Woooo!

The universe is about 13 billion years old, slightly younger than previously believed, according to a study that measured the cooling of the embers in ancient dying stars.

But a lot older than Edwin Hubble thought it was, apparently. Back in 1928 he put it at two billion years old, give or take a few million.

In other news, this story has my dander up. Sounds all very well on the face of it, but then you get into the fine print.

The American church leaders said they would recommend a special process to defrock any priest who has become “notorious and is guilty of the serial, predatory sexual abuse of minors.” In cases that are “not notorious” they would leave it up to the local bishop to decide if such a priest is a threat to children and should be defrocked.

Oh, and apparently “a link between celibacy and paedophilia cannot be scientifically maintained”. Eh? Elsewhere, the good cardinals say “attention was drawn to the fact that almost all cases involved adolescents and therefore were not cases of true paedophilia”.

So let's see -- they'll think about defrocking a priest if he molests lots of really young kids and everyone knows about it. If not many people know about it, then the bishop will decide.

Here's my suggestion: call the police, put the alleged molester on trial and let the court judge the evidence. That should make it nice and easy to decide who should be defrocked.

Shop shop shop shop shop shop..... drop.

I had a megashoppng session. Bought a new TV -- a cheap and cheerful little Goodman portable. Bought some headphones so I can watch TV late at night without bothering the neighbours. Bought a new keyboard and speakers for Faye's computer. Bought dog food. Bought paint for the doorsteps, front and back, for the retaining wall at the back, for the back door, plus sandpaper and brushes.

Staggered home, set up new TV, walked dog. Now I'm dropping into a hot bath. Whew.

The new TV is great -- I didn't realise how awful the old one was.

One thing I didn't get that's on my list is a new monitor. I'm still fighting the temptation of a TFT monitor, one of the skinny flat ones. They're quite a bit more expensive than the regular ones, but don't take up nearly as much space. Can't decide.

Cathy emailed me an age calculator -- sadly it didn't work, but I was intrigued so I scouted round on the internet and found this one.

It is truly freaky watching your life whizz by in milliseconds.

Whew! Busy or something. The gas man came today and drilled a big hole in the livingroom wall. It's about the same size as the airbricks in the other rooms but it's down near the floor. It has a grille on it but outside there's just a hood thing, so I should be able to stuff a towel or similar in it to stop the flow of freezing air across the livingroom floor.

This is as close to crazy as it gets -- I pay them £200 to make my home safe from noxious fumes, then I fix it so it doesn't work. But really, it can't be energy-efficient to have bloody great holes in your walls. It's medieval.

My television's starting to go on the fritz -- the sound and colour go very high or very low without input from me, and the remote only works if you're standing right next to the set. I'll shop for a cheapo replacement on Saturday. I've had this one for years, nearly ten years I think, and it was second hand to start with. I want a portable set with Teletext, a SCART socket and a headphone socket. Should be able to get one for £100 or so. (Yes -- Currys and Dixons both have a Sanyo for £110 with all that.)

My trip to Oxford next month is firming up. Colin is OK to look after Bertie -- I have to leave him behind because a) he can't stay at Mrs Kahn's and b) there won't be any room in the car for him and his luggage. I'd wanted Colin and Jenny to have a practice run at hosting Bertie before I go into hospital anyway, so it works out well.

Speaking of hospital, there's still no word on when I'm going in. I'm supposed to meet the radiologist first, but I haven't heard from him either. They have moved out to the new hospital already, so maybe they're still getting themselves sorted out. I'm quite glad they've moved -- there's been an outbreak of the "superbug" at the old infirmary, all the cardio patients got it and one died. Brrrr.

I added a picture to The Mirror Project. It's a fun thing to do -- I have a couple of others to submit, also of reflections in water, I just haven't gotten around to sending them in.

Long day at work today -- 11am start and I'm still here at 9:30pm. I'll go home soon, just waiting for our Jerusalem correspondent to file some copy.

I absolutely must have this drug.

This is my favourite quote from the article: "It is possible it could become a drug of abuse because it would enhance the performance of athletes," he said. No! You really think so?

This site has a link to what it calls "a hugely inappropriate animated tribute to the Queen Mother".

I think it's sort of sweet, in a South Park way.

The weather continues to be glorious and I continue to spend most of my time off outdoors rather than writing to my family. Sorry about that. Today I washed the car -- after walking the dog in a solemn manner befitting the solemnity of the solemn event I was missing on the telly. The lull that fell over the land was quite noticeable, as was the feverish buzz of activity once the funeral was over.

Tesco was shut from 10.30am to 1pm! So was Marks & Spencer! Amazing! The local co-op supermarket Scottishly made do with a two-minute silence.

The gas man visited this morning to fix something I think is called the flue annulus. The previous gas man had quoted me for that work and for drilling a hole through my wall because the window vents are substandard (even after I nagged and nagged at the window firm to make sure the ventilation was up to scratch); but he said I didn't need to get the vent done, it was the flue work that made my gas fire AT RISK (as the yellow sign said that he left attached to it).

But (sigh) today's gas man said no, there's a regulation to say that you can get the ventilation put right without having the flue done, but not the other way round. The bill will be £200 rather than £67.

I gave in -- ok, just drill a bloody hole in the wall, I don't care. I'll care more next Thursday when they do the work, and even more than that when I get the bill. Joys of home ownership.

Saturday I spent at a wonderful spot north of St Andrews, Tentsmuir, which several people had recommended. It's fantastic. The forest borders the beach, making it perfect for walking Bertie. He enjoys running on the sand for about half an hour, then he's sick of it. At Tentsmuir we walked along the edge of the forest, so he was in amongst the trees hunting rabbits, and I was in the dunes enjoying the sunshine and the sight and sound of surf.

I took loads of photos, will post some soon. I have to do some work now, spot you later.

I love this story. How many chihuahuas is your child worth?

[Sadly the story's vanished off the Washington Post's archives -- a woman had tried to swap her baby for a chihuahua. The dog-owner only dobbed her in after she upped the price to two chihuahuas. Or something.]

Back at work, sigh. It's not so bad, I guess. The printing presses threw a wobbly and our deadlines were brought forward, which made for a last-minute frenzy; on the positive side I get to go home early -- and the early deadlines are in force all week.

The news is mainly depressing -- the Middle East situation just about reduces me to tears. I went through a strongly pro-Zionist phase as a teenager, after reading Exodus but gradually changed my views and now I'm more sympathetic towards the Palestinians. As sympathetic as you can be to people willing to blow themselves up in cafes crowded with families. I just don't think the Israelis' increasing aggression is going to do anyone any favours. They're reaping what they sowed.

Back in my mundane world, yesterday I dragged myself off to the shops to get some new clothes. It's an ordeal! I did very well though, I got two pairs of trousers (black), two blouses (one red, one pinkish stripes) and three t-shirts. Favourite purchase is probably a red long-sleeved t-shirt. The blouses are both the same style: short, fitted, with three-quarter length sleeves. This is a real departure for me. I'm paranoid about the size of my bum, so it's risking severe trauma to wear anything bum-revealing.

The paranoia's not entirely unfounded. I was in the changing rooms at the swimming baths in Edinburgh once when a little boy said in a piercing voice: "Mummy, come and look, there's a lady with a really, really big bottom!" And then last year I was strolling down the esplanade wearing comfy loose trousers and a short t-shirt a bloke behind me said: "There's a big arse arse arse."

So I'm trying to re-educate myself to accept my body and not feel bad about the harsh things ignorant people say, and not to cover up the bits I don't like. The blouses are cute. OK, I'm not wearing one of them today, I'm wearing a loose white linen shirt, but I WILL wear them.

I got a great book as a reward for getting through the gruelling task of clothes-buying (hey, it's hot in those changing cubicles!) -- The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. He's one of my favourite SF writers, but most of his books are grounded in the here and now, even his series on the colonisation of Mars. My favourite of his is Antarctica -- even if you don't like science fiction you might enjoy this.

Time to go home!

YESSSSS!!!!!!

No, not because the Queen Mother is dead, bless her, but because I've finally got my printer working (touch wood). The computer shop didn't find anything wrong with the USB, and after a lot of tooth-grinding and uninstalling and reinstalling, I've managed to fix it myself. Just printed out a humungous picture very briskly. Whew.

The good thing about all the hassle was that in desperation at being offline for so long, I dug out my old computer and booted it up. And had a brainwave -- maybe Faye would like this! She's been talking about getting a laptop. So I phoned her today and she's thrilled. I was going to get a new monitor anyway, so that's just a mouse and keyboard to add and we're away. So the plan is to go down to Oxford in May, set the computer up for her and give her a crash course.

I've had an extremely lazy and enjoyable week off, didn't go away in the end but stayed in my favourite place -- home. The weather has been great, so I've been for lots of long walks. Also got the boiler serviced -- it needs some work on the flue, so the man left a DANGER AT RISK notice on it. Also had the car's handbrake fixed. Bertie ended up in the footwell a couple of times today due to the now excellent braking.

What else? Nothing! Hah! Lovely.

OK I'm just going to unplug my computer and take it into the shop, and since I'm on holiday this week that's probably it from me for a few days at least.

Ta ta!

