Friday 30th March 2007
08:14 BST |
It's a
grey morning. My journey into work was achieved without meeting any
rain, but it looks as if it could start to drizzle at any time. This is
not so dissimilar to yesterday when it was mostly dry, but with
occasional light, drizzly, rain. I seem to recall there was one brief
spell of sunshine, but it must have been so brief that it hardly
registered on my concious.
Last night, after work, I met Aleemah at Victoria and we went
back to my home. It was with some annoyance that we just missed a train
at Blackfriars station by less than a minute. It was a long wait (~ 25
minutes) until the next one, and I regretted we had not gone to London
Bridge like the previous time. I felt very tired last night, but we had
a few marvellous hours together before I escorted Aleemah back to the
Jubilee Line at London Bridge for her long journey home.
When I got home again I sat down to finish off the remains of the
tuna and pasta I had cooked for our dinner. While eating I switched on
the TV and found a programme I had noted as being of potential interest
earlier in the day. It was called "Mummy's War", and was about Carol
Thatcher (daughter of much despised ex-prime minister Margaret
Thatcher) visit to The Falkland Islands, and to Argentina to see how
things were getting on twenty five years after the Falklands war. On
the Falkland Islands she was greeted with great enthusiasm because her
mother is regarded as a national hero there. In Argentina she was
greeted with much hostility by people who believe that Margaret
Thatcher is a war criminal. I did get the impression that Carol
Thatcher was set up to meet the most hostile people. My information,
from a genuine Argentinian national, is that for many ordinary people
in Argentina, losing the war was a good thing. Prior to losing the war
the country was practically run by a military dictatorship, and that
brought many horrors with it. Conscription, with no notice, was bad
enough, and conscripts were not the best treated members of the
Argentine armed forces. The worst horror though were the
"disappearances". An estimated 30,000 people were taken away, tortured,
and then killed by the military. That ended after the fall of the
regime when they lost the war. I have also heard second hand accounts
of Argentinian soldiers, mostly conscripts, who were taken as prisoners
of war by the British Troops. Apparently they considered themselves to
have been very well treated, better than their treatment by their own
side, and for many it was there first taste of hot food and clothing
for a long time.
I am quite looking forward to a lazy weekend. Tonight I don't
think I will be doing anything, but at some point between tonight and
Sunday night, I will probably get a visit from Patricia who still
has mail to be collected. The only fly in the ointment is that I read
on BBC teletext last night that the banks have some sort of problem
with the system used for wage payments, and my pay may not arrive in my
account until Monday, instead of Saturday. It will not be a disaster,
but I will have to be a bit careful with how much I spend until my
wages are definitely in my account. |
Thursday 29th March 2007
06:56 BST |
Once
again I find myself writing this morning blog entry from home. This
morning I can't blame my guts for not being able to leave the house at
my normal time. Today I blame my right ear. I am currently treating my
right ear for a build up of wax by using Otex
drops in it. This causes one minor problem. When the ear is full of the
Otex liquid I can become deaf in that ear. I awoke this morning with my
left ear resting on my pillow, and the right ear blocked with wax and
ear drops. This made me sufficiently insensitive to sound not to hear
my alarm go off.
I did wake up by myself only minutes after my alarm should have
wakened me. Those few minutes should not have mattered, but I also
desperately needed to wash my hair this morning, and washing my hair
added those last vital minutes that meant the difference between
catching my usual train, or not. In fact I still could have made my
usual train if I had thrown caution to the wind and made a dash for it.
Instead I opted to stay safe, make another visit to the toilet, and not
rush around like a madman turning up at the station winded and sweaty.
Last night I had the pleasure of both Kevin's and Iain's company
in the pub. As I walked to the pub I could feel my dinner, which
contained a fair bit of liquid, sloshing around in my stomach. It is an
unsettling feeling, and one that previously only happened after
drinking copious amounts of beer, and then only on some rare occasions.
With the contents of my stomach already feeling very mobile I did not
drink more than one pint of beer last night, although I did have a
couple of double scotchs with ice.
When I got home from the pub I felt sort of strange. Maybe it is
the recent change from GMT to BST that has finally affected me, or
maybe something else, but I did not feel like going straight to bed. So
I watched an old episode of Star Trek, and indulged in some heavy
snacking. I finally went to bed sometime after 10pm, but what ever had
been causing strange effects in my stomach woke me up at 2am. I had to
dash to the toilet where, initially, I added copious amounts of
greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. |
Wednesday 28th March 2007
06:57 BST |
It's too
early to say much about the weather. It still looks fairly grey
outside, but I think that is just mist and fog. There is probably the
potential for another warm day like yesterday. It would be good fortune
if today was as glorious as yesterday when the sun shone all day, and
the temperature rose to very pleasant levels.
I am not at work yet. As I type this I should be approaching
London Bridge station. Instead, I will be getting the 07:30 train from
Catford Bridge, and will be in work approximately thirty minutes late.
The reason for this is that I think I have been overdoing the hot
pepper sauce recently. This morning my guts are very volatile. Things
are settling down now, and I hope I will be OK for my later train.
One question has been asked of my trip on the Orient Express
train last Sunday - "Was it good value for money ?". The answer
has to be no. I suspect that a similar meal in a normal restaurant, and
a first class return to Paddock Wood from Victoria, would probably cost
in the region of £50 to £75. Bearing in mind that the full
price, had we not got the voucher that saved us £50, was
£150, it does sound a bit of a rip off. However it was an
experience, and I guess some experiences have to be paid for. It was a
train that I have always wanted to travel on, and now I can mentally
tick that one off, and consider the next on my wish list.
Tonight I should be drinking in The Ram. Just to make a change it
seems that Kevin will not be able to make it, having gone down with the
'flu. but Iain, for the first time in what seems like weeks, will be
able to make it. |
Tuesday 27th March 2007
08:15 BST |
Normally
I would describe this mornings weather first, but yesterday was so
gorgeous that I have to give that preference. I think the sun was
shining all day, and it did warm up nicely. By the time I left work for
home I could have comfortably travelled in just shirt sleeves. In fact
it may have actually been more comfortable if I had travelled just in
shirt sleeves for parts of the journey home. When I got home, having
called into Tesco for cat food and a few other bits and pieces first, I
sat down at my computer with the back door open to allow the cats to
come and go as they pleased. It was not until I had been sitting still
for about 20 minutes that I felt that having the back door open was
just a little too cool for comfort. Going into the front room after
that felt quite warm. It had received lots of sunshine during the day
(I presume) and was still most pleasant. Later on, after the sun had
gone down, I did need to supplement the remaining heat by putting the
heater on, but it barely needed it.
This morning it felt quite cold inside the house, although it
needed very little effort to warm up the back room. Outside the sky was
very hazy, and it felt quite chilly. The haze is starting to thin out
now, and the sun is almost shining through, but I think it will be
cloudier today. I don't think the clouds will get thick enough to blot
out the sun all the time, but it would be most fortunate to get the
same amount of sunshine as yesterday.
