More frost!

Having been chivvied by someone to brave the sub zero's again this morning who am I to refuse! Damn.......it's even colder today....happy now 'someone'? ;o)

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......and someone else decided a little 'help' was in order!

Fingers and toes........

.....are firmly crossed in gemmak's-ville in the hope that the promised snowfall will this time materialize!

It's looking good, red if for 'high risk' and the text below is an extract from the forecast for Thursday and Friday :o)

"Frequent and often heavy showers will turn increasingly to snow by the end of the day on Thursday across many parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Northeast England. North Wales and Southwest England may also be at risk. Settling snowfall is expected especially over higher ground and with winds gusting up to gale force and locally severe gale force over Scotland blizzard conditions are expected even at relatively low levels for a time".

Surely given the evidence above just for once they can't be wrong.....ok, I know, that's asking a little too much!

Frosted berries

There I was, out at minus 4.5 degrees at some unearthly hour this morning, clad only in a t-shirt and trousers for fear that in the time it would take to get dressed suitably, the frost might melt......it's late afternoon now, the temperature never made it above freezing and the frost has been in evidence all day. Damn it was cold!

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'Tornado Tilly'

What a day I had yesterday, I mean in a good, 'how lucky I am to have such good friends way', not the grumbly, 'it was all awful and terrible way'!

Firstly there was the pleasure and pride of discovering I had a place in another man's bedroom (see post below) and then later on in the evening my inbox presented me with one of the fabest (is that a word?) things I have ever been lucky enough to be gifted.

Earlier in the proceedings I had been emailing a friend back and forth about one thing and another. Shephard and I met when we worked together on a his blog design and we fast became friends. I happened in the conversation to mention that Tilly has much in common with a tornado of late and he in turn mentioned it to his partner. Within only a few minutes it seemed I received an e- mail and attached to it was this fantastic cartoon, 'Tornado Tilly':


Now as if the picture itself is not impressive enough, hell I can't even draw a stick man cat, let me tell you, this is not just any cartoon, this is Tilly depicted in 'tornado mode' by a professional cartoonist, for Shephard's partner is no less than a Disney animator and a damn fine one at that! Wow....how many people get such a wonderful gift and from a source with such pedigree?!

I will treasure it forever, what a fab day I had yesterday, I went to my bed truly smiling last night, all felt good in the world I am truly lucky to have such considerate and generous friends and honored to have 'Tornado Tilly'....soon to be framed and hung with pride on my wall.

So a massive thank you to both of you for really making yesterday one of the 'good one's' :o)

.....and there are those that say 'internet friends' are not real friends......piffle!

In another man's bedroom!

As of today I find myself in another man's bedroom...... and very flattered I am too. The man in question is my long time blogger friend Dale of Mimico Musings. Dale and I have been good friends since our very beginnings in the blogosphere but I never imagined for one moment that he would invite me into his boudoir!

Things of course are not quite as they might seem, for my invitation is somewhat
more tenuous than it may first appear. Many moons ago I took a photograph and published it here on my blog, Dale took a particular fancy to it and I offered him said image in a decent size file and that was that, or so I thought but he had a plan.


He took my image and had it enlarged professionally, he then passed it onto a framer who framed it to perfection and finally today the completed item has been hung in his bedroom over his bed!

Wow, how flattered and puffed up with pride am I? Not to my knowledge has anyone ever wanted possession of one of my photographs, let alone spent good money on it and given it pride of place in their home!


Dale and I, who are both still given at times to be amazed by the possibilities that this modern technology allows us are both fascinated and amused that a little picture that begun in my garden, then flew across the Atlantic where it went from photo processor to framer and ended up thousands of miles away from it's beginnings is Scotland, on a bedroom wall in Canada!

Thanks Dale for liking what I did enough to do what you did, I am truly flattered, you made my day, week, month.......

Where did the weekend go?

Was the weekend that just passed me by a whole two days, or did someone sneak in and steal part of it when I wasn't looking? It sure as hell didn't seem to last two entire days, despite the fact that I was enduring the purgatory that is retail at Christmas time. One minute it was 5am on Saturday and the next it was 7am this morning and the 'in between' seems to be just a blur of demanding customers, slightly short tempered bosses, sore feet and a small Tilly kitten wreaking havoc at every move!

It just cannot have been two days, somehow, somewhere, some of it went missing, evaporated away perhaps in the stinging cold air that accompanied it, you may say what you like but I just know it was not two whole days!

Good grief, I barely even made it online in 48 hours, something almost unheard of in gemmak's-ville. I got up this morning to design jobs coming out of my ears, a virtual pile of unanswered emails, comments un-read and not so much as one new Tilly photograph taken to be offered up here for your utter boredom amusement!

