Major irritation of last 24 hours was sitting up really doing helicopter pics and thumbnails and webpage, and deciding to upload them rather than be sensible and go to bed. Uploading took forever and a day, and right at the end I got a message saying "Uh, by the way there's been a problem? With one or all of those files you just tried to transfer?"

Grrrrrrrr. There certainly was a problem ... I don't think any of the pictures got through. I can't tell because the damned webpage didn't go through either.

Apart from that, a lovely weekend. I went to the Royal Highland Show on Sunday, a tiring but enjoyable experience. Man, those country folk are bolshy though! Great banners everywhere demanding FREEDOM -- freedom to kill wild animals mainly it seems. There was a foxhunting display -- two haughty chaps on horseback surrounded by a mob of friendly, excited hounds. No foxes of course.

I loved the big parade of Clydesdales and ponies, and my total favourite was going round the stables patting them. I didn't pat any Shetland ponies, they're too freakishly low to reach over the doors. But most of the Highland ponies were lapping up the attention, licking and nibbling at everything in case it turned out to be food.

The exhibition hall was just a big sales exercise, but there were lots of free nibbles and I bought some wild pork and apple sausages. I love real sausages, they're a meaty treat. Also visited the flower show and bought a delphinium. And watched some chainsaw action but not the sheep shearing.

Time to go home -- more later.

Today I finally fixed my printer, which has been malfunctioning for months. I had it on the USB connection, which should work fine but didn't. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the driver, I tried plugging it into the USB hub, directly into the USB port and with a boosted USB cable. I even reinstalled Windows. Nothing worked.

Today I finally gave up completely and installed the printer on the parallel connection. I got a new cable yesterday and connected it up this afternoon. It works! Hurrah!

I spent an hour printing out piles of pictures for various frames I have kicking around and then hung them. Very satisfying. I've got a long weekend coming up, and I might spend a few hours of it clearing out the study. It's a mess in there, needs a good sluicing. What tends to happen though is that I start out with good intentions and end up playing The Sims for hours.

New! Improved! and now with photos ...

At last, the secret can be told. I went back up to the farm at the weekend because it was Jenny's 60th birthday and Andrew organised a spectacular treat for her: a half-hour helicopter trip. There was one spare seat, and Andrew invited me to fill it. I said no at first, because I only had Saturday off. But then the second choice said no as well, so I changed my mind.

It was well worth the extreme effort -- it was wonderful.

I'd had to start out just after 7am in order to get there in time, which meant getting up at 6am -- this after finishing work after midnight. I was feeling reasonably perky, considering. Bertie was astounded to find himself back in "heaven", but less than delighted to be bundled into a bedroom and left on his own half an hour after arriving. Jenny was surprised to see me so soon after the last visit. "Have you come to get your flask?" she asked. She had to be hustled off to get dressed, and even then she got changed again after being told that although it wasn't a "smart dress" occasion, photos would be taken.

The helicopter was a Squirrel six-seater -- pilot and one passenger in the front, four in the back. John went in the front on account of his leg, and he took the map and acted as navigator. Jenny and I had window seats, and Andrew and cousin Grace took the middle seats. We all buckled in and put on our headsets, then had a surprise: the helicopter lifted off backwards!


Sharing the back seat with me, from left: Jenny, Andrew and Grace.

Once we'd cleared the airport traffic we banked away south towards the farm. Collective squeals of excitement as the horizon dipped and swayed! Andrew fell silent after this -- later he said he was wondering whether to throw up on his mother or his cousin. Happily he managed not to throw up at all. Grace also felt queasy, but the rest of us enjoyed every minute.

Just north of the farm we spotted a car stopped by the side of the road and two tiny figures waving madly -- it was Anne, John's sister, and her husband Chris. We buzzed them and carried on, over the farm and up across the moorland to the trig point on Carn nan Tri-tighearnan, which marks the highest point in Nairnshire (2016m). It was very wild and bleak up there, dotted with peat hags and lochans.


Following the burn up the hill.


Whee! Swooping into a turn at the top of the hill. John is navigating.

We came back down the burn and hovered over the farm for photos, then headed across country to Nairn -- pausing briefly to wave at Jean and Bunty.


The farm from the air.


The new house at Rehiran Beag -- the old house and garage can be seen at the back.


Cawdor Castle and its formal gardens.

After circling Nairn we went back to the airport.


Aerial view of the town.


Group portrait taken by the pilot at the end of the trip.

We were all frothing with excitement (or nausea in some cases!). John was thrilled to have flown over the trig point -- he said he and Andrew climbed up to it ten years ago and he'd often wondered when he'd be up there again. To add to Jenny's day of thrills, we were home in time to watch England beat Denmark 3-0.

