1 - M'aide! Woken by Sally just before 8am . . .drove to the River Avon at Hanham for walks - but also to do some photos. Clicked and walked for hours. Spent a rediculous amount of time setting up shots and then waiting for a passing boat or the next train to come by!! Rain and a full camera memory card stopped play around 11am . . . PCd the pics and added a bunch of panoramics and a couple of others to the Hanham page. Hang on - what's going on? Uh oh! Oh NO!!!!!! I think I've got a virus!!!!!!!! Arrrrgggghhhhh. . I've been so preoccupied with other things of late, I haven't downloaded any of the most recent critical security update downloads from microsoft. I still have my McAfee Virus scan running on the machine but haven't renewed the expired licence (or the definitions file since October last year!!). I'd been putting this off because I just REALLY didn't want to have to submit my debit card number on line! Can't help it - I just don't trust the internet with such things! Also, after having been expired for such a long period of time, I wasn't sure if I would get a full year of updates or if they'd backdate it to when my licence expired. If the latter - I figured I'd be better off going out and buying a new one off the shelf and getting a whole year for the price difference! So - I guess I've been 'recklessly' vulnerable for ages. Having said that - I can't figure out how I could have picked it up. I've done very little surfing of late - NEVER open unknown e-mails - am generally pretty careful - e-mail almost no one - and lets face it, all I've been doing recently is take photos!!! lol . . Anyway I must have something nasty. If I go on line, and it's ONLY if I go online I think, within 6 minutes (or less!) the pc will force a shut down!!!! 'System Shutdown. This shutdown was initiated by NT AUTHORITY SYSTEM The system process 'C:\\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe' terminated unexpectedly with status code -1073741819'. LSA Shell encountered a problem. Error signature szAppName:lsass.exe'. I'm pretty sure, from the little I've managed to surf, that it IS a Trojan. The trouble is, I can't stay on line long enough to read up on it or download a fix or do anything about it!! :o( Not happy. . stopped and ate cold defrosted sausage rolls and crisps around 5:30pm . . . napped until woken by the alarm around 7:15pm . . .straight back on the PC and tried a system restore!! . . . BB called . . .system restore didn't help at all!! . . . walked late - almost dark. . . PCd but couldn't decide the best way to proceed, so managed to go on line long enough to e-mail DS, asking for advice and help in finding an 'offline' manual fix!!! . . . TVd a bit but got all thinking about the awful clumsy little bits of javascript I've written to get the new site pages up and running, and ended up PCing, experimenting and trying to learn some. I know exactly what I want to do to make it more efficient and elegant - with loops and if-thens and do-whiles and such - but I don't know how in THAT syntax/language - and I'm sure not used to 'programming' with notepad and without a WYSIWYG interface with lots of context specific help files!!!!! SO frustrating - a bit like trying to learn a foreign language, just by being given a couple of foreign newspapers!! lol Gonna have to surf (when I can!!) and find a decent on-line syntax/function index somewhere. . . PCD till gone 4am!! DID make a 'little' progress in understanding what 'may' be best possible for what I want to do. Eventually to bed but then couldn't sleep, cause my head was stuck in a 'if-then-do-while-not photographing', and a blackbird was outside singing so loud!! lol :o) ps
2 - Woken by Sally around 7:15am!! Yawn! . . .walked in the fog . . . started PCing trying to sort out my problem with the instructions, hints and worm removal tool DS had sent. I ran the worm removal tool first. It took absolutely ages (I guess I have a lot of photo files to go through!! lol ), so I ended up getting on top of chores and washing all the dirty dishes I've had stacked up for ages!! The tool eventually came back with "W32.Blaster.Worm has not been found on your computer."!!!?? Huh? Uh oh!! I applied the firewall as DS had suggested and that worked a treat and enabled me to get back on line for as long as I liked. I quickly (not!) downloaded all the MS critical updates (muesli breakfast mid morning in front the PC). THEN - and this is the bit that's worrying - I went on to the McAfee site and renewed my virus software (£11.22 ), using my debit card. I downloaded the software and updated it all. Took absolutely AGES! Ended up vacuuming around the place, while it carried on, frequently running up and down the stairs to check on progress and make sure it hadn't shut down. . damn hernia playing up. When I push the painfull bulge back into place it makes an audible squelchy noise!!! Eeeeeeewwwwww!!! Last time it was doing that I wound Sally up with it and got her all ears up, head on one side as 'interested' dogs do, listening to the weird noise!! lol At long last I was able to run the anti virus software across everything, and sure enough, I WAS infected - big time!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I thought I'd been SO careful!!? Loads of em - all deleted by the AV software!!!!! sytem32.exe - (StartPage-CN ; Trojan), divx.exe - (Naldem ; Trojan), mscfg.exe - (MultiDropper-JK ; Trojan), load.exe - (Downloader-lZ ; Trojan), y.exe - (StartPage-CN ; Trojan), z.exe - (Downloader-HH ; Virus). . at long last, I temporarily removed the firewall and checked as best I could and everything seems back to ok. Think I'll be using the windows XP firewall from now on. (I was begininning to be SO worried that maybe it was something to do with the javascript I don't understand on the new site - thankfully that is all clean and ok and nothing to do with any of this.) All I have to worry about now is if one of those trojan/viruses somehow captured my credit card details as I typed them in!!! Believe it or not, I think that is the first EVER time I've given my credit card details over the net!!! (Last time the details were misused and money stolen by someone was when I ordered some print cartridges - by phone!) Gonna have to keep a real close eye on my account for a bit! . . . now I've finally done the washing up, I can eat better again - cooked up sausages egg and chips for lunch around 1:30pm . . .hung washing out on the line in the sun and then just HAD to lay down to sleep at around 2pm. Waste of a neat sunny, walking, picture taking kinda day. . . woke around 5pm. Could've used some more! . . . SH called to touch base . . .briefly returned DS ansaphone message and touched base . . . called DH and confirmed the details of what she wants me to check out on the net for her. Something about her old ham radio aerial, rotator brackets. . .walked . . .DS called to touch base :o) . . .ate garlic sausage, grated cheese and mayo sandwiches with crisps. . . PS popped round for chats till early . . . BB called . . . so VERY tired but couldn't help myself doing more Java experiments and ended up PCing until around 4am and surfing looking for java sites, and then info/picture sites on Kingswood. Good grief - how bizarre - google included the pages I'd put on my cable web space only the other day!! I need to delete all that! Hmmm - I also urgently need to make sure the new site has some java code to make sure anyone loading any of the pages from a search engine, is forced into the proper frame set!! Hmmm now how is that done?! ps
3 - Woken by Sally around 9am!! Headachey! . . .walked late . . . PCd all morning and much of the afternoon and just succeeded in making my headache worse and acheiving nothing much at all, although DID manage to find the little bit of script to force surfers into the proper framset. Gonna have to duplicate that all over the pages at some point. (Also discovered I'd made an error on the title page and had referenced a local file!! Idiot!). . .ate garlic sausage, grated cheese and mayo sandwiches with crisps. . . napped until around 7pm but woke overheating and headachey and feeling pretty awful! :o(. . .BB called . . .walked . . .PCd this while TVing . . .just couldn't stop and carried on PCing into the early hours! Deleted the mirror copy of the new website from my cable space and removed the links to it on my journal, in order to stop search engines coming up with it. PCd laboriously experimenting until around 3pm. Grabbed a handful of chocolate biscuits with coffee before bed. Sally was in an unusually receptive mood to being stroked, and lay on the bed for a quarter of an hour at least. Indulged her. :o) paaa
4 - Woken by Sally after 9am!! For goodness sake - first thoughts through my mind on waking were Javascript and how to try and stop the error on one of the new drop down selections that I got working last night!!! Obsessed or what! . . .walked in rubber and wellingtons in torrential rain . . . PCd and eventually succeeded in changing the drop down menus on the new site. Bit 'clunky', but rather better than just one huge long list I think. Works ok for me. :o) . . .stopped and cooked three sausages, beans and chips for lunch around 2pm . . .fitfully slept until around 5pm. Woke feeling hungry again and ended up eating masses of biscuits!? . . . touched base with BB. Yet again she reports that she is unable to access the new site!!?? Wonder why? Seems to be there ok for me as soon as I upload it - I always check. Wonder if she sees it through some sort of cache or something somehow? . . .PCd this . . . walked . . .PCd. Damn - can't update my journal. The ISP doesn't recognise my log on!!?. . . BB called . . . PCd with the java until around 2am and actually made 'some' little progress on what I was aiming to do - at last! A bowl of muesli before bed. pa
5 - Woken by Sally around 8:15am . . . coffee and cigarettes in front the PC. Tried knocking up a new connection to my ISP (just in case) and sure enough it worked. Dunno why they get corrupt like that from time to time. Nuisance. . . walked mostly between showers. Found 6p. . .PCd and actually largely succeeded in writing a whole new 'template/style-sheet' type page for the fading pictures on the new site. It hasn't gone quite as far as I'd been aiming for, but it aint bad. With just a few keystrokes I can alter the colours, reposition everything relative to everything else, change the spacing, stop pictures of choice from fading, re-order (with a few cuts and pastes) what appears where, etc. Very pleased - so far. Needs more work to be really neat. :o) Used it to modify the Churches, Hanham, Longwell Green, and Warmley pages as a test. Seems ok. At last I'll be able to re-sort all the Kingswood pics into a better order - and maybe easily insert a few new ones that I don't want to fade. Making progress at last. :o). . .stopped for 'lunch' around 3pm feeling like I'd earned it!! Seems that more than one person recently has seen fit to inform me that those wild garlic plants you see growing all over the place, are in fact edible. Was it only last year that I dug some up out of the woods (naughty!) and planted them in my garden around the pond? They’ve survived and recently come up quite nicely. Figured I’d give it a go, so went out into the garden and ‘harvested’ a few leaves to wash and fry up with my three sausages, beans and chips lunch. I don’t think frying those garlic leaves is what they are best for, but they weren’t ‘too’ bad. Be better of in something cooked. Probably work really well in a meatloaf. Gonna have to try that some time. :o). . . lay down to nap but didn’t even managed to fall asleep before IHB called in for a quick coffee! . . .tired but PCd until around 7:30pm . . . walked between showers and found 2p. . .BB called . . .ate garlic sausage, grated cheese and mayo sandwiches with crisps rather late. . . PCd till early. To bed around 2am. pa
