One of those days.

Yes, I'm having one of those days, bought about in this case, I suspect, by my predilection for not going to bed at any time my mother would deem remotely sensible.

I have sat here for the last hour surfing aimlessly, taking very little in, my mind is a complete blank. Last night, when I eventually did the horizontal thing, my head was full of ideas which seem to have shuffled off with my dreams to an obscure place and are not in any hurry to be dragged back to the vaguely operating part of my consciousness!

So that's it for now, I'm off to do some of the 'domestic goddess'stuff for a while, though I doubt that will inspire me. This afternoon we are off to Ikea, assuming of course that PG doesn't come up with 'tangible excuse number 89' in his much practiced, PG authenticated, list of '101 reasons not to go to Ikea' and I'll hopefully be back later slightly more compis mentis!!

Fish and chips.

Dusk toward Scotland. 31.08.04


Dusk toward England. 31.08.04

Yesterday evening PG and I had arranged to visit a colleague of mine to fix her computer. I add hastily here that in the main it is PG who does the hardware fixing, he is good at it, where as I fumble around in a none too confident manner. If only I could grasp the intricacies of the software aspect more fully we would make a good team! He should in my opinion and that of many others be working in the field but that's another story and I digress.

So having made this appointment we decided we would leave a little early and have fish and chips on the beach for supper. I wanted all my life to live by the sea and whilst we are in fact 12 miles away it is a damn sight closer than my previous places of residence, both of which were in the region of 80 miles from anything large and saline.

We duly made our way to the best fish and chip emporium in the town and then to the beach. I am, as they say here, a 'soft southerner' and so, the by then temperature of 6 degrees dictated that we sit in the car for this feast rather than actually venture onto the sand!

I could sit watching the waves, listening to the sound they make as they break onto the beach mingled with the call of seagulls overhead and looking into the massive expanse of horizon forever. Seagulls chattering away will always evoke in me an immediate feeling of happiness and of wonderful childhood holidays. They are considered vermin here, to the point that a professional bird handler is employed to fly his birds of prey among them on a daily basis. Apparently seagulls are fearful of hawks and it successfully keeps their numbers down!

Berwick upon Tweed is the northernmost town in England and has been variously 'owned' by Scotland and England over the centuries. In fact the most recent squabble for ownership was officially only resolved a few years ago though raging battles long since ceased! It still always amuses me as a newcomer that from where we where parked, in one direction is Scotland and in the other is England and that I 'cross the border' every day remains a source of strange fascination!

So, blissful reverie over we made tracks to the ailing computer. A pleasant evening of gossip, over cups of good coffee, was had by my colleague and myself and PG did his stuff over a bottle of wine.

Job done and it was home to a rather disgruntled Ditto who had been under house arrest all evening. We don't allow her out if we aren't in, she is not overly savvy and I fear for her taking on a badger or fox or some other inappropriate sparring partner and requiring rescue and medical attention, as has been the case on one or two occasions!

It was a good evening, made a nice change, I did of course park myself infront of this machine within minutes of arriving home and stayed put until the wee small hours. We had planned a visit to Ikea this afternoon but I feel a small siesta is now more likely and Ikea can wait until tomorrow! :o)

Somehow I think not.

My 'currently online' user counter is showing the grand total of 10 right now, yes, I said 10, a personal best and no one is more surprised than yours truly.

Yes, It could be that I am fascinating, marvelous, articulate, humorous in the extreme, beautiful, irresistible and write an impossible to resist blog but somehow I think not!

Given that it has shown this total for the last 3 hours and given that it seems unlikely in the extreme, that 10 of you have logged on and forgotten to log off for that period of time, I somehow think it far more likely to be yet another gremlin doing it's damnedest to disrupt something somewhere. I kinda feel like the person on the bus, you know the one, he or she who always seems to attract the drunk, flasher or 'unfortunate' individual into sitting right next to them. I think right now I must be the virtual equivalent! Lol.

Still, it looks good for now!

I wonder, will the day ever come where I log in and I find everything is working as it should be....... all at once?

Diana, Princess of Wales.

Diana

Today it is 7 years since the tragic and untimely death of Diana, Princess of Wales. The furore surrounding the event has lessened in that time but memories of an outstanding lady remain.

I have previously blogged on this subject and my experiences at length and for that reason will not do so again now, if you are new to my blog and would like to read it go here.

There will no doubt be a few who still make the annual visit to the gates of Kensington Palace to lay flowers and tributes. If I was still living in London I don't think I would be one of them any longer but I will take a few moments to remember the loss of a vital and special lady.

Hell.....

....Bank holidays are boring!


'Ditto'

Hurrahhh, Hurrahh, Hurrahh!!!!

At last, with the help of DKG and PG I am somewhere close to solving the 'disappearing trash icon' mystery!!

