Happy May, everyone! It being May, we are now having our summer, which lasts between two days and two weeks and is referred to constantly until September in remarks like "But it was nice for a while in May, remember that?" So far we've had two days, yesterday and today. It's hot, sunny and gorgeous. Flowers are bursting out everywhere -- the narcissi in my front garden are finally out.

It wasn't hot and sunny at the weekend, however, because that was still April. I did a sailing course at the marina, dinghy improvers, and it was superb. There was just enough wind and the weather, while cold, wasn't foul. It didn't rain, and on Sunday afternoon the sky was a perfect blue, dotted with big white puffy clouds, like cartoon clouds.


Wayfarer

There were six of us on the course, plus two instructors. Saturday morning we took out three dinghies, Wayfarers (see pic above), sailed around and around a triangle of buoys and discovered we were all about the same level of crapness. In the afternoon we had a bit of theory and a go in a "static" boat set up on tyres in the boatshed. Then we went back out on the water and found we had all improved remarkably. We did coming alongside (speeding up and slowing down, basically), which I managed really well.

Sunday morning we were out in the Wayfarers again, this time with spinnakers, a tricky business. Then in the afternoon we changed into wetsuits and took out two single-handers, both Topazes (see below) and two bigger dinghies, Laser Stratos this time, and swapped over. I was mainly in a Topaz, enjoying it too -- it's what I'll mainly be sailing in this year. But then Anna collected me in the inflatable & took me for a joyride before depositing me in a Stratos with Marilyn. What a fantastic boat that is! It's brand new, which added to the thrill, but it's also light and responsive, really good to sail.


Topaz


Laser Stratos

I'm also quite sold on the idea of sailing in a wetsuit. Marilyn was the only other woman on the course (apart from the instructors) and we got quite hysterical hopping around getting ourselves squeezed into the suits. But once I managed to get the zip up, I found it really comfy, and warm too. I may lash out and get one. It's rarely ever too hot on the Forth for a wetsuit!

Monday I went and did some more gardening with Chad, the colleague who's been ill. He's feeling a lot better so he did some light hoeing while I did the heavier spadework. It rained a bit, but nothing serious. I came away with a great haul of produce: parsnips, leeks, rhubarb and some more currant plants. Tuesday Philippa (cousin Brian's daughter) came to lunch and to say goodbye. She's off on a tour of Scotland for a week, then away back to NZ via several months in Africa. After she left I got stuck in to my own garden, weeding and planting. I began digging up the deceased fuschia, but discovered signs of life -- tiny green shoots emerging from the root. So I quickly replanted it, hope it survives.

Today I took Bertie on a visit to the cat and dog home. He found it deeply alarming, he wouldn't go in at first. He was recognised and much fussed over -- he's put on a little weight and his coat is much softer and shinier, he's looking really good. I was there to collect another 15kg bag of dog food, he's nearly finished the first one.

On then to the optician, where I picked up my new glasses and dropped off my old ones to be turned into -- reading glasses. I'm old, it's official.

Bertie attracts lots of attention in town -- people literally stop and stare, or rush up and ask questions. "Magic dog!" one fellow shouted. He is, he's magic. Poor dog, he hated it though -- too hot, too many people, too much traffic. He couldn't wait to get back to the car.

Uh oh ... I see big black clouds looming. A two-day summer then. Ah well.

tinker tinker tinker

Busy busy busy weekend (by my slacker standards), nothing like having a visitor (Liz) to rouse me out of my rural fastness. On Saturday we went on the Maid of the Forth launch trip to Inchcolm. I thought it was mainly a launch trip, but it turned out to be mainly Inchcolm. We had an hour and a half there, tramping around looking at ruins and seagulls. Favourite bit: squeezing up a tiny, insanely claustrophobic stone spiral staircase and a flight of steep creaky wooden steps to reach the top of the tower. It has a dangerously low outer wall and oddly the protective railing is on the inner wall. An anxious father yelled at his 6-ish daughter: "Hold on to the rail, darling!" as she raced ahead. She humoured him by trailing a finger along the uprights.

Saturday night we went to A Hard Day's Night, major nostalgia fest for me. Those sweet boys, they were so nice and clean and well-spoken it's hard to believe they were seen as a threat to civilisation.

Sunday was wet and soggy but we stirred ourselves and took Bertie for a run on Arthur's Seat, which he loved of course. He covered four or five times the ground we did, and at top speed most of the way. After a rest break back home, we set out again -- this time for dinner (at Maison Bleue) followed by a ghost walk.

The tour started out at St Giles but moved briskly to South Niddrie St, the close on the other side of where I used to live! I used to look out the kitchen window at the tour groups standing below, listening to theatrical lies. And here I was in the tour group, and someone else lives in my old flat. Weird. It was interesting to see what the company has done with the vaults under South Bridge -- I noticed the tour guide didn't mention that their excavations had reduced the bridge's strength by an estimated 18%. Not a comforting statistic when you're right underneath the bridge! It was a good tour though, very interesting and some cracking yarns.

Today Liz left on the train and poor Bertie is in mourning. He loves her soooo much! And so do I. She is lovely! Oh, and if you're reading this Liz, you left your phone transformer thingie behind and I'll mail it to you. Thanks for the phone money, you're sweet!

I have to do more work.

Hey, it worked! (See below.) I'm chuffed. Expect more pictures.

I was also chuffed with myself over another achievement today: I mended the bed!! It was quite complicated, I had to disassemble the frame, reposition some metal bits and put the whole thing back together. It's a slat-type bed, and the plank down the middle keeping the slats from springing loose had ripped out of one end. Bertie paced around nervously the whole time I was working on it, presumably afraid that this burst of strange activity meant yet another drastic change in his life.

I also cleaned some more -- the house is gleaming! -- and even mowed the lawn in between snow showers. Yes, it snowed. Hard to scotch some of these scotch myths.

Bertie had a good day too, apart from the bed thing. He's off the sick list and had his first go at the rabbits for ages. Don't worry though, the rabbits are in no danger. First one dashed under a bush briefly, then sped out and across the field to a patch of blackberry. Bertie saw it go under the bush, but didn't see it leave, even though I was pointing at it and shouting, "It went that way, you idiot!" The second one took him completely by surprise but he hurtled after it gamely before giving up. Chasing the third one he disappeared, and to my horror came back with blood all around his mouth. He'd only been out of sight for a couple of minutes, not long enough to eat a rabbit, surely?

Turned out he'd scratched his chin on a bramble -- it was HIS blood.

Some boys were up in the field this morning, working on the cycle track they're creating. Two were digging out a dip in one of the paths and a younger one was chopping back hawthorn and blackberry along the main path. They're making it quite elaborate, with jumps and hollows, a proper circuit. I hope there's not friction with dog-walkers over it -- I think it's great even though when the kids are biking around there I have to put Bertie on the lead in case he's run over; it's a good safe place for kids to play and they're being really enterprising in creating a run. But people can get huffy if they see kids having fun that hasn't been "properly" organised.

I keep forgetting to take my rubbish bag up there -- it's horribly easy to fill one up, no effort at all. Next time.

An experiment:

Lovely sunny day and here I am at work. Sigh. I've been house-prouding today; went to the supermarket, cleaned up a bit, thought about mowing the lawn (one case where it's not the thought that counts). At the supermarket I bought a new cleaning product, As Recommended By Anthea. "I can't believe we're having a conversation about cleaning products," I said. "No, but it's REALLY good!" And so it is. It's a funny light little mop thingie, with little thin cloths that attach easily, and you just waft it around the floor in a half-hearted way and it cleans completely by magic. It hardly feels like housework at all.

Also went for a couple of short walks with Bertie, one of which was very entertaining. First of all we met two old girls from up the street, one is Florence (from memory), the other Bridie. Bridie has a short stout terrier, Butch, who growled at Bertie. "It's just that he's been attacked," explained Bridie. "You know the woman with the three dogs? One of them attacked Butch." After a lovely chat we parted company. And who should we meet on our way home but the woman with the three dogs -- the chow and the two akitas. We stopped for a chat, in the course of which I mentioned Bertie's sweet, submissive nature. "Not like a lot of those little dogs!" she said. "There's one in the street, very aggressive .. mind you, she [indicating an akita] attacked him so I don't suppose he's so ready to have a go at a bigger dog..."

Heh.

One more cute doggie story: Bertie has twigged that I'm feeding the birds with, like, FOOD. He was hopping around the garden on his hinders this morning trying to get the peanut feeders off the tree.

Happy Easter.

Bertie's Weekend of Bliss turned to Weekend of Boredom with yesterday's visit to the vet. He was there for his vaccination shot but I mentioned the sore leg and now he's on a course of anti-inflamatories and confined to quarters apart from toilet walks. I'm not popular.

I had Wednesday and Thursday off as well as Friday, so we went for a super-brilliant romp from Elie to St Monans and back, along the coast path. The only bad bit for Bertie was that I refused to magically open the fence to let him at some slow-looking rabbits hopping around a field. Not only that, I put him on the leash and hauled him away from the fence. Spoil sport.

Thursday I did some gardening for Chad, very pleasant -- it was cloudy and cool, perfect for gardening, I reckon. Friday there was the visit to the vet. Not only does he have the sore leg, Bertie has conjunctivitis as well! I'm a bad owner, I hadn't even noticed. I have to bathe his eyes in warm salty water and put ointment in them (both of which he hates). After lunch Anthea and I went back to Ikea for more shelves etc. I spent the evening building things and rearranging things. The results are practical but not attractive, I have to say. Well, too bad.

Today I took Bertie on a slightly extended toilet walk -- we went along the jetty at the marina, which we both enjoyed. It was very windy, and choppy with it, so there weren't many people out. A lot of sailors are still busy getting their boats ready for the off, so the marina's abuzz with activity. I bought a tide table at the chandlery.

Back to work tomorrow, ugh. Only one page though, so should be ok.

Today I found out Bertie's racing name: Hardtobehumble. For those who don't know it, here's the song:

Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
When you're perfect in every way
I can't wait to look in the mirror
Cuz I get better lookin each day

To know me is to love me
I must be a hell of a man
Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
But I'm doin' the best that I can

There's more, about girlfriends and skin tight blue jeans, it's a hoot. Oh and it's country, in case you couldn't tell.

