:: michael, row the boat ashore ...

A few things meshed over the past week and voila! I have a guitar.

See, I have always longed to play a musical instrument. Last year I noticed a flyer in a local cafe window offering guitar lessons. Hmmmm, I thought, maybe I should take down the phone number. Then at the weekend I got my computer magazine through the post and the free CD included ... a Teach Yourself Guitar program. Finally, the day before yesterday there it was, in the "for sale" section of our electronic staff noticeboard, a Spanish guitar in mint condition, cost £140, selling for £50.

I collected it today - sadly minus the promised "Teach Yourself Guitar" books (the vendor's mum had given them to a charity shop. "Sarah could play Greensleeves, and you could tell what it was!"). But hey! I have the computer program. Which, marvellously, includes a tuner - you bong bong bong on the string in front of the microphone and the computer widget goes green when it's in tune. Ah, the miracles of technology. All tuned up, I was able to start strumming. I did three chords: simple G, simple C and G7. They are all strummed on just three strings. Tomorrow I progress to four-string strumming.

As far as I can tell it's a nice guitar.

I'm going to plug away at the computer lessons for a bit, but I think it would be useful to have lessons with a real person - I can't seem to get my fingers into the same positions as the man in the video clips.

The weather is crispening now we're almost into October, and the trees are turning. We are told this is going to be a severe winter and I wonder if that is related to the appearance of squirrels in the back yard. I've been feeding the birds for years, and last week had my first-ever squirrel. Within two days all my seed feeders had been destroyed, the little perches gnawed off. So now I've got squirrel-proof feeders with metal perches. The squirrel still gets fed - it tips the feeder sideways so the seed pours out. But at least the birds get some of it. Bertie is useless - this morning the squirrel AND a rabbit were chowing down in the garden while he lounged around upstairs. He deigned to look out the window but claimed he couldn't see anything.





I had a housework blitz last weekend - most satsifying - but the garden has really fallen behind. The front doesn't look too bad - the lavender has done especially well this year and is just gorgeous to brush past - but the back is tragic. I'm planning to relocate the vege bed, but it seems like too big a chore at the moment. I've got a week off next month and may get stuck into it then, weather permitting. What I'd really like is a raised bed, like the ones Leighanne had at Waihola, but I remember her saying what an enormous effort it was to create them, and ... err, I'm too lazy. But it would be ggreat to have something high enough for me to work on in comfort and to keep Bertie from trampling everything. Oh, and where the vege bed is now, I'm going to put in some blueberry bushes. Yum. And maybe a plum tree up the back.

:: liftoff

I haven't done the laundry or washed the dishes or the floor or the car, dusted, vacuumed, mowed the lawn or even made the bed, but I have established a wireless network connection between my two computers. [Cue thunderous applause] Thank you! Thank you! This is so unexpected ... I'd like to thank my bank manager, who made all this possible ...

It's autumn, suddenly. Have I been working on the computer for that long? I feel a bit like Rip Van Winkle.

The ivy outside the back door is in bloom and is a riot of wasps and flies. I must have a go at it with the clippers - two sneaky strands are trying to force their way into the livingroom.

There are squirrels in the back yard! I've lived here for five years now and it's the first time I've seen squirrels. It was just one to start with but word got around and now there are at least two. They hang upside down on the bird feeder, gorging on peanuts and seed. I'll have to get some squirrel-proof feeders - the poor birds are missing out. No pictures of squirrels yet - they flee as soon as I open the door. Bertie was excited at first, but less so now he realises he will never, ever catch one.

:: I have a new boyfriend

How gorgeous is he? Fwoar! I don't know why I didn't get a laptop long ago. I've wanted one for long enough - I nearly got one when my old computer blew up, at the end of last year, but ... well there was the trip to NZ and other stuff & in the end I had to economise. I decided I would wait until next year to get one, definitely. Then a few days later I was in Stockbridge and glanced in the window of the Sony shop ... and when I came to I was signing a credit card slip.

geektalk
It's not blisteringly fast, but it does have a TV card and built-in wireless & a big HDD (100Gb - annoyingly partitioned into two drives, and I didn't realise the small one was C: until I got a panicky error message saying I was nearly out of space ... "I'll just start deleting stuff, OK?" it squealed hysterically, while I yelled at it to shut up and started firing all my photo files over to the D: drive. Grrrrr. I now have to uninstall all my programs and reinstall them on D: How annoying), plus a docking station & good speakers. The screen is unbelievably good, much better than my telly, so it's fab for watching DVDs. I got a wireless setup too, which I'm going to have to finesse somewhat - the signal is allegedly "excellent" but I get a lot of disconnects. It may be the phone interfering. Or it could be that all the skirting boards and door frames in my house are cast iron. The old box is relegated to the spare room upstairs, where it sits rocking and sucking its thumb. I'm trying to set up a wireless network, but no joy so far ... the lappie won't share its stuff.
/geektalk

I can watch DVDs in bed! I can surf the net from the sofa! It's fab. I haven't tried taking it outside yet - the weather's been a bit too changeable - nor have I sat in a cafe pretending to write a bestseller. Hee hee!

In other news .... I don't know if I menationed, but I've started cooking Bertie's food. He's gone off tinned stuff almost entirely, apart from one flavour in one brand. Plus I got sick of the smell and washing out the tins for recycling. So now I get a big tub of whatever meat is cheap (today it was lean minced beef, last time it was turkey chunks) and cook it up with veg and stuff. Today it was elderly zuccini and pasta shells. I did the turkey with carrots and rice. He absolutely loves it! His favourite so far was liver porridge - liver is cheap as chips & so are oats, and he licked his bowl clean. He also gets a full serving of Greyhound Maintenance biscuits, which is enough to live on.

On Sunday I went to Fife for a walk, on a hill near the Scottish glding centre. It's a good place to walk because the gliders ride the thermals around the hill and they're wonderful to watch. They're so graceful and silent, like big birds. There were also a lot of paragliders launching from the top of the hill - a lot less graceful than the gliders, plus they were yelling at each other! It was a fairly gruelling climb - it's steep, plus I tried a shortcut and got scratched to pieces on gorse bushes, and it was hot, too. But very enjoyable. I had to keep Bertie on the lead because there were sheep. He was probably too hot and knackered to bother chasing them, but there's no knowing with him. We also had a walk at Loch Leven, which I thought would be nice and cooling for B - but it has blue-green algae, so I couldn't even let him have a drink, let alone a paddle.

Yesterday was spent mainly clearing up the clutter created in the course of setting up the new computer - it looked like I'd been burgled!

Big shout-out to Cathie and Bill in Christchurch: Cathie has just come through major surgery that could have knocked out her one remaining kidney - and she came through with flying colours! The kidney is ok, plus she was in and out of ICU in a day instead of the expected 3-4 days. What a trouper!