Slow start to the week's activities, mainly due to having been suckered in to watching some of the Oscars last night. How weird is it? First there's the compere, Whoopi Goldberg, then there's another compere or two to give away each prize, plus extra comperes thrown in to announce little bits of film. Then, for no reason I can think of, there are Donald Sutherland and Glen Close bursting in to announce the ad breaks (on a great big olde-worlde microphonic apparatus), and bizarrely, they seem to be also acting as security guards for the statuettes, which are stacked on racks behind them.

Of course since the show is on BBC2, which doesn't have commercials, they have to fill in the ad break time, so there's a studio with Jonathan Ross and assorted celebs droning on.

So anyway, I got up late, walked the dog, then got on to my phone calls. The Window Advisory Service is deep in dealings with Roxburghe Windows' insurance company to see who's going to deal with outstanding customer complaints. Oh. Dear. The woman I spoke to couldn't give me a time frame but asked politely for my patience. Hmm.

The computer firm are blaming a) the printer and/or b) Windoze for my printing problems. I'm to take the computer in to the shop so they can hook it up to a printer there and check it out. I've backed up in case they decide to wipe the hard drive -- that does seem to be their solution to most things.

Then I mixed up some fungicide and went round spraying things with it.

Then I was hungry, so I had an early dinner (grilled salmon steak, mash, carrots and cabbage, delish). Then my boss phoned and said not to bother coming in next Sunday, he'll take Wednesday off instead and work Sunday for me. Hurrah! Even more days off. That's me off right through to next Monday now.

Right now I'm going to have a shower then check out movie times. I might see The Royal Tenenbaums, or either In The Bedroom or The Son's Room. I would have definitely gone to In The Bedroom, except that I watched some live streaming video of the Oscar Red Carpet at work last night, and Sissy Spacek's nose made me feel sick. You can see up her nostrils from the front, you know? It's a bit Michael Jackson. Ewww.


Judge for yourself

I might go to Bridge of Orchy and stay here, or I might go to Rannoch Station and stay here. Both come with personal recommendations and both take dogs.

I usually stay in B&Bs rather than hotels because they're usually friendlier, but these don't sound too bad. And someone also suggested doing a walk I've wanted to do for a while, Corrour to Rannoch Station. You get the train to Corrour, just one stop, and walk back. Previously I've stayed at the Corrour station bunkhouse or at the youth hostel at Loch Ossian, and the one time I planned to do the walk to Rannoch Station the snow was so deep I couldn't see the path & decided not to risk it.

Bridge of Orchy is on the West Highland Way, so there is plenty of good walking there too.

If there are no sheep, Bertie can roam off the lead. He ignores any animals bigger than himself, such as cattle and deer. Corrour is a shooting estate, so it's all deer and ponies. Not sure about Bridge of Orchy.

Undiscovered Scotland

I'm thinking of going away this week, just for a few days, and someone drew this site to my attention. It's "a combination of business directory, accommodation listing and visitor guide. It includes a comprehensive range of links and a large and growing collection of in-depth and illustrated feature pages about places to go and things to do, and mountains to climb".

Great photos too.

Lunch yesterday at Tapas Ole, yum yum. Last month I had grilled sardines at Fishers in Leith; they were sour, bony, dry things, covered in crumbly oatmeal. At Tapas Ole they came fizzing and sizzling on a griddle, moist and tasty. Everything was superb, from the squid rings to the omelet to the meatballs. Triple yum. Afterwards we all went back to John's for coffee -- he and Penny live just along from the restaurant -- and it was after 4pm when I got home.

I made a mess of the rotas again, gah, I can't believe it. It's like a recurring nightmare. But the good side is that I've got next week off -- I made the mistake by copying over an old rota without changing the week off I had that month. I may go away or I may stay at home, I'll see how I feel. It will be a week of sponteneity interspersed with catching up on chores.

Like I have to hassle the Window Advisory Group again about the french doors. The seal has come out on one of the doors, an ongoing problem the company that installed them was meant to be fixing. I phoned them yet again the week before last to discover they've been taken over by another firm. The Window Advisory Group is "getting back" to me on what happens with the guarantee. Grrr. Oh, and I have to get a new wing mirror for my car - the passenger side one was broken off at the weekend. And then there's the garden. And I could do with some new summer clothes. And I really should get in touch with Kate, and Sandy, and phone Fiona in London ...

I'm going to be busy.

I live in such a friendly town, it astonishes me. Like today, I set out with the dog and first of all we meet the MS lady's son and her three dogs (multiple schlerosis, not Microsoft). Tigger barks and huffs and carries on like Margaret Thatcher, but otherwise they all get on famously.

After a play session Bertie and I head off to the marina. En route the bridge maintenance crew pass in their truck and toot and all wave. This tooting and waving thing is because I walk past them sitting under the bridge in their truck nearly every day. The older bloke who always sits in the middle has a shih tzu. One day they were all asleep in the cab, they looked so sweet I nearly took a photo. (I didn't because the engine was running and I thought, what if they're all dead?)

So we walk along the road and the bridge maintenance crew come back along, having done a circuit through the marina, and toot and all wave again. Then we're on the path up to the water treatment plant and Bertie goes on alert and disappears. It's my next door neighbour down by the water with Marble and Lazlo, the gun dogs from the house at the end of the street. Big hysterical bum-sniffing session ensues (the dogs, ha ha very funny). As Frances and I are yoo-hooing, who should drive up but Bridie with her Butch, more waving and tooting.

So I walk round the path and meet up with Frances at the jetty and we walk on together. By the marina office we meet Susy the Yorkie being carried by her owner, who lives in the sheltered housing. Back out on the road, the bridge maintenance crew go past yet again, toot toot, wave wave. I'd love to have their job, what a life they have. You never see them actually doing anything.

Then just as Frances peels off to take the dogs home, her neighbour on the other side, owner of the elderly cats, drives up.

Part of the reason I got a dog was the social aspect, and good grief, it really works. The British love dogs and if you've got a dog, everyone talks to you. Even people who don't have dogs talk to you. I think it's partly because it's something to talk about, but also it helps people recognise you.

Like the checkout woman who served me in the supermarket yesterday: "Is your dog all right?" she inquired. "Errr, yes..." Then the penny dropped. Her dog, Wallace, a frisky young Staffordshire, had tried to hump Bertie the day before. "I was soooo embarrassed!" she trilled, going bright red at the memory. This was the day after the Audrey Hepburn dress-up session. Coincidence? I wonder.

Bertie's been living at my house for a whole year today. Happy anniversary, Bertie!


Why the long face? (That's my favourite Bertie joke. He doesn't get it.)

Since I'm busy Photoshopping, I'll give you the "shipwreck" pictures. They're pretty convincing, I think.


OK so here's what we saw.


And here's a closeup of the "ship" that has "run aground". I can't find a normal pic of the same scene, but I can tell you that in calm weather that jetty isn't black, it's sort of beige. It doesn't look anything like a ship.

Once again, blame Pinky.

To quote her email: "I hope he didn't hate dressing up too much." Well the answer is that he hates dressing up just as much as the cat did when we were kids. Pinky probably doesn't remember forcing it into a doll's nightie and pushing it around in the pram, but I do. The things pets do for food!


"Houndstooth? Is that supposed to be funny?"

"These glasses don't fit right. I am so never working with you again."

"Ow! Get your hands off me! I'm calling my agent!"

Stylist's confession: I Photoshopped out my hand in the picture posted yesterday.

This is Pinky's fault.

She's bought a red sports car, you see, a convertible, and she's invited Bertie over for a spin. "He'll have to wear a styley head scarf and sunnies though", she said.

Got up early this morning and drove Faye to the railway station. Last time she visited I ran late and as a result she missed her train. This time we got there over half an hour early, so we had time for a coffee. I don't think she's had a restful journey ... as she was putting away her luggage and saying goodbye, a dozen schoolgirls were climbing on, some wearing plastic policemen's helmets. Oh dear.

After that I spent an hour noodling around in Homebase. I bought a very dangerous-looking item, a Stanley knife with a saw attachment. It's to use as a pruning saw -- Faye gave me a lesson in rose pruning while she was here. After I got home I put it to good use, clearing a lot of dead wood from the big rose bush at the front. I also got some oriental poppies, some hyacinths in a pot (marked down), a new toilet seat and a new cistern handle. The old seat didn't fit properly. The new one does! And the old cistern handle was leaking. The new one doesn't! Very satisfying. The new seat is also black, swish.

We had a very busy few days before Faye left, though I ran out of steam in the end. Visited the Deep Sea World aquarium, Butterfly World, a big garden centre and Arthur's Seat. I thought about going up to the Highland Wildlife Park but decided against it, it was a bit far. Faye went to the zoo last week, but didn't see wolves. They have wolves at the wildlife park.

Tate -- the Tate Gallery's wonderful website.

Browse, browse, browse ... it's very quiet at work tonight. We always think nervously about the Queen Mother at times like this, too scared to go home early, just in case.

It's nice to have pretty pictures to look at in the meantime. Like this one by Blake:


(Later: hmmm... it seems to have disappeared...)

Disappointingly I couldn't view anything by Patrick Heron, one of my top favourite artists, because it's all copyright to his estate (he died in 1999).

Browse, browse, browse...

Here we are! Serigraph.

Or even better, Rumbold Vertical Four: Green in Green with Blue and Red: September 1970


The article that last picture is illustrating is worth a look, Letter from London, on artnet.com.

I love the internet.