Tonight I need to try and get to bed early. I was up well past my
desired bedtime last night as I finished making up the special page
about the Orient Express trip on Sunday, and then tidying up the indexes, links, etc. |
Monday 26th March 2007
08:21 BST |
Spring
has sprung again. This morning the sky, although slightly hazy, is
still mostly blue, and considering that the clocks have changed to BST
and life is happening an hour earlier than last week, it is also fairly
mild outside. If the sun keeps shining, and it looks as if it could do,
it could end up fairly warm today.
Nothing much happened on Saturday. I had a lazy day in the
extreme after a fairly tiring week at work. Yesterday, Sunday saw me on
my trip on the "Orient Express" train. It was not bad, but it had it's
bad points. I haven't time to write about them now, but I can put up a
couple of pictures.
 |
Here I am dressed up in a way that is rather unfamiliar to me. I
haven't really worn a proper jacket since schooldays. I guess I
probably look like a smart bouncer rather than a smart gentleman, but
it was the best I could manage. |
 |
Here is Aleemah sitting in the fine opulence of carriage "Ibis". (All
carriages that make up the Orient Express train have individual names,
and ours was Ibis - in seats 5 and 6). |
This entry has been edited at 21:14. I have now added a seperate page about Sunday, and you can read it here.
|
Friday 23rd March 2007
06:50 GMT |
|
It is grey, damp and
misty outside. The forecast is for a rainy day. In compensation, the
morning is less chilly, although temperatures are not forecast to rise
much higher than they are now.
I am not at work yet. In
fact I have not even left home, but will be doing so soon. At the last
minute I decided that I just had to wash my hair. It was beginning to
feel quite yucky, and probably looked even worse. Doing that delayed me
by only a few minutes, but it was enough that it would probably have
been futile to attempt to rush to get my usual train. I hope that the
next one runs OK, and that it is not too crowded. Usually it is
unpleasantly crowded as far as Lewisham, where many people alight to
change to The Docklands Light Railway, but I have known times when the
initial overcrowding reaches madness.
Work has been very busy recently. My workmate Stefan is away on a
weeks holiday, and I am having to do what I can to get through some of
his workload as well as mine. It has been leaving me rather tired at
the end of the day (and a string of late nights has not helped either).
Last night I did manage to get to bed quite early, and I was fast
asleep a little before 9pm. I think I feel a little better for it this
morning, but I am still feeling warm and cosy (or something similar)
from my hot shower. In this condition I would dearly love to go back to
bed for another hour.
I am not sure what is happening tonight. It is possible that I
might get a visit from Patricia. I haven't seen her for a couple of
weeks now, and there are two bits of mail for her to collect whenever
she is ready to do so. I am not seeing Aleemah until Sunday. So
tomorrow morning will be less hectic, but there are some important
things to do in preparation for our trip on the Orient Express train on
Sunday (might post some pictures of that on Sunday evening if I have
the time and energy).
One thing of note before I dash for my train. I do not seem to
have received any e-mail for a couple of days. It could be that none
has been sent, or just as likely it is NTL's (Virgin Media's) e-mail
servers need winding up again. If you have sent me any e-mail in the
last 48 hours, and had no response, it might be worth forwarding it to
one of my other e-mail acconts (googlemail seems quite reliable).
|
Thursday 22nd March 2007
08:20 GMT |
The day
started bright and clear. As I left home the sky seemed slightly hazy,
but it was bright, and gave every indication that it would probably by
a sunny morning. Travelling on the train to work, and nearing
Wandsworth Town station, I noticed what looked like snowflakes rushing
past the train windows. Once the train had stopped at the station it
was obvious that it was, indeed, snowing. The snow is not falling that
heavily, but it seems as if there is enough that it should settle. I am
sure that when I left Catford there was a frost, and if it was that
cold the snow should be able to settle easily. Maybe Wandsworth is a
little warmer than Catford, but if it continues to snow like it is, it
could start to settle eventually. That could make for an interesting
journey home tonight................
Last night I did have my roasted vegetable warmed up in cream of
chicken soup (see yesterday). It was not too bad at all. I wouldn't go
as far as saying it was delicious, but it did a good job at warming me
up after getting home to a cold house.
Later on I went to the pub with Kevin where we commiserated over
the 11p rise in a packet of cigarettes in yesterday's budget speech. It
would be damn useful if all the terrorists in this world could stop
blowing up people, and blow up parliament instead (politicians are not
counted as people in this context - and the inhabitant of 11 Downing St
is definitely a cold blooded, sub-human, nicotine user hating, evil
alien who makes a Dalek seem warm and cuddly by comparison).
I think I definitely ought to get myself a doctor. According to
NHS propagandists, as a smoker, they are spending
£20,000,000 or something, on me each and every year. It's about
time I saw some of that money. I think I need a new, and previously
unknown disease that will need some of that 20 million quid to treat
me. As far as I know, my main drain on the NHS over the last ten years
has been in dental work. My teeth were neglected for a long time, and I
have needed a fair amount of work over that time to get them back into
reasonable condition, and compared to the parents of my generation, in
excellent condition. I cannot recall dental cavities, mostly
originating from poor dental hygiene as an adolescent, being blamed on
smoking yet, but I am sure those Nazis in the health service will soon
be using that as an excuse to wrap us in even more cotton wool and
stifle us like new born babies. Everything else has been blamed on
smoking, so why not tooth decay ! |
Wednesday 21st March 2007
08:20 GMT |
Clear
skies overnight gave us a frost this morning. It is bloody cold
outside, but the sun is shining. More cloud is expected later today,
but the longer those clouds hold off, the better chance there is of it
warming up. The forecast high is only 7° C, but I have hopes it may
do better than that.
My plans were changed last night when I received a call from
Aleemah. Her plans had changed and she wondered if I fancied a drink
after work. That didn't really fit in with my plans for an early night,
but I couldn't resist such an invitation. So we met at Victoria station
at our usual time and place, and went into the Wetherspoons pub for
three pints of Stella Artois. After the drink we went shopping for a
new jacket for me. We eventually found one that both felt
comfortable, and Aleemah says looked good on me. It was very cold
outside last night, and by the time we got back to the station, with
the remains of three pints sloshing around inside me, I was close
to having an accident as I rushed to the toilets there !
I got home feeling cold, tired, hungry, and very slightly drunk.
I had had very little to eat all day, but I soon made up for that with
a strange variety of foods. For starters I had the last three cold
empenadas (made the night before). I hoped they would keep me going
long enough to roast some mixed vegetables, but they didn't. So I fried
some slightly posh hot dog sausages in a smidgin of olive oil, and
warmed up some tinned bombay potatoes in the same pan. You might think
that was a strange combination, and it was ! The two hardly
complimented each other, but it was warm and edible, and very
convenient. All this time my vegetables were still roasting, and I did
have a few once they were well cooked, but the majority I will have
tonight. Perhaps I'll reheat them in something like chicken soup.
My final action before going to bed was to watch a TV programme
about Ulrika Johnson and her sex addiction. I had noticed it in the
listings earlier in the day, and thought it might be interesting, but
promptly forgot about it as I considered it to be on too late when I
wanted to get to bed early. Having rediscovered it, I started watching
it. I did find it interesting and watched it through to the end. I then
went to bed, and slept quickly and solidly until waking up a mere
minute before my alarm went off.