I tried the name out on him (not exactly catchy: "Here, Hardtobehumble!") and it didn't raise a response. So Bertie it is.

The Retired Greyhounds Trust also told me he's Irish, and was born in 1997 -- the day after my birthday!!! Spoooooky.

I went clothes shopping today, sigh. I got a black silk shirt (handwash only -- why do I torment myself with such garments?) and two t-shirts. Marks & Spencer is so depressing now. I used to get most of my clothes there, but they changed their sizing system with a great tantara and now nothing fits me. "I'm normal!" squealed the fat woman in the M&S advert, standing naked on a hilltop. She's naked because M&S changed their sizing system and nothing fits her. It's maddening. I'm wearing size 16 M&S jeans, but today tried on a size 18 shirt that was a joke. I could barely get it buttoned up, and it was so tight in the sleeves and across the back that I couldn't raise my arms. I left feeling monstrous. I got the shirt in Wallis, which doesn't make a big deal about its bigger sizes.

I don't think the shopping experience was unrelated to the road rage incident I got involved in a little later on. The road rager was another driver, a White Van Man, but I wound my window down and gave him a piece of my mind. He was punching the window of the car in front of me at the time, so it was quite reckless of me to have a go. He started to come at me (I wound my window up so fast I nearly sprained my wrist) but backed off -- I guess when he saw how enormously fat I am (smirk).

You want details? Oh go on then. When I became aware of the white van it was driving very, very slowly down the Cowgate ahead of the Polo (or similar) in front of me. Polo man tooted. White Van Man slowed further. Polo tooted again. White Van stopped without signalling. Polo signalled and pulled round ahead of White Van. White Van accelerated in a cloud of black smoke, sitting on Polo's tail, flashing his brights, generally acting like a maniac. Then, in the face of heavy oncoming traffic, White Van pulled round Polo at speed and stopped sharply in front of him. White Van Man got out and started ranting and pounding on the Polo, which is when I wound my window down and let him have it.

Men are WEIRD.

I did enjoy venting my rage though, it felt great. And without endangering anyone but myself! I'm so socially responsible. It was right by the close where I used to live as well, so conceivably my old neighbours were there saying, man she hasn't changed a bit.

Tomorrow I'm going to Elie, on the Fife coast. It has lovely beaches for Bertie to run on. I'll take a picnic lunch. It won't rain, it just won't.

Greyhound Gallery Lots of pictures of greyhounds, from ancient to modern.

Forgot to mention a frustration from yesterday: I hauled the two packets of planks to the carpet warehouse only to have my refund request rejected. They belong to the insurance company, ha, of course! So the firm can't give ME the money. So I had to haul them back again. Grinding my teeth because I still haven't heard back from the insurance company regarding my letter about the £100 they owe me.

Once again: where is the karmic kickback for being such an honest, upright citizen over the Persian rug? Don't tell me the universe is using it to offset previous sins! Unfair, seriously unfair.

The Guardian | Simple as falling off a blog For those of you who've asked about Blogger, here's a good article explaining it all. Get blogging! It's fun!

In other news: today I visited Chad (a colleague, not the country), who's just been in hospital. Anthea came too, and I took Bertie along for the ride.

Yet another bad idea.

Poor Bertie, life is just one trauma after another. This time the horrorshow was coming up to Chad's house and seeing his three huskies lined up in the picture window, all howling and yowling and generally making like wolves. There was no way in the world Bertie was going in to that house, no way. So I had to take him back to the car and leave him there for an hour or so.

I moved the car in to some shade -- the sun had come out -- and left the windows cracked open, but I still worried. Greyhounds can't regulate their body heat and are particularly prone to heat exhaustion. I stopped at a pet shop on the way home to get him some dog biscuits as an apology -- and to give him the thrill of walking down aisles loaded with sacks of dog food, treats and toys (Britain, doncha love it, you can take your dog anywhere).

I'm not doing too badly in the Getting My Life Organised business. I've drawn up a few lists, sent off for a quote for fencing the back yard, done nearly all my laundry and ... um, walked the dog.

The A_ward This looks interesting. It's a journal ring, one of the journals I read regularly (The Jon-Jon Diaries) is on it.

"We want journals that don't drone on about John and Sally's relationship going downhill or how ignorant your parents are. We want journals that include the world around us. In writing, in pictures, or both.

"There's a world behind that computer monitor of yours, and on the A_ward we want to hear about it. Observers, that's what we need. Journals with an eye for everyday madness. Or beauty. And the consequences of it on whatever personal level."

I love reading online journals, there are three or four I read slavishly. The ones I like pretty much follow the criteria above. I'm too chicken to write like that, because reading journals regularly like I do, I've heard some real car-crash stories about the consequences. One guy lost his job directly through stuff he wrote in his journal, lots of people get hate-mail from total strangers.

So from me, pretty much all you will get is DIY, cute dog stories and weather reports. Oh, and sailing stories once I'm out on the water. You'll just have to imagine all the real exciting, juicy stuff I'm leaving out ...

Another rabbit encounter: way up ahead I saw a rabbit speed across the path, followed by Bertie. Two beats later, the rabbit ran back across the path, followed once again by Bertie. I couldn't believe my eyes -- the rabbit doubled back and Bertie STILL didn't catch it. Mind you, he does have a slightly sore leg. Poor dog!

Liz is coming to stay! Yay! I've started tidying the guest room, and at the weekend I'll finally hang the blind. Unfortunately Bertie now regards it as his room. Hope Liz doesn't mind. He doesn't smell doggy, but his farts are unbelievable, you could use them as a chemical weapon.

I've got two packets of planks to take back to the Carpet Warehouse -- I haven't heard back from the insurance company about the £100 they owe me, but if I can get a refund on the planks I'll call it quits. At the moment it's just finding time to get the planks to the shop; I've had them in the boot for two days. It's on tomorrow's agenda. Along with getting wood for shelves in the bedroom, visiting a colleague who's just had his gall bladder removed, doing some washing and of course walking the dog.

And reformatting my hard drive, hahahaha!

Cute dog stories, awwwww, sweeeet!!! I'm embarrassed. But what the hell, in cyberspace you can't hear anyone groan "please, no more".

OK on the morning walk, we encountered a rabbit right by the steps up to the field/scrubbery. It jumped away slowly, stopping to rub its ears. Bertie could NOT believe his eyes. He didn't go mad, he didn't jerk on the lead, he just stood there, his eyes bugging out, until it sauntered off into the undergrowth. Given his emerging scaredy-cat tendencies, I can only assume he's learning something about perspective. Like in the Father Ted episode where Ted is holding a toy cow and explaining to Father Dougal: "This cow is small. That cow [pointing out the window] is far away." So maybe Bertie's thinking "Cripes, that rabbit is HUGE!"

Another cute dog story isn't funny: he's got a sore foot, ow ow ow, it hurts! It really hurts! It may be a sprain. He was fine on the morning walk, but suddenly suffering later in the day. It was a traumatic day all round -- on top of the giant rabbit and the sore leg, there were men in the garden next door cutting up and taking away the lawn. I had to escort him out in to the garden, the sook.

One more cute dog story, oh go on, you know you want one! On the morning walk we came across a Yorkshire terrier, tiny little thing. It stood up on its hind legs and put its front feet on Bertie's chest so it could sniff nose-to-nose!

Ulp ... it has been quite a while, hasn't it? You'll be glad to hear I had a productive two days off and my home is not now a health hazard. The bed is still broken, the computer's still playing up, but at least the floors are reasonably clean, and the shelves (including a new one from Ikea) are dusted and full of books. Not quite an Ikea catalogue illustration but a definite improvement.

I did have a go at the computer -- this will amuse any geeks reading (ie Liz and Ken), others can skip to the next paragraph. First I backed up what I needed on the Sparq drive, then gathered the Windows CD and all the hardware installation disks etc. I checked out the startup disks I had & none of them worked. (That was actually because the CMOS was set to boot C then A rather than A then C, but I didn't think to check that at first.) So I set out to make a floppy boot with the CD driver on it. Looong loooong ago when I bought my computer there was a problem with the CD drive & they sent me a floppy with the right driver on it. Now, I have been having a little problem with it again lately, in that it doesn't always install properly. So I thought, ahah! I'd better reinstall it now using the disk, before I make the startup disk. Why? I don't know, I just did. It reinstalled all right, but a) it called itself D, which was actually the Sparq drive and b) it did something to config.sys that eventually buggered the memory or whatever so it kept freezing and hanging. In between hell and high water, I reinstalled the Sparq drive. After high water I was reduced to rebooting into DOS using the incomplete startup disk (and fixing the CMOS setting) and harking back to the mid-90s: oh how quaint!! No pictures! I managed to track down the Edit application and rem out the naughty line in config.sys and got the whole shonky system moving again. I still have the original instability -- something to do with the new printer -- so will eventually have to bite the bullet and reformat the hard drive. Or I might take the opportunity to get a new, bigger hard drive so that when Ken visits again he'll have somewhere to put all his Stuff. Also it should keep me creaking along until I have time to build a new box in the winter.

Back in the real world, a dog was crying. There was a big scary monster outside, going WoooOOooooo!!! Right outside from his bed! Yup, my dog is scared of the wind whistling in the wires. Poor Bertie. I had just turned on the television -- his signal to go to bed, since he loathes TV. He tromped out, and then suddenly there was a yelp and a great crashing as he frantically tried to run on the laminate and fell over. We went out to the back yard to investigate, but the monster wasn't there. We came back in, and there it was again! He paced around miserably, whining, and finally settled on the bare floor in the far corner of the dining room, as far as he could get from the noise. I moved his duvet in there, and eventually had to move his dishes as well, because he won't go near his former "bedroom".

He's finally started coming upstairs, but that's traumatic too. He can get up just fine, but coming down ... I have to coax him, step by trembling step. The angle is too steep, the treads too narrow. I had to put a mat at the bottom -- he used to come off in a painful spreadeagled clatter of limbs.

Otherwise he's fine, enjoying his outings and generallly behaving himself. He's not in much danger of catching a rabbit: he gives them too much of a head start & can't get into the bramble patches they hide in. I'm not worried about rabbits, it's cats. If he caught a cat I'd feel dreadful. But I don't want to muzzle him either. Hmm. I've got an extending lead and I keep him on that more and more, particularly on the walk above town that backs on to houses. The field behind my place is ok, I think.

