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

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

A few flakes of snow fell.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spring! Don't you just love it!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because now, I have to do some Work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cold, but.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trying out a little refinement....

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