Chancer

It was dull when I walked Django this morning, but the forecast was for it to improve radically, which it did. I promised myself that I'd walk Django before it got dark, but I got behind with work, and then the sun dropped into a bank of cloud, so it was less appealing to stop.

My morning was interrupted when a guy came to the door saying that he was working on our neighbour's roof, and that he'd spotted a few loose slates and would have a look at our roof. He said that he'd fix them up cheaply, as we went round to look at the back roof. Not trusting him, I said, "give me your number and I'll get back to you". I then identified with one neighbour that the guy wasn't working on his house. Django's bark alerted me - he never barks unless he hears the doorbell or any slight noise from or near the front door, which is handy - and the guy was talking to our other neighbour. When the guy walked off, I verified that he hadn't been working for him either. When I suggested that he was a chancer, my neighbour said that "they always say they are working for a neighbour", and observed that he was using copper nails. He then asked, "would you go up on the roof of a 3-story building for £60?" So, I coughed up £30 for repair of three slates. Maybe he did nothing, maybe he's damaged other slates moving around on our roof, but I told myself that you can't get much for £30, and it would have cost a lot more if I'd got someone in to fix them.

Meanwhile I had fun celebrating our software (HiGHS) reaching 1000 followers on LinkedIn - particularly when I managed to get И's sister to be the 1000th - and then posted another story about a neat example using HiGHS that someone had "donated" to us. It's interesting to see how LinkedIn activity by me (and a few of our users) has helped increase awareness of HiGHS.