:: travelogue, with pictures

OK, here we go. I've done tiny version of the pictures to speed things up: click on the image to see a larger version. If you would like a super-size of anything, Chris (or a copy of a pic you know I took and don't see here), let me know.



Paris!! Hurrah!


First of all, the flat, which was perfect. It was in Saint Germain-des-Pres, a very arty area just across the Seine from the Louvre.
It faced into a courtyard, so it was nice and quiet. You could get to the courtyard from two streets, both of which were thick with art galleries.
The whole area was lively and interesting. Here's the man doing his card tricks:



On the first day Chris and I "did" Montmartre: Sacre Coeur, the Montmartre cemetery, Moulin Rouge and all points between. Pictures: Lots of lovely little cafes.




And a whole street of fabric shops. Here, a belly-dancer picks out a new outfit.


The cemetery was fascinating.



This was a mystery grave: brand new, obviously, and the name was Depardieu. A member of the actor's family? No idea.


A lot of the tombs have fallen into disrepair, but still have beautiful mosaics inside.



Yes, the Moulin Rouge is a real place.


Sacre Coeur, which you'll be seeing a bit of. It's particularly lovely against a strong blue sky.


At the bottom of the hill is another Paris landmark: Tati, the Paris equivalent of Warehouse or Poundstretcher. One great huge bargain bin. We didn't buy anything: I was scared of being electrocuted, there was so much nylon in there. However, Chris found some fantastic shoes:




Speaking of shopping, Chris had a thrill when she found the very handbag she'd bought in Tuscany on sale for twice the price in a shop just down the road from the flat:

Weirdly enough, shortly before leaving for Paris I was gripped by a strong urge to buy a red handbag. We loved our bags -- Chris decided we were "Les Soeures du Sac a Main Rouge".


Versailles:



First of all: it's huge. The palace is huge, the grounds are vast. The scale of everything is overwhelming: the number of staff in its heyday, the cost of restoration, the amount of gilt, the number of paintings, everything. I kept imagining how it must have all seemed to the sans-culottes during the Revolution: they were just asking for enough bread to stay alive, and here was the king, living in unimaginable splendour.

Second: It was hot. Really hot. I'd like to go back and walk around the grounds on a cooler day. As it was we were too knackered to go to the Petit Trianon. We did see the Grand Trianon, though the place with the pretty pink columns. You could hire row-boats and go for a burl round the Grand Canal, which would be nice.



We were just too tired. Really.

Next day, we hit the Pompidou Centre.



In the first picture you can just see Chris walking off down the corridor -- the escalators are all on the outside of the building in perspex tubes -- and Sacre Coeur on the left. We saw a photographic exhibition (Jacques Lartigue), then broke for lunch before seeing one floor of the permanent exhibition. After that we went out and scoured the streets for a padded envelope before returning with just enough time to visit the last floor before closing time. The second picture is of two Miro paintings (my favourite artist) and the third is me in a room-sized artwork, whose creator's name I've forgotten. Loved it, though!

The envelope was for Chris to send her films off to NZ to avoid taking them through airport X-ray machines. It's amazing how difficult it is to find seemingly ordinary things in a strange city. We finally found one in the BHV department store: we had barely five minutes to search a five-storey building!



At some point, I forget exactly when, we visited Sainte Chapelle, an astounding church tucked away amid the courts of justice. It was built about 900 years ago to house the Crown of Thorns, which the king had bought along with a load of other relics, including a piece of the True Cross. Woo! All that disappeared during the Revolution, and the church was damaged, but it's still amazing. It had the most beautiful windows, mainly in shades of red and blue, and the walls and columns etc are gorgeous rich deep colours with lots of gilt. No flash, of course, so almost impossible to photograph, but I had a go:




The next morning Chris left for London. I decided a good way to get around for a couple of days was the Batobus, a service that does a circular route on the Seine all day, with eight stops. You can get on and off the boat as many times as you like.
My first stop was the Musee d'Orsay, just upriver from St-Germain-des-Pres. To get there I sailed downriver to the Jardin des Plantes, then all the way back up the river to the Eiffel Tower, then back down again. Tremendous way to travel, most relaxing!


There was also a lot to see on the river, like the wonderful houseboats lining the quays, the elaborate bateaux mouches powering up and down, the working barges, and ahem, the firefighters, Pompiers de Paris. Ooooh er! What's the French for "hose me down, I'm on fire"?


So, Musee d'Orsay. This was my favourite art gallery, an old railway station whose platforms were too narrow for modern trains. It's a wonderful building, it must have been amazing to arrive there. But it's also a brilliant gallery, with all kinds of little architectural surprises, like a balcony with stunning views. Of Sacre Coeur, natch.





I thought this statue was the gayest thing in Paris. Pan playing with little bears. Totally gay.



