After a lot of hot sweaty work yesterday I am looking forward to a good shower and shampoo this morning. Once that is out the way it will be time to do more "spring cleaning". I have reached a point where the difference is starting to show, and the hardest parts are already done. This should make it easier to carry on. Despite all that there is still plenty I need to do. The one thing I am still dreading is cleaning the gas cooker. I very much doubt I could make much headway with it if I spent several hours a day for the next month.

 One important task for today is to set all the clocks in the house to GMT. I should have done it yesterday, but it did niot feel important enough at the time. With confusion over my bedtime last night it now seems imperative.

    The important thing about today is that the clocks changed overnight, and we are now on GMT. This means the mornings are so much lighter, but it will be getting dark very early in the evening now - almost still afternoon !

 My plans for today are not so different to yesterday. It will be a case of mustering all the energy I can find to continue my "spring cleaning". I almost have the enthusiasm for this, although as a rule I hate housework. It is tedious back breaking labour. No doubt it could be argued that if I did it more often each task would be so much easier. Maybe I'll learn this one day !

 There may be one last lingering effect of my recent illness. I say maybe because  am not sure if it has only happened in the last fortnight, or whether it is just a sign of old age or something. Once upon a time I could wake up as fresh as a daisy (as they say). Within seconds of opening my eyes I was ready to go (in both contexts of the word - and I'll admit one of those contexts was often a bigger priority than the other). It seems that recently that has changed. I open my eyes and almost do the traditional groan. As I get out of bed I feel almost wobbly and unstable as if my legs are stiff and uncontrollable. It seems to be taking a longer time to clear my head and think straight, and for my eyes to become clear of grit and able to focus properly. It may be just a lingering symptom of the virus as this morning it may not have been so bad as the last few mornings.

     I don't feel very good this morning, but this is almost certainly just the result of a hangover !

 Once I can finally get my brain and body in gear the order for the day is more "spring cleaning".  I will need to paay a short visit to Tesco to get some more cleaning stuff. I think I need a slightly abrasive cleaner to polish up the hand basin, and some limescale remover would not go amiss either.

   From a sunny day yesterday to a rainy day today - not such a pleasant idea !  I don't know whether it has anything to do with the weather, or just that I did go to sleep quite early on last night, but I do seem to be up a little earlier than usual. I actually woke up at 04:15 needing a pee, but couldn't get back to sleep. So I came down here to do some writing. I'll be going back to bed again once I have finsished writing.

 I don't feel too bad this morning. There is every indication that my illness has just about finished. The real test will be how much stamina I can muster during the course of the day. If it is like yesterday I will tire very quickly, but then recover equally as quickly.

 My plans for today start with a shopping trip this morning. Principle buys will be some cleaning products, but there will also be the inevitable catfood as well. Later on, around lunchtime, Iain will be picking me up to go into the school. There could be a lunchtime pint involved, but the real target is an early evening drink in The Herne where I hope to meet Ruth and discuss a computer problem with her.

 I don't know what time I will get in this evening, but I am sure that I will not be doing anything productive after a drink in The Herne. I must remember to get some post-drinking food in when I do my shopping this morning.

    I feel just like I have spent the night before in a pub. Actually I did, so I must be fit and healthy apart from a hangover this morning. Despite the mild hangover I think I still feel better than yesterday morning, and then I did not feel too bad. I still get the odd little pain, but mostly I seem to be over my 'flu. The one thing still lacking is energy. Now this is a pity because I have need of a great deal of that over the next 5 or 6 days.

 It is now more or less confirmed that from next Wednesday night Patricia will be coming to stay for a few days. This is both very scary, and also very wonderful. It is scary because this will be the first time anyone has stayed here in over 15 years, and then only for a single overnight stay. That was Jodie who would occasionally crash here after we had been to a late ending gig in London. This will be slightly different in that Patricia will be staying for 2 or 3 (maybe more) nights. So I have an awful amount of preparation work to do. Anyone who knows this place will be aware that it is like a pigsty. Somehow, over the next few days, I ought to try and overcome years of neglect.  Of course I will never manage everything, but I will be trying to work on a few key areas such as the bathroom, living room, and the spare room (also my studio). It will be very weird sharing this place with somebody. I have never really had to do it before. I just hope that we get on with each other as it will be the first time we will have spent and lengthy period of time together. Despite these underlying fears I am very much looking forward to it.