6 - Woken by Sally around 7:30am . . . received a guestbook entry from Coz1 referring to auntie B in hospital. Felt like he was kinda 'having a go' at me because I'd not called uncle TJ! Should I have done? Is that what people would 'normally' do? I dunno? Am I supposed to? The thought of doing so never crossed my mind!! I know it’s easily done – but I just can't face it (especially having been prompted to do so!)!!! What on earth would I say? Arrrrggghhh!!! . .Triggered! Ooops! Ended up going into a downward spiral of confusion, self loathing, jealousy of others social ability, misunderstood aloneness, etc, etc. and ended up in a real down mood which persisted foremost in my mind for the next couple of days!!! . . I’m sure I’m all at fault and in the wrong, but the way I see it is this. For almost all of my life, the little contact I’ve had with that side of the family has been through Mum and Dad. I was just the little boy who got told this and that and had to be on his best behaviour whenever they were around (and of course still feel like that whenever I talk to Uncle TJ – no matter how old I am! Unexpected phone calls from him really get the adrenalin going!). When Dad was going through his dieing thing, I just saw it as the done thing - my duty - to keep Uncle TJ informed and in touch with all that was going on as best I could. With that done, I assumed I’d revert back to my ‘not in contact, save through what I was told by Mum’ position for – well, evermore probably! A lot went on when all that Dad stuff happened. I am painfully aware that some of the things I said and what I have written in this journal (and shouldn’t have!) has had a negative affect on many family relationships. (Lets face it, I hardly ever speak to my own mother or sisters these days! Much is no longer written here! :o( ) In such matters, I don’t know what is expected of me. Whatever it is, I WILL fail to meet those expectations! I’ve all done with trying and making things a mess and doing more harm than good. I just want to be left out of it all!!!! Yeah – I know - awful ain’t I!!! :o( I'm not trying to 'score points' or 'have an affect on anyone' or 'have a pop' or anything like that. I don't think I ever really ask anything much of anyone other than they should leave me alone, like I do them. Just trying to be honest and explain what 'my' world is like - just in case someone lives somewhere similar - and so the others can laugh and say 'wow what a fruitcake! Just pull yourself together.'. . . drove with Sally to Snuff Mills for walks, but mostly because I wanted to try and capture some panoramic photos of one of my favourite areas. The forecast rain held off and I clicked and walked until the camera memory was full. Drove back home around 11am to unload the camera and dabble with the largely unsuccessful pictures . . . back in the car with Sally and stopped for a little gas (12.36 ltrs @ £10). Parked up in Hanham and went into the library to renew the books I'd taken out that were due back tomorrow. Ended up taking out another couple of local interest. Ended up walking up and down all over the place in Hanham High Street for ages taking photos of this and that as per the old photos in the books. I'd had enough and was feeling pretty fed up about everything but managed to force myself to do the detour down to the river to grab a couple of shots on the way and then of the Chequers and Lock and weir pubs. Back home around 4pm feeling all exhausted like I'd done a hard days work!! . . .uh oh - card been put through the door saying I'd missed an attemmpted delivery of a parcel that needed a signature. Must be the surprsie 'thing' DS had mentioned he'd sent!!!!????? Says they'll try to deliver it again tomorrow. Guess I'll try and wait in most of the day then. . . felt down and couldn't be bothered to cook so ended up eating handfuls of biscuits and then quickly falling asleep. Slept till around 7pm!! . . . walked and stopped for sausage and chips takeaway on the way home. Found 3p . . . BB called . . .wasn't really in the mood but ended up PCing just a few of the Hanham pictures and adding them to the new site until around 3:30am!!! What on earth is the point!! Eventually to bed around 4am only to end up reading a bit of the library book about local coal mines! Uhuh - so they built the school on top of it?!!! lol ps
7 - Up late around 8:30am . . .was just about to walk Sally when I spotted the parcel delivery van stopped across the road. Waited and sure enough it turned out to be the parcel for me!! Good timing. Left it unopened for later . . .walked. Returned home to pick up a rucksack and have a quick check through the library books to see if there was anything I could photo on the way to the building society to draw out some cash for LB to get me some more duty free tobacco when she goes across the channel again next week. Walked up with Sally and drew out some money and shopped a little . . . ate corned beef sandwiches and crisps . . . opened the parcel from DS. Oh my god - he's done it again!!! A new Canon LiDE 30 scanner from Amazon!!! And look at the cost ££!!!!!!! I don't know what I've done to deserve the things he keeps sending me and really don't know how to say thank you and such! Maybe I should put a 'sponsored and made possible by' credit on my site(s)? lolol :o) Makes me 'squirm'! I'm sure I appear ungrateful! It's just that I don't know how to deal with such indebtedness - I'll normally bend over backwards to make sure such indebtedness is payed back and the 'big scales in the sky' are evened up. Pretty sure this is all part of my schizoid/avoidant/?, 'stuff'. Maybe something like - such indebtedness imposes certain behavioural and emotional ties and obligations. I guess for most people that is just the happy to and fro, give and take, flow of a ‘friendship’ type relationship. For me at some level I suspect it is perhaps fraught with danger. I don’t know what it is to be so generous and giving. In my experience, sooner or later in human relationships, an imbalance in the give and get, is likely to result in bad feelings and the breakdown of the relationship. If everything is kept level and £ for £ balanced, then perhaps the perception is that emotionally, nothing is owed nor can be demanded. Spontaneous avoidant ‘withdrawl’, most acute during periods of depression, can then be actioned and justified with no (or at least, less) guilt. Blah blah blah! I can’t work it out. I’m no psychologist! God knows I really should be seeing one! All I know is I’m SO uncomfortable being ‘given’ stuff – I feel I need to pay for it!!!! It's pretty exhausting trying to keep a mental record of such 'accounts' for everyone you have (and have ever had) contact with. It's easier not to have the contact of course! :o| . . . slept until around 7pm . . .walked and found 4p . . . tried to PC this but couldn't face 'thinking stuff through' and soon gave up. Touched base with Mum, largely to find out how auntie B was doing. Not well but 'ok' by the sound of it. . . BB called briefly. . . TVd still feeling pretty down and schizoid withdrawn. . . ate bowls of corn flakes. That isn't enough food for a day! . . . TVd until bed around midnight. ps
8 - Woken by Sally around 7:15am . . . walked in the drizzle and found a penny . . .PCd this, determined to try and get something down for the past couple of days and get over 'the block' that it has become!!? Took hours - just these few words!! A little more 'grit' than of late! Warped mind diy analysis isn't easy - nor perhaps wise! . . .LB called. Briefly popped up and gave her my £150 building society savings for the promise of some duty free tobbaco . . . the old couple who recently died opposite - the house has been sold and it appears someone new is moving in. The neighbour up the road appears to have taxed her car at long last - just got away with six months for nothing then! Grrr. . .DS called. :o) . . . PCd . . . ate corned beef, mayo, grated cheese and onion sandwiches with a bag of crisps . . .touched base with BB . . . slept until woken by Mum calling the ansaphone to tell me about a pet program on TV to watch . . . walked in a light drizzle . . . PCd . . . BB called . . .PCd until gone midnight working on 'some' of the latest pictures I'd taken. Lots more to do but updated some on the Longwell Green page, a whole bunch on the Hanham pages, and tacked a few panoramics of the Frome Valley onto Fishponds. It's all in random order at the moment and needs lots more sorting out and some text explanations, but uploaded everything to the new site for the time being anyway . . .ate corned beef, mayo, grated cheese and onion sandwiches with a bag of crisps - again! . . .PCd just a little more until early! p
9 -
Woken by Sally around
7:40am. She used her left paw to wake me up. Does that mean she
is left handed?. . .walked. Didn't see it advertised but several
cars and a van or two had set up tables for a car boot sale over
the field. . some vandals had left a 'For Sale' sign dumped on
the cycle path. Couldn't resist the photo opportunity. "I mean - I know there is supposed to be a housing
shortage and property prices have gone through the roof and all,
but trying to sell a poop scoop bin? That's ridiculous!!" Tee hee. :o) . . had a quick look at the
stuff for sale on the way out of the feild but nothing much worth
much - and I had no money on me anyway. One of the women sat
there selling stuff took the opportunity to have one of those deliberately
loud conversations with her husband as I approached, about how
disgusting it was that dog walkers didn't pick up after their
pets! Grrr. Dunno why people have to pick someone (innocent) at
random and 'have a go' like that!! Felt obliged to respond and
throw it back at her kinda, so all smiling and agreeing, I took
over her conversation and agreed and moaned "of all the people to suffer most from those nasty
walkers who don't pick up after their pets, it is us other poor
dog walkers who are walking around here all the time!! The number
of times I've walked home with other peoples stuff on my shoes.