I stopped off at Notre Dame de Paris, as one does, but it was horrible. There was a service in progress, but that didn't stop the mobs of gawping tourists taking flash photos and yattering on their constantly ringing phones. I swear people were more respectful at the Eiffel Tower! At all the other churches they had minders shushing visitors and telling them off for flash photography, but at Notre Dame they seemed to have given up. Lovely building though.


The other big number of my to-do list was the Eiffel Tower. The queue was mind-boggling -- first you queued for a ticket, then you queued for a lift to the second level, then you queued for a lift to the top. I was going to walk up to the second level but ... you guessed it, it was too hot and I was tired.






The views were fab, truly stunning and worth all the queuing. I love that kind of Mechano-set construction, it's like the Forth Bridge. At night, at about 8pm, the tower is lit up like a sparkler. I made sure I was on a boat cruising past -- it was tacky but totally magical.

:: vanishing point

Argh: I'd done a long description of our trip to Versailles, with lots of links and everything ... and managed to lose the lot. Damn damn damn.

Anyway, apologies for the delay in finishing the Paris travelogue: I haven't got the pictures on to the internet yet, maybe at the weekend. Time's flying by. I was going to finish the words at least but ... see above. Maybe at the weekend.

:: bonjour, tout le monde!!

Well here I am in Paris, in an internet cafe with Chris (Cessford). I arrived yesterday, but Chris and her boyfriend Julian have been here over the weekend -- they stayed in a hotel for a couple of nights, then we all met up in the apartment (Rive Gauche, just across the Seine from the Louvre) yesterday afternoon. Julian went off to London on the Eurostar this morning, and Chris leaves on Friday morning. I'm staying on to Sunday morning!

Last night we found a nice little bistro for dinner (steak, mmmm) and then wandered the streets. We found a wonderful man doing slick card tricks and watched him for half an hour, he was excellent. This morning Chris went down to the local patisserie for our breakfast -- croissants and these amazing things called palmiers --- hard to describe, but I'll take pictures and post them later on. Deeeeeelicious, and obviously not fattening, because all Parisian women are thin as rakes.

Today Chris and I "did" Montmartre: Sacre Coeur, Cimetiere Montmartre, Moulin Rouge and all points between. Great, and not too crowded. The cemetery was fascinating. Did you know that Degas' family name is actually de Gas? I didn't. The whole area is fascinating though -- we took a look at Tati, the Paris equivalent of the Warehouse, and found several streets devoted to fabric shops and haberdashery. We had a pitstop for lunch (even the filled rolls are lovely in Paris) and another for a cold drink (citron presse -- fresh squeezed lemon which you add sugar to), then got the metro back to the flat for a lie-down.

Now we're catching up with the world before finding another little bistro for our dinner. Tomorrow we're going to Versailles, and the day after that the Pompidou Centre and the Louvre.

I've left all my email details at the flat, so I'll catch up on my email another day -- lots of love to everyone!!

:: The Holiday, part one

First of all we went to the farm, which was great, as always. Bertie flushed out a couple of hares on his first excursion - whee! He might have caught them if they weren't so clever and he wasn't so out of condition. Andrew is in the throes of renovating his new home -- it had rot downstairs, so all the floorboards and joists had to come out. The wood expert was there ripping it all up, so I spent quite a bit of time helping Andrew cart rotten wood to the bonfire site. We also went for two great long walks (one up on the moors and another at the seaside near Nairn) and mowed the (very large) lawn at his aunt and uncle's cottage. Another highlight was feeding the little calf they're hand-rearing. It was a twin and the cow didn't think she could be bothered to bring them both up. She's a tiny skinny little thing, but is thriving.

Here are some photos:


John feeds the wee calf


Me patting the calf -- it was butting me quite hard, looking for milk.


John and Andrew in the kitchen of Andrew's new house -- "The Aga's going over there..."


Something nasty found under the floorboards. The floor had been laid directly on to the earth.


Bertie was confused by the earth floor: "Are we inside or outside?" Later he decided it was outside and had a pee. Oops...


The new/old house from the outside. It had been divided into flats and rented out, but now Andrew's making it a house again. It's going to be lovely -- fantastic views of the Moray Firth.

On Friday I loaded up the car and Bertie and I headed for Royal Deeside, to do some hillwalking. There was a slight hitch to my plans, in that it turned out the Balmoral Games were being held at the weekend, so all the accommodation was booked up. We had to stay in Tomintoul, the other side of the Lecht pass from Deeside.


This was one of the B&Bs we stayed at -- a wonderful farm tucked away in the hills. We had a family room with TV and private bathroom. Great place. Bertie blotted his copybook by trying to kill the cat, but later on suffered the humiliation of being chased by the puppy. Working dogs, hard as nails!


A spring on the path around Loch Muick (pronounced Mick).


Loch Muick


Ditto. That's Queen Victoria's Highland hideaway in amongst the trees, a nice solid stone house right on the lochside.


Lots of water for a thirsty dog. It was a beautiful day.


The next day was tougher: we went up Lochnagar. This is the view from near the ridge, on our way back down. The carpark is far, far in the distance.


