Disturbing pavement graffiti: on a narrow bit of footpath opposite the vet I noticed the word "NIL" repeated several times. When I looked closer, I saw that there was a neat little hole drilled above each NIL. Someone had drilled holes and found nothing. Is that good?

Ack. I just lost a long piece on the books I'm reading. It's gone, links and all. I can't be bothered to write it again. Here's a picture to look at.

It's a great read.

Amazing! Tonight I signed up for online banking with my NZ bank -- completely fuss-free process. So now I can log on any time and find out my balance. It was astoundingly simple, even from this great distance.

Great weekend, focused on gardening. Yesterday I weeded, a major event - it was horribly overgrown. I really need to go back and grub the convolvulus out properly from the front garden, I just tidied it really, before rain stopped play. Today I mowed and strimmed, back and front.

Other than that I did stuff all. Ate (pork stir-fried with curly kale and my own home-grown garlic, in oyster sauce. YUM.), loafed, rested, read, watched TV, walked the dog. Oh and tonight I worked, an easy night since there was only one page.

Supermarket trauma tonight. I'd run out of just about everything so I went to the 24-hr Tesco in my break. For a start the traffic was horrendous. It's a) Friday night; b) a bank holiday weekend; c) during the Festival; and d) the Tattoo is still on. Every street was congested, not just with cars but with drunken clubbers, distracted theatre-goers, lost tourists. I managed to negotiate my way through it all and spent an agreeable 45 minutes mingling with the large crowd following a man with a pricing gun who was creating bargains. I think I got everything on my imaginary list, certainly got a lot of stuff that wasn't on it.

Then after moving through the checkout at a leisurely pace ("I only got an hour's sleep this morning! I don't know how I'm going to last the night," confided the assistant. "Ooo! Limes! What do you do with those?") I rejoined the traffic frenzy.

This time I had an added bonus: a silent migraine. I've had this before. I get a migraine aura -- nausea and weird visual effects -- but no headache. The visual effects are disconcerting, especially while driving. My field of vision is interrupted by a roughly circular jagged line of bright light, inside of which everything is blurred. In the bright, jagged part, I can't see. It's not a black spot or anything, it's just an absence of vision. Weird. It swallows up important visual clues like traffic lights, signs ... drunken pedestrians. The other bonus was that I met up with the post-Tattoo rush -- gajillions of pedestrians plus coaches, taxis, cars. A nightmare.

Obviously I survived. And the boot is full of lovely fruit and veg and meat. Treats: mint-flavoured Twix (I must have bought that just as the migraine thing was coming on, the thought of it makes me feel slightly sick now) and two extremely ripe, extremely cheap mangoes, yum.

I'm off home now. I've plotted a course that will avoid most of the central city turmoil. First I drive down to Berwick on Tweed, then cut across to Carlisle ...

Bothan na' Tilleadh -- I've tentatively booked five days here in October, a bargain at £100 all in. It sleeps four, so if anyone wants to join me, they're welcome. Remote spot, but very beautiful.

I sent away for the price list for the Klepper kayaks and they're not out of the way .... £1,200 for a basic one-seater. Plus hundreds of pounds for all the extras of course. But as that includes sails ... well, it's starting to sound like the ideal boat. And I forgot to buy a lottery ticket today ...


Does this look like fun or what? This is a downwind sail -- you need the wind behind you. Below is the full sailing rig, with which you can sail into the wind as well.


And it all folds down

Oh man. I really have to get one of these Klepper folding kayaks now.

The stuff about them being designed for the SAS during the war isn't true. Here's what really happened: "In 1907 a tailor from Rosenheim in Bavaria had a simple idea. This tailor, Johann Klepper, wanted to build a foldable kayak that he could take wherever his heart desired. Klepper's longing for unlimited freedom, travel and adventure ultimately led to the first commercial production of foldable kayaks."

But still, they are perfect for fitting limpet mines...

Cripes, nearly a week since I wrote anything here. I would have written something yesterday but my ISP was having a coniption fit and wouldn't let me stay logged on longer than a couple of seconds.