I had an hour's lie-down later in the afternoon, but otherwise the rest of the day was energetic. Lots of walks, including one on the beach at Nairn (bare feet on warm sand, bliss) with Grace and Andrew's old school friend Ally. And of course Bertie. We had takeaways for dinner, then watched a bit of TV before I dragged off to bed. Andrew kindly walked Bertie, and pushed him through the door later on.


The Mediterranean? Caribbean? No, it's Nairn, on the Costa del Moray. Bertie, Grace, Ally and Andrew.

Sunday was Jenny's actual birthday, with more surprises planned -- a new garden seat and TWO birthday cakes with candles. There was a minor kerfuffle when Aunt Di arrived and left again abruptly, but otherwise everything went as planned. The double seat is magnificent and perfectly suits the position Andrew chose. The cakes -- one baked by Grace in a secret expedition -- were delicious. I managed to drag myself away just after midday, and drove like a mad thing to get back to Queensferry in time to shower, walk the dog, and get to work. I was a bit late, and VERY tired. But happy.

Yesterday was busy too, though it was my day off -- I had a lunch date and a visit to the dentist to get a crown cemented back in after an in-car toffee incident -- and today I mowed both the lawns, in honour of the rain stopping for a day. Frances next door did hers too, we were both working flat out to get it all done as the first drops spattered down.

Tomorrow I'm going to loaf, really take it easy.

I'll put the photos in next week.

Friday I drove up to the farm -- the weather was terrible on the way up, with some heavy rain. But further north it cleared, and then round about Aviemore, it suddenly became very warm. When I got to the farm it was sunny, a beautiful day. No-one was home -- though a neighbour was there picking dandelions for his peacocks. Bertie and I walked round to Ruallan, where John and Andrew were putting up a new fence.

There's a whole long saga about Ruallan, which I won't go into now. Suffice to say there are two houses on the property -- one owned by Andrew's aunty and the other by a couple who've just bought it. The husband was there with his two spaniels and Bertie had a run with them. I don't think we did anything that night, just had dinner and talked, went for walks, that kind of thing.

Next day we also went for walks -- after Andrew had finished his farm chores we went to the machair east of Nairn, a lovely stretch of salt flats sprinkled with flowers. Bertie spent a lot of time chasing oystercatchers; I guess they were decoying him away from their nests, because they flew low and just fast enough to stay a little ahead of him. He was so sure he could catch them he ran and ran and ran, poor thing.

Saturday night, what did we do? I can't remember. It stays light up there until 11pm or so. I think we goofed around in the garden -- was that the day Andrew mowed the lawn? I think we also went back to Ruallan, and Andrew's aunt was there this time. She took me off into her house and plied me with grapefruit squash and chocolate biscuits, showed me prints of some of her paintings, which are in hospitals all around the world.

Whoops, it's time to go home. No time to tell you about going to see Spider-man, or the grand tour of the new house at Rehiran Beag, which will have to be renamed because it's anything but beag; or about Ed and Lou and the baby and their pictures of canoeing on Lewis; or going out to dinner at the Cawdor Tavern with cousin Grace and Ed's parents; driving up to Drynachan to gawp at the fancy-pants summer cottages where the famous stay; or driving madly back south in time for work.

I'll update again next week.

I've not had time to update with gorgeous photos of my weekend on the farm -- great time was had by all, apart from the farm cats -- and now it looks as if I won't have time until next week. I can't tell you what I'll be doing this weekend because it's secret. It will be worth the wait, however.

Another energetic sailing session this morning, complicated by a delay at the marina office. It turned out that the city council leisure card I'd been gaily claiming discounts on has been expired since July last year. No-one had actually ever swiped it through. The old cards used to have the expiry date on them but the new ones just have a bar code. Hee hee!

The marina staff know me so well they hadn't bothered checking -- even this morning they just gave me the discount and told me to come back later and update the card. "I know where you live, I'll come and bang on your door if you don't pay up," one said. It's gone up to £37.50 a year -- the first one I got back in 91 or whenever was about £12 I think. Still a good deal though. Especially if you let it lapse for a year.

So yes, the sailing was good -- Colin wanted to practise gybing, so we bombed up and down the river in gusty winds. I crewed, which is a fair amount of work when tacking but hardly any when gybing.

Bertie on the other hand has had a rubbish day. Very short, unexciting walks, plus an interminable wait at the marina office this afternoon while I got a new discount card. I fully expect to find something has been destroyed when I get home. He usually rips up a magazine or newspaper when he's feeling hard done by.

Some interesting websites:

True Crimes -- The Ultimate Crime Resource. Subheadings include organised crime and missing persons as well as homicide. It's addictive.

Dead or Alive? -- Updated daily! It's very useful and endlessly interesting. Who knew that Chiang Kai-shek's widow was still alive? I didn't. She's 105. Astounding.

All Music -- Facts, factoids, music clips, reviews ... it's all there and more.