Lochnagar. The summit is behind the cliffs -- you had to clamber up a steep slope and work your way round the clifftops. I was too knackered, and so was Bertie. We had a picnic by the loch and then headed back.

Then we came home!! I'll write more later on -- right now I've got to get to the supermarket, my cupboards are bare. Sarah is still here -- she went to a photography course on Skye and stopped off for a few days on her way back south. She's a great guest, it's a pleasure to have her to stay.

:: quick update

Weather: Good

Work: Busy

Visitor: Sarah

Days to holiday: Two

:: whew

Twenty minutes to go so it's possibly tempting fate to say so, but tonight at work has gone extremely smoothly. I was anticipating the worst because I had a lot of extra work due to someone being off sick and Fridays can be a bit fractious. But all the copy came in smoothly, there were no dramas or late-breaking stories, and we just about hit the deadline.

Hurrah!

Tomorrow I must really do some gardening -- we've had some rain and it's still warm, so the weeds are growing like weeds. Bertie is also due a walk somewhere fun rather than the boring same-old-same-old walks.

My holiday is starting to take shape. I'm going to Barevan for the first week, then I think I'll spend a few days in Royal Deeside, hillwalking. I've been there before but haven't done any walking. Then a couple of days in Edinburgh packing & organising, and also seeing the fireworks concert -- and then Paris.

:: ark!

Look what happened yesterday in my street! Terror as lorry crashes into a cottage.

Yikes. It happened at about 3pm, and normally at that time I would have been walking the dog. But yesterday I left home just before then, on foot, because my car was in the garage having its water leak dealt with. Again. So I missed all the excitement.

The poor cottage looks very forlorn -- it's a lovely little stone house, and now has a huge crack down the wall where the lorry hit. The window is boarded up, some of the roof tiles have been broken, and the guttering's been torn off. The solid stone wall at the front was punched right over, down into the garden (the cottage is below the level of the road). I don't know the lady who lives there.

No time to write more, I'm too busy. Tomorrow will be even worse -- I'm tired just thinking about it.

:: berry nasty accident

Memo to self: a blackberry patch is not a great place to fall over. I was out collecting berries for my breakfast & had pushed into a thicket to get at some particularly juicy fruit. Then I had to get back out. Backwards seemed the most sensible way. But then my sandals snagged on the brambles, and I lost my balance. And of course there's nothing safe to grab in a blackberry patch to break your fall. On the way down I realised Bertie was standing right behind me, and twisted to avoid crushing him, so I fell heavily and awkwardly.

OW!

It was really hard getting back up -- nothing to grab hold of again -- and I was actually bleeding in a couple of places from the thorns. But I didn't drop the berries I'd picked. I had them for breakfast this morning and let me tell you, it was worth the pain.

Last night I went to another Fringe show, Waterwall, by an Italian dance company. It was a bit more gymnastics than dance, but enjoyable all the same. It was set outdoors, in the Old College quad, near where I used to live.

I took some pictures -- not great but I didn't have a tripod.


The dancers hooked themselves on to ropes and swung out through the water -- tricky to catch them.


This bit they were pretend-surfing.


I came closer to the front to take this one.

Afterwards we walked down my old close, and man, I'm glad I don't live there any more. The pub across the close from my old flat is even noisier than I remember, ditto the bar at the top of the close, ditto the one across the Cowgate. The racket was incredible. Three cheers for the suburbs.

And another thing: the Tattoo up at the Castle used to only have fireworks on the late show on Saturday nights; now they have them every night at every show. I saw a couple carrying a traumatised little dog home after the early evening volley of fireworks -- poor animals, they have enough to cope with with Guy Fawkes and New Year. I do wonder too if the amount of fireworks has anything to do with a recent spate of large chunks of masonry falling off Edinburgh buildings. The percussion is quite strong, even half a mile away.

Garden news: Beans! I looked at my runner bean the other day and it had a smattering of tiny mini-beans growing where the flowers had fallen off. Yesterday I looked again and there was an actual bean-sized bean! I picked it and ate it immediately. Mmm. Probably better steamed, but still quite nice.


These pictures are of the bean flowers, I took them last week. You can just about make out the tiny beanlets.


I'm having to water the garden, we've been without rain for so long. I talked to Andrew today and he said things are getting quite desperate on the farm. They have to bucket water from the cottage (which is on mains water) to fill the cattle troughs (spring-fed). The house is on spring water too, so they're being very frugal with it -- Andrew uses his shower water to flush the toilet. I'm kind of hoping it rains before I get up there at the end of the month. Yes, I'm going to the farm! Bertie and I will be there from 31 August to 5 September, when they have a whole family coming to visit. Then we're heading off into the Highlands for a few days of hillwalking etc. Andrew might join us if he gets a chance, but they're in the middle of calving, so maybe not.

What else? Not a lot. Work. Dog-walking.

