Friday, 9th January, 2026

More less is needed.

Up to 3 days streak on DayOne. Want to focus on that first.

With all this snow, I started looking at Land Rover Discoverys again, there’s even a nice one for sale nearby. A nice 2016 Disco 4 with all the trimmings. Expensive for a 10 year old car but knew it was probably a huge figure and I’m sure it’ll keep its value well. It’s probably not a good idea, expensive to tax, insure, and run. Very mixed views on reliability: either “they’re dire” or “with care they’ll last forever”.

Really I should think about the EV as its lease is ending this year. Not so sure another lease is a good idea. Benefit in kind tax on EVs is being increased each year. If one wants a new car every 3 years then it’s probably worth it. Just not sure that’s what I want. The market is flooded with used model 3s and they’re pretty competitively priced for what you get. Wasn’t keen on one but they have good range and all the whistles.

In reality it only snows here about two sets of one week periods each year. This year is a record one. Nothing is setup for snow so the world crashes to a halt anyway, so I’m working at home and the kids may or may not get to school. What we really need is a car with decent all season tyres. Like Michelin Cross Countries. To get down to the shops and back up the hill. It’s more likely to be icy more often than not and I’m not going off-road, through mud and rivers, so a real 4x4 is somewhat excessive. I’d like an old defender as a project but I don’t have time for that.

It’s just annoying the main car had four new tyres fitted in May - under a crunch of two punctures and needing to drive the next day so we had fitted whatever they had in our size that night. So I don’t really want to buy another four to replace them. I could buy them with wheels but then that’s more expensive (although can utilise them in the long run) and where am I keeping the other set? Leasing a car means it comes with new tyres, that I’m effectively paying for, and whilst they will replaced used ones, they won’t replace with what I want, so then I’m forking out myself.

I had a fancy car in the past and I really regretted buying it. I sold it and moved on but it felt like such a waste of money. I don’t want to relive that. Is a 10 year old Land Rover a bad choice? My fear is that every time it goes to the garage it’s £3+ grand to fix some whatsit.

I have wondered what I’d do if our family car did die. Some major failure that was £5k+ to fix. Buy a new car is the answer but what would it be. My hope is it lasts another 5-7 years with no major issues and then we won’t need a seven seater, and now the world is our used car clam. Although a 5k repair bill would be cheaper than a new car 😅

I’ve liked the lease as it means you don’t need to do anything and you’re not tied down to anything. Of course at the end you give it back and have nothing to show. Just a fee you paid to have access to the car.

Anyway. That completes the circular thoughts on this matter.

Thursday, 8th January, 2026

I’m still not sure about micro.blog. Feels too much like this site in terms of usage. Leaning towards making the domain just my wiki, as that’s what I actually use. Or I could put it back to the zola blog I never use…

I also want to use DayOne more/again. The most I used it was with my Apple iPad Air (1st gen) and Smart Keyboard. But those seem both to be broken after the kids started using them and then it got dropped and now it won’t even turn on. So maybe I need a new iPad 😅 although I really want the same keyboard. Not sure I like the new ones (or their price). Or could get MacBook…my problem with the MacBook is it’s too distracting to do other stuff and just waste time. Whereas the iPad can be more deliberate in usage. It can do more these days but it’s still less.

I actually like pika…but I don’t want to pay for a blogging platform, even if it is very nice. Really would rather spend my time writing in DayOne as this ends up turning into something I look at again.

Wednesday, 7th January, 2026

Decided to tidy up this site. Got rid of things I never used which were built with good intentions and culled all the old posts. I did think about getting rid of it altogether and going back to my journal.txt file. I might still do that. Also thought I should just use my micro.blog for my main domain rather than complaining about it. It’s still less effort than a SSG. Although wish there was a windows client just to make things tiny bit easier.

Thinking of clearing out all the journal entries in my wiki and just keeping it as a wiki. Still debating if I swap it out for dokuwiki - just as I can find things easier as I’m forced to organise it when I put it in. Also I like the ACL for a private section. Also I can use the one I have setup for amateur radio and then it’s one less site to look after.

Less is more.