Anyday -- This one's plain weird. But at least now I know that today (June 7) is Tom Jones's birthday. And the anniversary of the United Colonies changing its name to United States (1775).

I'm off to the farm tomorrow! Hurrah! I haven't packed or anything yet, so I won't be making an early start. I also need to stop off and get some nice thank-you-for-having-us gifts. Maybe I'll get them a puppy...

The Barcelona Review -- What a great find ... an "International Review of Contemporary Fiction", with short fiction, excerpts from novels, interviews with authors, and yes, reviews, in English, Spanish, Catalan and French.

It has the first chapter of a book I bought today, The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy.

The weather finally cleared up enough on Saturday for me to get into the garden, and get into it I did -- all day. I weeded the whole front garden, mowed the lawn and planted out the lobelias I bought at the fair. Then I moved to the back, where I weeded and planted lobelias (it was a big tray). I broke only for dog-walking and lunch. It all looked good after I'd finished, and then as a bonus it rained, so I didn't have to worry about watering anything.

Last night I went out for dinner with Fiona, visiting from London, and a friend of hers who is over from the US. We went to Sweet Melindas, now firmly my favourite restaurant. It's mainly seafood but there was also venison and chicken on the menu, and their puddings are superb. I also like the ambience and the decor. I always enjoy catching up with Fiona and last night was no exception, great conversation. I must go and visit all my London friends some time soon.

Tomorrow morning I have to get up early, I have an appointment with my mortgage lender for a two-year review. Then Thursday Colin and I are going sailing in the morning, 10am-noon. And Friday I'm off to Cawdor, for a farm visit through until Tuesday morning. Bertie loves going to the farm, all those wide-open spaces and wonderful smells -- and the 12 cats lurking in the coalshed.

As a defence mechanism I'm trying to take an interest in the FIFA World Cup, and the official website may well swing it for me.

It's interesting! Really, it is. Check out the archives -- you can watch entire classic matches on screen. You'd need a fast connection, but still ... amazing.

More sailing drama today, I'll write about it later.

Oh, oh, oh, I found Suipi!

While searching the net for something else entirely, I found a whole new card game. I started reading the instructions and was quickly bamboozled. But it sounds a lot like 500, with an extra suit of trump cards added -- five suits altogether -- and a whole raft of extra rules, possible bids etc.

One site I looked at said people who start playing can sometimes end up thinking the others are just making up the rules as they go along -- which reminded me of Sonny trying to teach us to play sweepi. So I looked that up on the net and only found one passing reference -- and they called the game sweet pea.

Hey, here's a site where you can download 500 for your computer. Looks pretty shonky, but.

I used to play cards a lot -- in fact when I lived in London, a whole network of us had regular card evenings. The host house put on a lavish spread, set up tables and off we went. Euchre, Pontoon, 500, Black Bitch, Fan Tan, Gin Rummy and, when worse for wear, Snap or Cheat. If there were only a few of us, we would lie on the floor and play manic rounds of Racing Demon, which can get pretty physical.

Then when I was away on a work trip in Vanuatu, with the army medical corps, I was sucked in to a kava-fuelled grudge-match vortex called Star Euchre. On holiday in Vanuatu it was another form of Euchre, I think -- my opponents ceremoniously presented me with the score sheets when I left. At home when I was a kid it was always 500, endless games at the crib, with the Tilley lamp hissing and popping and the tension rising. I played 500 in Kenya too, with some Australians in the Kakamega forest.

A pack of cards is such a small thing, but it's a Tardis -- it billows out into long evenings of pleasure, intrigue, strategy, betrayal and triumph.

Gad, I'm so far behind with this. After writing the last entry I went for a walk with the dog and found an interesting-looking pamphlet lying sodden on the grass. It turned out to be a programme for Raft Race Day, to be held the following day, Sunday. The programme printed on that glossy paper that sticks together when wet, so I couldn't read the vital bits. I went on down to the chandlery and they had nice dry copies.

Lo and behold, there was a whole page devoted to the Reaper. It's a 100-year-old Fife herring drifter, based at the Fishing Museum at Anstruther. I went and visited the next day and it's just great. I'll put up some photos later on. It was all set up by then and they'd raised one of the sails. A beautiful boat.

The raft race was a hoot. The entrants didn't make their own rafts (not like us resourceful kiwis -- though I suspect the Lifeboat Association, for which it was a fundraiser, didn't want any adverse publicity), they paddled big rubber inflatables. Most of the men were dressed as women, of course. Those excessively macho blokes will seize any chance they get to put on a frock and some makeup, and pinch other men's bums. There was a fair too, with stalls selling homemade cakes and secondhand books, and some fair rides. I got a tray of lobelias, nice dark blue ones. The weather's been so dreadful I haven't been able to plant them yet.