Today will be busy at work. My workmate is off on holiday until
next Tuesday, and I will have to work extra hard to keep up with the
demands on our skills. After drinking last night I am very slightly
less keen on a drink tonight, but being a Wednesday, if Kevin (or Iain)
is around, I will have little hesitation in going for another drink. |
Tuesday 20th March 2007
08:10 GMT |
Cold,
grey, wet, and miserable would adequately sum up this mornings weather.
I have no idea what the temperature actually is, but it feels colder
than it has for some time, maybe weeks. The wind, while not very
strong, definitely adds an edge to the cold as well.
Yesterday's weather was mighty peculiar at times. A lot of the
morning was just grey with intermittent rain, but as the day progressed
we had simultaneous bright sunshine, thunder and snow. At one point,
going out onto the fire escape for a fag break, I was bathed in warm
sunshine from my right, while to my left the sky was as black as night.
The snow we had, and I am pretty certain it was snow rather than sleet
or hail, did briefly settle on some walls and cars, but it had melted
away within ten minutes. By the time I left work, to go home, the sky
started to clear rapidly. From Clapham Junction to Catford it was
bright, sunny, and the entire sky seemed a gorgeous blue. I needed to
visit Tesco on my way home, and even though I only spent ten minutes in
there I found the weather had, once again, totally changed. The sky was
now very clouded, and rain seemed likely. Fortunately, I reached home
before any rain fell.
When I got home I first checked my second, downstairs PC. This
was the one where I had started re-arranging the hard disk partitions
on Sunday afternoon. It still had not finished when I first walked
through the door, and I was very worried that the whole procedure had
failed. Then a few minutes later Partition Magic announced it had
finished, and that the computer would need to be rebooted before the
new partition sizes would become available. Holding my breath, I
clicked on YES (I would like to restart) and waited. I was rewarded
with a perfectly working installation of Windows 2000, and my two
resized partitions working perfectly.
I had a similar moment of joy when I investigated a DVD+R disk
that had been recorded in my "set top box" DVD TV recorder. The disk
had failed during the "finalise" operation that writes the extra bits
on the disk to make it compatible with other DVD players. My DVD
recorder said "Disk Error" when I tried to play it after finalising it
(although it did play OK before the finalising procedure). Checking the
disk on a PC I found I could read the standard DVD video disk file
structure. So I copied the files to the hard disk (now with plenty of
space after my 24 hour+ resizing operation), and then burnt them onto a
new DVD disk using the PC's software. I was most happy to find that the
disk played perfectly, and my recordings had been saved.
Tonight I think I will be playing PC's or watching TV, but I
really must get an early night in. I have been going to bed late for
the last few days, and I seem to keep waking up earlier than I need to.
With longer hours of daylight, now that we are slowly heading towards
summer, I do need less sleep, but I do feel a little tired this morning.
Yesterday morning I noticed that one of the huge screens at the
Waterloo Eurostar terminal had crashed (or something) leaving a message
from Windows on the screen. This screen is BIG. It's maybe something
like a 72" diagonal, but that's only a guess. I am not even sure what
technology it uses, but I suspect, from the coarseness of the pixels,
that it an LED matrix. With the lack of fine resolution of the display,
and the limitations of my mobile phone camera, I'll never know exactly
what it said. I was in a bit of a rush to catch my train, and I made my
first priority taking the picture rather than reading what the message
said. With the picture taken I rushed off to board my train without
reading the message. It is certainly the biggest screen I have ever
seen displaying a Windows error message, and it must have been a bit
embarrassing for the snooty operators of Eurostar.
Clicking the image takes you to a bigger image, but the resolution is still not good enough to read what the error message is. |
Monday 19th March 2007
08:18 GMT |
The
temperature dropped fairly low last night, but not low enough for a
frost, and fortunately not low enough for overnight rain to become
snow. It is a rather grotty start to the day. It is cold and wet,
although there was only the very lightest of rain for the first minute,
or two, when I left home this morning. As my train left London Bridge
there was one brief flash of glorious sunshine. It only lasted a
minute, and maybe that will be the only sunshine to be seen today. The
weather forecast predicts that some sleet or snow could fall somewhere
over London today, with North London being the more favoured prediction
for any snow.
Yesterday was a bit of an anticlimax after Saturday. It took
until early afternoon before I got around to doing anything
constructive. Even then I did not achieve much. I re-arranged things in
my second downstairs PC, but did not get around to actually fitting the
new hard disk that will be going in it. I decided that to make more
room on the "C" drive I would delete a mostly redundant Linux
installation that was consuming 50GB of disk space. Deleting the Linux partitions was easy, as was fixing the Master Boot Record
to only boot Windows. The next bit was rather long winded, and in fact
is still going on even now. I had 50GB now free on the disk, and two
existing partitions. I wanted to share the extra free space between
those two partitions. That meant moving the second partition, and then
extending it to allow space to extend the first partition. All this
clever stuff is handled by a stand alone program called Partition Magic.
The problem is that it is rather slow. The extent of the slowness can
only be appreciated by knowing that I started the process late
yesterday afternoon (say 4pm), and when I left home at 06:45 the
process had only managed 63% of the total. I hope that it is finished
by the time I get home. More than that, I hope that once it has
finished I will have two working partitions, and not one corrupted hard
disk. Should that disaster happen, I will not have lost anything too
important, but it will be irksome to have to go through Installing
Windows, and all the other programs all over again.
I only have one thing planned for tonight, and that is the obvious job of putting my computer back together again. |
Sunday 18th March 2007
08:37 GMT |
The day
has started tolerably well. There is a fair amount of cloud, but it is
broken, and the sun can peep through now and then. The clouds have kept
some of the heat in from yesterday, and it is somewhere between cool
and mild. The biggest problem with the temperature is the wind. It is
quite breezy outside, and the wind feels very cool.
Yesterday day turned out to be a rather splendid day. I met
Aleemah a few minutes later than I should have due to being held at a
red signal outside London Bridge station for about five minutes. We
were soon back on a train to Charlton station where we set out on the
fifteen minute walk to the Thames Barrier. At this time the sky was
still cloudy, and I worried that it might even rain.
At the end of the road leading down to the Thames Barrier stands a
derelict pub. I took this picture of one of the signs on a wall. It is
just another reminder of a fast fading past. Clicking on the picture
links to a high resolution image.
 Unfortunately,
due to a camera malfunction, I did not take any pictures of the barrier
itself, but I did take this picture of the view along the river with
the Millenium Dome at North Greenwich, and the skyscrapers of Canary
Wharf in the background. Once again, clicking on the picture links to a
high resolution image.
Having seen the sites outside, we went into the café where
Aleemah had a coffee, and where we bought "tickets" to visit the
information centre. I say we bought tickets, but these were imaginary
tickets. What actually happens is that the café staff buzz
you through a door once you have paid the £2 admission charge. I
have to say that the information centre is not exactly wonderful. This
is not really surprising with hindsight. It only deals with the Thames
Barrier which does not have a very long history. Most of the exhibits
are to do with the river itself, but there is a working model of one of
the barrier gates itself. That is well constructed, and demonstrates
the principles well. There is also a mini cinema showing a ten minute
promotional clip about the building of the barrier. The film itself is
of appalling quality. It looks, at least in some parts, like a second
generation VHS tape. I would hazard a guess that all the original film was shot on 16mm cine film.