It's awful isn't it". Ha.
<Raspberry> . . . PCd until mid afternoon, giving myself a
headache, putting more explanations beneath pictures and largely
sorting the new site into a more logical order - kinda in a
sequence as if you were travelling up the main roads in Kingswood
and Hanham. Makes more sense that way I think. Think I can leave
it alone for a while now. Need a break from it all!! Put a LOT of
work into it!! . . .PCd this then stopped for a bit to eat around
3pm. Cooked up double sausage, eggs, mushrooms fried bread and
beans. Half way through eating it and LB called and then popped
down with loads of Suday roast dinner left overs for me and
Sally. :o) . . . slept for a few hours until woken by Sally
around 7pm . . . walked and found 2p. Looks like the poop scoop
bin is sold - the sign's gone. . . BB called . . . PS popped
round for chats till early. . .ate biscuits, crisps and bowls of
cornflakes . . . PCd till early.
pas10 - Woken by Sally around 7:45am . . .walked and found a penny . . .balanced my accounts for the first time in a while. All looks ok. . surfed for an hour or so, trying to look up the aerial rotator for DH but with little success. Can't face trying much more! . . . cut my hair and trimmed my beard. I've let it grow a bit too long which makes the trimming a long tedious job! . . . corned beef, grated cheese, onion and mayo sandwhiches with crisps for a late afternoon 'lunch' . . . lay down late around 5pm and napped until 7pm . . . walked . . .feasted on LB left overs (the heap she'd really meant for Sally!!!) with half a pint of gravy. . .BB called . . . TVd/PCd until late . . . to bed around 1am. pas
11 - Woken by Sally around 6:45am. Forecast isn't so good today but much better later in the week. I can feel some more photos coming on!! lol . . .walked . . . muesli breakfast . . . PCd and played some more with the javascript on the new site. Actually made some progress and by early afternoon had succeeded in enabling an easy mix of horizontal and vertical images on the same page. Tested it out on one of the Kingswood pages and made up and added a couple of images of the clock tower (which a horizontal image just wouldn't do justice to). Also managed to understand enough to put the majority of the 'common' Java code into a seperate file. Once I update everything accordingly, it'll save disk space and make across the board alterations a breeze. Much neater :o) - although hopefully no one but me will know because it should just act the same as before as far as surfers are concerned. . . cooked up sausages, beans, eggs, mushrooms and fried bread for a late lunch . . . read a bit of one of the library books - 'Memoirs of a Speedwell Miner'. Actually really quite fascinating - what a different world a generation makes! . . lay down to nap. Woken after only an hour or so by an enormous clap of thunder which sounded right overhead! . . . read the rest of the book and finished it. . . walked with the book in my pocket. Found a US dime!? Actually very similar to a 5p coin, just thinner. . Three kids came zooming round the corner of the field (around which Sally had just run since it is our normal route!) on a moped!! Lost my cool and played chicken with them as they started along the cycle path. Incredibly they stopped as I blocked their path. Lost my cool a bit and complete with masses of foul mouthed obscenities (because the kids round here seem to understand that sort of language!!) demanded they get off and walk it out of the field (because of all the loose dogs and kids playing, etc.). Amazingly they didn't respond (I really was being VERY foul mouthed and threatening-ish!) and they did actually start pushing the thing away down the path - until I went just round the corner when of course they started it up and rode on again. Humph. . walked out of the bottom of the field and headed off in search of the site of the old colliery mentioned in the book. I know the whole of this side of Bristol is allegedly covered in old mines, but you rarely get the chance to actually track one down. Managed to get Sally up on a wall and we both squeezed through a gap in the fence into the school field. Wandered around with the book and sure enough managed to put my finger on exactly what was once where. Amazing. . some old guy in one of the nearby gardens was wondering what I was doing sculking around, so I ended up having a chat and showing him the book etc. Reckon his house is built pretty much on top of one of the old shafts! He said the house often made strange noises in the night. The soil in his garden was dark with a hint of coal blackness about it. . grabbed a few photos and eventually headed home. Got hailed in the street on the way by the young guy who'd helped me take that stray dog to the police station some while ago. Ended up talking about what I was doing and he started on about how I should go visit the 'local life' museum down in Warmley!! Blimey - I really am turning into some sort of sad old local history bore!! But - I may well go visit that museum some time. lol . . BB called . . PCd and managed to do some appropriate additions to the new site - added a Speedwell page. Funny how some of these pictures I'm doing are just a chore, whereas others like these latest, give me a real buzz. :o) . . . ate LB left overs with half a pint of gravy. Big feast - and enough left for an even bigger feast again tomorrow! :o) . . . touched base with BB . . . TVd . . . PCd this till early. Ended up surfing and looking up all sorts of local stuff to see what is out there. Blimey - loads of people have taken photos along the river at Snuff Mills and put them up on the web!! Am I maybe wasting my time with my website(s)? Another weird thing - seems like my journal has been going for so long now, and I've babbled on about so much, that whatever I do a search for in the search engine, I end up getting my own site included in the results!!! And then at other times my site is listed, but if you click on it you go to some other site which seems to have hijacked the listing!!!! All very weird. All very time consuming - eventually to bed around 3am!! p
12 - Woken by Sally around 7am . . .walked with a rucksack and library book and carried on with Sally down to Eastville Park (found a pair of sunglasses) and along the river to Snuff Mills to try and get the panoramic of the weir that I'd wanted and not got last time - as viewed from the less travelled side of the river. Worked out ok and even managed to get the self timer to include me and Sally - and an alternative for the same panoramic, of just Sally looking incredibly beautiful. Cut the river walk short and climbed up past the hospital and headed for the main Fishponds Road to get some more 'now' shots as per the library book's 'then'. Got a bunch before thankfully being released to return home, by running out of memory. Damn hernia been playing up - bulging and hurting all day. Home some time after 1pm . . . returned Mums ansaphone call and caught up with the latest on Auntie B, because Mum'd been to see her. Bedridden but all sounds 'ok' under the circumstances. :o| . . .cooked up just sausages and mushrooms and ate them with four slices of bread and butter. . . slept until around 6pm . . . broke out the vacuum cleaner and dismantled some of the PC stuff and tried to vacuum up the layers of dust which that revealed. Disconnected my old scanner and the printer I can't afford to put ink in, and added them to the pile of PC stuff I've 'moved on' from and don't really know what to do with. Attached and set up the new scanner DS had sent. Hey - it doesn't need it's own power supply - it runs straight off the USB!? Cool - one less plug. Blimey - it's a lot quicker than the old one too! Scanned in some stuff I'd already done, as a test, and was more than happy to find little or no difference - apart from the fact it took a fraction of the time. Excellent. Nice one DS - again. :o) . . . walked and found 3p . . . touched base with BB . . . PCd Fishponds pictures and breaking in the new scanner until long gone midnight. Stopped briefly to eat the last of LBs left overs with three quarters of a pint of gravy, real late. Eventually to bed around 2am, oh so tired and oh so full. ps
13 - Up around 7:30am . . .walked with Sally and found 2p. Carried on down to Fishponds again to do more walking about and photographing with the library book. Funny warm, kinda misty weather - everything looks kinda grey. . succeeded in finding places and getting most of the shots I'd wanted done.