By a process of elimination and much head scratching it transpires that 'Nortons 2004' is to blame. The reasoning behind this is beyond me but having attempted to resurrect said icon many times while having turned off Nortons I had abandoned that line of enquiry.

As a last resort and after some information and help from DKG we last night completely uninstalled Nortons and hey presto....magically I had icons! It is of course not quite that simple because I need, like everyone else, to have a firewall.

To cut a long and boring story short we discovered that whilst the 2004 version still won't show the icons even when disabled the 2002 version will.

2002 was duly installed and now at least, albeit with the aggravation of disabling it and taking the risk that something will infiltrate my system in the mean time, I can delete comments!

The mere fact that we have discovered what was causing it in the first place is cause for celebration in my little world and there is an unexpected bonus......the pc appears to be running significantly faster with 2002 installed than it ever did with 2004!!

I have yet to isolate exactly what in Nortons is causing the problem so that I can rectify it properly but hell....after weeks and weeks of investigations, fiddling and frustration it is a breakthrough!

Oh how I wish I truly understood the peculiarities of things virtual :o)

So it's off to work for me now..... the Bank holiday hordes await, home mid evening and then four days off!

Longhorn longhaul

It is reported that Microsoft will not now have their new operating system, 'Longhorn', ready for release until late 2006!

I doubt too many of us will be greatly surprised by that nor by the fact that even at that late date this long awaited o/s will be minus some quite significant features.

I won't pretend to understand the business that our beloved (not) Bill Gates is in or to understand the technicalities involved in producing such a piece of software. Given my struggles with the day to day operations of a home pc I assume it is a somewhat massive task but I have to admit to a degree of disbelief.

Does Microsoft not have the revenue to employ the very best minds in the execution of this massive task? Surely Mr Gates can afford to have on his team only those at the very pinnacle of their field and to remunerate them suitably? Yes there are shareholders to amuse and placate but come on...5 or 6 years and then to roll out an incomplete piece of gear seems a little questionable.

Forgive me then for having the fleeting thought that just maybe this has as much to do with squeezing the last drop of blood from XP as it has to do with any technical problems and difficulties encountered along the way!

Beads.....you can keep 'em.

Well, my day off has been spent in the main feeling sorry for myself. I was feeling a bit 'off colour' last night when I went to bed and by this morning whatever heinous bug it was inhabiting my body last week had returned with a vengeance!

PG was playing in a golf tournament all day so I set about fiddling with HTML this morning but my heart wasn't really in it and I abandoned most of what I wanted to do at about the half way stage.

This afternoon I took to my bed again, curled up in the duvet did more feeling sorry for myself and slept like the dead. The healing power of sleep seemed to evaded me though, I woke feeling worse than ever so ran myself a deep, hot, pampering bath and settled down with Ditto for a long soak. Ditto I might add, was not actually soaking with me, rather perched precariously on the edge watching, as is her habit when one or other of us is in the bath. I have to say it is slightly off putting, not that I display unusual levels of modesty where cats are concerned, rather that I have some reservations regarding the whereabouts of her razor like claws should she ever slip in!

So the bath was going well until I opened the new body wash I had saved especially for times of pampering. All thoughts of gentle soft bubbles where eliminated in one swift moment as I applied said potion to my body. I had not noticed when purchasing this luxury item that it contained what is marketed as 'exfoliating beads'. I hate exfoliating beads, they bear more in common with a coarse grade sand paper than anything bead like. Had I wanted something resembling those childhood grazes we all suffered at one time or another I would have turned to Black and Decker or Bosch.

Do I care if my body is weighed down with a layer of loose skin cells, do I care if I feel invigorated or revived?..........no I most certainly do not! What I care about is having a luxurious bath without having to spend inordinate amounts of time extracating a multitude of 'bits' from various unmentionable parts of my body and trying to relax lying on a bed of sand. So my apologies to all the manufacturers of generally overpriced 'luxury bathing products' but miscellaneous bits in my bath are more reminiscent of childhood scrubbings 'post beach' visits, administered by my mother, than a luxury hour or two of pampering.....and you can keep 'em!

A big thank you......

.....to DK Goodman for allowing me to utilise his HTML wizardry.

I really must learn to do that stuff myself!

And DKG....should you ever find yourself at a 'loose end' feel free to turn your wizardry to solving the ever present delete comments icon issue!

I fear I am pushing my luck now! :o)

Mice are nice.

Hot mouse!

Well you asked for it so you got it.....I must be mad. As if trailing around work all day dressed like a mouse isn't enough humiliation now I bow to the pressure and post it on the world wide web!

Yes I said 'mouse'. After yesterdays frantic scrabbling though bags and bags of costumes it turned out not to be a monkey at all!!....... I was a mouse! It was still as daft and as unbearably hot but I prefer to be a mouse than a monkey! Mice are nice.