If they could find the original of that and re-edit it to transfer to a
digital video format it could look quite spectacular. The wonderful
thing about the film, as shown, was it was made in the 1980's when rock
still ruled. Some of the sound track, which is far better quality than
the visuals, could almost be mistaken for a very slightly toned down Black Sabbath !
Our visit to the information centre did not take long, but while
we were in there a transformation of the weather took place. The sky
had almost cleared and we were bathed in fairly warm sunshine. The
breeze also felt warm.
After we left the Thames Barrier, Aleemah suggested that she
would like to visit Lewisham, and that we should do it the unpleasant
way by taking the 180 bus. After a ten minute wait, and nearly thirty
minutes on a crowded bus, we arrived in Lewisham. We had a look around
the Lewisham shopping centre, and some of the shops on the high street.
We even ventured into a few shops to see if they had any jackets that
would fit me. I would like an almost smart looking jacket for the
luncheon trip that Aleemah and I will be taking on the Orient Express
train next Sunday. We did eventually find one shop that had a jacket
big enough for me, but it was part of a suit and was well past my
budget. It is looking as if I will be slightly more casually dressed
than I wanted to be for this trip next Sunday (but I'll still have on a
shirt and tie with black trousers and shoes). We are due for a cold
spell of weather starting tomorrow (or maybe even later today), but if
I were extremely lucky we could get back to a nice warm spring day by
next Sunday. In which case I will just omit to wear a jacket.
 After
visiting Lewisham we both came back here to watch a DVD, have an
intensive cuddle, and have some dinner. For dinner I cooked a
chickenless paella. Rather surprisingly for a vegetarian, Aleemah does
eat seafood. I made the paella with Tesco's (alleged) genuine Spanish
paella rice, and seasoned it with genuine "Preperado Paella" mixed
spices brought from Spain by Patricia on one of her visits to Spain
last year. It turned out rather well, and would have been perfect if
only I had cooked the rice for a few minutes longer (some grains were
just very slightly undercooked).
After I had accompanied Aleemah back to London Bridge I came home
and finished off the rest of the paella, and for good measure, had a
couple of rolls too. It had been a rather wonderful day, and definitely
one where I feel Aleemah and are moving ever closer to each other.
Today I can be as lazy as I want. I don't think I'll be seeing
anybody. What I ought to do is to see if I can get the blogging
software, Wordpress, working on my server, but I think that if I do
anything it is likely to be some upgrading of my second downstairs PC
(which being the most powerful PC, is mainly used for multimedia stuff). |
Saturday 17th March 2007
08:41 GMT |
This
morning has started bright, but with no sunshine. The sky is quite
cloudy, but the forecast is for the clouds to break up leaving a sunny
afternoon. It could be one of the last for a few days. The long range
forecast suggests that by Monday we will be in the grip of winter
again. The forecasters say that we could even see a sprinkle of snow,
but maybe not quite this far south of London. Today should be fairly
mild, although it does feel a bit on the cool side right now.
Last night I cooked my sausage and onion empanadas. They were
nice, but maybe not as nice as I had hoped for. Whether it was all the
onion, or maybe just the quantity (I cooked enough to feed Patricia as
well, in case she visited), or maybe it was something else, but my day
started very early with a dash to the toilet at 3am, and then 3 more
times, this morning. Hopefully I am clear of that particular problem
now. It would make the rest of today very awkward.
Patricia did not visit me last night so I had a delightfully lazy
evening. Apart from the cooking, the only constructive thing I did was
to do a bag full of washing in the washing machine. If I really wanted
to brag about last nights achievements I could add that I also did a
sinkful of washing up. The rest of my evening was spent either watching
TV or reading.
Today I meet up with Aleemah, at midday, and we are off to see
the Thames Barrier. If there is time we might also visit the Brunel
Engine House museum at Rotherhithe. It is even possible we may come
back here for a cuddle, but that will be a spur of the moment thing if
it happens.
I have made mention of the trains I use to get to and from work. This
is a picture of a class 455 train waiting at platform 18, Waterloo
station. It is still in the original South West Trains livery.
Inside it still has the ultra uncomfortable original seats, and the
upholstry is in original South West Train colours. I can't remember
when I took these pictures on my "O² Ice" camera phone, but I am
sure it was within the last fortnight. |
Friday 16th March 2007
08:04 GMT |
The
morning has started with glorious sunshine, but it does seem chillier
than yesterday morning. There was signs that there had been some
overnight rain when I left the house. The ground seemed very damp, and
at least one car had what looked like a splattering or rain, although
it could have just been heavy dew.
I called in to Mercado Argentino
before leaving work yesterday. I wanted to buy some empanada dough to
make some empanadas tonight, and/or tomorrow. I discovered that as well
as selling the dough to make up your own empanadas, they now stock them
ready made imported directly from Argentina. So as well as the dough, I
bought three ready made ones for dinner last night. They were pleasant
enough, but nearly as good as the ones I make myself (which have
Patricia's Argentinian seal of approval !).
Tonight I may make some rather special empanadas. Maybe unusual
would be a better description than special. I think I am going to fill
them with chopped up beef sausages and fried onion (and maybe some
other stuff too).
I did describe empanadas some months ago, but there is far more info here. In English terms, think of it as like a Cornish pasty with a non-traditional filling.
Apart from eating and watching an episode (or was it two
?) of original Star Trek, I did very little until getting close to bed
time. At this rather irrational time I decided to see if I could
install Wordpress
on my server. In fact I did install it, or at least part of it, but
fell almost at the first hurdle. For some reason, that I have yet to
establish, I seem unable to set up the Mysql
database. I am going into unexplored territory here and may well be
seeking advice from my Linux guru soon (sorry Steve !). Maybe some
research will come up with the answers I need, but that will have to
wait until I have some free time. That could be tonight, but maybe not,
and it is highly unlikely to be tomorrow when I should be seeing
Aleemah. If I do manage to get Wordpress working, and more importantly,
if I like it, I may well change the whole format of this blog. It would
be sort of cool to do that from the beginning of April. So there is no
rush just yet. |
Thursday 15th March 2007
08:33 GMT |
The sun
was late in appearing this morning. When I left home the sky was about
50% covered by clouds. Unfortunately one, or other, of the clouds kept
the sun hidden until I reached Waterloo East station on my way into
work. Since then it has been fairly sunny. Maybe, if I am lucky, the
sun will melt away more of the clouds and I will be left with a
glorious sunny day. It is still fairly cool outside, but hopefully it
will warm up as the day progresses, as it did yesterday.
Yesterday did warm up nicely. Outside on the fire escape, aided
by sun warmed brickwork, it was delightful as I went for my fag breaks.
Last night I met Kevin for a pint (actually three) in The Ram.