Stopped at some point and took my rucksack off and
rested it on a kind of raised flower bed thing near a car sales
forecourt (I think it was?), so I could pull the library book and
A to Z out. Just then in the undergrowth I spotted something
fragile looking, made of glass, which appeared to be in one
piece. Had a closer look. Good grief!! What on earth is THAT
doing there???!!!! A bong - and it IS still in one piece!! How on
earth does something like that end up there? Dunno why, but I
really wanted to get that back home in one piece as a bizarre
trophy of the day's sortie. Didn't want to make it too obvious I
was up to no good, so I rummaged in my rucksack, and rolled a
cigarette, and looked at library books before quickly grabbing it
and wrapping it in a poop scoop bag (in case it was contaminated
with who knows what!) and then wrapping it up in my hooded fleece
for protection before stashing it carefully in my rucksack and
carrying on with my route march and photo taking . . . some old
guy spotted me walking along with the library book, and
recognising the cover, and having seen me up on the high street
taking photos, he started a conversation. Turned out he was the
head of the Fishponds history society!!! Good grief - I'd been
reading some of his stuff on the web the other night - about how
they'd renovated the mill at Snuff Mills and such. What a weird
coincedence. Seems like he's committed loads of history stuff to
memory - he started sharing some dates and interesting facts and
such about the hospital I was heading for - apparantly he gives
hour long talks on the place, or something like that! Hmmm - not
sure I could handle that. Pictures are one thing - they kinda
bring stuff to life I think. Lots of dates and facts are rather
less interesting - or maybe just harder to handle if you have a
short, 'TV' attention span like I have!! Broke away after giving
him the website address so he could see what I'm up to, even
though he apparantly doesn't have a PC. . . the hospital
buildings were REAL impressive but disappointing from a 'now and
then' picture point of view. Far too many trees. Should have done
all this in the winter when there were no leaves! . . .spent 20p
on a bone for Sally from a butchers on the way home, cause I
think it must be hell for her walking a few yards and being tied
to a sign or railing or such for hour after hour! She's been VERY
good about it really. . . home a little after midday. Gingerly
opened up my rucksack and unwrapped my 'trophy' and yay - it was
incredibly still intact - although I can't for the life of me
think what I'm gonna do with it now I have it!! I suspect there
may be a piece missing because someone has stuffed what appears
to be wire wool or similar down the bit where they burn - um -
stuff. Not sure - I'm no expert on such devices - in my
experience they hurt! Not really sure I see the point in them -
unless maybe you're a non tobacco smoker?. . . set Sally up on
the patio with her bone and crept away and ate biscuits and
headed straight for the PC and started messing with all the
pictures. Ate more biscuits with yet more coffee throughout the
afternoon and somehow managed to keep on bashing away at it until
around 8pm! Sally'd eaten all her bone at some point but
thankfully didn't bring it in - patio covered in grease! .
.Really want to break the back of the Fishponds bits today if
possible. . . walked and found 4p. Stopped for sausage and chips
takeaway on the way home. Damn - they've put their prices up
again!! £2:10 for a jumbo sausage and chips now. :o( . . . ate.
BB called in the middle of me rushing to feed Sally so I said I'd
call her back. Couple of minutes later the phone went again -
turned out to be LB waiting for her ferry in Roscoff (?) and
wanting to know if she should buy more tobacco than I'd given her
money for, so I'd end up owing her some £20 more. Sure - go for
it. :o) . . touched base with BB . . . finally returned Mums
morning ansaphone call . . . straight back on the PC and pretty
much got the Fishponds pages to a temporarily satisfactory point
and uploaded to the new site by half past midnight. Whole bunch of Fishponds
stuff plus another panoramic of down by Snuff Mills, including
what I think is a wonderful shot of
Sally (I decided NOT to put the one of her AND me up! I look too
scary to suddenly pan into view!) :o) . . . PCd this until around
2am. p14 - Woken by Sally just after 7:30am. Sunny morning but soon turned overcast grey. . .walked and found 3p. Bumped into LB unloading her car full of duty free as I arrived back home. She handed over my tobacco. 40 x 50g. pouches. She agreed I can give her the extra £20 I owe her in a day or so (once I get back up the building society.) I guess that works out at around £4.25 a pack - less than half shop prices. . . checked out all the library books to see if there was anytrhing to photo on the way and then headed out with Sally to the doctors surgery to drop in my repeat prozac prescription request. Carried on a little and took a few more photos here and there. Pretty hot walking about with the occasional sunny spells. Everything seems to have burst into rapid summer growth. My garden seems to be twice it's winter volume. I've hardly noticed it happening. . decided to drop in and visit SH for the first time in ages but figured it was maybe too early (what with his early hours job and all) so I kept walking and explored around Troopers Hill. Wow - didn't know it was like that up there!!! All the years I've lived in this town and I've seen SO little of it!! Took photos for a panoramic - and must have looked a fool as I ran helter skelter back and forth trying to beat the self timer and get in the shot sat on a nearby seat. Got the shot in the end. :o) . . . eventually headed towards SHs for a coffee, only to see him driving down the road towards me on his way to start work! Stopped on the side of the road for a brief chat. apparantly he'd been up since early this morning, so I COULD have popped in earlier!! Humpph. . . back home just after midday . . . thought I'd quickly PC the photos before lunch, but I ended up messing around with them and adding a St George page and the Troopers Hill panoramic (complete with two of Sally and me!) to the new site, and other PC stuff so much that before I knew it, I'd skipped lunch, almost all the biscuits were gone, and it was pretty near 3pm! . . . had to have a nap. Woke around 6pm with a gurgling stomach!! Grabbed a quick bowl of muesli to stop my empty stomach rumbling and churning. . . walked and found 12p in coppers all along the way. All this bending down to pick em up is giving me a sore back - but I guess it's pretty good pay for the work. Very warm summery evening with lots of people out and about. Sat on the grass at the top of the field for quite a while - feeling kinda lucky wth my lot. Forecast for the weekend is nice and hot and sunny. . PCd this . . .BB called . . . PCd/TVd till early. ps
15 - Woken by Sally just after 7:30am . . .walked and then carried on walking up to Kingswood via the 'Heights' building site to capture the latest progress. Couldn't resist a detour through the main Kingswood Church yard to see what all the scaffolding was about, that I'd seen them putting up the other day. The whole tower is covered. Apparantly they need to do work to the topmost pinacles and it'll be going on for some months. Tough job I imagine. . . stopped off at the building society and banked the £50 premium bond win and drew out the same in cash. Shopped a little and then returned home, hot in the sun with a heavy rucksack. Bumped into LB on the way back home and settled up and paid her the £20 I owe her for the tobacco. . . sat in the garden in the sun not feeling up to doing much . . .couldn't resist ending up on the PC and spent a ludicrous amount of time scanning some of my old stamp collection and knocking up an animated GIF for the new site for an 'e-mail the webmaster' icon on the about page. Took absolutely ages to do - but I like little touches like that and figure they are worth doing. Ended up only eating a handful of small jam doughnuts all day - which didn't have a good effect on my stomach! . . .walked . . .BB called . . . desparately needed food and finally cooked and ate sausages, mushrooms and potatoe with bread and butter quite late. . . PCd till early. Uh oh - that 'bong' pipe I found has developed a white powdery residue around the bit where stuff was burned as it's dried out from its time in the flower bed!! Blimey - guess that must be crack or something nastily similar!! Scared to touch it now! Gonna have to clean that real carefully some time. p