I managed to mow the back lawn at the last minute on Saturday night, the rain was spattering down as I roared through the final few feet. It was about six inches long in places, I'm not kidding. The weeds are totally rampant in the front garden -- the convolvulus is taking over the border under the wall! I must get onto it on Saturday.

So anyway on Monday I went to see the new Star Wars film -- what a load of rubbish! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Though I felt a lot of sympathy for a gang of little kids in the front row who squirmed around restlessly during the love scenes -- time for another rocket race! Blow something up! I hadn't realised Temuera Morrison was in it, that was a lovely surprise. And of course hilarious to hear that awful dialogue delivered "un Newzild".

Yesterday morning Colin and I went sailing, though not in his yacht. We'd intended to hire a Topaz each, they're small single-handers. But the tide was so low the end of the hard was out of the water so we couldn't launch them, and we had to take a Wanderer instead, they're bigger boats they keep on the pontoon. The forecast was for force 5-6 winds, which is quite strong. But in the event it was barely a three, just enough to scoot along on.

Then the storm broke. A proper thunderstorm, with jags of forked lightning slashing down into the sea. The air was filled with the smell of burning -- thankfully not us. It was very thrilling. The rain that went with it was less thrilling, because after a couple of heady squalls, it killed the wind.

We're going sailing again tomorrow morning. I'm quite the morning person since my week off, I haven't slept past 10am.

Nearly forgot -- today there was a new boat tied up in the little harbour, what appears to be an old fishing boat, the Reaper. It has lovely big red sails -- I'd love to see it on the water.

:: visit to oxford

Whew, what a whirlwind few days. It took only six hours to get down there on Monday, pretty good time. I stopped a couple of time for a stretch and a bite to eat.

Faye and I had a day out in the centre of the city on Tuesday. We went on a walking tour of the colleges and a whirl on the open-top bus (hilariously awful -- we couldn't understand anything the guide was saying, apart from his crap jokes), had lunch in a church cafe and took in the view from the tower.

Pictures:


The walking tour -- we only went into one college, Keble, one of the younger ones. It dates from the 19th century, the first to be built in brick. The guide was very good and the group wasn't too big.


The bus tour -- what's that you said?


View from the tower of St Mary the Virgin.


Detail on the church -- Oxford has some wonderful gargoyles, but you need a telephoto lens to get pictures of them.


Faye overcomes her fear of heights, but keeps a good grip on the railing.


Halfway up the spiral staircase a pigeon has chosen an unfortunate site for her nest.


One of the statues outside the Radcliffe Camera.

Wednesday was Faye's main day off, so we went to Blenheim Palace first, very interesting monster stately home. I especially liked the story of Consuelo Vanderbilt, the American heiress whose mother was determined to marry her off to an English dook. She interviewed several, but plumped for the Dook of Marlboro, who was on the bones of his arse but had Blenheim Palace and a whole bunch of titles. Consuelo, age 19, was horrified and balked, so Mommy Dearest locked her in her room for five days on bread and water till she gave in. The Dook was only 5'4", Consuelo was 6'1". She gave him "an heir and a spare" before divorcing him. He went on to marry someone called Gladys, who communed with spirits and eventually went mad.

Blenheim's other delights include a cafe (lunch), a miniature steam train that takes you to the butterfly house and herb gardens, and lovely walks in the aboretum, around the lake and in the formal gardens. Whew.


From Blenheim's butterfly house. Photography was banned inside the palace, sadly, and my photos of the outside aren't marvellous. See here for info and galleries. It was impressive but OTT -- at least I learned that when I gild the ceilings 24 carat gold ages better than 18 carat.

After Blenheim we wended our way randomly through the Cotswolds, marvelling at the beautiful little villages -- the houses are all built of the local golden yellow stone, with slate roofs, and most are dripping with wisteria. We had dinner at the Trout, a nice ye olde pub on the Thames (oops, sorry, the Isis, as they call it in Oxford) complete with peacocks. We had trout -- delicious.

Thursday I went into Oxford for a solo visit, tromped around the Ashmoleon museum and did some shopping. In the afternoon I gave Faye some computer lessons and we got her hooked up to the internet.

Friday we went on a pilgrimage to Tolkien's grave (just down the road from Faye) and a walk in the local park. It has an aviary that has rabbits and guinea pigs rushing around in all the cages. Bertie would have loved that -- a little Jack Russell had to be dragged away, he couldn't believe his eyes! Lemme in! Then we had lunch at a local garden centre before I headed off at 1pm.


The Tolkien grave. Fans have left little tokens of their regard -- pixie and fairy necklaces, a couple of rings, some notes (bleached by the rain) and a tiny Australian flag.