Before going out I had a fairly healthy meal of assorted tinned fish
(mainly mackerel), some olives, some small onions pickled in raspberry
wine vinegar, and finally two almost, but not quite, stale bagels. It
was a bit of a heavy meal, but hopefully not too heavy in calories and
sugar. When I got home from the pub I was very, very, tempted to have a
snack, but somehow managed to resist the temptation. Tonight may be
different. I am not going out, nor seeing anyone, so it will be a
battle of the wills between me and the fridge ! My eating tonight will
get off to a bad start because I have a pizza in the fridge (not
freezer) that must be at least up to it's "use by" date, if not well
past it. I refuse to waste it. So dinner tonight is pizza laden with
oily, high calorie, cheese. |
Wednesday 14th March 2007
08:15 GMT |
It must
be spring. Wandsworth appears to be besieged by joggers out in their
shorts and trainers. Some of the women joggers are rather enchanting in
this mornings bright sunshine. It is still rather cool out, but if the
sun stays out, as it appears it may well do, it will soon warm up into
a most beautiful day.
Yesterday was a good day. After a disappointing grey start, the
sun broke through, and the rest of the day was glorious. It
stayed warm, or at least mild, into the early evening. When I arrived
home with Aleemah I did not bother to put any heating on, and as far as
I know we were both comfortable, cuddled up with each other, for the
time we were together. In fact by the time we left for me to escort
Aleemah back to London Bridge tube station I was feeling quite warm. It
was a most successful experiment to go back to my place after work, and
one that I think will become increasingly common.
Tonight I may be out drinking with Kevin, although I fear there
is some doubt as to whether he will be available (but I may be
confusing this week with last week). It would probably be both good and
bad to have a drink tonight. Last night, with Aleemah's company to
distract me I managed to eat quite healthily. This morning I do feel I
have more energy than of late. It would be nice to do the same tonight.
If I am out of the house I will obviously not be able to "raid the
larder", but at the same time the booze will give me a fierce appetite
that is hard to resist. Perhaps tonight some sort of will power is
called for ! |
Tuesday 13th March 2007
08:09 GMT |
After
yesterday's beautiful start, it is a disappointment to write that this
morning has started off overcast. It is still dry, and not too cool. I
suspect much of the greyness is just high mist that will burn off
later. The forecast is for a bright sunny afternoon. Maybe it will be
the reverse of yesterday when it was sunny up to later afternoon. When
I left work it was already very hazy, and my journey home did not
excite me as much as it could have.
Last night, for some unknown reason, I pigged out. I knew I would
have a very filling, and rather fatty, meal using up the
leftovers from Sunday's roast, but I did not really intend to go beyond
that. Perhaps it was stress born of impatience to see Aleemah tonight,
or maybe it was just a change in the weather, but I followed my large
unhealthy (but delicious) dinner by not one (or preferably, none)
, but two chocolate ice cream bars (I should never have bought the
wretched things in the first place, but they were on a buy one, get one
free offer). To compound all these errors I got the munchies while
watching TV (actually a couple of old episodes of Star Trek [the
original generation]), and committed the sin of eating a packet of
peanuts. I went to bed feeling rather bloated, and uncomfortable.
Going to bed in such a state made for a rough night, and I
started waking up much too early. I woke at 4am, but managed to get
back to some sort of broken sleep until 5am when I gave in and got up.
Surprisingly, unlike Sunday night, I did not seem to wake up with any
particular aches and pains (beyond the normal desire to go to the
toilet). After a lack of sleep, and possibly the remnants of feeling
full and bloated, I think I am going to enjoy being with Aleemah less
than I should. I will enjoy her company a lot regardless of anything
else, but it would be so much better if I was feeling fit enough to
take on the world (as they say). The one saving grace in all this, is
that yesterday I went back on the regime of only eating fruit until I
get home again. So today I will only have nibbled on fruit when I see
Aleemah, and although I am going to cook her some dinner, I will not be
eating, or eating very little, until I am back home again after seeing
her onto her tube train home.Maybe even then I will attempt not to over
do it. |
Monday 12th March 2007
08:09 GMT |
It's
another beautiful morning. The sky is blue, the sun is shining, and it
is only a little short on being warm outside. In direct sunlight,
sheltered from the wind, it is actually warm, but the light breeze does
carry any heat way fairly quickly.
Yesterday the sun shone for most of the day, and the temperature
rose to something like 15 - 17° C. That is pretty good for mid
March, and the forecast for today is to reach at least the same
temperature, and probably exceed it. Mid afternoon, yesterday, I
strolled out to the pub to meet up with Kevin for a pint (or three as
it turned out). I didn't bother to put a coat on and I was totally
comfortable in the mild air. Even when I was going home, with the sun
past it's best, it was still very pleasant to walk with no more than a
T-shirt on (my upper body).
One minor problem with when I met Kevin was that the original
plan was to meet an hour earlier than we did. Based upon those original
timings I put a roast dinner in the oven to cook, and then be ready for
me when I got home. I actually got home two hours later than my
original estimate. My roast potatoes were almost like crisps, but the
organic roast lamb was delicious and very tender, and the roast
parsnips were deliciously caramelised where they weren't hidden under
the meat. I thoroughly enjoyed that meal.
The organic lamb was a bit of a bargain. Normally I would not pay
the extra to buy organic, but this piece was sitting on the "reduced
price" counter looking very slightly grey, and at about half price. The
looking grey did not bother me. In fact it was almost a good sign that
the meat had had time to mature a bit. My decision certainly paid off.
with the extra cooking it was the best bit of lamb I have had for a
long time.
Another unfortunate thing in coming back from the pub so late was
that it spoiled my idea of having a long satisfying snooze after
dinner. It felt too late in the day to lie down and sleep. So I stayed
up, watched some more original Star Trek episodes, and generally
pottered around. With hindsight it may have been wise not to attempt to
sleep. By early evening I felt like I was suffering from a mild
hangover. It was nothing too painful, and mostly ignorable, but I know
that had I woken up to that I would have felt terrible.
I neglected to confess that I had two chocolate ice cream bars
for my pudding. Those, plus the good dinner, and booze, left me feeling
rather warm when I went to bed. Of course the mild weather contributed
to that as well. It seemed too hot to be under the duvet, and only just
very slightly too cool to be not under it. I opted to be half under,
and half covered by the duvet. Unfortunately I fell asleep like that
and this morning I have a very stiff neck and right shoulder. It feels
like I slept with my neck at right angles to the world. Oddly enough my
usual aches and pains seem hardly noticeable. No doubt as the day wears
on my neck will improve, but for now it is a little unpleasant.
I did have some good news from Aleemah yesterday. After not being
able to see me on Saturday, we will be meeting up tomorrow night. Even
better than that, is that we are not going to be just sitting in the
Victoria Wetherspoons just chatting for a few hours. I suggested that
she may like to come back to my place for a couple of hours. I was a
tiny bit surprised, but very happy that she agreed so readily. So now I
look forward to tomorrow evening. |
Sunday 11th March 2007
07:54 GMT |
Like
yesterday, the day has dawned bright and sunny. There is plenty of blue
sky visible, and no red tint on the eastern horizon like yesterday.
Despite the apparent "red sky in the morning"
yesterday, it did remain fine all day. I wouldn't like to attempt to
estimate the hours of sunshine yesterday, but it must have been at
least five. It did warm up after a cold start, and hopefully the same
will happen today. Yesterday it only managed to warm from chilly to
cool, but if the sun stays out for a lot of today it might possibly
even reach "slightly warm".