16 - Up around 7:30am. . . BB called early. . .loaded up my rucksack with the tripod, a library book and bottle of water and walked and then carried on walking all the way down to St George and roundabouts to take more pictures in the hot sun. Actually a bit early and not the best light for photos. Usual routine of walk - tie Sally up - take pics - walk and repeat, for hours! Very hot. Coupied down next to where Sally was tied at some point to roll a cigarette near a bus stop with people stood waiting for a bus. All hot and sweaty - my trousers kinda stuck to my legs as I did, and rather than ride up like normal, I ended up splitting the crutch seam of my trousers wide open!!!!! Wouldn't you know it - one of the very rare occasions that I was wearing something other than ALL black! I was wearing WHITE underwear! Could it BE any more noticeable?!!!!! Not sure what the people at the bus stop thought, but I ended up doing very weird contortions to quickly stop them from seeing - um - what I'm sure they hadn't bargained for when they got up that morning! Almost headed straight home but it turned out that when walking normally, no sign of the split could be seen, so I rather carefully carried on for a bit, and was actually rather thankful for the cooling breeze which unusually found it's way to such a place on such a hot day. lololol :o) . . walked round into the car park of the old school to get a shot of the entrance doors like the old picture I have from years ago. As I stooged around near th eopen door taking a couple of shots, a couple of guys wearing turbans came out and started looking uncomfortable and suspicious. One came over and asked what I was doing, which I thought was fair enough. I explained and showed him the library book and such to put his mind at ease. He was all in ceremonial Sikh outfit with turban and bejeweled dagger on a belt and explained that two floors of the building were now in use as their temple. He was extremely hospitable (in the current awful political/religious/cultural climate, I fully appreciated why) and even invited me in to join everyone and have a coffee!! Of course I politely declined and did murmer some nonsense about really not feeling as though I would 'belong' (do I ever - anywhere?!! lol) and anyway I'd split my trousers, and I managed to make my escape after jotting down the web site address on a scrap of paper for him, just in case he wanted to see what I was up to with my photos of their temple. Funny old world. Maybe a few years ago I WOULD have fitted in there - after all - I used to have long hair and carry a knife!! lol :o) . . stopped in the shade of a tree for a rest and a shared drink with Sally from my bottle of water in St Georges park (carefully sat sideways on the bench and keeping my legs crossed!). Sally ended up getting into a brief dog fight with some dog. First time I've seen that happen!!! It wasn't her doing - she is SO sociable with ALL other dogs - it was definitely the other dog for sure. She was mugged! Poor old Sally - we are SO alike. We look a bit scary but have absolutely no interest in agression or violence at all, and really aren't very good at it when forced - we'd rather run away! She seemed ok but happy to sit close with my foot touching her back for a bit. Eventually sweated all the way back home. . PCd some of the pics and unloaded the camera. Uh oh - my other trousers are in the laundry!! Emergency! Put clothes in the wash as I PCd, but managed to find another pair of wearable trousers in the cupboard, and changed out of my 'airy' ones. Ate a few doughnuts to fend off hunger. Couldn't resist popping out a little later and heading back down to Speedwell to get a panoramic near where the coal pit used to be. Managed to get me in it and an ambulance going by all blues and twos - not that anyone'll know but me I guess. . . PCd and uploaded the panoramic. . slept for an hour . . . walked and found a penny. Somone had dumped the best part of a store cash till on the grass!! No indication of where it'd come from or I may have walked and told them where their stolen till had ended up! Wonder what the story behind that was. . . treated myself to a £4:50 kebab and chips because I really needed to eat lots . . .touched base with BB . . . PS popped round for chats till early. Ended up dragging him up onto the PC and showing him the shot on the new site which includes a tiny bit of his house. lol :o) I think he was interested-ish . . .'tipsy' LB turned up bearing a French bottle of wine she wanted to give me and the cheap toilet seat from her new bathroom set which she has replaced, and which I said I'd have if she was getting rid of it. It IS cheap and nasty and flimsy, but mine is broken, so it's probably worth having . . ate bowls of cornflakes before bed around 2am. ps
17 - Up around 7:45am. Hot and sunny for a couple more days yet. . . walked . . . back home to find a note pushed through from next door warning me she is having her low roof done - the one that adjoins my conservatory!! Went to let Sally out in the garden and some cool air into the house and - blimey - they are already up on her roof doing stuff!!! Wish she'd given me a couple of days notice - I'd have moved things and cut the honeysuckle back and such. Oh well - gonna be hot with the back door closed all day. . . PCd and played with the St George pictures I'd taken. Stopped around 11am and took a cup of coffee out into the front garden, waiting for the mobile library van. It didn't turn up. I guess I got it all wrong and the highlighted date on the list they gave me, was when they wouldn't be here rather than when they would? And I was all psyched up and ready with my cheque book and explanation of how I'd ruined a couple of those books. Oh well - guess I get to keep them for another couple of weeks then. . uploaded some more St George pics to the new site and then took a break around 2pm - as did next doors roofers who packed in for the day after having layed some new tar with a big blow torch thing. I sneaked a photo earlier of her stripped roof when the disappeared presumably going to buy supplies. Maybe she'll be interested in what she didn't see while she was at work. Shame they didn't lay in some insulation for her while they were at it. When I did with mine it made a world of difference to how cold my bathroom is in winter . . ate garlic sausage and mayo sandwiches with a bag of crisps, followed by the last two, by now hard and stale doughnuts. . . fitfully napped until woken by Mum calling the ansaphone around 6:30pm. Called her back to discuss tonights TV choices . . . walked and found 7p . . . PCd this with the portable TV on next to the PC monitor . . .BB called . . . ate a bowl of muesli before PCing a bit more before bed around 1am. Feel so, SO tired!! Wonder if the fumes from that roof which are filling the house have had some mild adverse affect on me?! p
18 - Dreadful night of broken sleep. Woken by loud crows calling - and noisy traffic - and a neighbour putting the recycling bin out and who knows what else!! Finally Sally got in on the act and came and made sure I was awake and stayed that way somewhere around 7am. . . walked and found 5p in coppers . . .touched base with BB . . . drove with Sally to St George and wandered around a bit taking photos here and there. Wow - that Avon View Cemetary is an amazing place. Very impressive elaborate gravestones - but all falling to pieces through the usual neglect!! . . .Was just passing the chained up gate blocking one of the old entrances to the old St George Higher Grade School and something darted across and caught my eye. Amongst all the rubbish piled up in there was part of a French loaf someone had discarded. A large brown rat had been having a meal.
It
had been scared away as I approached and scurried into a tiny
crack in the wall – but unbeknown to him, I could still see
his tail and knew he was waiting until the coast was clear so
that he could come back out and finish his meal. I quietly waited
with Sally and tried my best to get a photo as he peered out
seeing if the coast was clear, but the camera couldn’t do
the scene justice. I know rats have a bad image and all –
but I figure they are just like anyone else, doing their best to
make a living and get by in the world. Looked cute. Left him to
his sandwich and carried on with my mission.. . eventually drove
back home after midday to empty the full camera and have a look
at some of the results . . . ate garlic sausage and mayo
sandwiches with a couple of bags of crisps . . . drove back out
with Sally in the sun and heat and headed off here and there to
take more photos, intending to eventually explore a bit and drive
to the opposite side of the river to the Lock and Weir - where
I've never been before. On the way down a particular road I saw a
black guy trying to hail a taxi - but of course you never get
that sort of taxi around here. They are all private hire,
pre-booked types that can't stop for a kerbside hail. Later on,
when I was out of the car taking a shot or two, the same guy
walked past and asked me where such and such a street was.
Returned to the car and dug out my A to Z and looked it up.
Wasn't 'that' far away, but pretty far considering how far he'd
already walked and how hot it was. Right then his mobile went and
it was whoever he was aiming to meet wondering where he was and
if he actually was gonna turn up. Figured I may as well do my
good dead for the day and give him a lift. Made some joke about
hoping he wasn't in suich a hurry because he was going to do a
drug buy. He was apparantly on his way to view a property. Found
the street eventually and dropped him off and accepted a
handshake for my trouble. . eventually found my way to the lock
gates opposite the Lock and Weir pub. Probably shouldn't have
been there cause it was all signposts about 'authorised vehicles
only' but - yaa - what the hell. I'm on a photo mission! The lock
keeper was there painting things white and seemed quite amianble
and willing to let me wander around once I explained why I was
there. As it turned out, it was a rather overgrown and poor
vantage point, almost all the shots I'd imagined I'd get were
actually taken from the other side, and it was really rather a
disappointment. . .very hot. I'd had enough and drove straight
home. . . PCd pictures. Uh oh! Oh NO!!!! I've apparantly reached
my 15Mb webspace limit on the new site!? I thought it was
supposed to be double that!?? Damn!!!! Guess that's the end of
that then. Bugger! :o( . . walked and found a penny. Stopped for
jumbo sausage and chips takeaway on the way home . . . TVd/PCd .