It's stopped being gorgeous, but at least I got a little weeding done. There's a new weed invading the front garden -- there were only a couple of them last year, they sort of crept in the front gate. But this year there are a lot more. I don't know what they are -- low, flat rosettes of green leaves that spread out on runners. They have shallow roots and thin, easily-broken red stems. The bindweed isn't as bad this year, though. I'm going to fill the beds with rockery-type plants that will spread out. The beds are looking really feeble.

The bluebells are coming up patchily, because last winter I didn't realise what they were and grubbed a lot of the bulbs out. Tsk. They'll spread back again, I guess. Or I could dig them all out and replant them out the back, by the back fence. They'd look nice along there. Then I could fill the main front bed with lavender and hostas. Or something. (My one hosta is dead, I think.)

A couple of weeks ago I hacked back the dog-rose hedge at the front and it's coming away nicely. It was really scraggy. Next year I might cut it back even further, and dump some compost round the roots. The lovely red climbing rose at the front is also doing well. The hydrangeas I dug up and transplanted last year are all racing away, and the cut-price rock rose is thriving too. And of course there's garlic everywhere. So it's not all a disaster.

Tomorrow Faye and I will go round a couple of garden centres -- the beds at the front look really dry and thin, so I'll get some bags of compost to put on them, plus some plants. Then we'll go to the movies, maybe Lord of the Rings again, hee hee.

I didn't do any gardening today, it was too freezing and windy. Instead I walked the dog for a couple of hours, then fixed some links on my website and did a virus scan. A layzee day.

Gorgeous spring day, sunny and almost cloudless, but nicely fresh and crispy. I didn't do a lot, though there was plenty I could have been doing, like weeding the garden. The front especially needs a good going over.

Whew, back at work for a bit of a rest.

Faye arrived without any mishap. Bertie was quite startled to see her; just as well we were at the railway station! What a coincidence! Etc. Poor dog, his life is one big surprise after another.

The weekend in brief:

Saturday: Drive up around the Fife coast to St Andrews, one of my favourite day trips. We stopped off in Elie for lunch at a nice cafe, had a brief walk, hurried back to the car to avoid hypothermia. It was blowy and freezing, snow on the hills. Stopped again in Crail; this time we were caught in a hailstorm just before we reached the car. St Andrews we went for a longer walk on the beach, a fantastic stretch of sand right by the golf course. Bertie was thrilled. That night we watched a video I bought last week, Asoka. No kissing please, we're Indian! Also weirdly non-violent violence.

Sunday: Raining, so we decided to visit that famous Scottish landmark, Ikea. En route we passed the Ingliston Sunday market so on a whim went in for a look. It was almost empty of stalls. I had just bought a 6in adjustable spanner for £1.75 when we found out why -- it suddenly started hailing ferociously, with thunder, lightning and strong winds. "This is the third time I've cleared everything away," said the stallholder gloomily. At one point a big rubbish bin was blown over and rolled across the vast empty swathe of tarmac -- right into Faye! Ikea was much more civilised. I didn't buy much, but got a nice utensil holder for the kitchen. Went back home via Peebles and Pennicuik.

Monday: Another outing, this time to Culross, across the firth. First we did something insane. While giving Bertie a pre-excursion walk, we both saw what looked like a shipwreck. It was blowing a gale, so it seemed conceivable that a ship had run aground across at North Queensferry. I took photos with my little camera and I tried to take some with the big one but the batteries had gone flat. We got in the car and drove across the bridge, parked by the harbour and went looking for the shipwreck. There was no shipwreck. We walked to every possible vantage point and it had gone. Thus was born the legend of the ghost ship; we even saw the crew, Chinese or possibly Filipino, walking single file along the road, hauling all their worldly goods in wheeled suitcases. Bertie was scared of them -- dogs can sense the presence of the supernatural. After that we headed on upriver to Culross, where we staggered around buffeted by the wind seeing the sights, and had lunch. Then on across the Kincardine bridge and back round to Blackness, to walk Bertie, and home via the New Hopetoun garden centre for a browse. Faye bought some gardening gloves. In the evening she treated me to a wonderful meal at Sweet Melinda's, a great little restaurant in Marchmont.

That's all for now. Duty calls...

Nothing much to report. Faye arrives tomorrow for a 10-day visit, so today I did a bit of housework -- the floors downstairs get so filthy (muddy paw-prints and drool, mainly) that I sometimes give up on them when the weather's bad -- pointless to spend an hour cleaning them when they get dirty again straight away. And I'm certainly not going to do it every day! I did my ironing too, another job I put off until it's worth doing.

So the house is sort of clean-ish, though not exactly sparkling, and there are fresh flowers too. I'm going to the supermarket now (love 24-hour shopping) for bread and milk and veg. All ready for a warm welcome...


Bertie will be so thrilled. He loves Faye.

The de-cluttering project is coming along nicely. At the moment I'm sorting out my photo-mountain. Thank goodness I have a digital camera now. Monday night I spent filing negatives and sorting through packets of pictures (while watching TV). I had had a lot of the negatives sitting in a heavy cardboard box. Unfortunately the box was on the floor next to the radiator that leaked a few months ago. A lot of the negs are ruined -- they were from old-format cameras (a Box Brownie and one with a folding bellows lens) and wouldn't fit in the 35mm storage sheets I have, and now they're all stuck together from being wet. Almost all the 35mm ones are ok.

I found some cheap albums in an op shop and have almost filled them already. I need three or four more, at least! I know an answer would be to scan them in to the computer, but I honestly can't be arsed. And anyway there's something nice about flipping through a photo album, isn't there? I haven't even started going through the huge box of photos, just did the ones that were still in packets.

Since I got the digital camera I've taken over 1,300 photos -- I haven't kept them all, sometimes I take ten photos and delete them all. But that's the real joy of a digital camera, you can snap away merrily and see the results straight away. No waiting to finish the roll and get it developed to see if the pictures are worth keeping. And you don't have to worry about the cost of developing your crap random pictures.

The computer course is drawing near an end. It's become even more frustrating since we got to the stuff I really want to learn about. The tutor doesn't differentiate between useful information and useless information -- in fact sometimes he gives more time and attention to the latter. Like today, he showed us some code that only works on one browser anyway and had us spend five minutes typing in the example (to "confirm" his notes), blithely saying, "I can't imagine any circumstances you'd want to use that in." Then he skimmed over the next section, which was code you'd want to use quite often.

Another thing that had my jaw dropping was when he referred to something I'd seen in the books I have on CSS and hadn't understood. "I don't understand this terminology, you'll see it in some of the books but I don't really know what it means, so I don't teach it."

Still, his manuals are quite clear, and what I've learned is a good basis for going on to work from the books. I think next week may be the last class ... yes, I just counted up and it is. He's not going to work for the university next year, says they won't pay him enough, but he'll be running classes himself, on Javascript and using databases. Um, I don't think so.

Bertie went to the vet yesterday, he's got conjunctivitis again. He loves the vet, she gives him biscuits. He may have forgotten all the bandages and needles and the dreaded giant plastic hood, but he sure remembers those biscuits.

So last night, thrilled with my newly-fixed computer and having installed the Eudora email program, I downloaded the picture of Pop kindly sent by Trevor and printed it out. Lovely! Now I'll just print out these other two family pix for the nice three-pic frame Anthea gave me ...

AAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Back to the drawing board.

I fixed my computer! Everything works now except Outlook Express, the email program, so I'll just go back to using Eudora. Hey ho. I'm so pleased I managed to fix everything else though, it's great being back on the net. And I did it without having to phone the shop and grovel to know-it-all 16-year-olds. Phew.

Drama at work: there's been a fire at the printing plant. We're still waiting to hear whether they can print a paper, and if so, what size it will be. It was all just about ready to go when the fire broke out, so basically we'll have to dump half the stories. All that work, for nothing!

I checked the tide tables last night and yesterday's tide was pretty high, 6.1ft over chart datum. This afternoon's was predicted to be even higher, 6.2ft. It certainly looked high as I left town just before 4pm, and it wasn't due to peak until nearly half past.

Faye phoned tonight, she's coming up on the 8th, staying for 10 days, hurrah. She's such a great guest, and Bertie absolutely adores her.

UKHO EasyTide Tidal Prediction

Tide tables ... I've been trying to find out how high the tide was this afternoon, because I forgot to look it up in the tide table before I left home. But this site just does predictions; useful enough but not what I wanted to know.

The thing was, the tide was the highest I've seen it. The tides do normally vary with the moon phase -- neaps (small range, after half moon) and springs (large range, after full and new moon) -- and the effect was probably exaggerated by a swell, but the waves were slopping up over the harbour wall, in the little old harbour this is, I didn't go to the marina today.

It's been raining (and snowing) a lot lately and as I've said before, everywhere I go walking is a marsh. The groundwater seems to be high and maybe that affects the level of the river -- add that to a spring tide and whoops! wet feet!

Happily I'm just far enough back from the shore for it not to matter. People right on the water might be a tad nervous ...

My computer is still broken. I tinkered for an hour or so, managed to screw up a couple of other things, nothing important. It's all to do with drivers. Very annoying little files. A couple of vaguely identified bits of hardware reckon they need a driver but they're so vaguely identified I can't work out where the driver might be. One is PCI Communication Device and the other is PCI Mass Storage Device.

The most irritating part is that the plug-and-play program doesn't tell you what the driver is called. It knows it if it sees it, it's just not letting on. So what I've been having to do is go through all the CDs that might possibly be relevant -- for the motherboard, the Sparq drive, the sound card, blah blah blah -- looking for folders that may have drivers in them and being told "No, the driver's not in there, try again."