Oh, I've found a wonderful new cleaning product -- it's fantastic. I use a lot of Ecover products, but this is the best yet. So far I've cleaned all the floors and the bathroom and toilet with it. I makes the house smell of oranges -- real oranges, not pretendy ones.

:: on its way out

I checked my easynet email tonight (just to see what new spam was there) and it's dead! The website is still live, but it's just a redirection page anyway. It's a relief I have to say, not to have all that spam to wade through. No spam on my new address, touch wood.

In case you were wondering (hi mum), the bja@hush.com address I've put here is just me being paranoid -- I wasn't sure if I got so much spam via easynet because I put my email address on the blog or not. However, I haven't had any spam at all at my hush.com address (it is a real one -- it's a webmail service), so I might stop being crazy and just put my real address.

:: daze off

I'm in shock, I had two days off from work, two days in a row. It was great. On Monday afternoon I ventured into town -- Festival! Within an hour of arriving I was nearly ready to run back to the suburbs. The heat! The noise! The crowds! The costumes! Aieee! Now I remember why I left my Old Town flat ...

Managed to calm myself down and enjoyed a ramble around my old haunts, then met up with Fiona just as the Tattoo audience started arriving in their massive coaches. They park along both sides of the whole of George IV Bridge and Chambers Street, ghastly.

So Fiona and I had a lovely dinner at Favorit, right next to an open window for a refreshing breeze. Then we met up with Martin outside the show I'd booked for us, Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden Unplugged. It was a good laugh -- old troupers, the pair of them, and Golden did a great Elvis impression.

After that we had a beer at the terrace bar outside the venue ... reeling in shock at discovering that a bottle of Budweiser was £2.95. Eeeek! It was entertaining though -- people on stilts kept trying to persuade us to come to their show. After that we retired to one of my favourite pubs, Sandy Bells. It was packed -- fiddlers were playing at the back -- but we managed to find seats. And astonishingly, we found ourselves sitting next to a man who claimed to be the uncle of one of our colleagues (former colleague, for Fiona and Martin).

I hadn't intended staying out late, but in the event I only just caught the last bus, after battling through the crowds leaving the Tattoo. And who should get on at the next stop but my next-door neighbour! It really is a small town.

:: jam today

First, a cracking front page from the Edinburgh Evening News:


What they mean to say is the binmen, or rubbish collectors, are threatening to go on strike. But my colleagues and I had some fun with scary stories about cycling along the road in the haar and hearing the rumble of a wheelie bin behind you.

Yesterday was the grand finale of Ferry Fair Week, with the crowning of the queen and all, but I didn't attend this year. I walked Bertie past the end of the High Street and that was plenty close enough for him -- children, brass and pipe bands, people dressed up as bears ... aieee! The last stretch of his walk was brisk, to say the least.

So after a delightful morning and afternoon sunning myself -- I spent the whole day in shorts, a first for Edinburgh! -- I left Bertie home and drove off to Chad's place to pick blackcurrants. He and Leslie have a great allotment right by their house, and they share it with just one set of neighbours. I nearly had enough for the jam, got distracted chatting to the neighbours ... and kicked my container over. Then stood in the spilled fruit -- barefoot, of course. Tsk.

On the way home I picked up some sugar. Then had a barbecued dinner: vege kebabs and a steak. Then made jam. It was a success, 12 jars. Quite a mess to clean up though!

Tonight I was working again, but I have tomorrow and Tuesday off. Fiona and I are going to a show tomorrow night, Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden Unplugged. "The dynamic duo of Rock 'n' Droll returns! Owing to Barry's failed pension scheme and repossession of Ronnie's amplifier they've gone acoustic. Thrash metal meets George Formby. 'I laughed incontinently' Michael Billington Guardian". I'm probably going to go into town early and see something else.

Today was Fringe Sunday, there were 200,000 people in Holyrood Park! John at work said he walked through town thinking, oh these poor people crowding everything don't realise there's a free extravaganza in the park. And of course vast crowds did. It's astonishing how many people jam into the city at festival time.

All that depends on me going to bed now ... it's nearly 4am.

Thanks to everyone for your kind words about Pinky's new website! It was fun.

:: work work work

I was supposed to be off today but here I am at work. There was a crisis, so my colleague John came in at 9am (and stayed until nearly 9pm) and I came in at 4pm. Ish.

I got up early to get Bertie walked while it was still foggy and cooler. Last night the haar was so thick you couldn't see either of the bridges, not even the aircraft warning lights. By this morning it had lifted a bit and by the time I left for work it was brilliant sunny and hot. Sigh. The haar rolled back in at about 6pm or 7pm. Sigh.

Anyway, the walk was great. We went to Bertie's top favourite venue, Braid Hills. He got to bomb around among the trees, paddle in the stream and meet lots of exciting new dogs -- including a couple of totally cute terriers who thought he was the bee's knees. He also had a close encounter with cattle. There's a mob of young cows in the field near the car park, who are now completely used to people and dogs walking past. Bertie gave them a glance but was distracted by a patch of deliciously scented grass. While he was sniffing it, one of the cows crept up and sniffed him. He got such a fright when he turned round and there was a cow inspecting his bottom! They were all staring at him -- I think it's because he's so tall, they thought he might be one of them.