A little project I'm considering is rubbish collection. I spent a few weeks in California once, roaming the countryside in a tiny hire car. I was wandering around a strange and beautiful area of sand dunes and little lakes, when I met a man walking his dog and stopped to chat. He told me the area was once where the local hoons came to race their off-road vehicles, it was a mess. Concerned locals got together to save it, and this fellow got interested. He started going there for walks, and was disturbed at the amount of rubbish lying around. He decided to do something about it himself. Every time he went for a walk, he took big rubbish bags with him and filled them. "After a while it was only one bag. Then a smaller bag. Now I only take a little one, just in case." For him, the payoff was not only a more pleasant place to walk in, but someone to walk with him -- he found a litter of abandoned puppies, one of which he adopted.

So anyway, the places where Bertie and I walk are an appalling mess -- garbage everywhere. So I thought I might follow that bloke's example and take a bin-bag with me. I even thought about talking the council into lending me one of their rubbish-gripper thingies, so I wouldn't have to stoop all the time.

I'll keep you posted.

Bertie's lesson for the day: Do NOT, under any circumstances, run on to the railway line. You will be yelled at and have to spend the rest of the walk on a tight leash.

I did some grocery shopping and carried another couple of dozen CDs downstairs. Everything is filthy and disordered. Bertie's duvet cover is muddy and covered in dog hair and crumbs, and so is the floor (we had a long, involved argument about whether he was going to eat his DentaBone on the persian rug or on the duvet). The study is still a tip. The bed is still broken (did I mention the bed broke?) and the broken bits are still lying where they fell, the pot plants are drying out, the spare bedroom is a storage dump, the bathroom floor is covered in muddy clothes. And it's only been a week! In a month they'll call the environmental health people in with masks and rubber gloves.

Tomorrow Anthea and I are going to Ikea to sort our lives out. It promises pretty much that in the catalogue. The people look so happy, their houses are lickably clean. All their stuff is organised. All we need is shelves, and the rest will follow.

Sum total of work towards tidying the house today: plugged in the stereo. That's it. I really must start moving stuff down, but I'm so tired! All this walking, walking, walking ...

Two shortish walks today (one hour and twenty minutes), with plenty of off-leash romping. Bertie finally got the chance to chase a real live rabbit and made a hash of it. The rabbit got a head start and fled into a bramble patch.

I had another look at his ear tattoos and realised I'd read one of them upside down -- it says TV, not A.I. That would make him three, I think, which seems about right.

Next project on hand is building some shelves in my bedroom and in the livingroom, in the chimney alcoves. I'm going to get bare boards, sand and varnish them, and fix them with blocks of wood rather than brackets. I also need more freestanding bookshelves --- Ikea for that, I think. Then some kind of lighter drapes for the french doors. Oh, and I need to move all the furniture and books and stuff back down from upstairs and sort out the study and reformat the hard drive and reinstall all the software.

I'll start as soon as I've walked the dog ...

Dog ownership is wearing me out. Today we went for two walks. The first, to the field up behind my place, was a happy one. The second was a mistake. I was going to a farm a fair step away, to buy some eggs, and I thought, I'll walk and take the dog.

Bad idea.

First, the farm is on a main road. Second, the road is bounded by fields, wide open fields where rabbits frolic freely. So I found myself in charge of a big, strong dog, hysterical with excitement, leaping, twisting and lunging to get free, while huge lorries thundered past inches away. Eventually we made it to the farm intact. More excitement: the farm's hens are free range, as in walking around in the yard, on the roadside, everywhere. Second, the farm's extremely friendly Newfoundland dog looks pretty much like a bear -- size, shape, fur. "I LOVE YOU!!!" he bellowed at Bertie from the end of his chain. "Can we go home now?" quivered Bertie, doing his best to ignore the Newfie and eyeing the hens.

I bought eggs, and we made the nightmare journey back, Bertie gagging and jerking on the lead like a lunatic, me sweating and swearing.

Tomorrow we're going to the field and that's IT. I'm shattered.

Did I mention the floor is finished? Dougie and Bob came on Sunday as promised. I'd forgotten about daylight saving, of course, so as far as I was concerned, they arrived at 7.30am. Bloody hell. Bertie was appalled at the noise, so we went out for a long walk. When we got back, the fridge, washing machine and stove were all in the hallway and there was even more noise.

Eventually the blokes finished, packed up and left. After they'd driven off in their van, Bertie went to the front door and barked VERY LOUDLY. Huh, they won't be back any time soon!

The house is still a tip -- I'm too tired from dogwalking to cart stuff back down from upstairs. OK, I carried a dozen CDs down today. Should only take a few years to tidy up at that rate.

I had a reply from the greyhound trust regarding Bertie's ear tattoos. Apparently if the letters I told them are correct, he's 18 years old! So I think I've read it wrong. What I thought was A is possibly R, which would make him about five. They're like cars, one of the letters represents the year of birth.

Elvis Costello tells us which 500 records we absolutely must have to be happy. I have some of them, mainly his jazz and classical selections. The one I most want to listen to that I've never heard of is Agnes Bernelle: Father's Lying Dead on the Ironing Board. Eh?

A lot of the older stuff I was never a fan of in the first place -- Captain Beefheart, the Flying Burrito Brothers -- but some of the nostalgia selections make me think, yeah, I'd like to hear that again. Like the Four Tops, the Hollies, Prince ... I haven't got a single Prince album, how about that!

Yesterday was dog-day: my first day as a dog owner. It all went quite smoothly -- the dog (no name yet, see below) was ok in the car, is house-trained (or kennel-trained), enjoyed all his walks enormously and ate his dinner eventually (after first trying to "bury" it). He's bigger than I'd thought -- very tall and strong -- but that hasn't been a problem. He's ok on the lead generally, understands the word STOP. A bit nervous of cars and over-interested in anything that looks like it could possibly be a rabbit. No barking at all, though he did give a yowl when he saw the neighbour's cat in the back yard.

He had a new experience last night -- television. He happened to be standing in the doorway when I switched it on and he got a real fright. He stared at it, eyes bugging out, then backed slowly out of the room. Just an advert, nothing like Animal Hospital.

Today it's raining and when I let him out this morning he came straight back in & shook himself ostentatiously. I had to get dressed and take him out, stand over him until he went to the toilet. He's been joed out on his duvet ever since.

All Things Must Pass George Harrison's official site. "Not for the faint of bandwidth or resolution".

Everyone in New Zealand please watch out for bits of Mir. I think it's very decent of Helen to try and find those American tuna-fishers, good on her.

One more sleep and I'm a dog owner! I'm as excited as an excited person.

I still haven't done anything about tidying the house after the flooring onslaught -- why bother when it's only going to get dusty and dirty again? Next week will do. Tonight I'll set up the dog's "room" -- the wide part of the hallway by the back door. Bed on one side, food dishes on the other. I meant to get a piece of board for the stairgate but forgot. I could always cut a few bits of floorboard to size and slot them in I guess. This is to keep the dog downstairs until I'm sure he's toilet trained. But if he's lived in kennels he might not even know about stairs.

Leading suggestions for a new name: Bing (my favourite) and Kuri (Pinky's suggestion; Maori for dog). Pinky dismissed Jack and Finn McCool as too fashionable. So we're looking for something that is even MORE fashionable, ie fashionably unpopular. How awful if I called him something really great and it immediately became popular. There's this sort of trajectory to fashion, isn't there -- you start out with the situation that no-one in their right mind would name their child Mabel -- it's a granny's name, musty and mothballed. And you end up with kindie kids being Mabel C. and Mabel F. because there are so many of them. It goes rare/unpopular/uncool, uncommon/unpopular/cool, more common/more popular/still cool, common/popular/uncool, common/unpopular/uncool and back to the start. Also there's the age thing -- if your granny and her friends are all Mabel you name your baby Chantelle; if your granny's Chantelle you call your baby Mabel.

I'd better do some work.

Bad news on the floor front: it's not finished. Heavy sigh. Well, I thought Dougie was being optimistic. They're coming back next Sunday (at 8.30am! again!) to do the kitchen and finish off the beading in the rest of the downstairs. It does look better, I guess, and it certainly feels better. I can go downstairs in bare feet without risking frostbite.

I'm going to go ahead and get the dog on Thursday ... by Sunday he should be settled in enough not to freak out completely when strangers start destroying the kitchen. We'll go for a drive up to St Andrews or something, let Dougie and Bob get on with it. I went to visit him today, took a couple of photos which I'll put on the website once I get them developed. He was quite nervy but not in a snappy way, just trembling and starting at sudden movements. He is sooo tall, and elegant and beautiful. He got very excited when we left, thought he was going too, which was sad -- "see you on Thursday" means absolutely nothing to a dog!

Any name suggestions welcome: he's called Bertie at the home but honestly does not seem Bertie-ish. I like Finn, after Finn McCool, the Irish hero who built the Giant's Causeway so his girlfriend Staffa could get home to the Western Isles. I think one-syllable names are easier for dogs to pick up. He certainly doesn't react to Bertie. The woman who took us to his kennel asked if I was keeping the name. "Errr, I'm not sure..." I said. "I named him," she said, and I was glad I'd been diplomatic. She said she really likes greyhounds, and she's adopting one herself when she has a holiday, in June. So I gather from all that that she had wanted Bertie herself.

I did get some pots and plants on Saturday: I planted some lily bulbs (stargazer) and a little daisy bush. I also got seed trays and seeds for lobelias, aquelegias (sp?), night scented stock and nicotiana. Eventually I'll plant them, and the rocket seed too. The rocket is planted directly into the ground, I need to work a bit more on the bed before it's ready for that.

Brrrr ... I just got in from planting the blackcurrants, pardon me while I brush the snow off my jersey. Yup, real snow.

Meanwhile Dougie and Bob are beavering away laying the flooring. Mess, noise, Forth FM, cheeky chat, the works. They thought I was hilarious, gardening in the snow.

I have to go in to town in a bit, to collect my camera from work. I took it into the office rather than leave it in the car, ha ha -- in the excitement of gathering up the pots of blackcurrants I left it under the desk. Completely forgot about it until I was almost asleep, don't you hate those sudden blinding revelations late at night! I got up and phoned the security guard, got him to go and get it. I imagine he found it, too bad for me if he didn't.