Whatever. The Bamboo Curtain was a failure. Bertie jumped right through it, screeching as he was scraped by wire and stakes. Thank goodness he didn't impale himself. So now I don't let him out at night. During the day he's ok, he doesn't jump through, but I still watch him while he's out there.

I spent the weekend on a sailing course. Saturday it was "dinghy cruising", Sunday was "dinghy drifting" -- how to drift your dinghy on the tide, with the sails flopping loosely.

We (seven of us in three Wayfarer dinghies, plus two instructors in an inflatable) spent Saturday morning doing triangles, just what I'd hoped NOT to be doing, but I guess they have to assess everyone. We were all good at triangles, so in the afternoon we moved on to anchoring and went for a short spin downriver, just past the rail bridge. The wind had picked up and and we had a great couple of hours sailing, fast and bouncy, with spray flying.

While we were anchoring, I saw what I thought was a haar rolling in, and just before we came in it started raining. Hard. I was wet anyway, so rather than change into dry clothes, I walked home in my sailing kit. Good move -- it rained so hilariously hard I was thoroughly rinsed of salt by the time I got to my door. I dried myself off, changed, and waiting for it to stop raining so I could walk Bertie. It didn't stop, so we walked in the rain. It kept on raining, all night it rained.

In the morning, it was still raining. but the wind had died away almost completely. We looked at the chart and rolled the special ruler over it and calculated the tide and made bearings and came up with a course plan.

We rigged up our boats in the rain and paddled out of the harbour and off upriver, sails flopping. The plan was to sail to Blackness, anchor there for a short while, then head across the river to Charlestown for a picnic lunch, before heading back to Port Edgar. Ha ha. It took us so long to float soggily up to Blackness that we went straight across to Charlestown. We took so interminably long getting across that the instructors had to tow us across the shipping channel to avoid getting in the way of a tanker.

We anchored in Charlestown harbour and climbed into the inflatable, which the instructors then beached. There was a man sitting in his car as we filed up the beach in the rain -- someone suggested we see if there was enough room in there for all of us, it looked quite cosy. There was no sign of a pub -- though it's unlikely a pub would have welcomed nine dripping mariners. We plodded morosely round to a rocky breakwater and sat perched on our lifejackets eating soggy sandwiches. It rained and rained and rained. The fog had been slowly creeping in and by the time we'd finished our lunch we couldn't see across to Blackness. We certainly couldn't see the bridges.

Since we obviously couldn't sail back -- the tide hadn't turned yet and there was not a breath of wind -- the plan changed. The dinghies were tied to the inflatable and we had a glum trip back. We derigged the boats in record time -- I've certainly never folded and stowed a sail that quickly -- got dried off and changed and rushed to the canteen .... which was of course closed. Huh. After a debriefing we went home. Very disappointing end to the course. The annoying thing is that I was booked in to the course in July, and it was cancelled because only I was booked. The weather that weekend was much better.

I'm reading a book by Paul Theroux and the moment that has several of his kayaking stories in it and I'm tempted again by the idea of getting a kayak. He has a collapsible one that packs down into two bags. During the sailing course I was thinking how great it would be to kayak up the Forth -- or better yet, to go to Stirling and kayak home. I could explore the coast for quite a distance on short trips from here.

Today I finally got someone else organised to do the tiling in the kitchen. The last people failed to turn up -- I phoned every week for a month and gave up when the tiler went on holiday for three weeks. "Maybe I should get someone else to do the job," I said. "Yes dear, that would probably be best." This time it's a Linlithgow company, the man will come and look over the job in the next few days. The quote was about £160 less than the last one, so that's a bonus.

The computer's nearly ready -- I've just got to reinstall all my software and restore the backed up files. Hah, that'll only take ... forever. Anyway, once forever rolls around I'll post some photos from the garden.