Yesterday was very productive -- I had that off as well, and did all the boring practical things so I'd have Friday free for Fun. Yeah right. Anyway I got stuck into the horrible mess that is the back garden, mowing and strimming and weeding and raking and clipping like a fiend. After a shower and some shopping, I had dinner and then did some dull paperwork and got Pinky's new website up and running on its own domain.

I'll have some fun tomorrow.

:: creative juices

If you want a really good laugh, go and look at my latest blogging success -- it's taken me nearly a year to work out a way of publishing it!!! The gorgeous design (sit and stare at it for a minute, it does things) isn't mine, by the way, it's courtesy of Eric Costello, a geek god.

The thing is, this blog is all published via and stored on a server in the US. I'd like to have it stored on my own webspace. The shutup blog is a record of my efforts. Tonight, I finally succeeded! I'm as thrilled as a thrilled person. Geektastic!

A lot of the folk who poke fun at blogging mention this as a feature: bloggers always end up writing screeds about the technical side of blogging. We can't help it!

:: creative juices

If you want a really good laugh, go and look at my latest blogging success -- it's taken me nearly a year to work out a way of publishing it!!! The gorgeous design (sit and stare at it for a minute, it does things) isn't mine, by the way, it's courtesy of Eric Costello, a geek god.

The thing is, this blog is all published via and stored on a server in the US. I'd like to have it stored on my own webspace. The shutup blog is a record of my efforts. Tonight, I finally succeeded! I'm as thrilled as a thrilled person. Geektastic!

A lot of the folk who poke fun at blogging mention this as a feature: bloggers always end up writing screeds about the technical side of blogging. We can't help it!

:: snaps

Couple of silly pics from recent walks:



Inventor of the cloud chamber! Fantastic. You can make your own cloud chamber, you know. Just be careful ... dry ice and isopropanol can be dangerous.


Short cut! Hurrah! But where will you end up?

:: drip drip drip

I've got to take my car in to the garage tomorrow, to have the water hose replaced. The water had been disappearing slowly but surely: I got a low coolant warning about once a fortnight (yes, I know, I ignored it as long as I could). So I had the mechanic take a look and sure enough, there's a metal section of hose that was so rusty it was porous.

I was moved to get it fixed finally by hearing what happened to Faye: her hose split without warning, with the result that her car suddenly overheated and the engine seized. She had to get a whole new engine, at enormous expense.

:: garden update

I don't remember if I mentioned my latest purchases, for the front garden: I finally got a philadelphus (mock orange), a dwarf one, and also a bergamot and a geranium, a pretty lavender one. They sat out in the rain in their pots for a week and yesterday I planted them. The poor old daphne is still struggling -- it needs another dousing with sulphate. It's never flowered and always looks as if it's about to die. I may dig it up and transfer it to a pot round the back, where at least the neighbours can't see it. While I was at the garden centre I almost bought a new daphne -- theirs were large and glossily healthy -- but I'm afraid it would catch whatever disease this poor thing has. I should really just give up and burn it.

Also out the front, the rose hedge continues to grow like a creature from outer space -- I've hacked vast quantities off it (and still carry the scars), and of course Rosemary next door also attacked the section that was threatening her visitors, but it is still absolutely enormous. Once its leaves have fallen I'm cutting it right back, to the ground. It's a shame, because it's threaded through with honeysuckle. I'll have to try and preserve that somehow.

The climbing rose is doing splendidly, its flowers are a gorgeous velvety deep red and it's had lots this year. The shrub rose -- argh. Its root stock went crazy this year for some reason -- it was like the rose hedge's mad younger brother, a mass of foliage and white single flowers. The few pink hybrid flowers it produced were sickly-looking things lurking amid the pale riot. I'm tempted to rip the whole thing out and plant something else (maybe a magnolia or a flowering cherry), but I'm not sure how easy that would be. I settled for cutting out as much of the rogue growth as possible -- a wheelie bin full!

The back garden's a wild mess too, but its rose is doing exceptionally well. It was so weedy-looking last year I had plans to dig it up; this year it's flowered long and richly, a lovely splash of colour. It's a sweetheart rose, and the previous owner's daughter had its flowers in her wedding bouquet. Awwww!

The back all needs a bit of TLC, I haven't done any weeding for a while and the humid weather is perfect for weed growth.

I'm very much looking forward to the hedge-trimming exercise: I think I mentioned that Jim next door has a bad neck and can't manage his side of the hedge, so his brother is coming to mow it down to a reasonable height. That will let a lot more light into the garden, and should also improve the lawn. Bertie will also get a better view of whatever it is that fascinates him so much next door.