On Friday I'll have time to call the computer shop for some help. Tomorrow I've got a trip to the dentist for one filling to be repaired. I love my dentist, Callum, he's cured me of my fear of dentists. I have terrible teeth, mainly because I didn't look after them but also because I was alway too scared (and too skint) to get them fixed. They were full of fillings and a total mess until one time when I was on the dole in London I got the worst ones capped, in gold, for nothing. Now I'm more careful and most of the work Callum does is repairs or replacement crowns.

English Teeth, English Teeth!
Shining in the sun
A part of British heritage
Aye, each and every one.

English Teeth, Happy Teeth!
Always having fun
Champing down on bits of fish
And sausages half done.

English Teeth, HEROES' Teeth!
Here them click! and clack!
Let's sing a song of praise to them -
Three Cheers for the Brown Grey and Black.

-- Spike Milligan (RIP, sadly missed already)

It's not just English teeth, kiwi teeth can be just as bad. I blame dental nurses -- there was a dental clinic (aka murder house) attached to most schools, staffed by a kindly young woman in a starched white outfit and a red cardie. When I first started going she had a foot-powered drill ... very slow, excruciatingly painful. Later she had a whizzy electric drill, but there were still no painkillers. Big thrills were being allowed to mix up your own filling with a little glass pestle and mortar, and being given a cottonwool fairy for being "good", ie not kicking her.

These dental nurses drilled everything in sight, everyone had fillings.

Ooop, time to go home. More later.

How weird is this? I was checking who'd been looking at my website & it was mainly nhst.no (Anthea in Oslo), net.nz and co.nz (friends & family) and scotsman.com (me). But this caught my eye:

Domain Name SCREENCAPTURE2. (Unknown)
IP Address 202.108.221.# (APNIC - Pacific Rim)
Language Setting English
Operating System Microsoft WinNT
Browser Internet Explorer 6.0
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)
Time of Visit Feb 21 2002 6:33:43 am
Last Page View Feb 21 2002 6:33:43 am
Visit Length 0 seconds
Page Views 1
Referring URL
Visit Entry Page http://www.hockadilly.co.uk/
Visit Exit Page http://www.hockadilly.co.uk/
Time Zone UTC+8:00
CCT - China Coast Time
Russian Federation Zone 7
Visitor's Time Feb 21 2002 2:33:43 pm

screencapture2 isn't a valid URL, and the IP address doesn't seem to be valid either. Spooky.

W3Schools Online Web Tutorials

"Inside W3Schools you will find a large number of free Web building tutorials, from basic HTML and XHTML tutorials, to advanced XML, XSL and WAP tutorials."

I broke my computer. When I told my boss about it he asked if I'd broken it "physically or mentally". "Mentally," I said. "I broke its spirit."

A while back I mentioned that I might have to reinstall Windows, because I've been having a lot of annoying little problems, the main one being that the printer doesn't work properly.

Well on Saturday I reinstalled Windows and now the printer works, but the modem doesn't. And my email program didn't reinstall properly either.

I hate Bill Gates.

On the bright side I had a decluttering fit during which I found the receipt/guarantee for the computer, so if my tinkerings fail to put things right I can always phone the shop for help. They've been pretty good in the past. Their solution though is just to wipe the whole hard drive and start from scratch.

My weekend was magically extended on Sunday when I arrived in at work to find Colin already logged in and doing my job. I made a mistake with the rota -- I had to do them all again after the IT dept accidentally wiped them -- and had given myself a holiday this week (in reality it was last month). So I let Colin carry on while I headed for the cinema to see Iris. Excellent film. Judi Dench is wonderful -- you can feel the fear as the slide starts. The most frightening scene for me was when she slips out the front door without her husband noticing and ends up wandering around the streets in the rain. People just go bustling past the "mad old lady", no-one realising who she is -- her life, her talent, her intellect mean nothing. She's rescued by an old friend; and of course her books and Bayley's record her worth in the end. So I found it an uplifting film in the end, rather than depressing.

Yesterday I had my hair done, got the roots touched up and a cut. The dye is stressing my hair out a bit so I had a hot-oil treatment too. But even then as Sandy, the stylist, combed it I pointed out that it's so fine and puny that it sticks straight out even when it's wet. He promptly combed it straight out on each side and stood there giggling -- I looked like Pippi Longstocking.

I saw another good film last night, Ocean's Eleven. George Clooney, mmmmm, he's so peachy. The cinema was in a new shopping centre near Leith, and I arrived early so I could do some shoe shopping. I bought two pairs! My favourite pair are comfy, nice and wide for my broad feet, with low-cut backs that don't rub on my poor afflicted achilles tendons. I'd like to wear girlier shoes, but they make my feet hurt -- sometimes bad shoes can make my whole body hurt, especially my ankles and knees. So comfort comes first. The other pair were trainers to replace my old worn-out ones. Also very comfy, good strong support.

I think I'll go back to Ocean Terminal -- I don't care for shopping centres usually, but it's nice and quiet. "Unsuccessful" I think they call it.

I went to Ocean's Eleven with Fiona, who I used to work with, and afterwards we had dinner at a fish restaurant in Leith. The mussels were wonderful and so was the wine, but the grilled sardines were a bit dry, having been scorched.

And then home to walk the dog -- who is on short walks at the moment due to what I think (hope) is just a sprain. Luckily the weather's been terrible, wet and cold, so bad that he hasn't wanted to go out some days. Every place we go regularly is a sea of mud, but I'm managing to keep the house reasonably clean with a rigorous programme of paw-wiping. I feel very sorry for the owners of spaniels and similar.

I managed to get to bed early last night so wasn't too shattered by the early start for the html course this morning. We're doing some really interesting stuff at the moment, and if I'm too tired I don't take it in. I've got the dentist on Thursday morning (repair to an old filling) so that'll be an early start too.

Good news! I have been randomised for embolisation. Or womblisation as Andrew waggishly calls it.

This is the research study I volunteered for -- I'm going to be a guinea pig for the new technique. I'm thrilled, because the alternative was hysterectomy, which I wasn't keen on at all. For the last few years I've been trying a variety of other things -- herbal tonics, special diets, craniosacral therapy -- but nothing worked (though the herbs did help a bit, and I'm going back to the herbalist for another course).

With embolisation they thread a catheter via the groin up into the arteries supplying blood to the fibroids, then inject some material, polystyrene or similar, that blocks the blood flow. The fibroids just shrivel up and die, all in the space of a couple of weeks. The procedure's carried out by a radiologist, and I get to meet him in a few weeks for a chat and to sign away my right to sue if it all goes horribly wrong. After that I wait. And wait. And wait. The waiting list isn't too bad, actually, only three to four months.

It's great news, such a relief to know I'm not going under the knife. The mortality rate is much lower for embolisation for a start, only two deaths in 1,200 procedures in Europe and none in 4,000 US cases. They're really careful about infection: before the op they take a swab and if anything at all grows they give you antibiotics and don't operate until you're all clear. So I feel really confident. Plus, by the time I go in the department will be in the new hospital.

In other news: Anthea and her cat have found a new home. Errrr ... that's it. Actually lots going on, but nothing worth reporting!

Tuesdays are gruesome. Up at sparrow-fart, not even time for coffee this morning (yes, I know it says Wednesday up there) before walking the dog, then off to varsity for the course. It's finally getting interesting though, so it's worth it. The tutor still spends far too much time getting us to practise stuff he tells us won't work; I'd rather we learnt more about the stuff that does.

After that I was shattered. I'd intended to go to bed early yesterday but Anthea phoned after midnight (flat-hunting woes in Oslo); not that I was in bed, I was watching a video, Dancing in the Dark. So in the end I got about five hours' sleep. I thought when you got older you needed less sleep! I seem to need more. Five hours should be plenty.

So this afternon I thought I'd have a nap for a couple of hours -- hah! I woke at 4pm, what a waste of a day. Luckily I had it off, having worked Sunday. It was pissing down with rain anyway, so I didn't miss much.

Crocuses out everywhere! So I need to start working in the garden, weeding and so forth. DId some pruning and tidying last weekend, and also planted a gooseberry bush Chad gave me, a cutting from one of his. Garlic is springing up all over the place. I planted it a bit late so I don't know how it will do this year. I also planted the weird-looking flowers some of the bulbs grew last year -- I'd just flung them down and they'd started sprouting on their own.

Mudcat -- song lyrics

I was singing in the car on the way home last night and discovered my voice has gone rusty from disuse! Cracked and croaking. It had improved a bit by the time I got home, but I want to keep in practice.

So this site was a great find ... it's mainly traditional folk songs, but there are a few show tunes too and foreign oddities.

AFGHANISTAN (MOSCOW NIGHTS2)
(Frank Hayes, Kathy Sobanski)

Moscow nights are cold, but they're crisp and clear
Let's go South for winter this year
To Afghanistan, it's such a lovely land
And the people are Russian as can be.
In Afghanistan, right next to Pakistan,
With it's warm water port upon the Sea.

Exciting things are happening there every day,
And each night a fireworks display
In Afghanistan, it's such a lovely land
And it's warmer by far than Moscovy
In Afghanistan, or maybe old Iran
Where the oil fields are wonderful to see.

Exotic sights to see in each quaint old town--
--those that were not burned to the ground
In Afghanistan, it's such a lovely land
And the natives are friendly as they can be
In Afghanistan, it should be Russian land,
Just a small part of Brezhnev's legacy.