All my rushing around yesterday came to nought. Just after 8am I
had a text message from Aleemah telling me she wasn't well, and
wouldn't be going out. This was a bit of a blow after looking forward
to seeing her so much. It left me with a lot of spare time on my hands.
I should have used that time to do several household chores, but chose
to just be lazy. For the rest of the day I divided my time between
reading, snoozing, and watching old episodes of Star Trek (the original
series). There were a few variations to that. I did go out to the
building society to deposit a cheque, and did some minor shopping on
the way home. In the afternoon I spoke to Aleemah for about an hour.
She was feeling better by then, but not best, and I wouldn't have
expected her to make the long journey over here to meet up with me (and
it was really too late in the day, anyway). It is a pity that we do not
live much closer to each other. The distance between my bit of South
London, and her bit of North London is not that far when measured in
miles, but crossing London is a slow process. With the most favourable
connections it is hard to get the time down to less than an hour, and
the average is usually a lot more than that.
There is no chance of seeing Aleemah today. She is busy, as is
Patricia who might possibly have visited today. There is 50:50 chance
that I will be having a lunchtime pint with Kevin. I sort of fancy
that. If I could get some dinner cooking in the oven, while out
drinking, I could come home, eat my dinner, and then snooze for the
rest of the afternoon - luxury ! There is one flaw in that argument. I
don't have anything suitable for slow cooking in the oven. This means
that I ought to go out and do some shopping in the morning, but I was
also thinking it would be convenient to pop into Tesco as I passed it
on the way back from the pub. Like yesterday, I think the best
thing to do is to make up the day as it happens. |
Saturday 10th March 2007
06:50 GMT |
The day
appears to have started bright and dry, although rather chilly. It's a
promising start, and I hope it can keep it up. There does seem to be a
bit of a pink tint to the eastern sky, and that suggests that more
cloud is on the way. Provided the cloud remains broken, and allows some
sunshine through, it should mean that my afternoon out with Aleemah
should be a pleasant one.
We had a meeting at work yesterday that did not finish until gone
5pm. I was not able to get away from work until 5:15pm - an hour and a
quarter after my usual home time. By the time I actually got home,
going via tesco for a bit of shopping, the sky was dark, and the
stars were out.This was a bit of a blow after feeling so good about the
lengthening days, and enjoying my evening commute in daylight (and even
sunshine on a couple of occasions). My timekeeping at work has been
atrocious this last week. On Monday I was an hour late into work, and
made up some of the lost time by staying on an extra forty five
minutes. To make up the rest of the time I intended to stay just
fifteen minutes late on Tuesday, but actually stayed thirty five
minutes. Then yesterday I stayed an extra hour and fifteen minutes. I
feel sort of ashamed of myself when my normal modus operandi
is to attempt to get away with working less time than I have to. I must
liking working for the company, or something, to submit to this kind of
thing. There is also another strange anomoly in working for the company
that goes against the grain. While it is normal, or at least common, to
"borrow" (a euphemism
for steal) the odd item from your employers, I seem to have got it
round the wrong way. I actually take stuff from home to use at work.
(Most recently a bank of four push button switches I am going to use in
a piece of test equipment, that seem to be unavailable in all the
suppliers catalogues I have checked).
After getting home late last night, I felt too tired to bother
with any housework. This means that I really should be rushing around
like the proverbial blue arsed fly doing lots of housework this
morning. I have about four hours now before I leave to meet Aleemah at
London Bridge, and I am not even up and dressed yet. I guess that
Allemah may well be seeing this place in it's more natural state when
we come back here later on ! |
Friday 9th March 2007
08:18 GMT |
The
weather has taken a step backwards. This morning I was greeted by a
very wet road when I left the house. At some point there had obviously
been a fair amount of rain, but it did not rain all the time I was
commuting to work. In fact the clouds seem to be breaking up, and more
and more blue patches of sky are appearing. There has even been some
patchy sunshine. It would be most pleasant if the process continued and
we had a day like yesterday. It was most definitely feeling very warm
for a lot of yesterday, and standing outside having a fag in hot
sunshine was most definitely a good thing.
I had a fairly good day at work, and a trouble free commute home,
but didn't really get up to much yesterday. During the course of the
evening I spoke to Aleemah, and confirmed that I would be meeting up
with her tomorrow. If the weather seems reasonably OK we are meeting
earlier than on the more recent Saturday's, and are going to visit The Thames Barrier
(I was going to give a link to The Environment Agency's website,
but that seems to generate an irritating pop-up message. Although I
have no idea what it is because Firefox blocked it - like any well behaved browser should).
I am feeling the desire to do a computer upgrade. Ideally I would
like the PC in my bedroom to be a little faster, but it seems no one is
dumping any computers in my local neighbourhood. The PC in my bedroom
was one I found dumped in the road close to my house. It is not a bad
box, but I am feeling like I ought to be moving ahead of sub 500MHz
processors these days. With the minimum spec for Windows Vista now
around a 30GHz processor and 400 TB of ram, it is about time people
started dumping their 1GHz machines. |
Thursday 8th March 2007
08:20 GMT |
The
promised fresh spring morning has arrived. It was chilly, almost
frosty, when I left home, but now it is beginning to warm up thanks to
clear blue skies and bright sunshine. If I had anything to moan about
(weatherwise - rant coming up later) it is that the sun is so low in
the sky that it is often dazzling. However that is a small price to pay
for making the start of the day look wonderful. I don't know if the
rest of the day will be so good, but it is a fine start.
Yesterday was pretty uneventful apart from two things. Firstly I
did not get to the pub last night. This was a shame, but of no great
bother. It is all worked around work commitments, and I go when I can,
and don't when I can't. Last night Kevin was either working late, or
was late getting back to Catford after having to work in some distant
location.
The other event yesterday was one that made my blood boil. It was
an article in yesterday's Metro reminding us of that those pathetic
wimps in Whitehall have once again given in to the health and safety
police, and medical thugs, to include company cars in the definition of
a workplace where smoking is to be forbidden. I haven't got a company
car, and even if I had I can't drive, and have no licence to even
attempt it. Even so it still makes me mad. It is no surprise that the
government can't stand up to America when it comes to military
decisions when it can't even stand up to a minority of misguided do
gooders. Of course smoking kills many people, but so what, it doesn't
kill everybody. We are breeding a race of wimps who can't even look at
fresh air without dying of asthma. I think I count myself lucky that I
am from the last generation that could play in muck and shit as a kid,
survive comfy, intimate, friendly living rooms with a family that
included several smokers, and survive with few illnesses to five
sevenths of a lifetime, and still feel that I can probably survive
another year or two. All the wimps, and medical defects from my
original peer group will have already died off many years ago. Sad for
some, but for the rest of us we should be able to enjoy the glory days
of getting this far without fear of the front door being forced open in
the middle of the night by some doctor thug who wants to forcibly
imprison us while they convert a few years left of happiness into a few
years +2 of sheer unending misery. And I thought doctors had
compassion. At first I thought it was just this once great country
going down the toilet, but now I fear that the fear and totalitarianism is spreading across the face of the whole planet. Stop the world, I want to get off. |
Wednesday 7th March 2007
08:14 GMT |
This
mornings paper (The Metro) suggested it would be a fine spring morning,
but I would suggest they got it wrong ! There was more rain overnight,
and evidence that there had been some heavyish rain just before I left
home for work. As I walked to the station there was still some very
light, practically ignorable, rain. Although it was enough to speckle
my glasses with rain drops.It is reasonably bright outside now, but
there do not seem to be any blue patches of sky visible right now.