The trip back was dreadful, I didn't get home until nearly midnight. The Midlands was just one big traffic jam -- stopstartstopstart for hundreds of miles! Crawling along at 20mph. Then up through the hills by the Lakes District it was hosing down with rain so heavy the wipers nearly didn't cope, ditto the Borders. I took a wrong turn near Glasgow & ended up in Stirling! Look it up on the map! Finally I got to Dunfermline and phoned for directions to the friends' place where Bertie was staying -- had to phone twice because I got lost again. I was exhausted. Bertie was quite pleased to see me but I think he's really missing his new "owners" now, he's been quite mopey.

PhotoDude's Web Log: Brain Dump & Pixel Pile

I've probably said this before, but PhotoDude is one interesting fellow.

On my home computer my "favourites" folder is practically empty; I don't surf much at home, and I keep doing things like reinstalling Windows, changing browsers and even buying new computers -- stuff like favourites gets lost.

This is where the blogspot comes in handy, as a kind of portable favourites folder. Which is mad, because weblogs (blogs for short) were originally devised by people who wanted to share their internet finds with an audience. Whereas I started keeping mine as a kind of diary thingie.

I do have a separate blog for links, but it seemed silly to keep two when one would do, so I don't post there any more. I should merge them, but I don't know how.

Today's news: there is none. Walked the dog twice, did some washing, watched ER, came to work.

Meanwhile, the trip to Oxford is suddenly looming large -- I'm looking forward to it, but there's a lot to organise before I head off. I don't even know how to get there. I'm told it will take about seven to eight hours, which seems an awful lot. I hope the car holds out.

As I speak, other family members are gathering in Wellington for the Great 80th Birthday Bash. Lucky buggers! It sounds like a great weekend. Here's me whining about organising a simple trip south -- the birthday organisation is nothing short of awesome. I'll say no more, because some of it's SECRET.

Underground Photoshop Tennis

This is just fab; I love tinkering with Photoshop but these guys take it to another level.

Welcome to eHow.com How things get done

This is bound to come in handy one day. Everything from "How to Clean Blood from Carpet" to "Getting Started in Rocketry". Less useful: "Make a Faux Stained-Glass Sun Catcher" or "Refuse a Dance at a Formal Ball". Still, you never know ...

Later: Aiee! This site really is something else. You have to register, but it's free and it's worthwhile. Here's a taster from the Relationship section:

How to Pick Up a Sailor
If a mate in uniform is who you seek, go where the sailors go....

Steps:
1. Visit port towns or cities with large, rotating sailor populations.
2. Frequent bar and restaurant establishments in the vicinity of docking areas.
3. Visit areas that hold Fleet Week celebrations or similar U.S. Navy-based military events.
4. Keep apprised of current world affairs and the U.S. military's involvement in those affairs.
5. Learn key sailing terms and become well-versed in navy terminology.
6. Get a clerical job in the US Navy so that you will have access to ship schedules and personnel records. But don't be a stalker; the Pentagon might be watching.

Avast me hearties! Arrr harrr! Heh, in my home town the boatie girls just stood on the wharf in short skirts; I don't think they kept apprised of current world affairs and I doubt the sailors were bothered.

The subject of today's lecture is Nostalgia.

I was set off by a radio programme; some worthy gent banging on about the lovely spot he lived in and how the developers were going to ruin it by gasp, building houses.

Listening to him go on about how he'd have to find somewhere else to live or else perhaps kill himself, I could feel my blood pressure rising. At what point does this man want history to stop? Right now, that's where. "This is as close to paradise as it gets," he intoned.

Most people would prefer an earlier date to call a halt at -- without, of course losing any of their own creature comforts. They want their village to look, say, mid-17th century, pre-Industrial Revolution, but they still want a TV, stereo, washer-drier, dishwasher, fridge-freezer. Bury the power lines and put the satellite dish under the roof tiles. And erect the mobile phone masts over near that ghastly council estate, thank you very much.

It's all down to taste, snobbery, a kind of middle-class fascism and my pet hate -- nostalgia. They yearn for "simpler times", these people, before the hedgerows were all ripped up, before the mucky moral dilemmas posed by genetic engineering, before traffic jams and mass tourism. They may trick it out as a concern for the environment, like the man on the radio programme, but it's not.

Is he living in a wattle-and-daub hut with no running water? I doubt it. Leaving aside the fact that the meadowed landscape he so admires was once thickly wooded. Charcoal burners laid waste to Britain's forests hundreds of years ago. What he objects to is people, people who won't share his "good taste", his appreciation of the beautiful landscape. He fears progress in his face. He wants a fridge, but he doesn't want to see the ugliness that produced the fridge.

I've seen this kind of poison working elsewhere too. Like in Zanzibar -- I spent a week there once in an idyllic spot, a guesthouse in a tiny village on a beach. No electricity, one standpipe providing all the water. A group of us tourists were invited to dinner by a local shopkeeper, who told us how they hoped to get a power supply soon.