No clue as to what the tune should be!

A clue to Bertie's home...

This links to a story about dog racing that contains the following paragraph:

"Martin Griffin of Caherea, whose Bogus Ben ran a career best of 29.43 at Galway recently, was involved in the tenth race, this time with Hurry Ben from the same litter -- Hencliff Ben-Clare Abbey. However, he had to be satisfied with a runner-up spot on this occasion when the race went to the 29.90 winner, Travel on Susie, the 2/1 favourite."

Clare Abbey is Bertie's mother! So he's probably from Caherea, wherever that is. Oh, uh, County Clare, over on Ireland's west coast, south of Galway. It's the hometown of Noel Hill, "unanimously hailed as the greatest concertina player of our era".

"Legend has it that there was a concertina in every other home".

How interesting.

Other links show Mr Griffin has more Bens on the go: Bog Ben, Bogue Ben, No Hurry Ben. And just for something completely different, Nebraska.

Drama next door: I met F on my way home from walkies; she was en route to work. Then I met her husband, B, hurrying off. When I left the house ten minutes later to go to work myself, she was outside, trying to pry open her kitchen window!

"My husband, grrrrrrr, I'll kill him!"

It seems that none of them have a key, they've lost them all. So someone always has to be home. But B, though he knew his oldest son, M, was on his way home, had left the house empty and shut the door behind him, knowing full well that that meant the entire family was locked out -- including himself! M had duly arrived home, and had fetched F from her work to help him break in. An upstairs window at the back was open, but M would have to wait for his younger brother to get home, because he's the only one who can get in the window.

I don't feel so bad about locking myself out now.

(This isn't me!)

The MRI scan was pretty interesting -- man, those tubes are small though! It must be a nightmare for anyone with claustrophobia. There was barely enough room for me to lie with my arms by my sides, and my nose seemed to be an inch from the top.

I was strapped to the table with special pads around my pelvis (the area being scanned) and then the table slid inside the tube. I was given earphones too -- tried to reject them since Frank Sinatra was warbling loudly through them but they made me keep them on for hearing protection. It does make quite a racket, but I still think Ol' Blue Eyes just added to any potential risk.

They did two one-minute scans first, then three four-minute scans. After that I was whirred back out so the nurse could inject me with dye. That was tricky, as ever -- my veins collapse as soon as the needle goes in. She ended up injecting the stuff into the back of my hand. Then back inside the tube for another four-minute scan and a one-minute one.

All over in 45 minutes from go to whoa. Very pleasant having the rest of the evening off.

I went to the supermarket and there was a huge display of Easter eggs. Sigh. I should stop getting irritated by this, but really -- Easter's not until the end of March! Who buys their eggs now?

Hex headquarters
Why a hexadecimal clock is better ...

The main DIY project is complete! It looks wonderful. It was incredibly hard work, what with the wallpaper steaming and all, but the result is great -- it was the worst room in the house, so it's wonderful to have it looking so good.

Here are some in-progress shots.




The wardrobe doors are in something called Mellow Sage, in a satin finish. The walls are left-over paint from the hall - went on quite well considering it's been sitting in the shed for about a year. I went mad and bought some new gloss white; there was a litre or so left over, but gloss tends not to keep as well as emulsion.



The chest of drawers is dark blue and so is the bedspread.

I think the email problem is solved. Can't be sure, but it seems like someone somehow got hold of my password. Which is kind of scary....

DIY update
Gruesome getting the wallpaper off, but worth the effort. I got a steamer yesterday, which has turned out to be a good buy. The wallpaper is heavy, embossed stuff, stuck on very firmly. Two different patterns too, an interesting look! Not. My worst fear was that the walls would be in bad shape, but in fact they're ok, apart from a coating of stinking nicotine. I won't need to use lining paper.



Poor Bertie is hating the whole business. He doggedly went to sleep in the corner where his duvet usually is, and only finally left when the steamer had transformed the room into a sauna.


Meanwhile outside a gale was raging. The bridge was closed to traffic -- watching it from the window I could see it heaving up and down by a terrifying amount. In the afternoon I took Bertie down to the marina to get a closer look at the river. Wild! The air was full of spray, and even though the bridge was closed it was making more noise than when it's full of cars.



A tree had come down by the waste water treatment plant and smashed part of a wall. They'd already sawn the tree up by the time we got there. A man was killed by a falling tree in Dunkeld; in the morning we walked down the railway track that runs between trees. Sheltered yes, but dangerous - the trees were whipping around and groaning.


We went out on to the jetty to check on Colin's boat. The wind out there was like a hand pushing firmly against you. Bertie, being a high-sided animal, had trouble staying upright when he was broadside to the wind.



I talked to Colin later on; he lives in Dunfermline and had to detour via Kincardine to get to work, probably an extra 30 miles on his journey. He said he phoned the bridge control and they told him the wind there was gusting up to 99mph! On the TV they said it was 99mph at the Tay bridge, and 85mph at Edinburgh, so I'm not sure if it was so strong here. Could have been -- the river really was wild.

Tomorrow I've got the course, then I'll paint the bedroom. I washed the walls with sugar soap tonight, and I'll rinse that off before bed, so it'll be ready to go tomorrow. No idea what colour. I'll probably just do it in Putty, same as the hallway.

Step By Step - Reinstalling Windows

Noooooooooooo.........

But yes, I may need this during my week off.

Pre-Date Confidence Builder

We don't have sound cards on our work computers (just as well), so I have no idea what this man is saying. But he looks as if he's saying something hilarious.

I'm still having email trouble -- sometimes an email arrives only to disappear later on. It's very annoying. I apologise to anyone whose email has gone awol.

Bertie had a prang today: blasted up a bank in pursuit of a squirrel and raked a big patch of hair off on some rusted fence wire. The skin was grazed in a couple of places and it's come up in a big purple bruise but apart from a bit of stiffness he seems ok. He screamed like a baby, so it must have hurt. I called him over and inspected the damage, chatting away to him as I do. "Poor dog! Does that hurt? Ooooh, what a close shave. Hmmm... you won't need the vet I don't think..." etc etc.

Looked up, and there was a row of railway workers in their orange overalls, looking on with smirking interest.

A friend has very kindly offered to have me put to sleep if Bertie ever starts talking back (and then she's going to join the circus and make a fortune from him).

PROJECT GUTENBERG -- Free Books On-Line

This is a wonderful place to rediscover old favourites. Hundreds, maybe thousands of out-of-copyright books have been transformed into text files that you can download free.

All the classics are there, plus some surprisingly modern things, like TS Elliot's poetry.

More techie problems ... I haven't had any email for three days. It's annoying, because I know at least one email is missing -- a little pop-up message announced the arrival of a letter from Pinky, but when I checked the inbox, it wasn't there. Gone for good, it seems. An email arrived today (just junk), the first one since Thursday.

Hi-tech is fab until it breaks down.

I'm supposed to be sweeping and vaccuuming, better get cracking. It's been raining a lot, so the floors of the house look like a continuation of the outdoors.

Grumble. My printer has been playing up for ages & I haven't done anything much about it besides fiddle around uninstalling and reinstalling and plugging it in in a different place etc etc. Finally I've decided the USB port is at fault, and I was going to phone the computer shop and get them to replace it.

But I can't find the receipt for the computer. All I can find is a job sheet for the last time I took it in, in August. I've spent an hour going through absolutely everything -- finding some other stuff I'd lost along the way, of course! But not the receipt.

Bah.

I'm going to be a guinea pig! I've applied to sign up for a research trial of this new technique for dealing with fibroids that I read about on the internet.

I went to see the gynaecologist at the hospital yesterday and showed him the stuff I printed off the website and he was most impressed. "It's always great when a patient can read up about the various treatments and make an informed decision," he said. This is so different from the way doctors used to be -- they would be angry if you let slip you'd read a newspaper article about your condition.

This doctor was also terribly excited, because they've been running this trial for ages but have had trouble getting women to join it. I'm the first patient in the Edinburgh area to want to sign up (the trial's also running in Aberdeen and Glasgow). He fetched the research sister to talk to me about it -- it's quite complicated.

First of all (next week), I have to have a battery of tests and an MRI scan to see if I'm suitable. Once the results are in (a month), they "randomise" me because it's a comparative trial; they "flip a coin" to see if I'll have the new treatment or a hysterectomy. Not quite random results, it's skewed 66:33 in favour of embolisation. Then either way, it's at least a four-month wait for surgery.

So in June/July I'll either be having major surgery with a two-month recovery time, or a procedure under local anaesthetic that will hurt like blazes for two days but be all better in two weeks. And I won't know for five weeks which it is.

Today I came over all public-spirited and spent half an hour picking broken glass of one of the walkways I frequent. I noticed it yesterday, and ticked off one dog-walker who was busy kicking it into the leaf-mold at the side of the path. At least you can see it when it's laying on the tarmac. Anyway today I filled most of a supermarket carrier bag with shattered bottles -- some of the bits covered in dog poo, yechh. There's still more further along -- maybe tomorrow.

Took this today - one of the things I like about winter!

EditPlus Text Editor, HTML Editor, Programmers Editor for Windows

Sounds good - a replacement for Notepad for HTML hand-coding freaks. Which is probably what I'm about to become.

The Smirking Chimp

This takes a while to load, but it's worth the wait, especially if you hate the Smirking Chimp, aka George W Bush.

