:: 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.

:: faye update

I wrote a screed in here and lost it -- Blogger is upgrading and I'm not quite used to the new look yet and managed to hit the wrong button. Hey ho.

Anyway, Faye phoned and yes, she is still alive! John, she was thrilled to get the jade, thank you. She promises to sit down some time soon, very soon, and write letters to everyone. It's just she's been having email problems. There's something wrong with her Yahoo account (not sure what, but she's sent lots of emails and none have arrived) and she can't plug in her Emailer because the gent she works for gets upset if anything new or different happens (he has Alzheimers). She's going to a) try and track down a cyber cafe in Reading and b) get her own phone line, or at least a socket.

She's fine, otherwise -- the job is good, much better than her last one, and she's enjoying getting to know the area. If anyone wants her address, please email me.

:: open market

I was walking Bertie this afternoon, when a van coming towards me pulled up. This is normal in our street: often people are lost and need directions to Hopetoun House, Deep Sea World or some street I've never heard of.

But this time the driver said: "I don't know if you're interested, but we've just finished a delivery for Reid Furnishing and we had some left over. We've got a cream leather Italian three-piece suite we could let you have for less than it should be."

I said no thanks, he admired Bertie and off they went, heading for the marina.

We they just going to drive around offering the suite to people at random until they sold it? Was it stolen? Was the van stolen? Do I look like the kind of person who would buy a cream leather Italian three-piece suite off a couple of blokes in a van? Did they even have a suite?

In other news, Andrew is coming down this weekend. He's going to Glasgow on Friday night and probably will stay at his aunty's place in Edinburgh that night (they're up north at the moment). Then on Saturday we'll hang out. I called Kate and Robbie to see if they want to join us but they weren't in; I'll keep trying. Andrew's going back on Sunday, and I'm going to drive north after him and we'll go for a walk somewhere nice, like Dunkeld.

:: the green room

Some snaps:


That's me in the mirror.

The walls don't look as yellowy-green as they do in real life.

This is one I took just after I'd finished painting, before the furniture went back in.

:: clonk

After all my moaning about being too busy, blah blah blah, guess what I did yesterday afternoon? I read a book in the sun, then I slept in the sun. It was lovely. I felt refreshed by it. Earlier I'd taken Bertie on a very long walk in the hot sun & he'd conked out. I was just having a sit-down with a cold drink and a book before getting busy in the garden.

Yeah, right.

Suddenly it was half past five, and time for another walk. I still haven't done any more gardening, but I really must -- I noticed this morning that the aphids have moved on to the honeysuckle flowers. I've never seen that before! Another mad thing that's happening is the rose bush out the front. Last year I carefully pruned it again, but didn't feed it. I'd pruned and fed it the previous year, and I think I read somewhere you shouldn't feed them too much. But lo and behold, it grew an astounding amount of foliage -- much, much more than last year. And this week, out came the flowers: not pink tea roses like last year, but single wild-rose type blooms. This is obviously the root-stock going rampant. But why this year? I'm baffled. There are a few pink roses struggling through, but mostly it's white. It may be time to grub up the whole bush and put in something else. I'd love a philadelphus, or mock orange, it has a wonderful smell.

:: whisking right along

I'm going to stop apologising for not writing more often ... it takes up too much time!

So, highlights: lots of work. I'm getting used to the livingroom & it doesn't look too bad really. I did at one point get the photos of it open ready to resize and upload, and then was distracted by something or other (probably realising it was nearly time to leave for work and I still hadn't had a shower or walked the dog). The garden is going rampant except for the blackcurrants, which have been eaten nearly to death by aphids. Or something aphid-like. Weather: hot and muggy. Always windless on my days off.

Bertie's fine. Amusing annecdote: The other day on our regular morning walk Bertie found something disgusting -- large, dark, floppy, possibly animal in origin -- and ate it. I couldn't tell what it was because though I ran after him screaming, he sprinted ahead and crunched it down. Oh yes, it crunched. Later that same day a colleague was telling me he'd walked his dog in Queensferry and I told him about Bertie's snack. "Oh, it was a rabbit," the colleague said. "Ozzy [his dog] had a look at it." Ewww!! Small world. No digestive repercussions for Bertie, thank goodness.

Faye is alive and well and living in a village near Reading. Anyone wanting her address and phone number, see me.

It's time to go home, whew. This has been a particularly gruelling day -- I got called in early because whoever was meant to do the Birthday Honours List for the paper was off and hadn't told anyone it was happening and I'm one of the few people who knows how to do it. Knowledge is power, I muttered to myself as I beavered away, eyeballs burning. Ach well, it's a living.