Christmas in retail, the cause of this disappearing weekend? I won't go there right now....suffice to say it is mad, the whole situation is mad, the customers are mad, the ethos is mad and many more weeks of it and I will be mad too!

So that's it, the weekend, or at least part of it, went awol and I'm off now to try and catch up and to endeavor to instill a little discipline in this kitten. Yes, I have the water sprays, the 'time out' theories, the scratching posts and the 'kitten toy box' stuffed full of every conceivable attention diverting kitten game but still she is hanging off the curtains and running around the walls......are there 'e-numbers' in cat food I wonder??

Stuff on my cat

This site is hilarious I promise....or do I have a warped sense of humour?

Thanks to Astrantia for the link.

Saturday silliness

Myself and a blogger friend had a minor altercation earlier this week regarding a third parties 'religious spoutings' in comments. It didn't come to much, the third party didn't return to defend her comments but she did offer veiled threats about the likelihood of our not making it to heaven.

My friend's response was this:


Please, I don't wish to offend anyone's religious sensibilities but hell (no pun intended) I laughed until my sides hurt!

All innocence

Tilly kitten may have an endearing look of innocence, she may appear as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, she may seem all sweetness and light, but one thing she most definitely not, is innocent.

Having decided that life is just fine and dandy in gemmak's-ville and that her humans and big cat companion are acceptable,

she has proceeded to make herself thoroughly at home and one her nine week birthday she has arrived at what, if she were a child, I think would be referred to as 'the terrible two's!

This one small kitten has a rapidly acquired ability to turn her surroundings into chaos in just a few seconds. She does the classic kitten thing, she runs absolutely wild for an hour or so and then collapses suddenly in a sleeping, purring heap, decimation all around her, and while she sleeps peacefully Ditto heaves a sigh of relief and we set about repairing the damage left in her wake.

As an illustration of the havoc this small devilish innocent creature can create, the last two days have resulted in curtains requiring some repair, stereo speakers with a rather 'attractive' boucle effect adorning the fronts as a result of scratch practice, a broken dish, torn bedding (ours not hers), a web cam that has spent more time on the floor than on the desk, Lord knows if it still operates, and computer speakers left completely useless having had just one too many trips thudding to the floor! Add to that, she has jumped in her water bowl upending it into her food which simultaneously seemed to leave terra firma, both then emptied their respective contents on top of her......in her fright she fled leaving a trail of soggy cat food behind her which yours truly them had to pick up piece by piece from just about every surface.

She has fallen off things, over things, climbed things suitably unstable for climbing, trodden in porridge, hurled my phone across the room, chewed books, unrolled and shredded half a toilet roll,

hung off our plates as we eat, stolen food from them in a flash, made it to the summit of the clothes horse and then lost her nerve coming down, been shut in the bathroom, the wardrobe and *eeekkkk* almost the fridge. She has decided that without doubt the contents of the litter box are for playing in, a cat kind of sandpit if you like and oh what fun to scatter the contents far and wide as you hurl your little furry body round and round at break neck speed!...no matter whether it be clean or soiled, it makes no odds to Tilly!

Finally we have begun practicing the 'arts' of hissing, spitting and growling, though there is still some way to go until perfection is attained. Dare to go near her when she is devouring a tidbit and one is greeted with what can only be described as a particularly un-scary little growl, advance on the tidbit a little further and a rapid hiss emits, a little closer still and in her panic she spits, this is not the usual cat spitting that is little more than a vehement hiss, this is the real thing, this delightful looking little kitten spits like a damn camel, though very thankfully without the accompanying 'projectile'. God love her....and she looks so innocent. Of course, any attempts we might make at chastising or telling her off are useless, she doesn't care, we can't stop laughing and just how do you discipline only 80g of kitten, who at the telling off stage is curling up purring on your lap?!

It's winter!

And just in case you were in any doubt, whilst my much wished for snow has still not materialised this mornings frost was doing a damn good impression!

I woke to minus 4.3 degrees and despite the sun shining all day the temparature has barely made it's way above freezing, even the horses have kept their coats on for the duration..... it is kinda pretty from inside though!


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What's all this about then?

No explanation necessary! :o)

Fending off phishing

I'm not usually given to offering titbits of techie advice, in the main because I don't know any or understand much of what I do know, but I received an email from a friend today regarding 'Phishing' that I found unusually easy to understand and it's source reliable. The subject is suitably concerning for all of us and hence I decided to break my 'no techie stuff' rule and put it up here in the hope that just a few less of us will get 'caught':

Fending off phishing attacks.