 So the order for today, and the following days is housework, housework and more housework (perhaps I ought to slit my wrists now !). No doubt I will be distracted by other things from time to time, but my experimental work on servers, and other PC related stuff will mainly be on the back burner for some time.

   It is probably just as well that I do not feel too bad this morning. From as early as 09:00, to possibly as late as 13:00 I am expecting a visit from a benefit officer. No problem there except I will have to do a bit of rushing around once I am up and dressed to get the place into a fit state for visitors. As well as a bit of general tidying up I need to air the place. It smells as if some old catfood has gone off in the kitchen, and Nelly has deposited something in her litter tray that is bad enough to make you gag !  (I won't mention what I have just done in my litter tray !!!).

 I think I am up for a bit of rushing around. I have a few kinks in my body leftover from sleep, but those are already straightening out, and some minor pain in my lower belly. I don't know what the latter is - it's probably some organ rotting away. I do feel just a little tired, but I am expecting most of these maladies to be washed away by a hot shower.

 Once I am able to relax a bit, and while waiting for the visitor, I think I will fire up the video editing machine and finally try and finish the little video of the Steam train through Catford Bridge. The train went through nearly two months ago, and I started to edit the video soon after. Since then it has been ignored in favour of slightly more esxciting stuff.

 This afternoon I will either be still editing video, or I may spend some time doing some audio stuff. While this evening I will be going to The Ram for a drink. Just to make a cange I will have sufficient money on me to buy my own first pint. After that I will have to throw myself to the mercy of Iain and Kevin.

    I am having trouble working out how I feel this morning. The problem is trying to distinguish the effects of a heavy sleep from those of the 'flu, or whatever it is I have been suffering from lately. I have a slightly "thick" head, but that is not so unusual for me after I have slept deeply. It usually lasts until I have had a hot shower, and then slowly disappears. I feel a little hungry as well. There is definitely a slightly empty feeling in my stomach. The two combined do mimic some of the symptoms I have suffered as a result of my illness, but are not as severe. In the same way my neck and back feels slightly stiff and sore, but not as bad as I have felt. So once again I put this down to bad sleeping. What I need for that is a nice sensuous massage to get all the tensions out. Any volunteers ? (female only !).

 Despite feeling slighly uncomfortable now I intend to go out and fit the Compaq power supply into the Compaq server today. At least one person has bolstered my theory that some of the control circuitry for that power supply may be on the motherboard, and so it will not run correctly until connected to the motherboard (thanks Steve). Well later this morning I will find out how true that theory may be.

 Iain will probably be picking me up at some time around 10:00 today. Sometime after that the truth will be known. I wil also be able, or should be able to review some of the filming I did last Friday. So far I have no idea how well, or bad, it came out.

 The other signficant thing about today is that at some point there will be beer involved. How much, or for how long I have no idea, but I am sure it will happen.

    In theory I was going to be out today to fit the "repaired" Compaq power supply back into the server to see if it aaactually worked.  That is now unlikely on three counts. Most obvious is that there is no way I could possibly be ready in time to be picked up any minute now. Second is that I had a very rough night and I do not feel up to going out this morning. Lastly the power supply unit stopped working the moment I put the two circuit boards back into their case. Hopefully all that has happened is that in the tight tangle of wires I managed to dislodge the connector that feeds the external power switch and interlock. The wire going to that socket was rather short, and the socket provided very little resistance to pulling that plug off.