Oh, I had a serious look at the shed doors yesterday and I don't think they're worth saving. New doors are reasonably cheap, but then you have to paint them and fit locks, plus the jams will need replacing. Hmm.

Fixed the links, heh.

The first episode of the course was a little disappointing in that it was just going over old ground to make sure we were all up to speed. It was good, however, in that I learned a few things I didn't know. We spent a bizarrely long time looking at HTML tags that are non-standard and/or proprietorial, and which we were solemnly warned not to use. Uh huh.

The course tutor is the former head of the computer department, a lively fellow who scorns the use of editors -- we're doing all our work on Wordpad, the little text-editing program that comes with Windows. Good practice, but embarrassing; with the HTML editors you just punch the buttons with the purdy pictures on them and the program does all the coding, so I was struggling to remember what to put where. (To see what HTML code looks like, click on the View menu up the top there, and choose Source. You'll get a separate window with the code of this page in it. Kewl!)

Getting up early was traumatic, I had to set the alarm for 7:30am! To complicate matters, Bertie somehow got the impression that I needed to be up much earlier than that, and barked loudly in my ear to tell me it was ... uhhh, I don't know, it was still dark, 6am? Once again, though, I'm amazed at how much you can squeeze into a day when you get up early. Astonishing.

Yesterday, I took Bertie to Arthur's Seat for a looooong ramble, plus did a bit of shopping. When I got home I realised I'd forgotten the main item I'd gone into town for in the first place -- a spare battery for the wonderful camera -- so off I went. While in town I went to my favourite bookshop, which has fallen on hard times and is for sale. It's a tragedy! I used to live just around the corner from the South Bridge branch, the main one. It has three stories crammed full of books. It's an academic bookseller, so it has an incredible range of stuff, plus classical music CDs, plus there's a good stationery department. And it's open until 10pm weeknights. Sigh. They're hoping for a sympathetic buyer rather than an asset-stripper.

I stopped by the Cameo cinema on my way home, thinking I might see Mulholland Drive, but it was two hours to the next showing. I could have seen Apocalypse Now Redux, but I didn't feel up to it. So I went home instead.

My car's dirty again. I hate housework.

I still didn't fix the links. Never mind, I'll get there eventually. Tomorrow maybe. Hmmm, better be tomorrow because I start the advanced HTML course on Tuesday and I'd look pretty stupid doing a course like that and having broken links on my website.

A productive weekend otherwise -- Anthea's kitchen looks fab with its new coat of paint, and today I washed my car. By hand, with a bucket and sponge. All the roller-brush carwashes in town were broken! Dang. But it was worth the effort, it's gleaming. Vacuumed the inside as well, it was filthy. I'm not exaggerating -- there was enough of Bertie's hair in there to construct a new dog (ok, slight exaggeration), not to mention Bonio crumbs, mud and dead leaves. And of course all the windows were covered in snot and dribble. No, not mine.

I've organised a week off later in the month, and am trying to decide what projects to attack. Inspired by Anthea's kitchen, I've been thinking interior decor. But I may tackle the shed doors too.


There are two doors, as you can see. The one on the biggest shed, on the left, isn't too bad, in that it actually works. But the wood is rotted and the paint hanging off in sheets. The window is broken, so it's damp inside. I might patch the glass rather than attempt reglazing -- it's wire-reinforced glass in a metal frame. Any advice welcome, John!

The other shed, the former coalshed, is more tricky because the door frame has pulled loose from the shed. The brickwork where the hinge bolts on is broken and has been badly repaired. The door itself is also rotted and peeling, but it's the frame that most needs doing because it makes opening and shutting the door almost impossible. This shed doesn't have a window, so at least it's dry in there.

I don't know whether to replace both doors or to try and repair them. They are solid doors (apart from the bits that are rotten!), with nice old-fashioned knobs, so I'd like to keep them if poss. I may be able to patch in new bits of clean wood at the bottom, which is where most of the damage is. There's a ceiling light in the main shed that I may try and repair too.

If this sounds difficult, the redecoration project is nearly as bad -- it involves stripping off badly-hung textured wallpaper and filling any holes/cracks in the plaster, then hanging lining paper and painting it. Big, big job.

Minor projects also in the queue: mending loose tiles in the bathroom and putting sealant along the edge of the new kitchen tiles.

I didn't fix those links, sorry. It's been one of those weeks. I did some ironing today, that was about it, apart from dog-walking of course, and obsessive picture-taking.

I couldn't sleep last night due to severe work-related stress. My mind was just fizzing too much. So at 5:30pm I got up and had a hot chocolate, read for a while and eventually got off to sleep.

When I came in to work today, the first thing my boss said was: "I'm really tired, I was so stressed out I didn't sleep well last night."
"Nor did I, in fact I got up at 5:30 and had a hot chocolate."
"You should have phoned me," piped up another colleague, "I was awake at 5:30 as well, and I got up and had a hot drink."
"I couldn't sleep either," said someone else.
"Me too!"

It was all stress-related. It is not a happy ship.

I got up reasonably early though, because it's not fair on poor Bertie to have to wait around endlessly before his morning constitutional. He's adjusted pretty well to my slovenly ways, but he does like me to get up by 10:30. He wakes me if I'm still asleep, then goes back to sleep himself while I tutu around having breakfast and reading the paper.

PA News
The old adage that money cannot buy happiness is wrong – but you need a windfall of at least £1 million to be euphoric, according to research published today.
A study by the University of Warwick found that receiving an inheritance or win of as little as £1,000 can improve people’s outlook on life, though less than £1 million is unlikely to have a lasting effect on their happiness.
The research found a strong marriage and good health were more likely to make people feel content than money.
Professor Andrew Oswald and Dr Jonathan Gardner based their research on the responses of 9,000 families in Britain throughout the 1990s.
They measured individuals’ psychological health using standard strain indicators to gauge their levels of happiness.
During the decade a number of the people had windfalls of hundreds of thousands of pounds, enabling the researchers to observe the impact.
Professor Oswald said: “There is a strong link between money and happiness, but it is a serious mistake to believe that the main influence on happiness is money.”
He said after people had received windfalls through lottery wins or inheritance their happiness and psychological health improved.
“We calculated that to turn an average person into a very happy one using money alone took £1 million.”
Professor Oswald said the factors which had the biggest impact on people’s happiness were a stable marriage and good health, while losing a job or getting divorced had the most negative effect on someone’s outlook.
The research found that women tended to be happier than men, and people in their 30s were least likely to be content.
Professor Oswald said happiness followed a U-shaped pattern, with people beginning life happy but becoming discontent in their early 30s, before their happiness recovered and continued increasing into their 60s.
end

Hah! At last, what everyone knew turns out to be true after all. It's interesting that a cool million quid is what it takes. I guess that's because you could invest it and live comfortably off the income. Or start a business, if that's what spins your wheels.

But even though the pointy-headed perfessers' research proved money can make you happy, they're careful to pour a little ice-water on the idea. "It is a serious mistake to believe that the main influence on happiness is money.” How serious a mistake? So serious it would keep you awake at night, crying and chewing the sheets? (Real linen, lavender-scented sheets, embroidered with your initials and hand-laundered every day by your live-in maid. Unless you're off travelling of course, in which case the hotel staff will organise the laundry.) Oh, professor, I'm worried I'm already making that mistake! How dreadful.

Groan. I just checked the site and the links are all wrong for the Morocco pictures. You can see the thumbnails, but they link back to my home computer, which is no use whatsoever. It won't take long to fix, it's just annoying. Sorry about that.

I spent last night hunched over the computer fixing up my website. What happened was a Very Popular writer linked to it from his budgies' page (warning: the budgies swear a lot) to Bertie's page and suddenly I had a rush of visitors. It was just like when I have visitors to my house -- I look around and realise what a slattern I am, and spend an evening rushing around vaccuuming and dusting (actually no, I never dust) and washing dishes. So I've taken away all the sad, grubby old pictures of my house before I moved in and the action shots of workmen demolishing bits of it, and I've added pictures elsewhere, of the garden in summer and trips to Wester Ross and Morocco.

Also I tidied up the design a bit -- if anyone has problem viewing any of the pages, let me know. Expect more tinkering around once I start on the web design course next week.

The new camera is wonderful, I'm so glad I finally bought it. I take it everywhere, fire off endless pictures. Often I delete them right away, but I'm learning all the time about what settings work in what situation. It has its limitations of course, but often I can work out what settings I could use on my SLR camera to get the shot. So I'll have to go out with both cameras one day and make those pictures!

The other night I went down to the marina when it was foggy and took a few snaps. First off I used the flash; big mistake.



Weird! But how great to be able to tell right away that it didn't work. The fog wasn't that thick, I was amazed when the flash made it look like scrambled egg.

So I turned the flash off and got these pictures:




This one's my favourite.

There was one picture I would love to have been able to take, but I doubt it was possible even with the best camera, because the light levels were so low. Tied up at the end of a pier was the little Maid of the Forth ferry, lit with a strong spot. Near the shore were two swans, reflected perfectly in the still water. The fog was thicker out where the boat was, so it was unearthly, like an apparition.

More than 30,000 people are already booked to sail on Rosyth’s new ferry service to Belgium, four months before it is due to start.

Blimey. I might have to wait a few years before I try it out. The article doesn't say if it's one of the ports you can take pets through. There has to be a registered vet there to inspect your pet before it's allowed back in.