. .BB called . . .TVd until earlier to bed than of late. pa19 - Woke earlier but snoozed on then woken by Sally around 7:15am . . .walked . . . spent much of the day messing with the new site experimenting, and running up my phone bill and giving myself a headache! Plenty of chain smoking, coffee and annadin tablets! Think I've kinda got my head around that new Wanadoo sitebuilder webspace. Moved all the panoramic images over to it, to free up some space, and updated all the pan pages to link to them and it seems to do ok. :o) I'm pretty sure their agreement explicitly forbids such linking - but we'll see. If I can't get away with it, I'll drop the pubs and churches pics to free up space. PCd a few more pics. Spent ages sorting the St George pictures into a sensible(ish) order and updating everything appropriately. . . stopped for a corned beef and mayo sandwich with a couple of bags of crisps for a late lunch . . .PCd just a couple more pics and updated the Longwell Green page. There's a bunch more stuff to be done to this and that, here and there, but I kinda feel as though I can calm things down a bit now. I think that what I've acheived can - um - kinda sit there like it is, and - um - have some little value - to someone - kinda - I think? :o) . . . napped for a few hours. Woke around 6:30pm all headachey and feeling really rather unwell!!!?. . . popped another annadin tablet . . . walked (slowly) and found 8p and another of those flat throwing-ring dog toys. . .touched base with BB . . .felt a bit better and tidied up around the house - just a little. Carefully pulled the wire wool stuff out of that bong I'd found, cleaned it up a bit to get rid of that nasty white deposit (probably shouldn't have used the same scrubbing sponge I use to wash my dishes!) , and then left it to soak in detergent for some hours . . . PCd this and then PCd until early. paa
20 - Woken by Sally around 7am . . . loaded up my rucksack and walked and then headed off on the long walk down to Eastville Park and along the Frome Valley. The building work in Eastville Park next to the boating lake seems to have stopped for the time being. A notice on the temporary fencing confirms those are just the foundations for a new boating house to be built some other time. . walked the extra up onto Purdown only to find that nothing appears to have been done to the covered ruined monument as yet. Carried a couple more stones up the hill although it seems pretty pointless. The last lot I'd carried up has been used by someone to build around a fire - where it would appear they sat drinking beer from the evidence of the discarded cans all over the place!! Grrrrrr. . all the grass has grown up, and hidden in amongst it on the very edge of the hill was 'my sitting stone' still there. Sat for a time in the sun and had cigarettes . . carried on back down to Snuff Mills and along the river. Cut the usual walk short cause I was intending to mess around in Fishponds doing photos - and detoured up through the trees and headed for the old Diocesan Training College to try and get a couple of 'now' shots. Beautiful building. Felt a bit 'guilty' wandering around but eventually found the vantage points for the shots I was after. One was real tough - lots has changed and it was only the pattern of the stones that made up a part of the wall that enabled me to confirm it was the same place! :o) . . . messed around for ages along the Fishponds Road setting up the tripod here and there and taking several panoramic series for the new site. Eventually with a pretty full camera and aching feet and back, I headed home. Found 5p - home getting on for 1pm. . . next doors roofers were still working and were laying weird sheets of tar stuff over everything using a huge blow torch. Damn - wish I'd been out another hour. VERY nerve wracking peeking past the net curtains watching how close that flame was coming to my plastic conservatory roof!! Tried to ignore it and PCd the panoramics, which had worked out pretty ok considering how difficult it was with all the traffic and passers by and clouds drifting by in front of the sun and such. . .cooked up a fried sausages, mushrooms, eggs, beans etc late afternoon lunch . . . slept. Woken by BB calling the ansaphone but tried to snooze on. Didn't work and was soon woken by Sally barking as YET another door to door type person called trying to get me to change electric supplier - agin!! Have SO many of those, they are just annoying! They MUST get lots of abuse as a result. Who'd do that job?!! . . blimey - it's rained a little while I was sleeping. . .PCd and started working on modifying the panoramic pages on the new site. Not much point in having the magnification option, what with the fixed low resolution of the images - and 'should' be possible to put all the 'common' java code off in a seperate file to save disk space and make alterations easier - if only I understood it!!!!!! . . . just about to walk Sally and discovered the split ring that fixed her engraved id tags to her collar has rusted out and the tags are gone!! :o( . . Walked and found a penny and a big roll of what appears to be industrial type cling film!!? Could come in handy. . . touched base with BB . Mum called but got the ansaphone cause I was talking with BB. . PCd for hours more with coffee and biscuits and chain smoking. . .discovered Mums ansaphone message and called her back to hear the latest on auntie B etc. . . PCd until 3am. ps
21 - Woken by Sally around 8am . . . walked and found 2p. Carried on and walked down to the doctors surgery to pick up my repeat fluoxetine perscription. £6:40 NHS fee and another 60 days supply - thank you very much, although I apparantly have to see the doctor for a review before another repeat. Rather a waste of the doctors time cause I'll end up telling him what I want I guess, but fixed up an appointment for Monday to get it over and done with. Hmmm? The fluoxetine capsules are a different brand this time - 'Niche Generics Ltd'!! I trust they don't vary from company to company!?!! . . . PCd and carried on where I'd left off last night trying to modify all the panoramic pages on the new site. . . eventually stopped mid afternoon for corned beef and mayo sandwhiches with a couple of bags of crisps. Had to nap almost immediately after . . . woke around 6pm feeling pretty unwell again!! Seems to be a corned beef/mayo/sleep thing that makes me feel iffy. Wonder if something is off? . . . walked and found 3p . . .eventually started to feel a bit better and ended up on the PC again!. . . BB called . . . PCd with coffee and biscuits until I finally made just a little progress in the early hours. Replayed my lunch with sandwiches etc. around 1am and then eventually to bed around 2am. paa
22 - Up around 8am . . .walked and found 2p. Some idiot drunks in the night had pulled up manhole covers near the shops!! One was missing completely, leaving a dangerous gaping hole in the road on a bend, and another was wedged in the hole and someone had put the nearby refuse bin in on top of it - perhaps actually the latter to prevent people crashing into it!! Figured I'd maybe have a go at putting it back in place on the way back from the walk. . on the way back, just as I was approaching the drain, some old guy from one of the nearby houses was going across to try and lever it back into position with a spade. Turned out the spade was no help. There was nothing for it but to get a grip on it and haul it out of the hole. Tied Sally up and joined in, as another old guy stopped to help too. I managed to get a grip between the grill and haul it out of the hole and rest it on the road - but only just! Hell of a lot heavier than I'd bargained for, but like it or not, once I'd started I HAD to pick it up cause if I'd dropped it, it would have disappeared deep down into the drain and been stuck for good!! Scary moment. After a few abortive tries, so heavy was it, it eventually took all three of us to manage to get it seated properly back in position!!! Was there a similar team of vandals lifting them out?? What on earth goes through their tiny little minds? The old guy with the spade told tales of how rampaging drunken yobs have walked over his car before now, and if he had the chance he'd shoot them - yeah, me too. Felt unusualy obliged to do a team bonding congratulatory handshake, before heaing home with Sally. . . ended up PCing all morning and much of the afternoon on the new panoramics pages and actually rebuilt all the panoramic images, slightly larger to suit!! Twenty eight of them!! Nasty job trying to juggle the best possible picture result, with the absolutely smallest possible file size. Amazing how just improving the 'sharpness' of the image can add 40k to the file size!! They'll just have to stay blurred then. Ended up by saving all the JPEGs with 50% compression. Pretty poor quality result, but I think I'll get away with it. . . Mum called and let me know that auntie B was doing ok and had been released from hospital yesterday and was actually back home!. . .carried on PCing and eventually had to delete the old and upload all the new images - almost 7megabytes in total!!!! Blimey - that's gonna take a while and cost me in dial up charges!!! Had the brainwave of uploading them temporarily to my cable webspace (no dial up charges-monthly fee) and then using the pay as you go dial up, to transfer them from one ISP to the other. Took well over an hour (connection problems/out of server space/etc) to upload them all to my cable space with my slow modem. But the more costly transfer from webspace to webspace was very near instant (albeit I had to do them one at a time!!). I guess that is what it must be like to have broadband. Very nice too! Did a bit more testing and made sure everything was working before celebrating the acheivement with a corned beef and mayo sandwich with crisps . . . walked just a little earlier than usual - the missing drain cover on the corner was back in place!? Wonder where that was then? Couldn't have been 'too' far because it weighed SO much. Wonder what team of people got that back in place. sat on the grass with a cigarette or two and playing ball with Sally in the sun for a while. . . sat in the garden guitaring very briefly . . . BB called. She said she'd checked out the changes to the new site and said she thought it was better (probably just humouring the sad obsessed guy) but did make the innocent mistake of mentioning the little thing I'd NOT yet sorted - where the image doesn't resize with the frame when the window is resized. Couldn't help it - as soon as she was off the phone I had to go and try and sort that out. Very simple little change to a bit of code but wouldn't you know it - I had to change the bit that I haven't yet managed to figure out how to put in the 'common' file, so I had to change that bit on all 28 of the panoramic files!!! "File open. Mouseclick. Control-v to paste in the ammendment. File close. Save yes." twenty eight times!!! Grrrr. . . cooked up sausages, beans and mushrooms with bread and butter around 11pm . . . TVd/PCd till after 2am. pas