Speaking of Bertie, he is fine. I was filling his dish yesterday and noticed specks of fresh blood on the floor -- argh! It was just a little cut on his ankle, nothing too serious, so I taped a dressing on. His other cut is healing up fine, as is the wound left by the vet's big bandage on the cut. Such are the joys of having a thin-skinned pet.

Work, work, work! The festival started officially today, with the Festival Cavalcade. Everyone was held up by road closures etc and we had early deadlines. I could moan about how hard it is to concentrate when there's a cocktail party in the same room but I won't. We hit the deadline, that's the main thing.

:: blogback is broken

I was tinkering with the colour scheme and tried out the commenty thing to see if I'd changed the colours there & found it was broken!

Webmaster: Your site appears to be a Blogger weblog that has recently been converted to their new "Dano" system. As such, a BlogBack code update is required for you to continue to use this commenting service. Unfortunately, as a result of updating your code at this late stage, you will lose any recent comments made on the threads affected by these changes in Blogger. This is a symptom of the problem that the code update will solve, and is beyond my control.

I tried pasting in the new code but it wouldn't work. No biggie, since no-one much was using it. But still.

Bertie's bandage is off at last, but it's left a lot of damage -- he's got such delicate skin, and some of it came off with the sticky strapping. He seems pleased to have a bare leg again though.

:: Paris

Here's where we're staying in Paris, rue Mazarine: 

 

 

The flat is between rue Mazarine and rue de Seine.

:: nearly done

I've tidied up nearly all the archives -- just have to root out a few photos that didn't get punted over to the new site and it's all done.

The weather's packed in again, wet and muggy, so I may not get to work in the garden tomorrow as planned.

::archives

I'm slowly grinding my way through the archives, updating all the picture links. It's a tiny bit pointless, given that the long-term plan is to shift the archives themselves on to my own website, but hey ho, I might never get round to that. It's like all these things though -- balancing my bank account, keeping a database of my books -- I start out with great enthusiasm, then become overwhelmed by the sheer tedium of regular updating; finally the task is too huge even to contemplate.

I don't know if I mentioned it, but I'm still going to Paris in September, even though Pinky isn't coming over this year. Chris is still coming, hurrah, and she and Julian and I will be sharing the apartment for a week. The owner has sent us a wonderful list of instructions for getting into the place, where to leave the money etc, plus a guide to the best cafes and shops in the area.

That leaves me with two free weeks, which I'll probably spend somewhere in the Highlands, and on the farm. Bertie's already been invited to stay there while I'm away, but because the Paris week is at the end of my holiday, he may end up staying with his other major fans, nearer to home. They were disappointed not to get him in May! He's a very popular guest.

:: garden news

The runner bean has flowers! This is exciting. Really. If only the other five had come up...

More good news: the neighbours hate the hedge too. Actually it's mainly because Jim has serious problems with his neck (degenerating discs) and can't trim it at its present height. But the upshot is, he's getting his brother (I think) to come and take it right down to a manageable height. Having recently risked life and limb struggling with the electric trimmer at the top of a ladder, I'm thrilled. (I did get one of those cut-off plug thingies, by the way.) I said I didn't mind how low it goes, so long as it's Bertie-proof. "Unless you'd like Bertie to visit?" Bertie's been enamoured of them since they had a barbecue last year and a guest fed him sausages through the gap in the hedge. But no, they're not that keen on having him drop by, so it'll be 4ft high or so.

:: hockadilly.com is go

I've finally got hockadilly.com up and running. It's all go over there! Check it out! There's room for all my photos, ramblings, Pinky's site, the works, and it's so cheap! Under £18 a year compared to £13 a month at Easynet. It took over three hours to punt everything across, but it went very smoothly, the line didn't drop once. Hurrah!

One little problemetta is that I'll have to redo all the photo links on this blog. Sigh.

Also today I mowed the lawn and went on a great long expedition to Tentsmuir and back via the East Neuk, one of my favourite days out. Bertie had a great time & has been conked out since we got back.

:: ch-ch-ch-changes

Well I'm trying to make changes. I'm checking out two ISPs at the moment and it's incredibly frustrating: one in Glasgow is enticing as regards prices etc, but its "customer services" department seems to be one bloke with a very poor memory. "Hockadilly? Ohhhh, riiiight, I completely forgot to call you. I'll make a note right now on Outlook to call you back." "Can't you set it all up now?" "No, I have to waffle waffle waffle, website, waffle waffle, but I'll call you at 2pm on the dot, though, promise."

Yeah, right. No call. And tonight I tried sending myself email from work to test the webmail and they bounced, all of them. Sigh. A deal-breaker.

The other crowd was doing well despite its crappy webmail (no folders! no address book!) until I hit a brick wall trying to upload files to my FREE 100Mb webspace. Tonight I finally emailed them about it and was told it should be working ok. So I'll give that another go and see. If it works, they're in and the Weegie deadbeats are out. I'm desperate for a new home! To add to the sense of urgency, I'm being deluged by junk mail at my easynet address. It's the usual rubbish -- viagra, penis enlargement, cheap loans, hot babes, Nigerian scams -- and I'm blacklisting as fast as I can, but it keeps on coming.