One of my fellow tourists was most upset. "It will all be spoilt," she wailed later. For whom, exactly? She was going to go back to her flat in Frankfurt or Paris or wherever, with all mod cons; she wasn't going to have to cook her dinner over an open fire by the light of a hurricane lamp, walking half a mile to fetch water. She wanted the villagers to stay the way they were so that in a couple of years' time she could come back for another week of "paradise".

Nostalgia poisons architecture too, especially domestic architecture. The new houses being built up the road from me could date from the 1950s, or even earlier. Here it is 2002, but there's not a solar panel in sight. (The main thing that shows they're modern is that the sections are so small.) Stop history, we want to get off! cry the British. Maybe the failure of tower block living put them off Brave New World experimentation, I don't know. But I do miss the quirkiness of New Zealand homes -- you can tell when they were built so clearly, from the colonial weatherboard to goofy 70s and 80s round windows and taradiddles.

There are modern homes here, but they're rare and very daring. Modernity is mainly reserved for public and commercial buildings. Even there there's a lot of nostalgia-driven timidity. Prince Charles is at the forefront, tut-tutting at anything dramatically new. I bet he'd love to turn the clock back a few hundred years!

It is the nostalgic attempt to recreate the past and the dismissal of the achievements of the 20th century - apparent at Poundbury and in the prince's speeches - that has earned him enemies. Among them the architect Piers Gough, who says Poundbury would have been an interesting experiment in 1802 - but not 2002. 'He doesn't seem to be interested in culture,' Gough says. 'He doesn't seem to be interested in the world going forward. He wants it to go backward.' -- From Architecture Week

I'm in a loser state of mind -- first I lose the dog; then today, the car. Or rather, I lost the street where I parked it while I had my hair done. I went to a church book sale across the road from the salon, that was my big mistake. I got disoriented and ended up wandering the streets for over half an hour, in the rain. So much for Sandy's careful blow-drying, it was all rat-tails.

The book sale was a good one -- I got a 1945 edition of Wind in the Willows for 20p, very austere little thing with no illustrations but plenty of conversation; a guide to ballroom dancing from the 50s, I bought it for the diagrams of dancing feet, 40p; and something I can never resist, an 50s recipe book full of photos of radioactive food. Sensible buys were Cold Mountain (haven't read the book or seen the movie) and The Tulip, a history of the Dutch bulb mania. I resisted The Complete Home Doctor, which I only wanted for an X-ray of "torso with toy bicycle impacted in thorax".

Three days off and I'm exhausted. Saturday the weather was great, sunny and warm, so I did a spot of gardening, lots of walking and saw The Warrior -- what a great film. Sunday I went sailing and it was fantastic, just a nice amount of wind. The first sail of the season is always a bit nerve-wracking, because I'm sure I've forgotten how to do it. But it's like riding a bike, it all comes back and it's bliss. Sailing's funny though, because it seems sooooo easy ... but you don't realise how much work you're doing until later on -- ow! aching muscles!

Today I had a loafsome morning and then took Bertie on a nice long walk, to Kirkliston. I don't know how far it is, but it takes about an hour and a half, mainly along the route of an old railway line. Just as you come into Kirkliston the track goes under a bridge, which carries a road into the village. That's where Bertie disappeared. Vanished! I followed him up the path to the road, yelling at him because he's not supposed to go off the track. No sign of him. Standing on the bridge was a chap with a dog, who had been on the path ahead of us. He pointed up another road. But he had a speech disorder -- maybe he'd had a stroke? -- and I couldn't understand what he was saying. "White dog" and "farm" was about it. But he was pointing very insistently up the road.

I set off up the road in the direction he was pointing, calling and whistling, but there was no sign of Bertie. I came back down the road and walked along the track a bit. Went back up the road, back down to the track. Checked the streets of the village. Went back up the road, back down the track. He had vanished. What to do? His collar has a tag with my phone number on it, so I thought it would be best to go home and see if someone had phoned. I caught a bus back, and sure enough, there was a phone message.

"This is Mrs Unintelligible from 5 Unintelligible Unintelligble and I have your white greyhound here. I've called the police and they're sending someone round, but then I saw your number on his collar so... oh, and my phone number is 333 unintelligible."

Argh!

I couldn't phone 1471 because Andrew had phoned after Mrs Unintelligible, so his number was the last called. I listened to the message a dozen times. I scoured the phone book for names that sounded likely that matched a 333 number but no luck. I phoned the police, but they didn't have a record of Bertie being reported found. On a map I found an street in Kirkliston that could concievably be Unintelligible Unintelligible, so I drove there. I asked at the Post Office and the Kirkliston vet. No joy. I went home again. The police had suggested phoning the cat and dog home and also checking the local police station. Cat and dog home didn't have him. I plodded down to the police station but they didn't have him and didn't have a record of him being reported found.