 Once I finally feel fit enough to really get up after washing and dressing I will open up that power supply unit again. I have also a DVD player to take a look at. Another major diversion for today will be putting some finishing touches to a succesful installation of Red Hat 6.0 on an ancient 486 powered PC. I was amazed when it all installed last night. More so in that I have a working X based desktop which I did not intent to install. In fact I unticked all the boxes related to any graphical interfaces, but it seems Red Hat knew better than I !

    I'm not sure how I feel this morning. To look at me you would think my lefthand little finger was about to drop off, but that is just the result of an ink jet cartridge refilling experiment that went a little wrong. Underneath the black dye I do have a normal healthy pink coloured little finger ! One improvement over yesterday is that I do not have any significant pains this morning. There are no suspicious aches over vital organs that might have suggested premature heart, kidney, or liver failures. My back still feels a little stiff, and my brain feels slightly tight, but these could just be symptoms of sleeping, and will ease once I have had a hot shower.

 It may just be wound up tension from being so inert lately, but I feel as if I ought to have a load of energy to do something. I also know that this is an illusion, and that if I were to rush around like a loony I would soon tire. So I shall be taking things very easy again today. I will plan for nothing so if I actually do anything it will be a bonus.

     I feel improved this morning. I still have some aches and pains, but not as bad as yesterday. I am also feeling very tired after a bad nights sleep.. Fortunately there is very little I have to do today. The job with the highest priority is to finish the repair on the Compaq power supply unit. Even that is not an extreme priority for today as I could equally well work on it tomorrow. Maybe the real priority is to stagger back from Tesco with some diet cola ( the only stuff that will feed my caffeine addiction as I do not drink coffee or tea).

     I feel both better and worse this morning. My ability to concentrate has improved, and I don't feel so spongy in the head as yesterday. However I do ache a lot a more than yesterday. I have pains in my lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, and probably bacon and onions as well. It feels like I have been stabbed in the back, punched in the stomach, and battered on my shoulders. I am beginning to suspect that I have some sort of illness.

 Today I have been asked to go and do some filming. It is worth some beer to do so. I am not sure if I will be ready in time to be picked up to do it, but I have taken a couple of paracetamol to try and make myself a little more comfortable if it happens.

     I don't feel so good this morning. I think I can trace this back to yesterday which I will describe later. I have two things I want to try and complete today. One is to repair the Compaq power supply unit, and the other is to try and make some progress in setting up my server.  I am not sure I will do either considering how I feel at the moment, but after another spell in bed I will be giving it a go.

    In theory I have most of the day mapped out already. At some time after 09:00 I will be whisked away to Cambridge to assist in the setting up of a small wireless network at some student digs. Apparently an "expert" has tried to make it work already, but failed. The "admistrator" of the network is Ivor's daughter, and so Ivor has been called in to see what he can do, and in turn he has called in Iain and myself. Iain has some experience of setting up wireless networking, Ivor actually uses wireless networking at home, and I have experience with NTL broadband service (who are the provider in this case). Between the three of us we ought to be able to do something with it.

 It's a shame the weather looks pretty grim for a day out, but there should be some beer involved along the way, and maybe a sandwich too. I don't know when I'll get home again, but I doubt it will be very late. If it is early enough, and I feel exceptionally keen, I may continue with a project that is doing stuff even now as I type this. It is my new server based upon an old Compaq PC that uses a 486 CPU. I am installing Red Hat Linux 9 on it. It appears to be going smoothly, but I won't know until it has finished formatting the hard disk. I thought it may be prudent to get it to check for bad blocks while it was formatting the disk. This is equivalent to Windows doing both fdisk and format, and, doing scandisk (with full surface scan turned on) at the same time. Naturally it is taking a little time, but I never expected an overnight job. It started over 12 hours ago, but is is getting close to the end. I am very anxious to get to the end of the instalation to see if it successfuly reboot. If I can get over that hurdle then there s hope that it may all work. It will still takes ages to configure it the way I want it.