I went back to the Cat and Dog Home today to reserve Bertie, just in case someone else claimed him before I do next week. There was a bit of hemming and hawing -- they don't usually reserve dogs for more than a day or so. But their logic was skewed: because greyhounds aren't the most popular dogs, if someone wants one they want to be able to say yes right away. And if it's reserved they can't. But it's reserved because I want it! They relented, seeing Bertie's been there a while, and I've got until next Thursday afternoon to pick him up. I couldn't go and visit him though, because it was closing time. They gave me some leaflets produced by the Retired Greyhound Trust, lots of detailed information about diet and care, and how to train your dog not to chase cats.

Every dog will chase a cat, but greyhounds can actually catch them.

The planks, underlay etc arrived today so it's all go for Dougie and Bob tomorrow. Oh joy.

Chad brought the blackcurrant and raspberry cuttings in, so I'll plant them in the morning. If the boys seem to be getting on all right I'll go out for a mooch around gardening centres. I'm thinking of getting some big tubs and pots for the patio and around the top of the retaining wall.

The wall itself I'm considering covering in mosaic -- I asked at the tile shop about offcuts and broken tiles, and they said they'll give me a load for nothing. I'd love to try a big doodly patchwork extravaganza, and if the tiles are free, that's great. I could add in bits of mirror and broken stuff I've collected as well. Andrew once gave me a beautiful ceramic seahorse, after we'd been to Barcelona and I was thinking of Gaudi-esque tilework for the bathroom in my old flat. "You could break it and use it for that," he suggested. I kept it on the windowsill, meaning to knock a nail in and hang it properly -- and one day caught it with the towel and it smashed in a zillion bits. I've got the bits in a bag. I've also got the bits of a Waipu tile of a cat with a jug of cream. That tile's been broken three times and repaired twice I think. I bought a new one last time I was in NZ, this time in a wooden frame.

And of course now I'm a prospective dog owner I'll be checking out pet shops for all the kit: collar, lead, toys, chews, brushes, worm tablets. I've got a spare duvet he can have to sleep on. He'll be downstairs by the back door, there's a perfect dog-sized area down there. Ooo, I'm so excited!

Madness in the news: you know the Mir is coming down soon? (Of course you do if you're in the Southern Hemisphere -- you're in the crash zone!) Well the Japanese in the area the debris will pass over are going to be told to stay indoors for 40 minutes. But we're also told that the big chunks of space station will be travelling at such a speed they can penetrate 6ft of concrete. So unless your house has a concrete roof 6ft 6in thick, you're doomed if it all goes horribly wrong. At least if you're outside you can duck.

I've picked out the dog I want, and all going well he'll move in next week. He's a greyhound and is white with a brindle patch on his face. The Cat and Dog Home got him as a stray but he's an ex-racer -- he has an ID number tattoed on his ears. The home has had him on a special diet to build him up, but he's still quite bony. Very tall, quiet but alert and friendly, and apparently playful once he gets to know you. Good with other dogs but will chase cats. His name at the home is Bertie, but he doesn't reallly look like a Bertie.

After chosing Bertie yesterday I went to see Best in Show, to see how demented I'll become once I'm a dog person. Yes, that'll be me in the pet shop screeching: "That's not a bee! It's a parrot!! You don't know my dog!"

Today was a completely wasted day, spent waiting for the carpet warehouse blokes to deliver the flooring. Their excuse: "The lorry isn't co-operating." They're coming at 10am tomorrow now. While waiting I ferried more stuff upstairs, so the house now looks ghastly everywhere. Every room is either horribly empty or ludicrously crammed. Except the toilet and the bathroom, they're pretty normal.

I just want it all to be over so I can relax and enjoy my home. But a chore on tomorrow's agenda is collecting some tile samples for the kitchen. I went into the shop yesterday to look at tiles and it was a nightmare. They quoted me for an average sort of price for the actual tiles, but of course I have such exquisite taste there was nothing in that price range I liked. My favourites were the Delft tiles, £13 EACH, never mind price per square metre. The small, plain, multicoloured tiles I'd admired were almost twice the quoted price. The cheaper tiles all have a tic: wobbly edges, "antiqued" effect, "artisan" finish. Ick, a tic. I spent almost an hour in the shop, which is small but jammed with display boards, and finally found a couple of candidates: thick, chunky-looking "biscuit" tiles, and a range of fairly inoffensive pastels. The biscuit tiles only come in a few colours: black, white, cream, blue and green. They were displayed in checks, and I imagine that could look good -- black and white, or cream and blue. They would be slightly retro. Hmmm.

Just to complicate matters the man said it would be ok if I got the tiles elsewhere, the quote for labour would be the same. So that widens the search to a massive number of tile emporia, including Fired Earth in Glasgow and the dreaded arty place in the High Street.

Chad says he'll bring the blackcurrant cuttings in tomorrow, and maybe a raspberry cane as well, so I'll be able to garden on Saturday while Dougie and Bob do their thing indoors. Unless it rains, of course, in which case I'll hide upstairs.

Gardening frenzy today: I moved two more hydrangea bushes to the front, where they'll probably wither and die from lack of sunlight. It's north-facing, and they're tucked in behind the fence so they won't even get all the morning sun. Hah! Take that you ... plant. I'm sure hydrangeas are lovely in some people's eyes. Not mine. They're old-lady plants (not that I have anything against old ladies of course). These ones are especially manky -- insipid not-quite-blue with a tink of pink [tink? that was meant to be tinge, but I prefer tink] and feeble spindly stalks with a few leaves. I tossed them a handful of compost, maybe that'll perk them up if the shock of being moved doesn't kill them. That leaves one still in the soon-to-be blackcurrant patch. Someone suggested I leave it in the streeet with a note: "Free to Good Home".

Had a chat with Frances next door, who tells me the bulbs coming up in the front are bluebells. I dug a load of them up during a heavy weeding session last year, damn. Anyway they reproduce themselves so probably no harm in thinning them out a bit. Everything is budding or already leafing out, you can nearly hear some plants growing they're shoving out foliage so fast. The honeysuckle is doing well after being bashed about by various tradesmen, and the rose bush out the back is coming away nicely too.

The elder at the back is also sprouting. Frances says her husband cut it down for Mrs Blacker a few years ago but it just grew back. I might cut it down too -- it only managed to squeeze out a few pathetic bunches of flowers and berries last year. I'd rather put an apple tree in there. The trouble is, you'd have to kill it stone dead, not sure how to do that without resorting to poison.

Next on the gardening agenda is reseeding the lawns -- they are both a mess of weeds and moss and crap (literally -- courtesy of the birds). Last year it was tragic looking out the upstairs window, my lawn and Jim & Rosemary's were like an advert for before and after -- guess whose was the "before". At the moment it's even worse, because I tramped around on the grass while it was frozen, a big no-no. It's all dead-looking and yellow between the steps and the bird-feeders.

Tomorrow after the windows bloke comes back with the mended window I'm going to the tile shop to drool over splashback solutions, then to see Best in Show. I need a week off, not just a day.

Renovation update: The windows bloke came, as arranged, to take away the defective unit. The piece of Very Strong plywood he'd brought to leave in its place was a foot too short. He'd done the meauring, someone else had done the cutting. Luckily I have plenty of top quality laminate offcuts in the shed, so he used one of them to bodge a solution. Burglars note: it is Very Secure.

I was watching the bloke (forgot to ask his name again) taking out the unit and noticed a sudden shower of the tiny beads inside it. Peering closer I saw they were pouring out of a hole in the inside of the frame. The bloke said someone had driven a screw through it.

"I'm surprised the chaps who installed it didn't notice," I said.

The look he gave me spoke volumes. It said: "Nothing surprises me, I've seen it all. They probably did notice and didn't say anything to save themselves the hassle of replacing it. They might even have done the damage themselves." He didn't say a word. Extremely eloquent though.

After that I faddled around carrying furniture and pot plants upstairs, had lunch and did some gardening -- inspired by the Marshalls Kitchen Gardener's catalogue that came through the post this morning. I weeded the beds out the back and sprinkled round a bit of stinky compost I bought last year. It's a concentrated manure and seaweed blend, so it's foul. I also shifted one of the hydrangeas from its prime position to the back of the back yard. I thought there was just one big plant, but there are four of them, bunched together. I don't know what to do with the others, I might put them out the front. I don't like hydrangeas much. I'm going to plant blackcurrants in their place, and possibly raspberries.

In the next week or so, weather permitting, I'll extend the bed I've been digging along the fence, ready for rocket and runner beans. I've already got the rocket seed. I'm going to get Red Rum beans, "an amazing development", according to the catalogue. "It can set beans under all sorts of conditions by self-polliination so that it outcrops all the standard varieties." There's even a testimonial from Mr S. Freeman in Essex. I just like the way they look, twining up a wigwam of poles, covered in scarlet flowers. Also pondering courgettes (Kojac, a compact, spineless variety you can grow in the patio) and strawberries (Marshmello -- "combines a wonderful old-fashioned flavour and aroma with reliability in varied conditions"). I'd like to grow tomatoes in the tiny patio bit out the back, it gets really hot out there and is sheltered too. Carefree appeals: "Plant it, forget it -- well, almost! -- until you start to pick the masses of fruits."

The catalogue is so seductive, everything looks delicious. All kinds of unusual things too -- salsify, seakale, chinese water convolvulus. Argh! I've just seen something called Land Cress, which looks just like what I weeded out of the garden this afternoon! Hmmm, maybe not...

Mushrooms too. That would be a little creepy though, "pre-spawned compost" cooking away in a cupboard. Also they present the same problem as the rest of the catalogue: vast quantities. Raspberries: 12 canes. Rhubarb: 3 crowns. Mangetout: 18ft row. I'd open the door and the cupboard would be full of glowing white fungi. Mushroom omlette, anyone? Spaghetti sauce? I could always freeze stuff, I guess. Yeah right.

The tile guy rang with a quote, quite reasonable. I need three square metres of tiles, he says. So I'll go in to the shop tomorrow and get some samples to take home and try against the decor. Deciding on colours should only take six months or so.