I went home again and hurrah, Mrs Unintelligible had phoned again, so this time 1471 worked and she was able to give me directions to her house, which is in a converted farm steading, further up the very road the man had been pointing at. Bertie was curled up on a blanket on his rescuer's front doorstep, looking very woebegone. She said he had been very timid at first, but wouldn't leave her door -- especially after she gave him some biscuits! She has a dog too, but like Bertie he's not neutered, so she kept B outside because she wasn't sure how they'd get on.

When I got home I had to phone the police and report him home safe, then go to the police station and tell them he was ok. Tomorrow I'll phone the cat and dog home and let them know -- everyone has his details! In the course of all my to-ing and fro-ing I'd bumped into both my next-door neighbours, so they knew the whole story too. Rosemary even offered to come and listen to the phone message, see if she could understand the accent better -- but by then he was home again. He's been following me around the house like a clicking shadow, so maybe he thinks I abandoned him.

Andrew had phoned to check when I was going up to the farm again -- and it's official, we're going up at the beginning of June for a few days. I'll see if I can take some more time off. There won't be a lot of farm work, so we'll be able to go for some good walks.

Right now I'm going to have a long bath -- I'm aching all over! Have to get up early tomorrow too, I'm going to have my hair done.

Hmm, I tried to post an entry yesterday but it didn't work. Seems to be ok tonight though. Not much to report, it's been another quiet week at Salty Towers. I'm now officially on a waiting list for the fibroids thingie, looks as if it will be September before I go in. The hold-up is partly because of a shortage of beds in gynaecology; partly because Dr Gillespie and his colleague will be on holiday for most of July and August, and in meetings for most of June; and that there are three other women ahead of me on the list. In the meantime I'm going to go back to the herbalist for some of her magic potion.

I'm going sailing soon, first time this season. I'd loaned Colin my wetsuit for a course he was doing and he returned it last week. Most embarrassing -- I thought he was going to drop it in in the afternoon, on his way to work, but he showed up at midday, with his girlfriend in tow. I was still in my nightie, having a long leisurely breakfast in the sun. Caught slacking! Jenny was there to meet Bertie, who's going to be staying with them while I'm in Oxford. "Gosh, isn't he big," she said nervously. I reassured her that he only looks big indoors. Yes, I'm sure that's reassuring.

So anyway sailing, tomorrow or Monday. I mowed the front lawn today to make more time at the weekend for leisure pursuits, but mowing the back lawn seemed a step too far. I really am extremely lazy. I'm going to go and see The Warrior at some point too, just my kind of movie "shimmering beauty" and "old-fashioned storytelling gusto".

The "virus" problem is solved: it was a combination of the ISP's servers going down and my thinking that meant my password had been stolen again and changing it, and my home email program, Eudora, being unable to cope and giving me weirdo error messages. Why can't it just say "wrong password" rather than "Shhhh! Don't tell anyone." It sounded like virus talk to me.

The mad thing was that the first emails I got after sorting all this out were infected with the Klez virus. Norton grabbed them and stuffed them away before they could do any harm, but still!

Today I went to a funeral. One of my dogwalking acquaintances, Sandy, died suddenly last week. One of my neighbours (who also has dogs) called in this morning and offered me a lift there and back, which was nice. There was a good turnout -- Sandy didn't have much in the way of family, but he had loads of friends. I think the dogs should have been there too though ...

Crematorium funerals are quite odd. They try very hard to be as solemn and respectful as possible, but you can hear the clock ticking. We had to wait outside until the previous funeral ended and when we filed out there was another group of mourners gathering. The minister gave a nice little sermon, but it's kind of "funeral lite" -- a hymn, a couple of prayers, a homily and Bible reading and off you go. After the service we drove back and Lisa told me about how her husband died on the third day of their "holiday of a lifetime" in the Far East. They'd been married 38 years, very sad story.

Bertie had quite a traumatic walk -- a couple of little kids came scrambling up a bank with their mother, right under his nose, and he went mental, leaping around like a lunatic barking as if they were ... I don't know, monsters. Once I'd reassured them the children weren't too frightened -- "Give him a biscuit!" one suggested. The mother had a cap-gun and "shot" at him, which went down well! I managed to drive Bertie away from them in the end and get him on a lead. Then we met a whole class of children on the street and he backed out into a busy road in a big panic -- argh!

Early cut tonight, they're working on the presses again. Phew.

I've been having problems with my email -- I thought it was a virus, but it turns out it may be a problem with my ISP's servers, because I just phoned the support line and they're in a big flap. So ... email to bjagnew@hotmail.com in the meantime. Sigh.

I've just come back from seeing the radiologist who'll be doing the embolisation and it was very interesting. He had all the MRI scan pictures up, wow! My poor old innards. He's not sure when it will be done, says it may be early June or September. July and August are out because he and his colleague are on holiday and May is out because of various meetings. The radiologists don't have much of a waiting list, the main hitch is gynaecology beds. The radiology department doesn't move to the new hospital until next year, so the procedure will be done at the old hospital, then they'll whizz me out to the new one for a few days.