     I think I am going to make it ! My next dole money gets paid in on Friday, and I should still have about £15 in my bank account. That should just be enough for some tobacco and to pay the gas bill (I just got a red bill for that so I had better pay it today). Possibly the only fly in the ointment is cat food. It might be a struggle to get that to last until Friday, but I do have £1.30 in loose change - enough for an emegency tin, or two, of cheap cat food.

 The first task for today ought to be what I didn't do yesterday. That is to spend a couple of hours in my studio. After that what I ought to do is to take a look at a very large, very dirty, power supply from a Compaq server. I think there is a fair chance of repairing it. The general rule for switched mode power supplies is that if they just whimper they are repairable, but if they have gone bang then the chances of repairing them without a manual and specialist parts in unlikely. In the case of the Compaq PSU it just whimpers.

 Another project for today is to try and copy a 4GB DVD image from this PC to my video editing PC that has the DVD burner in it. Last night it crashed out after only the first 2GB. This would be one time when I wish I had a 100MB/s  internal network. I doubt it would be 10 times faster, but it would surely be quicker than the current speed and estimated time of 2 hours until completion. It doesn't help that the video editing machine is not normally connected to my network, and is only on a temporary connection using a USB connected network port. The file itself is another operating system that I have downloaded to experiment with. If I finally get the DVD burnt I will be putting a temporary hard drive in the video editing machine and seeing what happens when I try and do an install.

   I have finished doing stuff to the new laptop so I can concentrate on other stuff today. As yet I have no specific plans for what that other stuff may be, but it includes spending some time in my workshop, some time in my studio, or making a start on getting my Linux powered ftp server built. If I go into my workshop I could be looking at a DVD player with no sound from the speaker outputs, or I could be attempting to make a long RJ45 patch cable, and as a final option I could be mutilating laptop batteries ! It is even possible I could do all three. I think I really ought to aim to spend about two hours in my studio, probably this afternoon. That leaves the Linux based ftp server to contemplate. That rather scares me. The learning curve will be very steep as it will probably be a text based install, and after that all the configuration will have to be done in text mode. For the first time I am going to have to come to grips with command line operations. I know, and use a few simple ones quite often, but this will be taking things to new height. It would be a super A+ ego trip if it all works, but I suspect that I will have to ask Steve to ssh (secure shell) into it and sort out the mess. I just hope the man (manual) pages make some sense when I am forced to read them to guide me through some of the process.

    I fed the cats at about 07:00 and went back to bed. Since than I have managed to get a couple more hours sleep. So do I feel better for it ?  I'm not sure. I think I feel a little disorientated than yesterday so I may tackle a few hours in my studio later this afternoon. For this morning I still have a few PC related things I want to do. Chiefly this will be wrapping up the new laptop. It is now running Windows 98SE fairly well, and that is about the most sophisticated thing it will run. My task for this morning is to load some extra software onto it and evaluated how it copes. I may also consider what to do about the battery in it. It appears to be beyond redemption, but I still have a sneaky suspicion that the cells in it may still be OK, and that it is a problem with the charging circuitry that is to blame. I'll probably end up on the internet for the rest of the morning looking for more information about it.

    So much to write, yet so sleepy ! Yesterday finished at 04:30 this morning, but I didn't get to sleep until 05:00, or possibly later.

Today I am not really aiming to do anything much, but I am sure that curiosity will get the better of me and I'll be playing witha laptop, or trying to install Linux on an old box to run a web, and/or an ftp server. This afternoon may find me in my studio, but more likely I will be snoozing.

   I have very little time to write this morning as I could be picked up in as little as an hours time to go and play with an old server, and maybe get a pint or two in at lunchtime.

   Today sees the start of my reduced mobile phone tariff. To save money I should now be on Talk 25. This gives me just 25 minutes of free talktime a month, and 25 free text messages. Be staying on my contract with O2, and not trading in my chance for a phone upgrade I have been credited with enough money to pay for Talk 25 for the next 12 months. In other words my mobile phone bill should be zero provided I keep to under 25 minutes a month. To be on the safe side I made sure I did not use the mobile for more than a minute yesterday. Basically I will give up making calls on that mobile. I was going to go for complete disconnection and use my pay-as-you-go T-Mobile  phone for any important calls. Keeping the O2 account open does mean that the mobile number on my C.V. remains valid.