I have to take some more photos too, of my latest project -- dog-proofing the back fence. It was a real conundrum. It had to be high enough to keep a greyhound in, but somehow I have to be able to get over to collect my house key from its Secret Hiding Place if I lock myself out again. I had a brainwave and today bought a bundle of 6ft bamboo stakes. It took about half an hour to create the Bamboo Curtain, a flimsy affair that will be easy enough to dismantle in an emergency but looks convincingly like a barrier to a dim greyhound. I hope so anyway. I'll have to get a few more stakes -- I had to improvise at one end with branches cut off the manky rowan in the corner (I doubt if it is a rowan, actually, it has no berries) and parts are constructed with thin garden wire, which will be invisible at night.

The first real trial is in about an hour, when I let Bertie out for a pee.

He's recovered from his ennui, by the way. Today when we passed the car he stood by it looking so pathetically hopeful that I loaded him in and took him to Blackness for a run. Sort of an apology for forgetting to collect his ringworm medicine. Oops, bad owner.

It's finally hot, but unfortunately it's also raining, so not very pleasant at all. Especially here at work, it's stifling.

Bertie was all droopy with post-holiday let-down syndrome today. Plod plod plod around the usual routes, nothing interesting or new to look at. Rain. Heat. Blah. The roads were busy and we had quite a wait to cross the road by the supermarket. Instead of eagerly straining to be off down the railway walk he stood limply at my side like a greyhound-shaped rag. Eeyore, the scabby donkey. Speaking of which, the vet called back and the first test has come up negative for ringworm. Which doesn't mean he doesn't have ringworm. The next test result will be another month. In the meantime we're going to pretend it is ringworm. He'll have tablets for two weeks, and if it's clearing up, then for another two weeks. If not, it's really not ringworm and he'll have antibiotics for a bacterial infection.

Coincidentally today I noticed another patch, on his neck. That's five altogether, from an original two. Blech.

I just Googled it (I love the internet) and found that ringworm, tinea, jock itch and athlete's foot are all the same thing -- a fungus. I was surprised about the tablets, but I guess the cream is poisonous. Anyway, I hope it works, because he's getting really scabby looking, and I'm worried about catching it myself.

Bertie and I are back from a thrilling visit to the farm. Bertie is shattered from all the excitement, he's been sleeping pretty much the whole time since we got back.

I took him for a pee walk this evening and on the way back collected stuff from the car. When I opened the door to get my camera, he climbed into the back seat and wouldn't get out!!!! He got so used to climbing into the car over the past few days, and there was always somewhere exciting at the other end of the journey. We went for several long walks every day, mostly to places where he could run like blazes -- gigantic gardens! whole fields! enormous beaches! endless forests! There were cats everywhere, fascinating smells, even new animals (cows ... very scary). Everyone was lovely to him and he was patted and petted and praised from one end of Nairnshire to the other. To cap it all off, this afternoon he and Andrew had a hectic game of football.

Oh, and I had a nice time too.

So then I came home from the farm tonight and got my computer out of its box and yes, it does work. Last week when I got it back I plugged it in and it didn't work. So I took it back to the shop on Friday morning, the day I was going up to the farm. And the wee man just flipped it out of the box, plugged it in and it went. He wasn't too nauseatingly triumphalist, but still. They'd had to wipe the hard drive and replace loads of stuff so I had to reinstall everything & it was a palaver to say the least. I didn't have time to set it all up before I left on Friday so I did it tonight.

Now I'm going to bed, because I'm now just as shattered as Bertie.

Sound of Dunedin This bookmark is for the origins of something called "The Dunedin Sound" -- sample headings The Joe Brown Empire, Bodgies, Widgies, Teddy Boys and Milk Bar Cowboys, A Rattray Street Reminiscence, The Titans: Kings of the Bible Class Circuit.

Anyone my age or a little older will be flipping out right now.

Bad Dog! Bad Dog!

Last night after our walk Bertie was whining and pacing around, so I let him out the back door into the garden. Bad move. He jumped the fence and shot across next door's back yard to rummage in the hedge looking for a way to get at the geriatric cats. It was 2am, so I was loath to yell, and whispering "come here" had zero effect. In the end I tricked him into coming by appearing to walk away down the alley. Possibly also a bad move in the long term, since up until that minute he didn't seem to have clicked that the whole world is open to him once he's jumped the fence.