I took photos of the scans, ta da!


These ones are in cross-section, the round black blobs are the fibroids. There are loads of them, all the way through my uterus. Ewwww!


And here's the side-on view. The dark shape in this one is my poor bladder, squashed down on by the big bag o' fibroids. Double ewwww!

The radiologist wasn't fazed at all by my interest -- doctors have changed so much! He wasn't patronising in the least. The big revelation was his use of the phrase "chicken soup" in relation to the discharge I might experience. Guess what I won't be eating again in a hurry...

Stop cheering up! It's not good for you!

By WILLIAM L. HOLMES
Associated Press Writer
RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) – Mildly depressed older women tend to live longer than those who are not depressed at all, a surprising new study suggests.
The findings are contrary to most other studies on the link between depression and mortality. Those studies have generally shown that depression increases the likelihood of death within a certain time period.
“This is totally counterintuitive to what you expect to see,” said Dan G. Blazer, a Duke University professor of psychiatry and behavioral science. “We know that depression in younger populations is very clearly associated with mortality. It’s not so clear in older populations.”
The results might support the theory that mild depression is a survival mechanism, he said.
The Duke study, to be published in the May-June issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, is the first known examination of mild depression and death, Blazer said. Other studies looked only at people with severe depression.
The Duke study was based on a group that started with 2,401 women and 1,269 men, all older than 65. They were interviewed about their health at roughly three-year intervals from 1986 to 1997 and were separated into three categories – depressed, mildly depressed and not depressed – based on their answers to a 20-question test.
Blazer said 10.5 per cent of the women were considered mildly depressed.
The women with mild depression were, on average, 60 percent less likely than other women to die during any three-year period, Blazer said. Researchers took into account age, chronic illness and other factors in calculating the mortality rate.
The researchers found that depression had no influence on the mortality of men.
“We don’t want to make too much out of this except that it’s a very interesting finding,” Blazer said.
Blazer said the study may support a theory advanced by University of Michigan psychiatrist Randolph M. Nesse that says mild depression may allow people to cope more easily with their problems and remove themselves from dangerous or harmful situations.
According to Nesse humans may need “low mood” or mild depression to deal with failure and disappointment. “People who don’t have it waste their whole lives trying to do things they won’t ever do,” he said.
A psychiatrist not involved in Blazer’s work, Dr. Richard Schulz of the University of Pittsburgh, questioned the findings, noting that previous research has shown that both mild depression and severe depression lead to increased mortality.

That reminds me of something else I read recently, that high self-esteem can be more of a social problem than low self-esteem, because ... well I forget now. I think it was that highly self-confident teenagers are more likely to go joy-riding than self-pitying pimply nerds. That kind of thing.

But the study itself is a bit depressing, isn't it? People who aren't depressed "waste their whole lives trying to do things they won’t ever do,” says Mr Nesse. But how wonderful if you succeed against all the odds! And people do, don't they? Whatever happened to "nothing venture, nothing gain"? Blimey -- imagine living in a world of mildly depressed old ladies...

Forgot to mention, I haven't managed to get the wee "movies" I can take on my camera to play on the television. I'm not sure why it's not working, it should according to the instruction booklet. I'll keep trying.

Despite a slow start and some rain, I've managed to get a lot done today. Weeded the front garden, mowed the back lawn and painted the retaining wall. I decided against using the antifungal wash -- reading the label it sounded so ghastly and lethal I thought I'd rather live with a bit of moss and slime than risk slaughtering the wildlife -- or Bertie.

So it's very smart, but probably only for five minutes. Here are the before and after shots:



Out the front things are looking pretty good. The daphne (below) is looking slightly healthier after its dousing with copper sulphate, though it might need another go.



The hosta isn't dead after all -- in fact it's coming up very vigorously, like a rhubarb, in fat buds. It's hidden by the bluebells at the moment. The himalayan poppy is also coming along very strongly.

Here are another couple of photos, while I'm at it: one of some blossom and one of the road bridge.

I keep meaning to post more pictures here and then forgetting. I made some more movies today (hah! movies! they are 30 second clips) and I'm going to experiment with the AV plugs that came with the camera. I think this means I can watch the movies on TV, because my new TV has AV sockets on the front.

The big question is, can I then record the result on a video tape? Brace yourselves for Bertie, an experimental film made according to the Dogme (hah! Dogme! woof!) rules: shooting on location (no imported props or sets); sound and image produced together; a handheld camera; natural light; no optical work or filters; no superficial action (murders, weapons); no temporal or geographic alienation; no genre films; no signature.

Sadly mine will have no plot, either -- or a very doggy one: eat! drink! run! sleep! eat again!

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.