Tuesday, 14th January, 2025

Turns out there was almost no coolant in the expansion pot, and it was well below minimum. So picked up some more from the dealer and now we’ll see what happens. Hopefully it’s all good and we just ignore how it disappeared, but if it does leak then I’ll know there’s an issue to sort out and book it into the garage. Glad I checked myself and didn’t just take it into the garage - take all that time just for them to top it up. The coolant was only £8. I bought two in case there is a leak and I need to top up. I also took a photo of the level to compare.

It’s bright pink, so I’d have thought if it was leaking I’d see it. Especially with all the snow, but maybe it’s been gone a while? or it’s a slow leak somewhere.

The snow has now all gone, just a few patches of deadly ice about, particularly on pavements.

Wrote up my week’s summary of last week’s work. Was one line. It is meant to be highlights, and when I roll up the year, the less I’ve written the easier it is.

I look around at things in the house and some of them are quick/cheap solutions at the time and we just live with them. I wonder if it would be better to spend some money to “do it properly” otherwise it’ll be like this for 10 years. Like some of the shelves in the garage, or the hat stand.

The problem with working at home is that all the home todos seem much more important and interesting to do!

Finally spent some time sorting out my Garmin watch and the various Garmin apps. It’s not that complex but it’s not always obvious. Luckily I have a friend who has one and has told me the best practices.

The downside of Garmin vs. Apple is that there’s not a unified way of doing stuff…even though Garmin control everything, like Apple, they seem to have different departments solving the same problem differently. Right now I’m trying to figure out the best way to manage all my GPX files of routes. Ideally I want them in one place, organised, somehow, to make them easier to find, and then they can sync to my watch and my Inreach device for when I go on a trip. Watch will be my main navigational aid but the inreach as a back up, and broadcasting my location when I’m in a very remote place. There seems to be two options explore.garmin.com and connect.garmin.com. Explore comes from the GPS device world and Connect from the fitness/trainer side, but they overlap. I think I’ll have to keep everything in Explore so that it shows up on the inreach but it’s not clear. Also the explore.garmin.com website is slow as anything. If it comes to it, I’ll maintain the routes in both places but I worry that’ll cause chaos.

Got a 40 minute video to watch on this which I hope will explain things…or at least point me in the right direction.

The custom maps I’ve bought (for £13) are awesome though. 🗺️