Hopefully the clouds will break up soon, and we will see some sunshine.
Yesterday, late in the morning, it was glorious outside. While having a
fag outside on the fire escape, I was standing in bright strong
sunshine, and it was carrying some welcome warmth. While the wind had
dropped, the sun felt really quite hot as it fell on my dark blue
shirt. For a brief moment it could almost have been a summers day.
On Monday night I stayed forty five minute late at work to
partially make up for the hour I came in late in the morning. Last
night I intended to stay just fifteen minutes later to completely make
up the lost hour. It didn't seem to work like that though. I found I
stayed an extra thirty five minutes. So in theory the company owes me
twenty minutes. Well, I can live with that. It just helps the give and
take that seems to happen here. I'll be wanting to get away sharply, or
even slightly early, tomorrow night if I am going to meet Aleemah after
work (which is not certain as yet). Leaving when I did last night, was
(accidently) fairly well timed for a series of smooth connections
between buses and trains. I arrived at Clapham Junction with enough
time for a leisurely stroll to platform seven, and had enough time to
finish my fag without rushing, before boarding a fast train to
Waterloo. Sadly, the train was nothing exotic. It was just an ordinary
South West Train class 450, but it arrived at Waterloo in time for an
unhurried walk over to platform A on Waterloo East station to catch the
17:17 Hayes train which is fast to Ladywell after calling at London
Bridge (the next stop after Ladywell is Catford Bridge - my home
destination).
I haven't moaned about feeling rough, or aching, in the morning
for some time now. The worst aches disappeared some time ago, but I
still do feel pretty creaky until I have had a hot shower in the
morning. My lower back continues to be "fragile" but I have not
experienced any difficult pain for maybe a couple of weeks now,
although I do still get the occasional twinge. My main problem this
morning is my underpants ! I seem to have put on a air with either weak
elastic, or I have put on sufficient weight that they no longer grip in
the right places. Superficially they feel very comfortable, but after a
bit of walking, exacerbated by sitting down and getting up again, they
do have this nasty habit of slipping down under my bum cheeks. This is
very slightly uncomfortable, and is probably embarrassingly noticeable.
It is certainly embarrassing to reach down inside my trousers to hoist
them up again !
Last night I put the finishing touches to the upstairs, front
bedroom, PC - if ever there is such a thing as reaching the ultimate
configuration of a PC. Tonight I am looking forward to a couple of
pints in The Ram with Kevin, and Iain if he can make it tonight. If
that does not happen I may well start to upgrade my downstairs, back
room, PC number two. Once upon a time this was optimised for video
editing, but over the last year it has become clogged and cluttered. I
think I will back up as much as possible on it, and do a brand new
fresh installation. At the same time I will fit a brand new 320GB
ATA133 hard disk onto one of the raid controller channels (these are
faster than the normal IDE channels on the motherboard). It should all
be good fun in a masochistic sort of way, but I think I would prefer a
drink tonight, and leave the PC stuff for a quiet and boring Sunday. |
Tuesday 6th March 2007
08:29 GMT |
It seems to me we are getting March winds and
April showers all together. Overnight there was a lot of rain
accompanied by very gusty winds. At one point it must have been very
bad and influenced my dreams. I dreamt that I was in a room where the
wind was actually bending a metal frame and glass door. Strangely, the
glass didn't break or crack despite being bent at an alarming angle. It
was very overcast, but dry, when I left for work. At Waterloo East
Station it was pelting with rain, but at Wandsworth the rain had
stopped. There was even a brief glimpse of sunshine that managed
to filter through a tiny crack in the clouds. That sunshine has
now long gone, and it is looking wet and gloomy outside.
Yesterday morning was totally different. The sun was shining and
it could have been a lovely journey to work - except that it was
horrible ! Prior to leaving home I was burning a CD to bring into work
with me. This delayed me just enough to miss my usual early morning
train (I didn't even attempt to rush to the station as I knew I would
not make it in time). I intended to get the next one, but it arrived
early at the station and left as much as a minute early too. So I
missed that train by seconds too. Had I got that train I would have
endured standing in packed conditions until the train got to Lewisham.
Many commuters change there for the Docklands Light Railway, and in the
past I have found I can usually get a seat for the rest of the journey.
Having missed that train I had to wait thirteen minutes for the next
one. That was packed, and to make matters even worse it stops at every
station to London Bridge, and then goes to Cannon Street instead of
Charing Cross. I had to stand in cramped conditions all the way to
London Bridge, and then change platforms to catch an equally packed
train to Waterloo East. The trains heading out of Waterloo are not
usually too badly packed, but as luck (?) would have it I happened to
select a train running as a four coach train instead of the the eight
coaches it should have had. Getting on a Waterloo, and finding a seat
was easy, but by the time we got to Wandsworth the train was groaning
at the seams as more and more people had rammed themselves on board at
each stop. I took advantage of a certain amount of movement at Clapham
Junction to get up and move to the doors ready to get off at the next
station (Wandsworth Town). Had I not done so, I suspect I would not
have been able to get out until the train reached somewhere on the
south coast !
This mornings journey was just my usual one. I managed to get a
seat at Catford all the way to Waterloo East, and then I was seated all
the way from Waterloo to Wandsworth Town station. My only discomfort
was that the train from Waterloo was an unrefurbished call 455 train. I
am not always a great fan of refurbishment. Often it means taking out
the (slightly) exotic and replacing it with the bland. The original
class 455 train is definitely one exception to this. From new it had
the most uncomfortable seats ever. The new seats are a huge
improvement, but still not a patch on the nice bouncy seats used in the
old slam door stock.
I notice that I have not said anything about Saturday or Sunday.
I had a fairly lazy day on Saturday. Most of the day I spent playing
with computers. This was mostly fitting the new hard drive into the
upstairs, front bedroom, PC, and adding some more software to it. I
continued the process for many hours on Sunday too.
As I sort of guessed (on Saturday morning), Patricia came over in
the evening to pick up her mail. She stayed for a couple of hours and
we had some pizza together.
Sunday was mostly spent working on the computer, and I did still more last night. |
Monday 5th March 2007
09:26 GMT |
| It's
a bright sunny morning, but with a rather chilly wind blowing. Due to a
bit of a cock-up I missed my usual train this morning. Disastrously I
managed to miss the train after by by as little as five seconds. From
then on the entire journey into work was done in ultra packed trains -
not very nice at all. So I am now late into work and can't spend any
more time writing this diary. |
Saturday 3rd March 2007
06:11 GMT |
It was a
very wet and windy night, last night. This morning both the wind and
rain seem to have died down, but I suspect it is only a lull before the
next lot starts. Until early afternoon, yesterday was rather fine. It
never got quite to the point where you could describe it as warm, but
many hours of sunshine did take away the chill. It certainly showed
that springtime was possible.