Phishing is computer slang for attacks in which criminals pretend to be a bank or other institution. They try to trick you into giving up your password and user name.

Here's how it works:
The criminals send you an e-mail (spam). When you open the e-mail, a small program called a script runs. Note that you only need to open the e-mail; there is no attachment.

The scripting program goes to your HOSTS file, located deep in your computer. The actual path in Windows XP is: C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\Etc\HOSTS

It enters your bank's Web address--for instance, www.YourBank.com--in the HOSTS file. It also enters an Internet Protocol (IP) number for the criminals' address.

The next time you need to surf to your bank, you attempt to go to www.YourBank.com. When you enter that address, or any other address, the browser first goes to the HOSTS file to find the IP number. If it isn't there (it normally would not be), it goes to a special computer on the Internet to find the IP number.

However, the criminals have put your bank's address in the HOSTS file, along with their IP number. So you are automatically sent to that IP number, which is the criminals' computer. It looks like the bank's Web site, so you enter your user name and password. That gives the criminals the information they need to enter your account and steal your money.

How can you protect yourself? Some anti-virus programs guard against this kind of thing; others do not. To be safe, you must disable your computer's scripting ability. To do that:

--In Windows XP, click Start>>My Computer. Click Tools>>Folder Options. Select the File Types tab. Click File Types, then scroll to and click VBScript Script File. Click Advanced. In the Actions box, click Open. Click Remove.

If you need to restore scripting, click New. Put Open in the Action box. In the next box, click Browse. Find wscript.exe in C:\Windows\System32. Double-click it.

--In Windows ME and 2000, the procedure is similar. If you need to restore scripting in Windows ME, the wscript.exe file is in C:\Windows.

--In Windows 98, you must disable Windows Scripting Host. Click Start>>Settings>>Control Panel. Double-click Add/Remove Programs. Select the Windows Setup tab. Double-click Accessories. Click the box next to Windows Scripting Host to deselect it. Click OK>>Apply>>OK.

Damn it's cold!

In fact it's more than cold, it's very ear freezingly, nose drippingly, toe bitingly, 'take your breath away' cold....but it's beautiful. Just the start to a new day that a miserable, wingeing old bint needed to lift the spirits.

I have 1 degree on the mercury right now but I'm reliably informed that wind chill and humidity taken into account, it's feeling somewhere in the region of minus 15 degrees, brrr, but still it is beautiful enough that I couldn't resist ejecting myself from the coziness of indoors to share my early morning sights with you.

See what dedication I have, is there is no end to the things I will go through for you five lot?! heh.

Snow?......I wonder, it's looking good.

Early morning moon


Moonset


Sun-up


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Why is it......

....that just when you are pottering along in life feeling like all is, if not perfect, then at least more than acceptable, something in the dark and normally uncharted depths of your mind decides from nowhere to kick your ass and create a day of serious disgruntlement?

I am as a rule a 'glass half full' kinda gal, I haven't always been that way but life taught me over the years (and there have been a fair number of those) that a half empty glass is not something to be cherished. Despite that, today my usual demeanor has deserted me, don't ask me why because I don't know but my 'glass' is pathetically lacking in any degree of content at all!

In a nutshell I am 'having one of those days', a tiny gemmak pity party is in progress in this corner of Scotland and I can't say I care for it very much. I have been doing the 'oh just bloody marvelous so this is what my life amounts to is it?' thing and stuff and incidents that normally are long dealt with or forgotten seem to be bugging me. The 'hell I'll never see forty again and what have I done with my life' line is playing in my head, interspersed nicely with little thought delights such as, 'where did my career disappear too', how come I am always broke, WTF happened to 'making it' at something and bloody hell I'm already half way to dead, well given my nicotine intake probably well over half way and I still haven't actually done anything! Well, unless of course you count two divorces, financial ruin and a bodged career as achievements. Hells bells, I haven't even been off this island since I was five! Gah.

Add to that I have bits that hurt from doing nothing, that five years ago I didn't even know my body had, I can't remember anyone's name when I need too and I have a fly the size of a bat that has been buzzing me all day, that I just can't catch, kill or mutilate despite attempting all usual courses of action. Oh and Tilly stood infront of me on the desk this morning and promptly regurgitated her entire breakfast, a large proportion of which landed on and in my keyboard!

Yup, I think I can safely say today is not a good one in gemmak's-ville and no doubt you are now chuffed to bits *cough* that you clicked on a 'gemmak' link somewhere, just to listen to my wingeing. My apologies, my pity parties are generally short lived, tomorrow is another day.......

Bloody, damn, soddin' fly!