I had an offline day off yesterday, bliss. I didn't answer the phone, didn't check my email. Just sloped around in my painting clothes, painting. I did the woodwork round the french doors -- two coats of primer and a coat of gloss white. Also washed the car, and did some extremely light housework. The living room is a bomb site. Tomorrow I'll continue moving stuff upstairs ready for Dougie next weekend. So the upstairs will be a bomb site as well. Maybe I should go and live in the shed, it's marginally tidier than anywhere else, with the added bonus that it doesn't matter if I drip paint/varnish on anything.

This morning I did some quality loafing with the paper, a big mistake -- the glorious sunshine had become heavy rain by the time I was washed and dressed.

I've turned a non-smoking corner (if you get my drift...) -- my sense of smell is back. I went to the supermarket on my way home on Friday and was blown away by how good everything smelled. Mmmmm fresh basil! And the broccoli! Yum! The fish section smelled so deliciously of Arbroath smokies I suspected Tesco of installing some kind of automatic scent machinery, like the ghastly air-freshener in the toilets at work (there's a strange little hum, and suddenly you're choking on concentrated Spring Breeze) but nicer. I did have a cigar in the pub during the break on Friday, one of the little skinny ones. But the return of lovely smells is a real incentive not to go back to my peak consumption of 10 a day. Cigarettes, not packets, I never was a heavy smoker.

The Sims extension pack is slightly disappointing. The llama topiary was exciting for a minute, but there doesn't see to be much in the way of architectural extras.

The windows blokes came at 10am, not noon, waking me out of a sound sleep. Most embarrassing to answer the door in dressing gown with my hair upside down. I must have looked a fright, because they looked frightened.

Anyway they (two new fellows) went to work with a will. Good news: it's mostly finished. Bad news: one of the "units" in the french doors has to be replaced. I'd noticed these little tiny beads of something between the two panes of glass, and they said that meant it was defective. It's toughened glass so would normally take a fortnight, but through some jiggery pokery they're fixing it next week. On Monday they come and take out the unit and put in a sheet of plywood. Then on Wednesday they come back with the fixed unit. Any burglars reading please note: I'm assured the plywood is Very Strong.

Once they finally finished I went to PC World to convince myself once and for all that I cannot afford to upgrade my creaking computer. No, no, no. And came away with an upgrade ... for the Sims. Oh dear. I hadn't played Sims for ages but then Anthea was talking about her Sims and how well they're doing etc and I started playing it again. It's horribly addictive once you get started.

Speaking of addiction, I've stopped smoking yet again. I had one on Saturday afternoon, but apart from that it's been about ten days. I thought I might start again on Saturday night, but not many people were smoking at the pub. And then last night (this counts as Thursday because I haven't been to bed yet, so we're talking about Wednesday -- like you care!) I was at the pub with smoking people and didn't scrounge one. The worst craving I've had so far was while listening to a radio discussion last week about lung cancer. Yap yap yap about smoking. I was gasping for a cig.

I remember once I had been off smokes for months & then watched Silkwood, the Meryl Streep movie about Karen Silkwood, the anti-nuke whistle-blower. Everyone in that movie chain-smoked. During an ad break I rushed to the chippie for a pack of ten -- part funded by my flatmate, who also fell off the tobacco wagon during the movie. In one scene Karen's husband walks out, bangs the door dramatically behind him. Seconds later he bursts back in, grabs a carton of cigarettes from a cupboard, then leaves again. CARTONS of cigarettes, remember that? What extravagant risks we took back then. Ah, those were the days.

I was supposed to have gone home ten minutes ago but I've been emailing etc; so I may as well throw in an entry here. There's been a flurry of emails from hither and yon, forcing me to look up things like Idiopathic Thrombocytopaenic Purpura (not as bad as it sounds, apparently & Daniel's getting better) and Clarendon (not far from Waihola, phew).

I had a soporific couple of days off, did a lot of housework and a spot of gardening but not a lot else. But it's just the lull before the storm.

Tomorrow the window blokes are coming, and on Friday a man's coming to measure up the kitchen for the splashback tiles. I thought about doing it myself, but it's quite complicated. I'll watch the professionals closely then maybe try my hand in the bathroom. I'd love to do something mad in there with mosaic: a Gaudi knock-off with bits of broken crockery and mirror and whatnot. But the kitchen needs to be reasonably sensible, I think.

The big challenge is chosing something. I thought I'd more or less decided (smallish tiles, patchwork of lightish, brightish colours), but the tile shop was a phantasmogoric wonderland of colour, texture, glaze and size. 3-D yachts! Sweet! How about this gorgeous little number with a goldfish leaping next to a waterlily! Ooooh, art deco ... glass mosaic ... metallic effect fossils ... Get me out of here. The man kept showing me more boards: Victorian borders, inset feature tiles, matt, gloss, rustic, vegetable themes, frogs, aiee!

Then there is the tile shop I'm afraid to go into. It has a wonderful selection of hand-made tiles, including stylish-yet-earthy ones with Pictish symbols. Ruinously expensive though. Sigh.

Then sanding and varnishing the french doors as mentioned previously. Next week I have to move most of the furniture upstairs, and the flooring is delivered. I got all that sorted on Monday -- the bloke in the warehouse said, "You'll be able to remember what day they're delivering, because it's my birthday!" I have to also climb up to the loft and retrieve the packet of planks I stored up there. Hope I don't kill myself in the process, that would be a shame. Dougie and Bob are coming the following weekend to lay the floor, Dougie reckons they'll just take two days. Please let that be true. It felt as though they were there for a week the first time round, they made such a racket and a mess.

I really must go home.

Two days off coming up, not a moment too soon. Last week was exhausting. Even yesterday was tiring, and that was a day off. I haven't got a lot planned for my days off, hurrah!

Today I went for a great walk, over an hour of brisk healthy striding. The roads were thronging with other brisk walkers -- the cross-country footpaths are pretty much all shut down because of the foot and mouth outbreak. The Dalmeny estate is on a war footing: the main estate entrance and the estate farm entrance were covered in straw and guards had been posted to make sure visitors used the disinfectant footbath.

The more I learn about foot and mouth, the more baffled I am. I'd always thought it was a dread disease, on a par with leprosy or bubonic plague -- in fact it's been called a plague in headlines in A Certain Newspaper. But it turns out it's about as serious as a bout of the flu. If you leave the sick pigs and cows alone they get better. One writer said the wholesale slaughter was an economic thing: infected livestock lose condition & weight and aren't worth as much. And because it spreads so fast it's better to kill all the animals in an infected herd than risk gazillions more animals getting it and being worth less. Apparently.

The other thing, of course, is that you can vaccinate livestock against foot and mouth disease. But that costs money, and again, apparently it's cheaper to risk having to slaughter all your animals than to make sure they don't get sick in the first place.

Meanwhile, back in my disease-free habitat, Dougie and Bob are coming in a fortnight's time to do the floors. He reckons it will take two days: Saturday and Sunday. I have to go in to the warehouse tomorrow and make sure they've got all the right stuff, which they'll then deliver. In the week before Dougie arrives, I'll have to move as much furniture upstairs as possible. The windows blokes are coming on Thursday. If they fix the boards around the french doors then, I can sand and varnish them over the following few days, so they'll be finished before Dougie and Bob get stuck in.

I have fantasies of painting the livingroom before the floors are done, but I have to stamp them down. I would have to scrape off all the embossed wallpaper first, ghastly business, then no doubt plaster over various holes and cracks before painting, or put up lining paper. Just too complicated, messy, time-consuming and tiring. Same with the dining room. I've more or less decided on colours -- darkish green for the dining room, perhaps with dark red velvet curtains and a lightshade with some kind of crystals or sparkles; and my favourite pale adam green for the living room with white dotted muslin curtains. I'd like to recover the sofa and chairs in lighter shades too, cream and pink maybe.

This just in on the foreign wire:

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) – Passengers arriving at Prague’s Ruzyne airport from Britain and Ireland will in future be asked to clean their shoes on specially laid rugs to prevent the possible spread of hoof-and-mouse disease to the Czech Republic.

Hoof and mouse! It sounds so sweet. Please wipe your feet to avoid infecting Czech mice with your vile British disease.

More tooth-grinding over insurance. It's gotten so complicated I can hardly follow it myself, so I hope the insurance company can grasp the fact that they still owe me £100. I got two cheques in the mail today, both £50 short. And no, it's not a coincidence: £50 is the policy excess, which they've already taken off.

I tried phoning but it was constantly engaged, so I sat down and wrote them a letter. I enclosed a copy of the letter I sent the inspection firm, and photocopies of the tear-off bits that came with the relevant cheques. The whole time I was doing this my irritation levels were rising. Why is this so HARD? Where's the good karma payoff from not cheating them over the rug? Why am I even bothering? If it had been just £50 I wouldn't have, probably. But the second extra £50 really got my goat.

At least I can go ahead and get the new flooring laid, that's something. Dougie's phoning me tomorrow with a date, and I have to pop in to the warehouse to check they've got the right laminate.

After all that -- and given that I was going in to work early -- there wasn't time for the gym. Oh, what a shame! I'm so stunningly lazy I'm almost ashamed of myself.

The weather this morning was stunning. There was a thick river fog that we get now and then, a freezing fog that left some hedges up on higher ground frosted all over. After it cleared it was brilliantly sunny, eye-achingly so. I feel as though I've been hibernating on days like this.

Tomorrow I'm taking the cat to the airport to meet her baldcat, who's been in Paris for a week. I haven't minded minding her, but I won't miss her litter tray. This is a cat who goes outside for half an hour then comes back inside to go to the toilet.

In the evening there's a farewell party at a pub in town for Davie, who plays Irish and Scottish music on the fiddle. That should be fun. He's off to New Zealand.

I feel slightly guilty about this, but my life feels pretty normal. According to reports from the other side of the world, where I live is in the grip of apocalypse -- plague, blizzards, terrible accidents. You'd think I'd be suffering. But no. I was slightly annoyed by the fact that my newspaper wasn't delivered two days in a row, and the rubbish was collected a day late. Oh, and the deadlines at work have been moved forward. But that's it. Hardly chaotic.