 I am not sure how today will turn out. I am tempted to do some more computer stuff. I am very close to the point where I could have a toy web server running, but I have spent a lot of time recently stuck behind this, and other, PC screens. I may take a break and spend an hour or two in my workshop, and maybe a few hours in my studio. Meanwhile there is a beige box in the cupboard calling to me . . . .

 Here's some advanced warning about tomorrow. I may go out and play tomorrow. It won't be a money making exercise, but I could get offered a beer or two. If it happens I will be out very early and may not have the time to sit here waffling away as usual.

    I have no specific plans for today. There is a little housework stuff to do, like emptying Nelly's litter tray, but I will be making the rest up as I go along. I was brought a DVD player with internal surround sound amplifiers to look at. Apparently there is no sound from the speakers. I am not sure if I can do any repair to it without a manual, but I may give it a once over to see what is happening.

 Another possibility for today, if I want to give myself a headache, is to build a server of some kind - probably an Apache web server. There is no priority for this as it will be purely an experiment. I  do find the prospect a little daunting because the PC it may be built around is probably too low end to support any graphical interface - certainly not anything heavy like KDE, but it may just manage something like fwm95. The idea of doing a complete installation and configuration is rather scary. I may have been using Linux for quite a few years, but it is very rare, very rare indeed, for me to "get my hands dirty" and fiddle about on the command line. I think that Apache can be remotely configured from a web browser once enough of it is up and running, but it is still rather daunting.

 This whole idea of a server stems from work I did yesterday. . . .

   I have several thing to do today. One of the first is to phone an agency up who claim they may have a job for me. This is probably one of those jobs that is located somewhere beyond the Outer Hebrides (humph !). Another thing is to re-install the software for my "web cam" (actualy a digital camera with added facilities) to try some experiments on, or maybe through, my firewall. Finally there is always the chance that I might make a start at building my new firewall with added orange port ! At some point everything will come to a halt when a visitor arrives. He may bring an amplifier for me to look at. "It must be something simple as I turned it on one morning and it didn't work". "Oh yeah, that's bound to be simple !!". Maybe I could make a couple of quid if I can fix it, but I think it will only be a social call.

  I got up and fed the animals at 05:30, but went back to bed again after I remembered I had been up reading until 01:00.

 If today is like yesterday it would be a good day to go for a walk. For most of yesterday the sky was mostly clear, and although the air was fairly cool, it felt quite warm in the sun. Unfortunately there are not that many interesting places to walk to around here. I could go for a spin around the park, but that doesn't feel very attractive at the moment. So I will potter around and see if I can psych myself up to do some good work in my studio. Failing that there is project I have been putting off for a long while. That is building a new, and improved, firewall. It could be argued that this really ought to be a priority.  My old firewall is working well, but it has insufficient memory to be able to install the latest security updates on it. Besides which I have an idea I want to add an extra port for a server that is accessible from the outside world.

    The first thing on the agenda today is to do the laundry that I would normally have done yesterday. Then I think I ought to go out and buy some cat litter, and probably a few other essentials as well. Once these minor chores are out of the way I must settle down and do some stuff in my studio.

   Another day, another dollar (less). This morning I will be up in my studio, but later in the afternoon it will be occupied by Jodie. One thing of vital importance today is to ring up my bank and get my standing order to Tesco's changed or cancelled for the month. It is due out on Monday and it will not let me change it over the internet.

   The only thing to do today is a little shopping. There were plans to go to The Herne for a drink late afternoon, but I have to cancel that now as once again I am  totally skint. My dole was paid today and I have approx £30 left over after my bills are paid. That has to last for the next fortnight. So all entertainment is off for the next fortnight. My next dole payment will be on the 21st. After that I may be able to afford something, but I'll have to try and conserve most of that for some bill payments on the 4th of November. In theory things could get better after November. Provided I keep my mobile phone calls to a minimum (max 25 minutes of air time a month) I shouldn't have to worry about any charges at all for the phone. Also my direct debits to the water board end for the year sometime in Novemeber or December. I still think it is going to be a long cold winter.

