the fact that going door-to-door during a pandemic is surely still extremely high risk in terms of spreading the virus about, I was bloody annoyed because I had twice avoided them earlier in the day.  Once when I was in town buying a paper, I had to fend off one of their salesmen manning their stall, then when I got back home, I thought that I had avoided the two doorsteppers when I noticed their approach as I went out again to take my empty beer bottles to the recycling bin.  But the buggers came back,  Quite apart from the fact that they seem to find it difficult to comprehend the fact that I'm not interested in their sales pitch and, quite frankly, resent their wastage of my time, it is the air of familiarity they adopt with you.  I've been on the opposite side of the exchange (sort of, although I wasn't selling anything and was legally required to be there), so know that it is best to remain polite, but business like.  Stick to the matter in hand.

Even having got rid of these pests, I still ended up wasting a large chunk of my evening wrestling with my Humax DVR which had suddenly lost its sound output.  Or so I thought.  It is a quite common problem with these units and is usually resolved by that good old stand by of switching it off and back on again.  This time, it didn't work.  Neither did a software update, changing the HDMI lead, switching the HDMI port used by the DVR for the one used by the Roku box nor even switching to a scart connection instead of HDMI.  In desperation I turned my attention to the remote control.  After some experimentation I found that, mysteriously, the volume control had set itself to zero, effectively muting all sound output.  I say 'mysteriously' because I never touch the volume control - the sound levels for the TV (through which the DVR outputs) are controlled via a sound bar which has its own remote.  Those on the DVR remote should be inoperable.  So another day slips by.  It isn't as if I actually had any concrete plans for the day.  The heat makes doing anything outside exhausting and is currently putting me off of the idea of a trip to the coast, as the roads will inevitably be full of sunseekers from all over the UK invading my nearest beaches because they've  been turned away from their own local beaches.  Also, whether I like it or not, clearing up this place properly really needs to take a priority - I've made too many false starts over the last six months or so.  I know I'm a slob, but even I have limits.  I also really need to get on with writing up some of those schlock movies I've been watching of late, (I decided to have the weekend off from cannibals and watched some William Girdler directed B movie goodness instead).