Joking aside, it's very nerve-wracking for my farming friends -- there are two suspected cases of foot & mouth disease in Scotland, one in Dumfries and one in Grangemouth, near Edinburgh. There was one suspected case at a pig farm in Aberdeenshire, but it turned out to be frostbite. Yes, it's very, very cold in the north, and the poor pigs live outside. I was surprised that the virus can survive such intense cold, but apparently it thrives in winter conditions, it's heat that kills it, even sunlight. The last outbreak lasted from November to April.

The snow is still lying and a little more fell this morning. Just a powdery sprinkling, nothing serious. It's bitterly cold, so nothing is melting. Apparently the main road between Glasgow and Edinburgh is bordered by tall icy drifts. When I came in to work today the city looked magnificent: Arthur's Seat was brilliant white and bathed in sunshine, and the dark crags of the Castle looked dramatic silhouetted against it. I always get a thrill from the beauty of Edinburgh, even after 10 years.

Ten years ... good grief ... that fairly flew by. In fact it's nearly 11 years. Jings.

I dragged my sorry carcase to the gym today and took a little light exercise. I'm trying to get into running, with the eventual aim of jogging in the outdoors. For now what I do is brisk walking (on the treadmill) for a few minutes, then running for one minute, then go back to brisk walking. I am severely unfit due to joyfully embracing car ownership, so a minute's running is a much bigger achievement than you can imagine. There were other people in the gym, so it was an even braver deed. The good thing about the little village gym though is that the clientele aren't as scary as at the gyms I used to go to in town -- more baggy trackies and t-shirts, less lycra.

Ha! We won the net-nanny battle -- we now have unlimited access. My boss is really good at angry phone calls to IT. We also flooded them with demands to be allowed to visit websites like The Onion (satirical US news site) and the American Nazi Party. What really did it was when a colleague doing research discovered he was locked out of just about every site about Switzerland. Can't be too careful!

Home front: the windows blokes couldn't get to my place today because of snow. Apparently it's really thick in the Borders where they are. At my place it was blazingly sunny but cold. There's still snow in my back yard, a frozen crust.

The windows advisory man made it from Currie: his car had a good six inches of snow on the roof. He checked everything, made a note of all the problems and went off to make a report. It's a very good deal, this firm, Dougie-the-floor put me on to them. They charge a £20 fee and for that they get you 10 quotes, check the finished job before you pay for it and organise the paperwork for the guarantee. I assume they get a cut from the windows firms. Today Ross did what I should have -- he went round and opened, shut, locked and unlocked every single window. Very efficient.

I was going to go to the gym then but ... um .... well I had to go in to work early and ... there might be snow between home and the gym and .... oh, I'd better just put that washing away, and clean the bath ... oops! it's too late to go to the gym now anyway! What a shame!

Tomorrow I'll definitely go to the gym. I don't know why I'm so reluctant, I actually enjoy it when I'm there.

Today at work we got the following memo: "As from Monday 26 February 2001 our company access to undesirable internet sites will be removed. If for research or company business purposes access to a restricted site is required, a form must be obtained from the IT intranet web page, or directly from the IT Helpdesk. Authorisation is required by your department manager. Under normal circumstances 24 hours notice is required to enable access."

A week is a long time in politics; 24 hours is a very long time indeed in daily newspaper journalism.

And it's a finely-tuned censorship: Sandy was barred from the BBC's weather site tonight. Ooo, err, must be those saucy isobars! Stark naked statistics!

I wrote all the following yesterday, but then for some reason this blogger thing wouldn't work on my home computer (which is still have fits and starts ... I can't bring myself to begin the horror of reinstalling everything) so I had to email it to myself at work and do it here.

So: on Saturday I decided to give myself a break from varnishing and went to the races. First I dropped a friend at the airport, then pootled over to the racecourse. I arrived way early for the first race but that gave me time to mooch around looking at everything, watch the bookies setting up, study the race card and stuff. It was a lovely sunny day, apart from a few clouds, yippee. Before the first race I went round to the paddock and checked out the horses, picked my likely one (Russian Dancer) but decided against putting on a bet.

A few flakes of snow fell.

Went back to the stand, where I met a couple of people I know. One I hadn't seen for ages, so we had a good natter. More snow fell. The horses came out for the first race and went round to the starting post (it was all jumps so there's no gate). By now the snow was so thick you could hardly make them out, and you couldn't see the far corner of the track at all.

They announced there'd be a delay to the start of the race while the track was inspected. The horses rode round in circles to keep warm. The rest of us stamped our feet and blew on our fingers. The snow was thick as a blizzard, and the wind was bitterly cold. Someone said the football had been cancelled in Aberdeen that afternoon because of snow. We were covered in it.

Finally they announced the first race would be delayed for 20 minutes and there'd be another track inspection. The horses came back past the stand. Everyone cheered and shouted for their horse to go faster. The snow stopped and blue sky appeared as the clouds moved south.

Bizarrely, part of the programme was a race by humans, with four preliminary heats. They decided to go ahead with that while we waited, so these poor devils had to get out of their tracksuits and sprint past in lycra. First prize was £1,000, so I guess that's an incentive.

Then they announced that the race meeting was being abandoned because there was too much snow on the track. Boooo!! We got a "race abandonment" ticket at the gate, which gives free entry to any other race meeting at the course. There's one on next Saturday, but I'm meeting another plane at 10 past 4, so that's no good. I see from the programme though that most of the rest of this year's race meetings are flat racing, which I prefer, so that's ok.

Unless the foot-and-mouth outbreak gets worse, in which case all racing could be cancelled -- the Newcastle meeting was cancelled on Saturday.

I drove home in brilliant sunshine -- it's odd when the sky's so clear to see cars and lawns covered in snow.

Yesterday I spent varnishing again -- first coat in the kitchen and diningroom. I was going to do the french doors as well, but discovered the boards used for the trim are warped and the silicone seal between doors and boards has come adrift. It'll all have to be replaced, sigh. The blokes are coming back on Wednesday anyway, to replace some latch things on some of the windows that aren't right, and the chap from the Windows Advisory firm is coming to inspect them on Wednesday morning.

Frances from next door came in to do a load of washing yesterday -- she's having her kitchen replaced after a fire, and though her water's back on, the washing machine hasn't been plumbed in. It's supposed to snow again, but hasn't so far.

This morning I woke up to find the back yard a winter wonderland!! Thick thick snow has been falling all day and it's still falling -- at after 8pm. My poor wee car was covered in it. The only downside is that it's not cold enough to keep the snow dry, so the footpaths are all swampy with cold slush. It looks gorgeous out the back though. Jess the cat-guest wanted out to inspect the birds but soon changed her mind. She's spent almost her entire visit so far asleep.

So I did the second coat of varnish this morning to finish what I did yesterday. Just the french doors to go now depending on what happens with the woodwork.

Varnishvarnishvarnishvarnish. Paintpaintpaintpaintpaint. Sandsandsandsandsandsand. All to the sound of next door's kitchen being reconstructed using a massive bandsaw/drill of some kind. At least I've finished the bathroom cupboard and can fill it with my vast collection of shampoos, conditioners, moisturising lotion, hair removal products, bubble bath, soap, cotton wool, makeup, bathroom cleaning products and beauty implements. Not forgetting the plunger. At present it's all piled up on the bedroom floor, a very exciting trip hazard.

Still haven't started on the downstairs. I'll save that for Sunday. Argh, it's almost Friday, how did that happen? Not to mention it's almost March. And still I haven't got the final installment of the insurance money so I can't get Dougie booked in to do the floor.

Spring! Don't you just love it!

Interesting bulbs are springing up in the front garden, but there's no sign in the back of any of the daffodils I seem to remember planting there. Maybe the birds and hedgehogs ate them.

Something weird: I've always intended this site as a private one -- it's just for family and friends, to quench their curiosity about where I live etc. So I haven't sent the address to be included on any search engines or anything (I did that with Pinky's website by the way -- if you type "Pinky Agnew" in to a search site like www.google.com her site comes up first). I like to keep track of who's looking though, so on the first page there's a little coloured graphic in the bottom left-hand corner that links to a tracking service. It can tell me what time zone people are in, what operating system their computer uses (someone's looked at my site on a Windows 16-bit system, bless them!), all kinds of useless information. Also it has a referral section that tells you how they got there -- mostly it's "unknown" or "bookmark" but there was one caught my eye:

http://www.google.com/search?q=hockadilly

So I went to google and did a search, and voila, there were a few hits. Some were things I'd written on a discussion forum thing giving a hockadilly.co.uk email address, but one was from a journal I've got listed in my links page. The guy who does this journal -- a great writer -- had listed all the referrals for his site, and one of them was mine. I don't know why I found this unsettling -- he had hundreds of sites listed -- but I did. And then I clicked on and discovered that whoever had done a search on Hockadilly did it from this office on 7 February just after midnight and was on my site for four minutes and 1 second. I was paranoid for five seconds then I realised ... duh, it was ME.

So ... the moral of the story is, even when you try to keep your site private, it's not any more than your house is. It's right out there on the street, anyone can look in the windows. And if you've pasted your diary on the windows ... well they're going to read it. But I'm enjoying writing this and I know a few people are enjoying reading it so I'll carry on till I get sick of it.

More geek news: Mum and John are learning to use a computer because Janos is giving them his old one when he upgrades. They'll be wired! They'll be surfing! Run! Hide!

Renovation frenzy: Today I started varnishing the windowsills. Many, many windowsills. And the trim round the windows, and the nice bits of board under the sills. So far I have varnished in the hallway, toilet, bathroom, spare bedroom and my bedroom. Still to go are the study, kitchen, diningroom and french doors. Two coats at least, the first being thinned with white spirits. And a coat of yacht varnish in the bathroom on account of the shower. Plus I'm still struggling to finish painting inside the (huge) bathroom cupboard.

It'll all look lovely when it's finished.

Got my rug back from the cleaners. The cost had mysteriously increased, from the initial quote of £70 to a quote when I dropped it off of £120 to a final invoice for £140 plus VAT.

"Oh well," I said. "The insurance firm said I could replace it, so I guess they won't quibble about an extra hundred quid for cleaning."
"You should replace it anyway," said the sales assistant.
"Pardon?"
"You could get the insurance company to pay for a replacement and keep this one."
"I don't do that sort of thing."
"You should! The insurance companies are all up to no good ... the premiums they charge for a start..."
"That's because so many people cheat them," I said.