   It looks like I have got up really late, but this is not the case. I got up soon after 07.00 and have lots of stuff since. I've sent e-mails, started a file transfer session, washed and dressed, fed the cats, and put some laundry into the washing machine. I feel quite exhausted now ! That is only a mild exageration. I did not get to sleep until gone 02.00, and the woke a few times in the night. So I am a little lacking in sleep at the moment.

   I have no particular plans for today beyond having a few more e-mails to write. After that I may well end up doing something in my studio unless Jodie wants to use it today. She did mention that she might want to use it towards the end of the week, but was so vague about it I have no idea if it will be today, tomorrow or next week.

   One of the first things I must do today is to wash my hair. For some reason I have not bothered to do it for the last couple of days. This can't go on. It feels awful !

 At the end of the day there should be some drinking to be done in The Ram. Now all I have to do is to fill in the spaces in between. I do have one task to do this morning. That is to either go to the Job Centre, or to phone up their job enquiry point, to ask about three jobs listed on their website. Strangely enough these are not jobs for me, but for Patricia. At least two of them will require her to be UK based, and one of them London based. So I will do my best to help her get one of these jobs. It would be nice if she were back in London.

 Another little diversion for today is to re-install Xandros on my spare PC number 2. This was the PC that I had been experimenting with BeOs on. That experiment was on another hard disk leaving the disks with Xandros installed on them untouched, but yesterday I tried an upgrade to the deluxe version of Xandros. For some reason it corrupted the /home partition. Luckily there was nothing of any significance on it. I think this may have happened because I might have set the disk in the BIOS to "Large" instead of "LBA". It is not easy to tell with hindsight. So I am doing a 100% fresh installation.

  The one thing that dominates today is that I have to go to The Job Centre to sign on at 15:30. So one job for this morning it to have another check out of available jobs. I then print a few possible leads off just to show the Job Centre staff that I really am looking for work. Of course I am really looking for work with some desperation, but it is not always easy to convince that I can find nothing that I really want to do. So all I can do is find similar things, usualy stuff I would like to be able to do, and even could do with the right encouragement, and show them those printouts.

 Another thing to do this morning is to worry about whether Ivor's payment into my bank account made it in time to pay my NTL bill this morning. If it didn't then the cheque I posted yesterday will just be swallowed up in bank charges. That will be a shame because it was the one amount of money that would have given me a little freedom this month.

 Yesterday got off to a fine start, and then sort of dwindled. The first thing I did was to rush to get to The Post Office before 09:00. I don't know why I bothered. The queue was already aabout a hundred yards long. So I gave up trying to pay my cheque directly into the Post Office and posted it to the bank instead. It probably only delays the money becoming available by a day, but I still do not know whether it is possible to pay cheques in directly.

 I came home again and tackled the radio recording I was supposed to make. The first thing was to see if I could unpack the ACE archived file I had downloaded from th radio stations ftp server. It contained guidlines and jingles. I did find an old copy of WinAce that i installed on my PC, but it was not new enough to unpack that archive. So I downloaded a trial version of the latest version of WinAce and that unpacked the archive OK. Generally speaking the jingles sounded crap, and the advert breaks (every 15 minutes !) sounded really tedious. Next I had to open the audio files in Cool Edit to equalise the levels of the different files. Then I had to burn them to CD, and from CD copy them to Mini Disk. The tedium didn't end there because I then named each track on the Mini Disk so I would know what I was playing. Finally I could sit down to record the radio programme. I think I played some excellent music, but the rest did not come out as smoothly as I would want. It is difficult to raise enthusiasm for a radio station you have not heard before, and cannot even hear now because I don't have a Sky Digibox. Not only that but the jingles sounded crap, and the ad breaks every 15 minutes really disrupted the flow.

