Material possessions

I’ve been playing Hitman. Apparently I got it free on Epic Games at some point, so I thought I’d try it. It’s a fun game in an unexpected way. It almost plays more like a puzzle game and isn’t what I expected at all. It’s very detailed. My one criticism is that there is too much focus on making the targets bad people so that the player isn’t too offended by the idea of murdering them. Hello, the game is about a hitman. It’s very patronising as your boss insists in your ear-piece that the world will be a better place without these people, and, believe it or not, I don’t accept a shady assassination-for-hire business as being a reliable arbiter of morality.

In other news, ROYAL MAIL!

I have ordered a little set of steps for Monty. I’ve been letting him upstairs more recently, now that he’s a bit more well behaved(!) and his new favourite place is my bed. When he jumps off my bed he seems to land very heavily and I think he would benefit from not doing that. So I found a really nice looking collapsible set of steps designed for dogs to get on and off beds.

It was despatched on Wednesday, with Royal Mail Tracked 48. You might think that this means it will be delivered in 48 hours, but, no, it’s just a brand name. It was estimated to be delivered either Friday or Saturday. Was it? No. It’s now Monday and the tracking has not updated past “Sender has despatched item”, which means Royal Mail are not yet admitting to actually having the item. What does this mean? Actually, it means nothing, because their tracking doesn’t work at all. I looked at some past orders and Royal Mail tracking shows no progress on any of them, even though they have each been delivered.

I just want my little set of steps!

I can get a refund on Thursday if they haven’t turned up. Amazon are selling them but with a 10 day delivery time because it’s only on Amazon EU, not Amazon UK (thanks brexit!). I found another shop selling them supposedly with 2-3 days delivery but their product listing is a bit rubbish and doesn’t actually specify the manufacturer so although the marketing image is the same I’m not 100% sure that what will turn up is actually what I expect. I’ve sent them an email…

And then we have my watch. My trusty Garmin Forerunner 245 developed a stuck button (the down button). I tried the standard suggestion of soaking it in soapy water to dislodge any dirt, but it made no difference. I bought it from John Lewis about 18 months ago, and it came with a two year guarantee. Anyway, it’s going back and they’re going to refund me as they no longer stock the 245. I’ll probably get the Forerunner 255 in replacement, which is a little more expensive. Not ideal but I’m only really paying the difference, so it’s not too bad either.

As far as I can tell, the 255 is a very broad incremental upgrade over the 245 in many ways. There is also the 265 which adds a much higher quality touch screen (the 255 and below are not touch). I don’t really want a touch screen on a running watch because I had one on my old Vivoactive 3 and have fond memories of trying to do interval workouts in the rain, with my watch deciding that the rain on the screen meant I was manually advancing the stage of the workout. Plus, some people say the screen is harder to read in bright light, which I can believe. It looks amazing in marketing photos, but I’m not buying a photo. The FR265 is £130 more than the FR255, which seems a bit steep for a screen of dubious usefulness. So I think I’ll go for the 255.

I’m not in an immediate rush though as I have the dreaded tibialis posterior tendon (inner ankle) pain again, so I’m not going to be doing much running for at least a few days.