That shut her up. I've had enough of this, I really have. Is it really so freakish to be honest? Gah. Anyway, the rug looks lovely and I'm glad to have it back, brightening up the ugly grey lino tiles.

Bit of a busy weekend coming up: a friend's going away for a month and I'm minding her cat. I pick it up on Friday, then collect my kinda-cousin Philippa and take them both home for dinner. Then Philippa and I abandon the poor cat and go to see Hannibal. Saturday I take the friend to the airport in the morning and then go to the races at Musselburgh. I'm reading a novel about horse-racing (Horse Heaven by Jane Smilie) and just have to go to the racetrack for real, even though it's jumps and not flat-racing like in the book. They don't go in for flat racing here much and they don't have trotting at all I think, I wonder why? I've only been to see trotting once, a night trots meeting, and it was thrilling -- the jockies perched on their little buggies are weird when you think about it, but when you're there, you don't, it's pure excitement.

And then of course on Sunday there's all that varnishing I've been avoiding.

Renovation update: The windows are finished! Paul came alone today and pootled around doing the last bit of trim round the french doors then departed. I'd been to the gym for the second day in a row, the sun was shining, birds were singing, and I flung the new doors wide to a gust of fresh-but-not-freezing air. Lovely. Then I had lunch sitting on the doorstep -- pork and apple sausages followed by perfect strawberries and a perfect banana, washed down with espresso and cranberry&lime.

Of course the sunlight sparkling in through clean windows did rather highlight the fact that every surface in the house is covered with a thick film of dust. The boys ran the hoover over the floors before they left, but they neglected to dust. Hey ho. Maybe I'll leave it until after the floors are done ...

A small confession: I don't actually LIKE the new french doors. The frames on the old doors may have been corroding, but they had pleasant proportions. The new aluminium doors are clunky, the frames are about three inches wide. They don't let in as much light as the old ones. When they're open they're ok, it's just when they're closed they look pants. But then if I'd had the big sliding patio doors they would have let in too much sun in the summer -- it blazes down, truly. So I guess it's just a matter of getting used to them. I'm not going to put the brown velvet curtains back up, I'm going to get some kind of filmy drapery with flowers. Blue flowers. I have an image of it in my head, which means I'll drive myself slowly insane trekking around every single fabric shop in the city looking for it, before impulsively buying something in lime green and pink checks.

The other windows I do like, they're a major improvement on the old broken shabby ones. They have neat little trickle vents to let a tiny bit of fresh air in if you want, or you can lock the window slightly open. New curtains all round!

There were a few people at the gym today, mainly young women with Drambuie sports bags, who I guess were on their lunch break from the factory. There was also an older bloke who looked as though he hadn't been in a gym since 1971 and had been sent by his doctor after a dodgy cardiogram. He was severely uncomfortable -- he warmed up with a few brisk knee bends, then had a go on the stair machine. Failed to work out how to use it, so hopped off in a casual "just messing about" manner and did his stretches -- waved his arms in the air, put his hands on his hips and wobbled his bottom around, had a go at touching his toes. Finally he discovered the rowing machine, foolproof AND manly! He was still rowing for dear life when I left. I empathised deeply -- it was like that when I started at the bigger gym in town, everyone was lean and muscular and dauntingly fit, it was horrible plodding along on the treadmill at 4.2 miles per hour while on either side a Greek god or goddess sprinted without puffing or raising a sweat. Not that I'm lean, muscular and dauntingly fit, nooooo ... but I'm very limber and I was doing my stretches when he came in.

In fact I'm gruesomely out of condition, and fatter than I've been in years. I'm determined to start out slowly and stick to it. In the past I've thrown myself into exercise like I had something to prove, and it soon became a chore. I love being fit though. Only a couple of years ago I could walk briskly up a steep hill without having to stop to "look at the view", and it was exhilarating. The most fit I've ever been was back in the 70s (when the guy in the gym was probably on his local football team!) and I was doing karate with Ali. Near where we lived there was a very steep street and she and I had a race to the top on our way to the pub one night. I wasn't even out of breath. Now, I'd be purple and gasping just walking halfway up.

Apparently the drug in Traffic was cocaine, not heroin. Obviously ... Mexico, duh. I think I got the impression it was heroin because all the users seemed so dozy, flopping around on sofas sort of thing, or blissing out in a soggy way. Also there was that cold blue photography .... when I was into cocaine it was bright and jazzy, a happysexy get-up-and-dance drug. I didn't know anyone who was addicted to it; the addicts I knew were on heroin and/or speed. And they were like the people in the movie, the kind who would break in to their parents' house and steal stuff. Cold, blue ...

Maybe it's the drug that's changed, maybe cooking it makes the difference? I don't know. I'm out of the drug loop apart from cigarettes and occasionally a nice bottle of Shiraz.

Oooh, I hope the above revelations about my misspent youth are not Too Much Information for some of my gentler readers ....

Not so very tired today, due to getting to bed early last night -- I wasn't working, you see.

Today was great, lots of things fell into place. The insurance, for a start -- a woman phoned from the inspection firm, completely confused because she'd received my second letter, the correction, but not the original letter, which I'd parcelled up with pieces of flooring and beading and whatnot. She went away and tracked down the parcel, then got right back to me and said that was fine, she'd phone the insurance firm and they'd send me a cheque for the difference. Hurrah!

Also, because I was feeling so chipper this morning, I put on my trackies and checked out the gym. The local one is based at the high school and only opens in the evenings, but the one in a nearby village is open all day. It's right across the road from the Drambuie distillery, and it looks like they fund it -- it's called the Drambuie Leisure Centre. I love the way they call gyms leisure centres -- to me, leisure involves lying down on the sofa with a remote control or a book, not pressing weights. The building was quite impressive from the outside -- it's got basketball and badminton courts as well -- but the gym itself is tiny & jammed with equipment. Not a problem -- I was the only person there most of my session.

I managed to get my computer limping along well enough to back up my files, and at the weekend I'll reformat the hard drive and reinstall everything. A drag, but it speeds things up, and once you start getting the Blue Screen of Death it's the most straightforward cure.

I phoned Fiona and set a date for lunch in March -- we are such busy busy people.

Last night Anthea and I went to see Traffic, film about drug trafficking with Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas. I liked it except for the ending, which was too happy-ever-after for my liking. I think the sulky teenager should have died blue-faced on a toilet floor, that would have had more impact -- as it is, the message seems to be you can be addicted to heroin and still keep your good looks, and what's more your father will spend more quality time with you.

Also, I picked up a brochure for the marina sailing school and noted a couple of weekend courses I'd like to do -- one is dinghy cruising, that's in July, and another is an improver's course, which I'd like to do at the beginning of the season. They both sound like fun, the emphasis is on getting out in boats and sailing as much as possible. I'm going to book for both of them.

Paul and Joe had another boy with them today, Scott, and it looks like they'll finish everything today. They might have to come back and do some final finishing touches but are hoping to get it all done. Whew. The french doors don't look great, not a good choice I think. They have much thicker frames than the old steel ones, so they don't let in as much light. Maybe I should have gone for a sliding door. Oh well, too late now.

I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooo tired. But on the bright side it's incredible how much you can get done when you get up at 8am! Today was lovely and sunny again -- can it be spring already? there are bulbs bursting out of the soil everywhere -- so I went out and gave the hedge a good doing over. Hack hack hack, I even got on the ladder and did the top. Couldn't reach the leggy bits over the other side, which is annoying when you're suffering from sleep deprivation.

Paul came out and told me you only trim hedges in summer, not winter. Yes, but in summer I won't have TIME! Because I'll be in bed asleep! I must have looked a bit mad. He and Joe decided to take their coffee across the road so they could enjoy the view. They're from Glasgow, poor things, you don't get views in Glasgow.

They'll have finished the upstairs when I get home, which means they'll start on the downstairs tomorrow. No kitchen, oh joy!

Insurance update: The cheques poured in today, one for me and one for the carpet firm. I took it in to them and had a good moan to Peter, who remembered me from last year. Fantastic customer, I should get a discount. They're banking the cheque and standing by for further communication. Tonight I phoned Dougie who laid the flooring originally and isn't really looking forward to doing it again. He's also standing by. It's what he does best, really.

I had to get more sugar. Why is it builders always take heaps of sugar in their tea/coffee?

Tomorrow I'm getting the car washed. That should take me through to oh, about 10am. If it's nice I might go for a walk, anything to get out of the house.

Annmaree, I'm thrilled you like the print -- I hope one day to see it in situ (scenes of panic when I announce my visit "Andrew, where did we put that picture she sent us?").

Right now I'm off home to bed. Sleeeeeep, must sleeeeep .... must not sleeeeep in car .....

I'm exhausted and it's only 5pm. I've been up since 8am -- to recreate the effect yourselves, set your alarms for 3am or so. Yes, it's windows day! Coincidentally my computer (Windoze 95) crashed as Paul and Joe hammered and sawed and broke glass in the next room. I'm going to have to reinstall Windows (just like Paul and Joe!) or buy a new computer.

So anyway, the windows. Paul (alpha window installer) and Joe (teenage underdog) have taken out four windows so far -- bathroom and two bedrooms -- and when I left at half two, driven out by the noise and mess, they had installed one. "We're a bit behind," said Paul. He promises they'll at least block up all the gaping holes, and that my bedroom window will be finished when I get home. Which would be nice.

So after crashing my computer repeatedly going to the shop for milk and making the boys a cup of tea, I left. As I came out the front door I was yoo-hoo'd by a couple of old girls across the road. "Hello! Lovely day!" (It IS a lovely day by the way.) It was this nice woman who I chatted with briefly one day, whose name I can't remember, and her neighbour, Eva. "Oooo, a new friend!" trilled Eva. "I'm usually in, if you ever feel like a nice chat!" They were waiting on Mrs Nice's daughter to come and take them for a "run". They are so lovely, both of them, brimming over with joie de vivre, happy to be alive on a lovely day with so many opportunities for pleasure.

When I turned to go back to my car, Paul and Joe were hanging out the hole where the window was, munching chocolate digestives, also enjoying life to the full.

I saw two greyhounds today, a black one and a golden honey one. Gooooooorrrrgeous. I must have one. They are so quiet and sleek and elegant, eyes like bush babies.