Anyway in the short term it worked, and I dragged him back into the house. Without speaking to him I went straight upstairs to bed, shutting my bedroom door behind me. I could hear him crying piteously, but ignored him.

In the morning he was transformed into a very, very good little doggie, eager to please in any way possible. I'll have to try teaching him to do housework. I've abandoned the extending lead & expected some manic pulling, but he walked at my side sweet as can be. He obeyed every order. Most miraculous, when we emerged for the afternoon walk he deliberately turned his head away from the house where the cats live -- looking over there is something I'd been forbidding loudly.

Tomorrow we have an appointment with the vet -- possible outbreak of ringworm or similar, ewww!! He has a couple of raw, scaly patches on his face and now there's one on his leg. Bet he caught it off that hedgehog.

Today I'm back to my usual hours of work, 4.30pm to 1am. The past few days I've been doing 11.30am to 10pm, which means I had to get up at around 8am in order to dawdle over breakfast for an hour before walking the dog and having a shower. Saturday I had to get up early as well, because of going to the fair. So today was my first chance to sleep in and make up the sleep deficit.

I woke up at 6am and couldn't get back to sleep. Even Bertie wasn't interested in being up that early. Right now I'm sooooo tired.

It was good though, having so much time. As well as all the usual stuff, I backed up my computer, unplugged all the peripherals, fetched its box from the loft and packed it nicely ready for the trip back to the shop. Made the trip to the computer shop at a leisurely pace -- just as well, because the traffic was abominable -- then collected the film that had been ready since last week and visited the pet supermarket for snacks, treats and a new collar. I've put Bertie's tags on this collar, a thin loose one, so if he pulls out of his regular collar while out and about, he's still got my phone number.

Back home I had plenty of time for another dog-walk and a shower before work.

Great news tonight! Liz and Ken are engaged. Sweet! I must get one of those digital cameras, the close-up detail of Liz's ring (and fingers) is stunning.

Busy busy busy. Mainly with work -- looong shifts doing the boss's job -- and dog-walking. The dog's in bad odour at the moment, having seriously monstered a neighbour's two cats. I had previously thought there was just the one cat, they're both black and white and fluffy. I patted one once and it was so terribly thin I was concerned for its welfare. But on taking the trembling survivor home after Friday night's attack I discovered that not only does it have a thyroid condition, it's 19 years old. Nineteen. That's 133 in dog years. The other one is 12. No wonder Bertie can get them bailed up -- it's like Sebastian Coe chasing the Queen Mother.

I went to the Traquair Fair yesterday, to meet up with Richard and his family who are up from England on holiday. It's the most laid-back event I've ever been to -- hippy heaven, with tipis, vegeburgers, folk music, alternative healing tents and at least four aromatherapy stalls. I realise now that I have the word DEADLINE running through me like a stick of letter rock, with hurry up! in smaller type.

It was lovely -- it's a beautiful setting, an ancient house surrounded by hills and forests, and there was lots going on -- but heavy showers of rain spoiled it somewhat. It was great seeing Richard again, and I also bumped into other people I hadn't seen for ages, so all in all it was fun. I bought some essential oils (Rose Maroc and Clary Sage) and a colourful little bag for my CD walkman thing. No dogs allowed, so Bertie had to stay home.

For reasons far too complicated to go into here, last Wednesday was a washout and I didn't get to take my computer in to the shop. I've been working all the hours since then, so I'll probably get it in tomorrow or Tuesday. It'll maybe take them three days to reinstall Windows, if that's the problem, or replace the modem.

Must get on with my work now.

The heat, the heat ... it must have been nearly 70F out there today. That's 21C for kiwis. And the sun was shining and everything!