The new CF memory card for my camera arrived this morning, by recorded delivery no less -- and there was no charge for postage. It's a 128Mb card, only £47, a real bargain. With everything set to minimum I can squeeze more than 1,400 photos on it. Stunning or what. I immediately became a clicking fool, and the battery ran out. Must. Get. Spare. Battery...

Mother and John, if you're reading this, thanks so much for the gardening gloves, which also arrived this morning. I've given one pair to Chad, the chap I work with who has an allotment, I hope that's ok. They're great gloves because the fabric is so thin. I've got a pair of clunky leather ones for pruning blackberries and so on, but they're too thick for weeding. The ones you sent are perfect.

The gloves I'm mainly wearing these days are the slink-skin and possum fur ones Jenny and Trevor gave me last year; it's sooooo cold! But a thaw is on its way. They've been having mountains of snow up north, with blizzards too. Some of the main roads were closed. Not a skerrick of snow here though.

booknotes

This one is really interesting. He's away skiing at the moment, but there's lots to read. Lots.

The Portal at Uncorked.org

More blogs than you can shake a stick at.

As promised, Bertie models the latest thing in 70s retro styling.



Lookin' good! Feelin' warm! But cool too, dude, real cool...

Apparently the Loony Dook was amazingly popular; everyone I talked to said there were hundreds of people there watching.

There was a very slight air of resentment to some of the comments: a lot of the onlookers were visitors to Edinburgh from elsewhere, who'd come up for the Hogmanay Street Party. Locals are certainly sniffy about that, because in the olden days people gathered at the Tron Kirk in the High Street for the bells. Now you can't get into the city centre unless you have a pass. And now it seems the Loony Dook is turning from a local thing into a tourist draw. Still, they did raise thousands of pounds for charity in the space of half an hour ...

Tomorrow's photographic treat (I didn't get round to uploading it this afternoon) is Bertie in his retro 70s coat. He's wearing it because it's cold. Really, really cold. The frost is so thick on the ground it squeaks when you tread on it, like snow. I saw children sledding on it today. I put water out for the birds and it had frozen over half hour later. It takes ten minutes to de-ice the car windows (if I've forgotten to cover them in newspaper). It's coooooold.

If it weren't for taking Bertie out for walks, I wouldn't stir out except to go to work. But once you get out there it's great, in fact. It's dry and sunny, and there are wonderful things to look at -- frosted leaves, ice flowers on the puddles, amazing sunsets. Fab. What I really want, though, is snow. I love snow.

Torchy the Electric Greyhound makes an unusual Christmas decoration.

Happy New Year!!


I stayed home last night. I was going to go into town to join the street party and see the fireworks, but at about 6pm a volley of rockets went off and so did Bertie. So I stayed home to hold his paw and reassure him that no, we were not under attack.

He wasn't reassured, poor thing, he was panic-stricken, barking, crying, panting with terror. I took him into the study (along with a bottle of champagne) and shut the door, but it didn't help. He tried to crush in under the desk. I thought about putting him in a cupboard, perhaps the one under the stairs, but then it might have made things worse. We went out for a walk at 3am, a quiet one thankfully, though Bertie was still very nervous. The champagne was delicious. I had caviar as well. Yum.

This morning I got up too late for the Loony Dook, but eventually got out for a long lovely walk, during which we met most of Bertie's very best doggie pals. At one point there were nine dogs on the field under the bridge. It was fiercely cold, but sunny and clear. We walked out on to the bridge as well, along with dozens of other people.

Europe is going euro-crazy. I wish Britain had joined as well; if you're going to be part of Europe then be part of it. Also, I think a lot of the anti-euro feeling comes from a particularly British nostalgia, a longing for the olden days of Empire. Well the empire's gone, get over it. Brits want to have all the benefits of Europe, that's why they joined the Common Market. But they're scared they'll lose their identity if they merge too much with Europe. I think that a) any merging that's going to happen is already well under way (caffe latte anyone? croissant?) and b) I don't see the French and Italians losing any of their identity.

When I say "Brits", it's mostly the English, of course. In general Scots are much more pro-Europe. Me too!

No-one's talking back! You click on the little words "talk back" down there, see? Just there next to the time...

I may not have mentioned that I didn't need a power cable after all. I don't know what the problem was, but I'm not having any trouble now. The (not very) nice man at PC World told me I didn't need one (they don't sell them) and that they only said in the manual that you do so that you'd buy one. Uh, ok.

I had intended to do loads of things today but ... I don't know. It was raining and cold and blah, so I took Bertie to Blackness for a seaside ramble and baked some bread and that was about it. I haven't baked bread for a while but was driven to it by the dire lack of choice once I finally made it to the shop. It came out ok, though the crust is always very thick on my loaves. I might try covering the tops with tinfoil next time.

There's a strong wind tonight, severe gale to storm force out at sea, so Bertie's a bit freaked. I took him down to the marina for the late-night pee run. Usually he bombs off chasing rabbits but tonight he tiptoed around boggle-eyed at all the clanging and whining rigging and flogging sails, and came rushing back to lean against my legs. In case I was scared, you know.

More instant camera fun:


This is a panorama shot I took as four separate pictures, then used the camera's software to stitch them together into a single image.

Hi, Merry Christmas. Whatever that is. What's this thing on my head? I hope I get a biscuit for wearing it, it's itchy. I'm going to pull it off as soon as she looks away.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes:

Ow, ow!! Mommy, that hurts! Stop it, mommy, stop it! Ow! Owwwwww!!!

I blew all my lottery winnings on an instant gratification machine, ie a digital camera, only to find it's not as instantly gratifying as all that. It's a great camera, with all the bells and whistles, and I was loving it right up until the moment I tried to download the photos I'd taken on to my computer.

In small print deep in the manual I discovered that you need to plug the camera into the mains before you can attach it to a computer. And of course a power adaptor doesn't come with the camera.

Sigh.

So I raced round town this morning before work (early start due to being Foreign Ed) and everywhere was either closed or didn't have the adaptor in stock. HOW annoying! I'm hoping to get one tomorrow without having to trail all over the city -- it's my day off and I wasn't planning on doing any shopping -- so I'll be able to post a festive photo.

Hurrah! I won the Lottery on Wednesday!

Only £10, but still --- wow! I won the Lottery!

In equally cheerful news, Wednesday was also the day the editor got the sack, to general rejoicing. The new editor will be the seventh I've worked under for this paper. Or is it eighth? Hard to keep track. Oh yes! It is the eighth -- I forgot one.

Another milestone on the road to Zimmer City: I'm old enough to be the new editor's mother. He's only 30.

Couple of interesting weblogs:

Doc Searles and Christopher Locke. These two were part of the team that wrote The Cluetrain Manifesto

I gave the website address to John at work just now ... I wonder if that was a mistake.

While trying to find out why you should never leave your chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice in Japan, I stumbled on this collection of Afghani recipes. I'm going to try the yoghurt chicken one this weekend.

Terrible shock this weekend: Tui Slade has died.

I worked with Tui in my first job in journalism, on Radio 4ZA in Invercargill, at the end of 1984. I couldn't wait to get out of the place and managed after a seemingly interminable 18 months. But I always kept in touch with Tui -- she came and visited me in Edinburgh after I moved here, and while I never went back to Invercargill I did compromise on one visit to NZ by meeting her in Te Anau. We went sailing on the lake in her brother's yacht, a terrifying jaunt once a squall blew up and we realised that each of us was expecting the other to a more experienced sailor than ourself!

I got Tui's Christmas card last week, as I mentioned, and in it she told about her most recent tramping exploits, round part of Stewart Island and the new Hump Ridge Track near Tuatapere. And yes, she asked me to write. But by the time I got the card it was already too late, she was unconscious and close to death. I didn't know that of course -- I got an email from my brother yesterday breaking the news, and another one today from another ex-Invercargill friend (kia ora Bill). I feel bereft.

I did almost all of my Christmas shopping in one big push on Monday, phew. Only one more major present to get, plus little giftettes for my colleagues, and that's it.

Oh, and Christmas cards. I always think I'm going to pass on Christmas cards this year, only to get the guilts when the cards and gifts start pouring in. A lovely calendar from Uncle Jock, how could I not send a card (I sent a lovely calendar and a letter instead); an unexpected card from Cousin Margaret, recently widowed; a lovely one from Tui begging for a letter. Sigh. It's tough being a Grinch.

Today I did Christmas shopping for someone else: Andrew had me buy a book, Earth from the Air 365 Days, for his brother that he couldn't get in Inverness. I got it in one of my favourite bookshops, Beyond Words, so it was an enjoyable task.

OK I am going to buy a digital camera very soon. So here I'm listing the outlets. And I'm going to decide, once and for all and get one.

Jungle
Jessops Online
Sherwoods
buyacamera
UK Digital
Camera Direct
Fotosense
The Digital Camera Company
Cameras At Lowest Prices (apparently aka Alan Chase Ltd, est 1946...)
Dixons
Currys
John Lewis

That'll do to be going on with...

Happy ending: I got my new Visa card in the mail yesterday and the bank fraud dept had called on Friday & left a message. When I phoned yesterday they just wanted confirmation of the fraudulent transactions.

It was fascinating, actually, a little travelogue. First, three rapid-succession purchases in Sainsbury just after 6pm, while I was still pushing my trolley around the aisles. "They were probably passing the card from one to another, at the same checkout," the man said.