I didn't sleep too well overnight. I was late getting to bed, and
when I did get to bed I read for a little while. I think it was after
midnight before I turned out the light. I fell asleep very quickly, but
soon after 1am I was awoken by Smudge who had decided she was, for the
first time ever, going to sleep on my pillow. As cute as that sounds,
there are several problems with that. For a start my bedroom is
supposed to be off limits to Smudge. It is supposed to be a sanctuary
for Nelly. Secindly Smudge is a semi long haired cat, and tends to
leave too much fur around. Perhaps the most important reason is that
Smudge has just been treated for fleas for the first time in a long
time. The flea killer drops do have an unfortunate side effect. The
fleas seem to irritate her more in the dying days, and so she is
scratching a lot, and the scratching means that she is shedding dead
and dying fleas. Having dead fleas in your bed is unpleasant enough,
but some of the dying ones can still manage to bite in their last hours
of life. I don't know if I was actually bitten, but after I had chooed
Smudge away it felt as if my scalp was very itchy.
Having got rid of a scratching Smudge I tried to get back
to sleep, but the wind was really noisy at that point. I did eventually
get back to sleep. I had no idea what the time was, but I estimate that
I did not get back to sleep until 2am. From then on things should have
been OK, but I had forgotten to turn my alarm off, and it woke me at
5.30am (as is usual for a weekday). As soon as the cats realised I was
awake they demanded their breakfast, and even if I was not awake at
that time the chances are they would have woken me up sooner or later
anyway.
Now the cats have been fed I can look forward to going back to
bed soon. In theory I can have a nice long lay in this morning. I am
not seeing Aleemah this weekend and so do not have to rush around like
a madman trying to squeeze in all my housework in a few hours. Had it
not been the case that I am expecting a visit from Patricia sometime
today, I could has (slightly) guiltily abandoned doing any housework,
but maybe I had better do some. With both cats shedding dead or dying
fleas some hoovering is really quite important. As yet I do not know
what Patricia's plans are. All I know is that there is some mail, and
some paperwork here that she wants to collect. She could pop in during
the day, or maybe even tomorrow, but I think she will come to dinner
tonight.
Anytime I am not entertaining, or doing housework, I suspect I
will be playing with computers. I installed more applications on the
front upstairs PC last night, and today I could well install the final
bits and pieces, and then migrate all the useful data from the old hard
disks to the big new one. Meanwhile my Linux PC downstairs will
contunue to (naughtily) download some episodes of The Simpsons from
America that I will not get to see on Sky One after NTL/Virgin Media
deleted it from the cable TV channels. These rather large downloads do
take up a lot of my bandwidth, and that is why this page has probably
downloaded so irritatingly slow ! |
Friday 2nd March 2007
08:14 GMT |
There was
a light frost this morning. The temperature must have been very close
to the difference between frost and no frost because only certain cars
seemed to have a very thin rime of frost. I don't know what time the
clouds cleared overnight, but it was cloudy when I last saw the sky
yesterday, but like yesterday morning, the sky is now clear, and the
sun is shining. It made for a quite pleasant journey into work,
although it may have been more pleasant if the train from Waterloo to
Wandsworth, and the bus from the station to work, had been a little
warmer inside. According to the weather forecast today will be similar
to yesterday. It was warm up during the morning, but more cloud will
appear later in the day.
All the computer bits I had ordered on Tuesday turned up
yesterday and I lugged them all home with me. There was very little
worth watching on TV last night so I installed the new DVD burner in
the front upstairs bedroom PC. The drive I took out was made by Toshiba
in 2000, and was only a CD writer/DVD reader combo drive. Now I can
burn DVDs up there at x16 speed (allegedly). I also connected one of
the old 160GB drives taken from my Mk1 server to that PC. I did not
physically install it, but left it hanging out the side until I am
ready to permanently use it as the new drive. I installed Windows XP on
it, and managed to make a start on installing some of my preferred
applications as well (Firefox, Look@lan, Winamp, and Winzip).
Perhaps tonight I will install a load more stuff and fit the hard disk
in properly (then I can have fun transferring stuff off the old disks
to the new disk).
One little problem I had last night was toothache. There were two
little bouts of it, and fortunately both lasted for a very short time.
The first was from the tooth with the new crown on it. That was like it
had been hit by a bolt of lightning. There was almost a pop as the
sudden burst of of extreme pain hit the tooth, and then within seconds
it had died away again. If I am lucky it was just a "settling down"
sort of pain. Maybe as a nerve died or de-kinked, or something equally
bizarre. The other bit of toothache was from the somewhere in the
region of the upper teeth on my right hand side. It was far less
excruciating, but longer lived (maybe a minute or two). For that I
blame the sadistic cleaning that dentists do. Those teeth were nicely
protected by a good coat of tar and nicotine until the dentist gouged
and scraped them. So far there has been no repeat of either pain, but I
feel very apprehensive, and have brought in some paracetamol and
codeine tablets incase any of the teeth kick off again. |
Thursday 1st March 2007
08:51 GMT |
The
day has started brilliantly. The sky is blue and the sun is shining.
There is still a bit of a nip in the air, but otherwise it is a perfect
spring day. The temperature is only forecast to go up to 10° C, but
where there is some shelter from the wind, and direct sunlight, I
reckon it could go a lot higher. The fire escape where I have my smoke
breaks is not really protected by the wind, but it does face south, and
the bricks soak up the warmth nicely. I reckon that if the sun can stay
shining until midday, maybe even earlier, it will be most pleasant
going out for a smoke.
My last visit the dentist yesterday was uncomfortable, but the
new crown is in place, and all the soreness and aching has disappeared.
All I have to worry about now is the next time !
After leaving the dentist I did some shopping on the way home. I
bought paracetamol and codeine tablets from Boots (just in case !), and
flea drops from the vet for the two cats. As yet I haven't used either,
although the flea drops will have to be used soon. The problem is that
the cats, Nelly in particular, regards it as some sort of torture. So I
hate putting them on her. Quite why a tiny drop of liquid, warmed to
near blood temperature in my pocket, should be so distressing, but it
seems to be. Having said that, the distress only lasts a very short
time, and can be completely short circuited by a plate of food. Food is
another way I mistreat my cats. Both cats were extremely upset that I
didn't feed them until an hour before they would normally be fed. If I
was in a the kitchen at at 4pm why weren't they being fed ???? (or
so the messages I received from them told me). I think they actually
had three meals yesterday instead of the normal two.
there were many things I thought I might do yesterday, and one of
them wasn't playing for hours with my old Windows For Workgroups 3.11,
486DX66 computer, but that is what I did. It started out with a
decision just to turn it on for a few hours to let the back-up battery
recharge before it went totally flat. Unfortunately I had left it too
long and the BIOS had lost all it's settings. So I reset the BIOS and
had a small play which turned into a longer play until I (re)discovered
Calmira.
This is a sort of overlay that makes Windows 3.11 look and partially
behave like Windows 95 (there is also a Windows XP look available as
welll). It was sort of fascinating, and took a long time to explore all
the possibilities.
I was playing with that ancient computer right up to the time I
left for a couple of pints with Kevin in The Ram. We started a little
late, and I left a little late, but I was still able to get in bed by
10pm, although it was some time after that before I finally got to
sleep. |