Oh, I mailed off an insurance claim increase justification kit to the inspection firm today: a sample of laminate, a sample of beading, a photo of both in situ, copies of all documentation re cost and a plea for more money. I posted it, bought some milk, paid for the papers and THEN realised I'd done my sums wrong. No, Barbara, the amount you quoted them from the insurance company was LESS the excess, so you're £50 out. Oh damn, damn, double damn. Scuse my French.

Christine, I am SO glad you're reading this! I think you're the only person who is. Pinky's computer is broken again. Now, about that little thing you sent at Christmas ... this is so embarrassing ... ummmm, was it a fridge magnet? Because not only was I rude enough not to send a thank you card (well my bro was here, and then we went away and then there was a flood, and then, and then ...) but now I've kind of forgotten what it was. I've got a lovely weta fridge magnet that's fairly new, though, and there's a paua shell one too.

I'm sorry, Chris, I'm a terrible person.

That is so completely cool about your course by the way -- sounds fantastic. I'll write more later.

Because now, I have to do some Work.

I spent practically the whole afternoon today on the phone, to the insurance firm, the carpet firm (not George the rug guy, this is re the laminate that was totalled in the flood), the inspection firm. I'm just about ready to forget the whole thing and just paint the damned floor, a la Changing Rooms.

The insurance firm says the inspector's report only gives me £1,100 (roughly) for the new floor, all up. The carpet firm says the new floor will cost £1,500 (roughly). all up. When I got back to the insurance firm, they said to phone the inspector. I phoned the inspection firm, they said talk to the insurance firm. After an argument the woman I spoke to relented and said, send us the estimate from the carpet firm and we'll think about it. So, back to the carpet firm, where I managed to beat them down a hundred quid or so, and they're sending me an estimate which I can send to the inspection firm and they can report on it to the insurance firm. Which in the meantime I think has sent me a cheque made out to the carpet firm for £1,100 (roughly).

This might sound the work of minutes, but every phone call was feindishly complex to make -- "if you are inquiring about a current claim, please key in the number of the team which is dealing with it". Team? I have a team? The inspection firm had the old-fashioned system whereby you explain what you want to several different people before getting through to the right one. At the carpet firm, John was often busy "with a customer" and I had to wait for him to call back.

I did tell the insurance woman about George-the-rug, to emphasise that I WASN'T TRYING TO CON THEM OUT OF ANY MONEY, IN FACT I WAS SAVING THEM MONEY (sorry to shout), but that seemed to give her the impression I was trying to pull some more complex con.

Ach, I'm no good at this sort of thing, it makes my head hurt even to do the arithmetic.

I try for perspective -- at least I'm not an Afghan refugee freezing to death in a camp in the middle of nowhere -- but that doesn't work any better than when mum used to tell me to eat everything on my plate because there were children starving in China.

Today I'm meditating on honesty. That's because today I took my Persian rug in for cleaning.

The rug in question was a victim of my New Year flood -- the burst pipe flood. It was bundled soaking wet into the shed, where it promptly froze solid. When the insurance assessor came, he took one look and said: "The dye's run. Throw it out, we'll replace it."

After the rug dried a bit I brought it inside for a look. It didn't seem too bad, and as I'm very fond of it, I thought I'd rather get it cleaned than replaced.

People's reactions have been extraordinary. "You're mad," is pretty much the consensus. Even people I thought of as morally upright said I should get a new rug on the insurance AND keep the old one.

So today I took the rug in to the purveyor of fine oriental rugs recommended by the place where I bought mine, for cleaning. The chap there, George, hemmed and hawed and said well certainly we could clean it -- but we have plenty of very nice rugs if you want to replace it. He said it was worth £750.

What! I only paid £250 for it ... admittedly six or seven years ago. And it's not THAT marvellous.

Ah well, you made a good buy, and prices have gone up since then. This is a very good rug.

Slick as a merchant in the Marrakesh souk he whisked me through to the display room to look at replacement rugs. They were finely woven, plush and thick, soft as a baby's bottom. "These are MUCH better quality than mine," I said suspiciously.
"We sell good quality rugs at a reasonable price," he countered.

I still like my rug though, so I told him just to clean it, thanks very much. He wrote me out a docket, on which he put the replacement value of the rug: £950.

£950!!! It CAN'T be worth that much! I squealed. "That's what good quality rugs like yours are worth today," he said firmly.

He says if I'm not happy after it's been cleaned he'll give me a quote for reweaving the bits where the dye has run.

He obviously thinks I'm mad too. I don't want to question George's moral standing but ... well I have my suspicions. It's good business for him if he can sell me a fancy-schmancy rug and if the insurance is paying, surely it's no skin off my nose.

I'm no saint, I've done my share of law-breaking -- I even spent a night in jail once. But this rug business is doing my head in. I just hope the insurance company appreciates my efforts on their behalf.

Speaking of which -- a woman phoned today to say they are sending a cheque for the plumber's fee. When I asked mildly about the rest of the claim she became flustered and said "Oh, er, um ... I thought that had all been dealt with, oh dear!" So that cheque's now on its way too. And I've called the carpet place about the new laminate and they've got Dougie checking his schedule.

And the windows start going in on Monday, hurrah!!

I've been tinkering with the pictures on the website, making them smaller. But I haven't yet gone through all the pages changing the sizes, so on some of them the new pictures look sort of weird, stretched. I'll get round to it eventually.

Pinky, I've started work on your new look, I'll have something to show you soon. I'll put a link on Hockadilly's front page. How's Auckland, darl? They treating you all right up there? I miss you!

Startling news today from my next-door neighbour -- while I was away up north they had a fire! It was a classic chip-pan fire: hubby comes home from the pub, puts the chip pan on the stove, falls asleep on the sofa. When F. got up in the morning, everything was black with soot, even upstairs in their bedrooms -- they had soot on their blankets, on their FACES. Talk about lucky to be alive. The kitchen was particularly bad, of course. The heat had become so intense the curtain rail melted. But no big blaze, happily, so they live to tell the tale.

And of course F. lived not only to tell the tale, but to clean up afterwards -- 18 hours solid the first day, after which she looked as though she'd "been down a chimney". But it's all covered by insurance, so they're getting a new kitchen -- cupboards, stove, ceiling, wiring -- plus industrial cleaners in to do the livingroom over.

I heard all this (and more) standing out in the rain. Yes, rain, not snow. Snow is piled high in other parts of Scotland -- huge drifts, roads blocked, cars buried -- but chez moi it's just rain, rain and more rain. I got up in the middle of the night and there was a thin covering of snow but it was gone by the morning.

It's snowing!! Yesterday it was stormy, lots of rain and high winds. This afternoon it was still windy and then snow started falling. Brrrr!

I have a little "sea view" from the kitchen sink, I can see a rectangle of the firth through an archway in the building opposite. This afternoon it was a patch of angry grey, capped by flying white foam. Brrrr again. My house isn't very wind-proof, the windows and front door all leak cold air.

A couple of people at work couldn't get in tonight because they live in the Borders, where the snow's been especially heavy. And my boss was moaning all night because he hates snow, and lives nearly an hour's drive away.

I love snow! Work is a non-smoking building, so we addicts have to go outside on to the balcony and it was great out there tonight. The building backs on to the park, there are big trees right outside. They looked lovely, every bare branch coated in snow, so they stood out against the black background of the hill. And because of the wind the snow is whirling in hypnotic patterns. Mmmm mm.

Cold, but.

Forgot to say, the date for the windows is now 14 Feb. Everyone tells me it'll only take a day, they just bash out the old windows and pop the new ones back in, ta da! But I think it'll take longer. The french doors must be more complicated to do than that -- there's a door sill to put in for a start.

I hope it's quick, though. It'll be great to have windows that open and close without a great thumping drama. Plus the old ones are incredibly dirty ...

Sleeping patterns back to normal, so I'm feeling much more energetic. Weather: rain, more rain and then some rain again. I don't mind; I quite like rain. The only weather condition I don't like is the thaw after heavy snow; dirty slush is depressing. The rest is grand: fog, frost, wind, sun, misty moisty mornings, bring it on.

Pinky, I miss your emails already! I'm going to start work soon on a new version of your website, with pictures that load faster and a sharper look to the furniture. If you have any new stuff you'd like incorporated, let me know. I'll put a link to the new look on my front page for your approval and/or comments before making the change.

My email program must be broken, the inbox is empty. HEAVY HINT.

Yackety yack! I'm making the most of this, because the next month is going to be super-stressful. Lots of days where there'll be nothing to report: I'll be running around first thing making cups of tea for various workmen (double glazing installers and floor-laying joiners) then racing off to work work work work, back home just to conk out. Then when I get a day off I'll spent it mainly asleep, catching up on the sleep deficit.
I need at least eight hours sleep a day to function properly; nine is ideal. But if I get only six or seven hours sleep a few days running I have to catch up with a big sleep, ten hours or more, or I feel as though I have jetlag. Sleep sometimes seems an enormous waste of time, especially when I'm involved in something -- updating the website, reading a gripping book, out carousing -- and my eyes start drooping. More coffee!! More cigarettes!! I feel even more cheated when I wake up late after a late-night session and a beautiful day is half over.
I'm looking forward to only needing a few hours sleep a night when I'm old.
No ... you're right, nothing interesting to report today either. Um, there was a wagtail on the peanut feeder this morning, haven't seen one of those in my garden before. Its fame is spreading. "Yeah, she's got that black sunflower seed back again, and the lard nibbles actually grow on you after a while."

And it works! You can get back to my website by clicking on Hockadilly, below, or at the left. Hah, I'm a genius! (Settle down at the back, please.)

Trying out a little refinement....

Well I guess now I've lured you all over here I'd better write something. UMMMM... I just had a few days off, which I thoroughly enjoyed -- my last longish break for a while. I drove up to Anstruther on the Fife coast, stopping off in Elie for a good long walk around the harbour and over the dunes. It was blustery and cold, blew away a few cobwebs. It was high tide as well, so waves were crashing against the sea walls. At Anstruther I had another, shorter walk, then had a slap-up tea at the local fish restaurant, which serves the best fish and chips in Scotland. It was great, I must do it more often.
No word yet on the insurance -- I phoned last week and they'd only gotten up to claims from the middle of November. The blokes come to put in the new windows soon, next week or the week after.
I have to do some work now!