23 - Woken by insistant Sally around 8:15am . . .walked in the sun. Gonna be a warm sunny few days says the forecast. Found a penny and a lighter . . . bowl of muesli for breakfast. Felt so, SO tired as soon as the food hit my stomach - ended up laying down and falling asleep! . . . woken around 12:30pm by Sally barking as Sis1 called in. She didn't stop - just dropped off some bags of old plaster I'd said I'd have in a rash moment . . . PCd this watching the Monaco grand prix (I rode my motorbike through that tunnel once! :o) Been there, seen that, done that - yawn.) on the portable next to the PC. Couple of neat 'nobody hurt' crashes (including Schumaker!), which I'm afraid IS why I sit through the hours of round and round boredom! :o) . . .did dishwashing chores. . Defrosted and cooked up a double garlic butter chicken kiev with chips for a late lunch around 4pm . . . napped and woke with the alarm around 7:30pm!! . . . walked. Pretty sure that's the second night in a row I've seen 'drive by drug deliveries' going on by the school - I may have to start collecting registration numbers - but then again why? Who actually cares these days?! Found 5p but didn't actually get to keep it! A little boy just above the age of a toddler was stood on the pavement all crying and what I assume was his Dad was trying to reason with him and get him to stop. A few feet past them and I spotted 2p on the ground - and then scanning as I do in such moments, spotted another two pennies and a third nearby in the road. Thought maybe I could get the boy to think on others things, so making eye contact with his Dad to kinda ask permission, I beckoned the boy over. He didn't want to come (understandable - I'm a stranger - and so is Sally, who happened to be about the same height as him) but eventually his father ushered him forward and I drew his attention to the money on the ground and suggested if he picked it up he'd be able to go and buy some sweets or something with it. He didn't pick it up and just stood there all rubbing his eyes! So upset was he, so horrible had been the world to him right then, no amount of small change was gonna make it better!! Hmmmm - I know that feeling - everytime I balance my accounts and check my savings!! lol :o) Well wether he wanted it or not, he WAS gonna have it so , I kept up my dialogue of nonsense and eventualy picked it all up and forced it into his hand and then carried on home. Only later did it occur to me that maybe that guy wasn't his father!!! Here comes me - thrusts money into a poor distressed boys hand - kinda says 'here - have some money - now be happy - and go along with that paedophile.'!!!!!! I'm pretty sure it WAS his father!! :o| . . . BB called . . PS called to cancel tonights arranged visit because his wife was unwell . . .TVd until early getting all engrossed in the most ridiculous of actually rather interesting programs. The first was all about the building of the transamerican railroad. Apparantly if not for the Chinese immigrant workforce, it just wouldn't have happened. And then there was a program all about the building of the hundreds of miles of the London sewer system. Pretty much done by one man who just knew it was the right thing to do and who persisted with his ideas, despite being fobbed off by all and sundry for seven years or more. Amazing man (whoever he was) - even calculated exactly how many bricks it would take!! It saved untold countless lives, by at a stroke, pretty much stopping the rampant cholera outbreaks of the time (which popular belief held was caused by nasty smelling air rather than contaminated water). Guess I must have been watching the history channel! . . . to bed around 2am. pas
24 - Woken by Sally around 7:30am. Somehow in my sleep, I listened as she climbed the stairs, to see if there was any hesitation about her waking me up. There was none. She'd decided it was time, and came straight upstairs, straight into the bedroom, and jumped straight up onto the bed and started licking and pawing me, without ANY hesitation, until it was clear I was awake and then she jumped straight back down and waited for me at the top of the stairs!! She absolutely is her own person. :o) . . .doctors surgery rang early and said that unfortunately the doctor had just called in sick and they'd have to reschedule my appointment. Dunno why - but I couldn't help laughing! Hope he has a good doctor. Hope he doesn't have any psychiatric problems - or he may never return, given the sort of 'care' he'll likely get! Cancelled the appointment and said I had plenty of time and would reschedule some other time. . . walked. Found someones dog tag! How bizarre - I lose Sally's and then go and find someone elses within a couple of days! Some dog called 'Cassy' - and a couple of phone numbers . . . left an ansaphone message saying I'd found the tag . . . sat in the garden in the sun for a bit looking at library books, but I just couldn't get going or be bothered to do anything. Actually feeling a bit down! . .somehow the morning slipped away with me having done absolutely nothing. . . ate garlic sausage and mayo sandwiches with bags of crisps for lunch . . . slept. Woke having, not so much nightmarish thoughts, but unpleasant ones nonetheless. Seemed to be rehashing some of the unpleasantness 'I caused' when all that Dad stuff was going on!!! I kinda woke just to escape the thoughts - whatever they were!? Felt not so good and frankly pretty down. Downest I've been for a while!! What the hell is this? SO tempting to believe the content of these new brand of fluoxetine actually ARE different. Even water from different sources is different - not so far fetched that different sources of a mind altering drug can have a noticeable affect is it?? Been on them a couple of days now. . .BB called . . . PCd a few pictures and added them to the top of the Fishponds #4 page of the new site - and made a minor modification to the title page, in the hope that doing so, I'll be able to make use of the site stats that the new webspace apparantly can do - maybe! . . . feeling a bit better than earlier. PCd this - and remembered the rat I'd tried to photo in St George, and added it to the journal - for me to remember again some other time. . . walked and found 7p. . .Bb called . . . TVd until early.pas
25 - Woken by Sally around 7:30am. I growled at her but she insisted it was time! . . . walked. It’s become the habit of late for pretty much everyone who walks around the field to carry titbits in their pocket and feed every dog who comes up to them. It was kinda ok when it was just the nice old guy, but now its everyone! Didn’t take long for Sally to get the idea and now she’ll make a bee line for all these people, ignoring my calls for her to return, and I end up walking around the field on my own!! The hard won training I’ve done with her, to mostly come when I call, has been greatly undermined by all this. I seem to be losing my authority over her kinda. It’s not good, and I’m getting real close to asking people to stop. As usual, she ran off across the field and sat all obedient at the womens’ feet until she got her treats. Thought I’d have some fun and teach her a lesson so I carried on and out of the top of the field and hid behind a hedge for a while, before going back through into the field via a different entrance and just standing and watching Sally’s reaction. She eventually looked a bit upset and panicky about not being able to see me and started heading off back down towards the other end of the field in the direction of going home!!! Uh oh!!! Sally COME!! I yelled and yelled but she was so far off and the rush hour traffic was all around, she couldn’t hear me. She was soon round a corner and out of sight!! Oh jeeze! She better not be heading home and out of the field and crossing that main road!!!!!! I ended up having to run after her right down the field. Not a happy experience after so much chain smoking of late! Thankfully she’d paused before leaving the field, and I managed to make myself heard, get her attention and, looking a little less relieved than I did, she eventually ran back towards me and we carried on with our usual once round routine. Sheeesh!! Scared me to death. I wont be playing that game again! Fool! Easy to forget she’s ‘just’ a dog. . . Stopped off back home to check library books and then went out to make sure the car still starts, intending to career about trying to polish off the last few photos I want to do, to enable me to relinquish temporary ownerships of the library books. Uh oh. That doesn't sound right?!! Had a look under the car and sure enough, the exhaust was all rusted away and just waiting to fall to bits! Damn!! Damn, damn! That’s gonna cost me – and I hardly ever use it anymore! Didn’t dare try to use the car in that state, so locked it all back up and decided to walk about a bit instead. Couldn’t face staying at home because of the awful noise coming from next door. She’s got builders in, trying to sort out all her kitchen/bathroom damp problems. Sounds like they are taking all the cement and plaster off her walls with a ‘kango’ hammer. Now I know what she’s had to put up with from me. Very loud. Very irritating and unpleasant. . . loaded up a rucksack and headed out with Sally to try and take a few photos. Cloudy but very warm. Ended up walking all the way to Warmley and back!!! Actually turned out to be mostly a wasted effort. Much of what I’d wanted to try and capture with the camera simply wasn’t possible. Found 10p and two lighters along the way. . Someone fairly local to where I live has lost a dog and has put notices up on lampposts all around. Incredibly, no matter where or how far I walked, on every lamppost everywhere, were those same notices! Must