 I was just tidying up after recording when I got a call from Iain. He and Ivor, in a rather bizzare move, were heading to The Ram to have their lunch. They wondered if I would like to join them. I was actually about to have my breakfast, but I replied "if you're buying, I'm coming !". So I finished what I was doing and headed to the pub for 2 pints of Stella Artois. Being on home ground I did not have to fight the effects of the alcohol and I came out the pub ever so slightly tipsy. With my will power weakend I decided to spend some of my last available cash so In went into Tesco. There were really just two things I wanted. One was a cheap six pack of catfood, and the other was a couple of bottles of Tesco Diet Cola. I ended up buying a couple of packets of "value" peanuts, and a bar of "value" plain chocolate (21p + 21p and 50p respectively) as well. I now have just about £1.43 to my name (and all of that in small change) !

 I got in and slumped in front of the TV expecting to be entertained, but it was all rubbish. Neverthe less I sat there inanely watching some crap while scoffing peanuts and eating chocolate. That just about put a damper on the rest of the day. I found I was not motivated to do anything else. At one point I lay down on the spare bed and did some reading, but I fell asleep and woke up shivering. TV in the evening was not terribly exciting either. So I first tried surfing the seedier side of the internet, but gave up on that too and went to bed and read until 01.00.

    It occurs to me that the reason why the sky may be so grey this morning is that it is earlier than I thought it was. I was intending to get up at around 08.00, but it seems I have woken up earlier than that. Maybe as the morning progresses the sky will lighten up, and maybe the sun will break through. Of course it is possible that it will pour with rain today.

 I think I will have another go at paying in a cheque to my bank account at the Post Office this morning. I am worried that the money Ivor transferred into my account will not be credited before a debit is due tomorrow. I am sure that a cheque paid directly into my account today will not clear in time, but at least I will have tried. I suppose I ought to aim to be cueing up outside the Post Office before 09.00 (when I guess they open).

 Today I will definitely spend some time in my studio. I downloaded all the stuff I need for the radio show I have been asked to make. Listening to the stuff I downloaded does not give me any greater enthusiasm for recording this show. I was not very enthusiastic when I was first talked into it, and the jingles and adverts depress me further. It would help, but not much, if I was being paid to do it. There is certain information, and most of the jingles, that I have nor even read or listened to so far. For some bizarre reason they have been archived in ACE format. I am not even sure I can unpack them on my Windows PC. I certainly can't on this Linux PC.

    What I would like to do today is to go and do a little shopping. It seems that will not be possible for a little while. I only have £6 available in my bank account. That will soon change. There is a payment on it's way that will add £30, but that is to pay for my cable TV/phone/internet. Then I have a cheque for £31 to pay in. I should have tried to do that in the Post Office yesterday, but even if I can pay cheques in there the place was far too crowded. The queue was almost out the door, and onto the street. Still, next Friday, just 5 days away now, my dole money will be paid in.

 So today, one of the few things I can do, and with some urgency now, is to get up into my studio and record some stuff.

   This morning I woke up at 05.30 and got up to feed the cats, and check my e-mail. I also made a start at choosing this months colour scheme. It feels nice and moody. After that I went back to bed and may have slept for an hour, or perhaps even more. I am now up, washed and dressed.

 Today I have started the day like many Saturdays by loading up the washing machine to do my laundry. Once I have finished writing this page, uploading it, and attending to a few more things on the PC, I will be taking a gentle walk to the Post Office sorting office to pick up a parcel. With luck it should be my "care package" from Canada. During that walk, if it doesn't look too crowded, I may enquire in the main Post Office if I can deposit a cheque into my ex-Girobank, Alliance And Leicester bank account. I have just received a dividend payment from my Dixons shares. That was a most welcome surprise when I came home last night.

 Later today I really ought to spend some time in my studio, but I don't know if I feel in the right mood for it. I think I'll just see how I feel after coming back from the sorting office.