Tuesday, 6th January, 2026

It can’t believe it’s just Tuesday this week. Feels like forever. Snow continues to fall and school is closed and we’re working from home. Now the school is setting work, so it’s like lockdown again, only now everyone’s 5 years older and Tesco can’t deliver food.

Daughter had to take a landscape photo for her art work today. So we went out with the camera and took a bunch of snowy trees and icicles etc. I had my favourite but I let her pick hers for the work.

If I cared about my blog I’d have put the photo or some of them here. But we used the camera and the photo is on the computer and I’m sat on the sofa with my phone writing this in 1Writer, and I’ll forget later.

Still trying to find what I want for this site and others. Tiddlywiki could be the answer but also maybe not. Tinderbox - but I’d need to buy a mac which I’m not totally against. Long term I’d like to be all Linux but really I’d like to not be Windows and the next easiest thing is macOS. I like becoming proficient with software and Tinderbox could be the Excel for writing. Tinderbox and Tiddlywiki have overlaps in my mind and could both be put to a similar purpose, and so I think I should go all in with Tiddlywiki as it’s web based, all OS, free tool.

Buti like writing here - as in this software but also just on my phone on the sofa, hidden away from everyone with a cup of tea before some chaos breaks out again. Or on a chair by the window at work taking a break. But I could still do that and then just integrate the writing again later somehow.

Many of my notes or journals are written not to look at again but to just write out for the feeing of being done with it. I like that this site has years of archives but at the same time I don’t really care about them. In fact the only time I’ve looked at them are the entries I imported into tiddlywiki and that show up on the “on this day” tiddler. I keep thinking that when I start the new site, it’ll be blank and I won’t bother with historical stuff.

Plus then I wouldn’t have to look at several years of having the same conversation with myself.

Tried making a blog site or a theme using AI and whilst it did everything I asked and it worked, I didn’t like the results. I don’t know what I want. I still quite like the design of this site. So maybe I should get AI to tidy it up, add more of a nav bar somewhere and just use it.

Or I keep this going and combine my main site and wiki into one. Which I’m very confident I said just a few days ago. Really the wiki part is the most useful to me, and my idle chatter is irrelevant. And so maybe I just change domains and be done with it.

But buying a new computer would be fun 🫣

Well I successfully wasted this evening looking at a whole bunch of web software and decided I don’t care and don’t want to spend any more time on it. I thought about removing this site and just using a single text file for myself. I looked at various tiddlywiki configurations but decided I didn’t want to go down that route - TW just isn’t a normal website…which I like but also don’t. Even tempted to do a Jack and delete stuff.

Monday, 5th January, 2026

Back to work and school. Except we’re snowed in and everywhere is shut.

Thursday, 1st January, 2026

I accidentally made a folder called 2036 today. I like the idea of a single place for the next 10 years.

Did another 5 minutes on the erg for 1,200 m. I have got a cold and slept poorly from it but those 5 minutes seemed very tiring! Lots of muscles not used in a long time, as all I’ve been doing is hill walking. But I’m fine with doing a little each day.

Gone down the mental rabbit hole of getting an iMac. I’m sure when I look at prices I’ll change my mind but it does have some nice software. I’m also still trying to get rid of things vs. buying more.

I did look at prices - circa £2k for an iMac with what I’d pick. 😮‍💨 Seems a lot to use some software!

I’ve been poking around in my tiddlywiki, enjoying “on this day” and various notes I’ve made. Makes me think I should use that as my daily and wiki and then just some normal site on my main domain….or possibly just a landing page. Then I’d just have TW and the radio blog.

I might keep this just for me to rant into occasionally and have it built somewhere random on the internet.

But tonight I’ll watch the last Stranger Things.

Wednesday, 31st December, 2025

Here we are. The last day of 2025. I have given away the petrol lawnmower and cleared things so the rowing machine is now setup! 🚣‍♂️ I was going to do a casual row on it then saw the firmware could be updated. Little did I know that would take 30 minutes.

Still plenty of scope for organising and tidying better. Some stacking boxes to put stuff in would be useful and I should print some hooks/organising stuff as well on the printer. Including more fittings for the Ikea peg board that is very poorly optimised.

Suppose I should write some 2026 plans…