All my technical problems are still live and kicking. I gave up nagging on Friday, just shifted my car out of the garage at the break (in case you missed the start of this saga, my access card to the garage at work has been misprogrammed, so I can get in ok but can't get out after midnight).

I'll start nagging again tomorrow in earnest about my website, I'm seriously annoyed about that. I had a plaintive email from some fans today asking what the problem was and whether it was something they needed to fix. (Hi Mum!)

Yesterday I weeded the garden, which is just as well because today it's been raining steadily all day. Last week I washed my parka, following the instructions on the label. I didn't have any pure soap flakes though, so I grated up some bath soap. That might have been a mistake, because today I discovered the parka's lost all its waterproofing. Yup, I got soaked through.

I'm feeling very tired for no apparent reason this weekend; yesterday I even had an afternoon nap, something I hardly ever do. It's a pain, because I have so many things to do.

Oh, Leslie Van Houten didn't get parole after all.

Court TV Watch real court cases, live on TV! In the US that is. For the rest of us there are only still images from the case du jour.

Tonight, I'm hanging out for the verdict on whether Leslie Van Houten gets parole. She's one of the Manson gang; she's 52 and she's been in prison since she was 19, for the LaBianca murders.

How wrong can a quiz be?

How wrong can a quiz be? Which Pixies song are you?

"You're always the one who stands out in a crowd. People look forward to seeing you. You're well dressed, well-mannered, but spontaneous enough that it's very easy for you to make friends. Your interests include the paranormal and government conspiracies, but you also enjoy sitting back and eating a good meal. You probably have a lot of pets that you take care of obsessively."

Well, you know, apart from the UFO and pet things .... and the food ....

Update: the link is broken, obvs.

NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think easynet has deleted my whole entire website. SIGH. This blogspot is housed elsewhere, thank goodness, but the pictures were with easynet.

I phoned the support folk this afternoon about yesterday's problems and was told I'd exceeded my space limit. But hang on, haven't I got unlimited space? Er well yes, but it's limited to 2Mb so they can check and see if you're abusing the privilege with a commercial enterprise of some kind. My space has at some point been increased to 5Mb, I've no idea when or how, but the helicopter pictures pushed it over the edge. And just how was I supposed to tell I'd exceeded my limit? Ummmm... I can't. I have to guess.

But anyway, the boys at easynet are lovely and helpful and kind and started work right away sorting things for me.

I tried again -- still the same problem. I phoned back and listened to a baroque version of Twinkle Twinkle while the boys conferred. Finally they told me the new files were corrupted and would have to be deleted. I'd already tried to delete them and failed, so I told them that was ok and to go ahead.

Then I went to work.

Just now I tried to call up my website and got a horrible nasty surprise: go and look for yourself. There's nothing there! It's all gone. Those bad boys! It's not a total disaster, I mean I do have everything backed up. But uploading it will take HOURS, literally. Grumble grumble grumble. I have better things to do, definitely.

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

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

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

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

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

Time to go home -- more later.

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

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

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

New! Improved! and now with photos ...

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


Following the burn up the hill.


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

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


The farm from the air.


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


Cawdor Castle and its formal gardens.

After circling Nairn we went back to the airport.


Aerial view of the town.


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

I'll put the photos in next week.

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

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

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

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

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

I'll update again next week.

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

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

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

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

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

Some interesting websites:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, oh, oh, I found Suipi!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

:: visit to oxford

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

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

Pictures:


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


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


View from the tower of St Mary the Virgin.


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


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


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


One of the statues outside the Radcliffe Camera.

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

PhotoDude's Web Log: Brain Dump & Pixel Pile

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Underground Photoshop Tennis

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