In other news, Bertie's had another prang. I'm not sure what happened, because he didn't "announce" it until a few hours after our visit to Beecraigs Country Park on Monday. It must have happened there, though. Anyway, I dressed it myself, but he kicked up a ruckus and claimed (through sign language) that his leg might actually be broken, so I took him to the vet. She thought it might be cracked, the leg bone that is. She shot him full of painkillers and antibiotics and put on a great big bandage. He shrieked and trembled and carried on, wouldn't let her shave around the wound, so I feared the worst. But the next day he was fine! Malingerer.

I went to see Whale Rider, a fantastic film -- it made me really homesick. Pinky and I had a great holiday once on the East Coast and it brought it all back. I thought the film conveyed the sweep of contemporary Maori culture there without spelling it out: the hard-case old kuia who run the show behind the scenes, the proud older men trying to keep the past alive, the dispossessed younger adults who've lost their way, the exiles "making it" in the wider world, and the kids, the hope of the future. Fab.

The weather continues to be scorching -- by Scottish standards at least, the temperature's up to 24 regularly! I'm really enjoying having my breakfast outdoors every morning, and wearing sandals. Last summer, by contrast, it rained almost every day. I think I only breakfasted outdoors once. Of course every few days the Calvinist haar comes down to remind us not to get too complacent, but in general it's fantastic. I've been harvesting my raspberry bushes, fresh fruit and yoghurt, mmm.

I see in Europe it's been so hot they've had to shut down the Matterhorn -- glacier melt is causing rockfalls. And there are thunderstorms threatening down south.

:: visitation

Had a visitor today, an old friend from NZ (she's not old, the friendship is) who is now living in London. I haven't seen her since I was last over there, so it was great to catch up. She left with a head of garlic from my garden as a souvenir.

Another friend has just decided to take a job in Amsterdam -- she was worried about missing her many friends, but I assured her we'll all be over visiting her. I've been meaning to go back to Amsterdam for ages, it's one of my favourite cities.

Work hasn't been too frantic tonight -- Friday was diabolical, I was busy from start to finish. I do prefer to be busy but that was crazy. Everything's gone smoothly tonight (touch wood) and I even managed to get some advance pages done (graduation lists, nothing exciting).

:: some pix

Finally finally got round to downloading photos off my camera -- there were 109 of them! Just from a few weeks' noodling around, nothing special. First is from the day Andrew left Edinburgh -- I drove up to Perthshire behind him, and after a walk at the Hermitage, we had tea and cakes at a cafe in Dunkeld.


Andrew and Bertie at the Hermitage.


Bit of Americana -- no explanation for it, it was just there, deep in the woods.



The cakes! The one on the left is mainly marshmallow and cherries. The one on the right looked like a rocky road, with biscuits in it. But no -- those round things are Malteasers. They were amazingly sweet and gooey, both of them. Yum. The cafe is one of my favourites. It's run by an older couple who do everything in their own sweet time, so you have to be patient. But the food's good and the cakes! The cakes!

Another nice touch is that in the toilet, there are packets of tampons, panty liners and sanitary towels. Never seen that before in a cafe.

Finally, here are some roses from the field up the road:





Today I got the ladder out and trimmed the top of the hedge. Then I mowed the lawn. Then I weeded the front garden and hacked back the rose bush out there. Then I swept up. Then I washed the dishes. I've also had a couple of phoned conversations and walked the dog twice. I'm knackered! I'm going to have a hot bath and read my book.

:: a tidy kiwi

I'm having one of my periodic tidying fits -- long sessions with bin-bags and piles of old bills, magazines, Christmas cards, leaflets etc -- and it's boiling over into other areas. For a start today I got my gas and electricity organised so they'll be with the one supplier (ScottishPower -- take that, Scottish Gas!) and will be paid by direct debit. Phew. No more threatening letters when the bill disappears into the paper mountain. I almost cancelled Bertie's insurance because the premium shot up, but threatening to cancel brought a discount, hurrah. So he's still covered.

Next on the list is to get a grip on my website. At the moment I have four sites, would you believe it? Oh, and the blogspot. That's five. I haven't put anything on the latest one yet (it's a freebie), because I'm eyeing up another possibility. I've emailed them with a list of questions, and if their answers are good then I'm off to firefly, waving easynet goodbye. Sadly that will also mean saying goodbye to my domain name because they want £75 for letting me take it with me. Don't worry though, Hockadilly will live on elsewhere.

Footnote: I had a completely bizarre conversation with the ScottishPower woman.
"You're a long way from home!" she said perkily.
"This is my home," I replied.
"How long have you been here?"
"Thirteen years."
"Och, you've still got the accent though," she said in her strong Scottish one. "I've been here six years, myself."
"Where are you from?" I asked, startled.
"South Africa."
I marvelled at her accent, and she said when she talks to her folks back there she speaks in a South African accent.
"Your accent's is still strong, though," she said. "Where in South Africa are you from?"
"I'm a New Zealander."
"No! Really? You sound just like a South African!" This from a woman who sounded as if she was born and bred in Inverness!! It was weird.