I have no idea at this stage how much we raised for our charity but the general level of amusement we sought seemed to be achieved and along the way we did, I have to admit, have a lot of fun.

Oh and I probably lost half a stone sweating....nice thought eh? Not!

As 'luck' would have it, today was probably the hottest day for weeks here, if not all summer. The sun shone all day the customers donned their tee shirts and shorts and I was dressed from head to toe in fur for 8 hours!

Oh ..........and I got tomorrow off, Wooooooooo... I got that 'Friday feeling'.

Just call me King Kong

King Kong holding Fay Wray 1933

In my last few days absence from work it seems it has been decided by the management that this being a holiday weekend we will do something 'fun'. I make no apologies for being sceptical..... this sudden effort at making the workplace more pleasant I am sure, is mostly motivated by the need to improve moral since the 'sacking incident' rather than a genuine effort to make our working lives more pleasurable. For that reason I had to search my conscience somewhat before deciding to be a part of this endeavor. I decided that as the proceeds from the arranged event will support local charity it was worth doing and so agreed to join in.....before I knew what was involved! Lol.

So what is this event I have offered to support tomorrow? A day of fancy dress is what it is! Hells bells! A day of larking about like fools in store dressed as various film and cartoon characters...........yeah ok it might be fun I admit but what am I to be?? There is sleeping beauty, Maid Marian, Alice in Wonderland, Tweedle Dee and Teedle Dum, a Pirate, Miss Muffett, the list goes on and on. And me?...........I got the gorilla! To be specific I'm not sure if it's a gorilla or merely a monkey but whatever, I seem to have landed a day in a delightful ensemble consisting 3 stone weight of fur fabric, a tail that drags for an embarrassing length on the ground due to my lack of height and some very hot head gear....oh, and as health and safety legislation dictates, this gorilla will be sporting steel capped safety boots!

Damn! Why wasn't I Maid Marian in her beautiful flowing dress..........I'll tell you why, because fancy dress costumiers don't provide for those of a mere 5 foot in height and if I'm gonna look daft I might as well do it properly! :o)

Not satisfied with that, and once the idea of my being a gorilla had settled in, It was put to me that once I finish work, my company rattling a bucket around the local pubs for the evening would be appreciated..........in full regalia of course!

So, if you see a five foot gorilla/monkey, shod with safety boots, in the pub tomorrow night, it's not an over indulgence of alcohol playing tricks with your mind..... it's me!!

Which one are you

In reply to Demob Happy Teachers question of yesterday.......


You are Tigger! T - I - DOUBLE G - R! You are happy
and bouncy and insane and busy and running and
falling and hungry and talking and leading and
showing and... Gods, you're annoying, but
everyone seems to like you - at least, for a
while.


Which Winnie the Pooh character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


....and I just don't know how I managed without this information all these years! :o)

I have wheels!

Well I have my car back at last.

The garage left it until the 11th hour so I could stress myself out about how I was going to get to work tomorrow but in the end they got it done and it all worked out. I have a distinct feeling my visa card would beg to differ on the 'it all worked out well' statement though! Just don't go there, I can't bear to think!

So I'm at work for the next five days, well if I'm lucky I may get Saturday off but that remains to be seen, so there won't be many merry hours spent here for a few days. Will I cope I wonder? :o)

This next few days are gonna be mad work-wise, Bank holidays for us, are like Christmas is in most areas of retail but in many ways I prefer it like that, there is though somewhere a happy medium!

Some good news. PG's father underwent open heart surgery yesterday to replace a valve. I didn't mention it before out of a kind if superstitious fear of something going wrong, as it is he came though it well and is well on the road to recovery. *Sigh of relief*

So that's it, if you happen to notice me meandering your way in the next few days but saying little it's because I'm shot. I'll be back uttering my normal trivia in a day or two. I'm still confounded by how some of you manage to work full time and blog!

Happy Bank Holiday weekend chaps and chapesses.

Cars?...pah!

Well it seems things are going to become a little fraught with the car situation today.

The dealership has now had my ailing vehicle since Monday morning and at the outset envisaged that the job would be done by the end of the day. As ever with these things it was not to be. Ah well thought I, I have no pressing engagements, Tuesday will be fine.

Tuesday came and went, no prizes for guessing that the problem is more serious than first anticipated and that consequently the bill is growing to very unpleasant proportions with each passing hour. It would appear there is now a hold up in acquiring a part, goddamn, this is only a 3 year old car, should major parts not be readily available to a main dealer??

The upshot of all this, aside from imminent financial trauma, is that there is no promise of a return of my car in working order even by the close of business today. Normally not a great problem but as sods law dictates, this week I am working from Thursday through to Monday ( what? you? working a whole 5 days? I hear you say). There is no courtesy car available, there is no public transport, a taxi would cost me more than my remuneration for each day and PG needs his old bus himself.

Bloody hell.....why is life never straigh forward even in this apparently stress free backwater?