Yesterday (Monday) I checked my strawberry plant and the first one was just on the cusp of ripeness. Mmm, pick that tomorrow, I thought. Hah! First thing this morning the strawberry, luciously ripe, was lying half-eaten on the ground. Bastard wildlife. I'm making a new shopping list: BB gun, slug pellets, slingshot, electric netting ...

Bertie can't cope with heat, but he's not as bad as the spinone we often meet out walking. He's a mountain dog, used to cool climes. Today when his owner and I stopped to chat, the poor thing sat panting under a tree, in grass still cool and wet from last night's rain. Bertie stood panting in full sun -- he likes the limelight even if it is uncomfortable.

I cleared a few long outstanding chores today which felt quite good. Loads still to do however, and I've gone and arranged a lunch date for tomorrow, my one day off.

What a day today, whizzing around madly from pillar to post and back again. Work was restful by comparason.

One of my appointments was with Calum, my lovely dentist. Over the years his skill and clean pinkness have completely cured my phobia about dentists. I can almost relax in his chair, knowing he'll only hurt me a little bit. Today I had a root canal filling -- he'd cleaned it out and dressed it last week and finished it properly this time. No anaesthetic because the nerve was dead, so no rubber lips and no painful reawakening of nerve endings. Plenty of pain in the old wallet though -- £115, ka-ching!

It's raining. It's cold. Sigh. Saves the effort of watering the garden I guess. Sigh. We never did get that heatwave ...

Terrible words to hear while filling my trolley at Tesco:

"Would the owner of the white greyhound please come to the customer service desk."

I whisked down to the front of the shop where sure enough, through the plate-glass window, I saw Bertie -- collarless -- run past looking anxious. I parked my trolley and dashed out. People were looking on in amazement as Bertie ran back and forth in front of the windows, scanning for a familiar face or a way in. He came to me quite meekly though, and I tied him up, fastening his collar with an eye-bulging tightness.

At least he didn't try and head for home -- traffic was pretty heavy yesterday afternoon.

He's never backed out of his collar before, though I've been aware that it's getting looser as the leather stretches. They have such tiny heads for their neck size it's hard to get the collar tight enough without making it uncomfortable. One thing I'm going to do for sure though is to get a thin, looser collar for him to wear his tags on. That way if he does escape from the leash he'll still have ID (apart from the microchip).

This week is going to be madly busy workwise and I only have Wednesday off. Tomorrow is used up with appointments so I won't get to tackle my computer grief until Tuesday at the earliest.

We're supposed to be having a heatwave. It's blistering everywhere else in the country, but here it's just ... warm. Right now (11pm) I'm actually cold, I've got a T-shirt on and wish I'd brought a sweatshirt or something with me. Some heatwave. Huh.

OK, so quickly: Monday I trailed all the way to the Post Office with all the documentation needed to pay the road tax only to find I'd taken the wrong MOT certificate with me. Grinding of teeth. After that, I don't know ... I think I took Bertie to Blackness for a run and cooked a nice ratatouille for dinner. I'm sure I must have done something else ... oh yes, I remember, I broke my computer.

Tuesday: Lunch with Anthea, followed by a trip to the dentist for a root canal filling. Lunch was delicious -- warm squid salad at Sweet Melinda's in Marchmont, and the dentist wasn't too bad. The nerve was dead anyway, so I didn't need an injection and my jaw wasn't aching afterwards.

On the way home I stopped at Homebase and bought a strimmer. Got home and foolishly didn't change my clothes before trying it out. I had no idea strimming leaves you plastered head to toe with shredded weeds and bits of whatever gunk is lurking amongst them. What a cool piece of equipment though! Vroom! Zing! After strimming I mowed, so the lawn looks almost decent now. Next I have to strim the front of the house. Yee haw.

So that was that. Not very exciting, eh. But I love it. I'm soooo sad. Sigh.

Week after next I've decided Bertie is ready for another trip up the learning curve. We're going to the farm. This is my friend Andrew's parents' farm, up near Nairn. They have 12 cats and 100 cattle. Yes indeedy, he's in for a few surprises up there.

I won't have time to update tonight, maybe tomorrow. Tsk, I'm really falling behind.