Then a brief stop at Woolworths before hitting the Gap and a sportswear shop. After that, on to buy petrol at Asda, via another supermarket in Portobello Road. It's all been "frauded", and in fact none of the transactions even made it as far as my account, so in that way it's nothing to do with me.

I wanted more detail! I wanted the time of every single transaction so I could track them through the city! But the answers I did get took much computer-work from the patient fellow at the bank, and in the end I gave up.

I was weirdly tired yesterday, so I didn't go to town, didn't do any shopping whatsoever. I did design a Christmas card but it's horribly naff, so forget that. I walked the dog, ate and sat around doing nothing. Oh, and I worked on the Exile game. Very absorbing. Hours slip by like minutes.

Some of those hours were very early am, so I slept late this morning. Another good walk -- it was mild yesterday but very frosty today, and sunny. Bertie had a good run with Kira, a bouncy bitser, and I chatted with the owner, who turns out to be very interesting. He's from Shetland originally, and in his youth did an 18-month stint on a Norwegian whaler at South Georgia. His captain was a woman, and she was also the harpoonist. "No-one argued with her." This was in 1956. He said his granddaughter interviewed him for a school project recently and was so horrified by his whaling exploits she didn't talk to him for a week.

While we were walking we heard a yoohoo and there on the road bridge, high above us, was Sandy with his two dogs, peering down.

No word from the bank, and then I had a little shockette while doing some internet banking -- my Visa account was missing. Yikes, the thieves have stolen my whole account! But of course the bank has to give me a whole new account, not just a new card. I don't know how long the account will be blocked though.

While I had the woman on the blower I interrogated her about the robbers' transactions. Gap and a sportswear shop. That sounds more like teenagers than professionals -- I'd expected the purchases to be electrical goods that can be sold; but I guess you can sell clothes too. I asked her if there were times for the transactions but there weren't. I'd really like to know, so I know where the security lapse is.

I'm doing very well on Myst III Exile, which means I'm not getting a lot of sleep. Bertie came into the study and barked at me last night. "Get to bed! That tinkly music is keeping me awake and creeping me out!" It's creeping me out too. There aren't enough other people in it. One of the "worlds" is so creepy I probably won't be able to stay long enough to solve the puzzles -- it's all decaying metal walkways and dead machinery you have to get working again by pushing levers and turning wheels in the right order.

I've been robbed! It's the weirdest thing: I went to the supermarket this evening and when I got to the checkout I discovered my credit card and a debit card were missing from my purse. The card for my main account was still there, thank goodness, so I was able to pay for my groceries. On reflection I think that card may have been left to give the thieves more time to use the credit card. Because I didn't phone the bank until I'd gotten home and checked my other handbag. Just in case I'd had a blackout, you know.

I hadn't of course, and the robbers had been busy having a little spree. This is the craziest thing: while the bank woman was busy "frauding" the bad transactions, she managed to block two new transactions! While I was on the phone! This freaked me out completely. Up until that point I'd been quite calm and mature about the whole thing, but when she said that I started gibbering and shrieking.

"I can't believe it! They're using it now?"

"Yes, I stopped the transaction from going through and the shop assistant's been advised to call the police."

"Oh that's so horrible! That's awful! How creepy! My card!" and so on. She laughed, bless her.

So it's all fixed up and the bank's fraud department will investigate. I've been obsessively going over my movements in the supermarket but can't think of anything. It was busy, crowded, but not insanely so. I didn't notice anyone doing anything suspicious. I didn't think I'd left my trolley unattended but I must have, for just long enough. I was in there for a long time for me, an hour. It must have been in there because the rest of the day my bag was under lock and key -- in the house or in the boot of the car (while I was walking Bertie before going to the supermarket). I even locked the car while I was recycling my bottles.

Days off pass in a blur, sigh. I've mostly been very very lazy, which has been embarrassingly enjoyable.

Some odd things: I ran over a fox on the motorway on the way home from work on Wednesday night. I can only hope I killed it; there was nowhere to stop at that point, and stopping on the road was out of the question. Then on the way to the movies on Thursday night I nearly ran over some teenagers, stood on the brakes and skidded all over the place. (It was terrifying, particularly coming so soon after hitting the fox; unlike the fox, the kids were invisible until they ran into the road right in front of me.Thankfully, also unlike the fox they just ran faster rather than stopping in their tracks.)

The result of all this heavy braking was that I had to take my car into the garage on Saturday morning for repairs -- new brake pad and adjustment to calipers, £54 kaching! Also needing attention are the suspension bushes in the front and a tyre that has a big cut in it.

I spent some time scanning in pictures for the website but haven't done any work on the new design, so I'll link to the photos here.

Here are a couple of Bertie with his bucket on:




And here are some ritual humiliation pictures -- yes, the honeymoon is over! "Cute" antlers and angel wings are only a heartbeat away. Definitely time to call the SPCA.


I'll stand here looking silly just because it's you, Aunty Faye.

No, stop now please, this is stupid.

One more: Bertie shows off his bandage, poor wee fellow. This is his "I hate you" pose -- ears flat back, accusing stare.


And another: something I found in the woods. Out walking Bertie I heard hammering coming from somewhere odd. A couple of days later I went to investigate and found this:

Some of the local kids, I think. It's tucked away, you'd never know it was there. It's mainly made of pallets, looks very cosy.

Days off coming up, not a moment too soon. Off to a French film tomorrow night, there's a festival of them at the Filmhouse. We're going to see Loin. The alternative was De L'Amour. I looked it up on the Internet Movie Database, where one of the reviews said: "Great movie about four youngs living in the suburbs. This is not an apology of rabbles like a few movies based on the same subject are."

Loin is set in Tangier, where truck driver Serge is in love with Sarah, but is in some trouble of his own. "Film generally concerns Moroccans with various relationships with the country: visiting staying, leaving & contemplating." Sounds a bit more interesting than a film about four Paris youngs, even if they aren't an apology of rabbles.

Other than the movies I'm going to try and do some gardening, some DIY and some computing. Try. What I really want to do is go to sleep and wake up refreshed on Monday morning.

A seasonal complaint: Christmas starts earlier every year, I know that, but this is crazy. Edinburgh's Christmas lights are up. Fine. But part of the show is weaving fairy lights through all the trees along Princes Street. And most of the trees haven't lost their leaves yet.

It's still autumn, people! It's not Christmas yet!

This parking business is really getting up my nose. Yesterday I brought my car in because I slept late and walked the dog late and generally did everything late, including leaving for work. No change for a parking meter, no time to get change for a parking meter, so I parked where I've parked unmolested before: on the verge (paved, not blocking the footpath) outside the work garage. I could/should have gone back and shifted it into the garage at 6pm but I was busy so I didn't.

At about 10.30 I was in the canteen when a woman I swear I've never seen before said to me: "Is that your car that was out by the garage door?" Was? "It's just that the security guard came in earlier and asked whose car it was, he said the police were going to lift it." Aieeeee! "I thought it was yours, so when I saw you there I thought I'd mention it..."

I sprinted out on to the balcony and phew, the car was still there. So I asked the security guard about it and he said yes, the police have been coming down hard on cars illegally parked outside buildings like ours, in the interests of security. Fair enough. I raced upstairs, grabbed my keys, raced back down, moved the car and breathed a sigh of relief.

Then this morning on my doormat I found a little yellow calling card from the police. I didn't notice it last night, not sure when they left it. Apparently my car was found abandoned last night! And they'd like me to contact them urgently about it! As if.

So today my car has been abandoned in South Queensferry and I'm getting a taxi home. It's so, so, so annoying!

In other news, I got Pinky's birthday present in the mail this morning -- Thunderpants! And a bottle of sparkly lilac nail varnish called Angelic. Perfect.

This morning the weather was ... weatherful. I don't know what the word is for this; say if it's fine and sunny all day, or rains steadily or whatever, that's not weatherful. This morning it was sunny, but there were big purple-bellied clouds hanging ominously in the west and north. Their tops were gleaming white castles, towers of foam. After 20 minutes or so a few spots of rain fell and bingo, a brilliant rainbow formed over the river, a double rainbow in fact, vivid against the darkening cloud. We turned tail and headed for home. Sure enough, in minutes heavy rain was pelting down. Later in the afternoon we ventured back out and had a wonderful walk in bright sunshine. The clouds were still threatening and it was bitterly cold, but it's great weather if you're wrapped up warm.

Only half an hour of my birthday to go.

"Born today, you come under strong influences of Mars, Uranus and Neptune, and this combination will instigate you to travel abroad and even have a desire to migrate. This birthday, the Moon is in Scorpio, and this is a good sign showing that for the remainder of the year, you will be able to bring to reality all that you attempt, especially if you are the ages of 22, 26 or 27; 31, 35 or 36; 40, 44 or 45; 49, 53 or 54; and also 58, 62 or 63, as you will enjoy the benefit of your positive planets and be able to do well in all areas of your life."

Apparently next year won't be too good though. "Try to finish or complete your ventures or plans before you enter the year 2002, because then, the situation turns erratic and volatile bringing about a weakness in contracts and agreements."

I got some lovely presents: a beautiful mohair rug from Faye, and a Shrek video from Andrew. Plus I've been treated to two slap-up meals, a movie and a tour of the Royal Yacht Britannia. Bertie got a packet of chocolate drops. Not from me, I might add. Birthday presents for dogs! Bah, humbug.