The pet insurance lady was Indian, and I was sorely tempted to ask her if she was in India, because some of the call centres are. I don't think they're allowed to let on though.

:: hunting

Bertie's having such a great time at the moment -- there are rabbits and hedgehogs all over the place. The grass, clover and weeds in the big field up the road are nice and high, so the rabbits can't see him coming and can't speed away. The most exciting part -- from his point of view -- is that if he leaps through the grass he can literally jump on top of a rabbit. Today he did just that. The rabbit got away, of course, but he then became convinced there were more, exactly where that one had been. He was leaping along like an antelope, bounding over the grass in long flights with all his legs tucked up.

Last night it was a hedgehog: he carried it round for about ten minutes, dropping it every now and then to try and "open" it with his feet. No luck -- it stayed tightly rolled. It was a big one, not quite as big as one he caught a couple of years ago -- that was a monster -- but strong enough to survive Bertie. I'm hoping it didn't have ringworm. While he was messing with his hedgehog I came across another one hustling along the path. I rolled it away into the long grass.

We also go hunting at night. The other night he was rushing around sniffing out rabbits and I heard a twig snap in the trees. I shone the torch in that direction and sure enough, a pair of eyes lit up like lamps. A deer. It stood dazzled for a minute, then ran for it, crashing through the trees and down the bank, and landing with a barking cough before fleeing down the old railway track. Bertie was oblivious until I called him round to it had hit the footpath and he smelt it -- "hey! a deer!" No, you think so? While he was busy searching the area where the deer had been, I stumbled on a hedgehog, literally. I rolled it away into the long grass. See, I am a friend to wildlife! Bertie is such a madly inefficient hunter he mainly just gives them exercise.

:: fruity goodness

The raspberries are nearly ripe, so I threw some netting over them to keep the birds off. Mmmm, my mouth is watering ... I love raspberries. I may have to dig up the lawn and plant a raspberry forest. Chad's raspberries are already ripe, tsk. His allotment is much more open than my garden and is south-facing, so that might be it. Or it may be the high level of neglect and the overcrowding in my raspberry patch.

I planted some more beans at the weekend as well. I'd planted three previously but only one came up. It was immediately attacked by insects, so I sprayed it and it's finally grown high enough to start twining around the pole. So I should be eating my own beans sometime in December...

Pulled the first garlic at the weekend too -- but only after I'd strimmed its leaves off (a strimmer is a weedeater, kiwis). Coincidentally, I used the last of last year's garlic in a big pot of chili con carne that also featured home grown onions. Yes, indeedy, the world's most expensive onions. I planted 24 sets and so far have only harvested four onions. There are another four still struggling on, but one of them is only the size of a spring onion. It's Bertie's fault -- he trompled them down before I got around to putting up netting.

I'm going to rethink the garden layout over the winter. The vege bed isn't ideal, but the very best spot is also the very best spot for lying on with a book and a cold drink on hot, sunny days. I don't know if it's best to reposition the veges so there's a gap behind for Bertie to squeeze into for his keeping-an-eye-on-the-neighbours duties, or to build the bed up and barricade it thoroughly so he can't get in at all. At the moment the barricade makes it hard for me to get in and weed and so on, so it's a complete mess.

It needs some serious attention too: when I created the bed I used layers of newspaper to suppress weed growth. The paper was supposed to rot away like humus. Trouble is, it didn't, it's still there in thick, seedling-unfriendly wodges. So in the autumn, if I'm not going to move it, I'll need to give the whole bed a good seeing-to with the fork.

One radical idea is to cut back to just a big patch of garlic and maybe a few beans. And of course the fruit bushes. I'd like some plum trees too.

:: vroom vroom!

I got a new toy! An electric hedge trimmer. I've only got one stretch of hedge, so I've put off getting one; but clipping by hand is so hard! I end up with jelly arms. So I got a Black & Decker cheapo.

Walking Bertie this morning I told another dog-walker about my new trimmer. "Have you got a cut-out switch?" he said sternly. Apparently I need a special gizmo in case I trim through the cable, to avoid being electrocuted. The gizmo trips the fuse or something, so you don't lie there jerking and smoking and upsetting the neighbours.

But I'm way hard! I don't need no cut-off switch! Well I do, but you know, I'm into instant gratification. So as soon as I got home I got the trimmer out of its box and plugged it in. Va va vroom!

Then I massacred the hedge. It's like cutting your own hair: "ooh, it's a bit crooked, I'll just even up this bit here..." and next thing you're half bald. Also, I didn't have time to get down the ladder and do the top, so it looks insane, especially from the upstairs windows. So quick, though! and so easy.