have cost them a fortune (paper, printer ink, adhesive tape and staples) and taken hours and hours to drive or walk around and cover this whole side of Bristol like that. Gotta give them their due – they’ve really done everything they could. If anyone deserves to get their missing dog back I figure they do. . . walked back up to Kingswood and detoured down to see if DH was in. She was. Stopped for a coffee and gave her the tiny bit of info I’d managed to find on line, about her antenna rotator. Not much help I don’t think. At some point DHs cat came in through her cat flap and came face to face with Sally!! DH quickly ushered her upstairs to safety but the whining noise excited, trembling Sally made was ridiculous! Lol kept a real tight hold on her leash despite the fact that I’d already tied her to the table. I guess actually being IN a house with a cat is a whole new experience for her. She very clearly kept an eye open for it all the way home! Walked back via Kingswood and did just a little shopping. Was walking home and spotted a familiar face. DaH - he used to be my boss when I first tranferred off the post office counter and went in on 'writing duties'. He hadn't changed a bit! I said hello and incredibly he recognised me too. He asked how Dad was. Ooops. lol Told him the news. . . cooked up four sausages, two eggs and the last of the 'getting a bit old' mushrooms and ate it with four pieces of bread and butter around 3:30pm. . .thankfully the next door workmen stopped around 4pm so I was able to nap. I really needed to - Sally too. Slept until around 7:15pm!! . . . ansaphone messages from PS and from the owner of the dog tag I'd found - they said they'd call back later . . . walked and found 5p . . . BB called . . . PS popped round for chats till early. The dog tag person called so I got their address and said I'd drop it through their letterbox sometime when I was out walking my dog. ps
26 - Woke earlier but managed to snooze on until woken for sure by next door having a bit of shout at her son!! . . . walked and found five pennies. Carried on out of the field and located the house of the dog tag I'd found and popped it through their letterbox. Stopped off for some milk and then walked all the way down to the tire/exhaust centre and asked how much I'd be looking at spending, worse case cenario. Blimey! If the 'cat' is gone, that's almost about what the car is worth! :o( . . . ate two bowls of muesli for breakfast . . . Mum called and said to quickly put the morning hospital program on, cause they were doing a spot on some womans hernia operation. I watched it. Ewwwww!!!! :o( . . . drove the car to the exhaust place - they put it on the ramp to diagnose things and and sure enough, I was told I'd have to have a middle and rear section replaced - somewhere around £70ish. Left the car with them and returned home for an hour or so . . . PCd this . . .walked all the way back to the exhaust place for around midday only to be told it was a different bore of exhaust than they'd first thought and they'd had to order the parts and they should arrive any minute! :o( Sat around and waited - and waited - and waited! At long, long last the parts arrived and they were fitted and I was relieved of £70:70. :o( Back home by 1pm . . .PCd this . . . desparately wanted to sleep but couldn't until next doors workmen stopped hammering for the day. . . ate biscuits . . . at long last, oh thank goodness, lay down to nap around 4pm. . .woke around 6:45pm . . . walked and found 2p . . . PCd some pictures and updated a couple on the Kingswood High/Hill Street and Warmley pages on the new site . . . BB called . . . PCd some more until around 10:30pm . . .ate garlic sausage/may/grated cheese sandwiches with crisps before bed around midnight. pa
27 - Woken by Sally around 6:35am! Why so early?!! . . . last sunny day for a while. Forecast is for a change in the weather, and rain. . .Collected all the library books together that need renewing and then drove with Sally to the river Avon at Hanham for walks and swims etc. . . parked up in Hanham on the way back and popped in the library and renewed all the books and took out a couple more. Briefly shopped a little on the way home and impulse bought a digital clock from Lidl - just a bigger version of one I already have - radio controlled with a built in thermometer (£5.99). . . grabbed a coffee and looked through the books and then headed off in the car with Sally, heading for Snuff Mills. . .Stopped right in the middle of the road in front of the ‘T’ junction I was trying to pull out to the right from, was a guy on a trials type motorbike. It appeared that he was trying to attract the attention of a friend of his that lived in a nearby house and who’s bedroom window was open. You can often hear extremely loud music coming from that window and I’ve thought many times before now how awful it must be to live next door to whoever lives there. I’d seen this motorbike before. The other night while walking the dog he went haring up and down the field on the grass at what was actually a rather impressively stupid speed. Must have been doing around fifty miles an hour on the grass, on the cycle path, on the pavement and then straight out onto the road. That sort of thing happens so often over the field these days, I rarely bother mentioning it here any more! The only noteworthy thing about that particular bike was the exhaust note, the extreme speed, and the fact that it had no number plate (and presumably no tax/insurance/mot/licence etc.). Well – this was the same bike and he was happily blocking my path and thought nothing of it. I blew my horn expecting him to pull to the kerb and let me pass. He didn’t and simply looked daggers at me and indicated I should pull out onto the wrong side of the road and go around him. This I ‘could’ have done although that particular junction IS prone to the unpredictable emergence of very fast traffic from the roundabout on the main road to the right, and it really wouldn’t have been safe to do. It’s hard enough just pulling out from there at the best of times!! I blew my horn again and some more times and shouted for him to get out of the way, but he didn’t. I think he DID inch forward a bit as he was shouting abuse at me so I took my opportunity to get out of the junction and pulled across and tight in at an angle towards his rear. More horn blowing, more abuse from both of us. He made no attempt to get out of the way. I inched forward and it was all I could do to stop myself simply flooring the accelerator! I nudged his rear wheel at which point he DID move a foot or so forward enough to enable me to get past. I hurled abuse (mostly centred on his having no insurance etc.) and he hurled more back and actually drove alongside my window as I pulled towards the roundabout junction. I thought that was pretty much it and started pulling out onto the roundabout to make my escape from the unpleasantness, which had actually drawn a small crowd of passers by all stopped in their tracks watching. As I pulled onto the roundabout, peripheral vision made me aware of someone running up behind the car and then there was a bang as the person hit the car!! I really should have just driven off I guess - but of course the red mist was on me by then and I wasn’t thinking straight. I drove round the roundabout and pulled up in front of the biker and his two friends, who it was who’d come running out of the nearby house to have a go at me and one of whom had hit my car. At some point around about here, I DID make a conscious decision. Shall I or shall I not deliberately crash my car into them all. I guess I chose not to – which of course meant that I was now gonna be at their mercy pretty much! The guy on the bike kinda shouted out that I really didn’t want to mess with the guy who’d hit the car. Looked pretty obvious he really was a nutcase and wanted to start hitting someone. He said something about grabbing my keys and reached in the open window and tried to do so. I managed to get to them before he did and he only succeeded in turning on the windscreen wipers!! Sally took all this in her stride without any noticed reaction. Maybe she sniffed a bit to see if he had any tit bits when he reached in, but there were none. There was lots of shouting and abuse from both sides – but it was pretty obvious that if I got out of the car I was gonna be getting hit. Being the coward I am in such situations, I chose not to. I’m no ‘fighter’. Never have been – never actually have done. Dunno how it’s done – don’t want to know – all I know is I’d most likely end up coming off worse - and that I DO know, hurts! Even kills sometimes! At some point I started the car up again and pulled out of the road and over to a nearby kerb and dug out my mobile phone and started turning it on and such. It MUST have been noticeable that I was shaking like a leaf! Shaking SO much I could hardly hold the phone!!!! Why oh why oh WHY does adrenaline do that to me? Just turns me into a wobbling jelly, with hardly enough strength left in me to even stand!! The guy on the bike pulled alongside and asked what I was doing. I said I was calling the police. He said ‘You don’t think I’m gonna hang about and wait for them do you? Do you think I’m stupid?’ I did of course have to answer - YES! One of the other guys leapt on the back of his bike and off they went and I was left sitting there trying to calm down. Pointless calling the police of course. Nothing to be done. No jury would take my side – I should have just driven around him. Just seems so outrageous that when going about your harmless business, you can be forced into such a horrible and ultimately humiliating situation, where no matter what you do, you cannot ‘win’. I really, REALLY need to try and let such things go over my head and just drive around them. Trouble is, and perhaps it’s a male ego thing, but there is only ‘so’ much being pushed around like that, one can take before one is liable to snap. I came real close today – real close to having all three of them squished against a concrete wall with the car. The really scary thing is that I’ve changed. Once upon a time it was the prospect of having to live with my conscience which was the greatest deterrent to acting out such actions. I really think I could live with it now. I believe the world would be a better place without such people. . . Eventually collected myself and carried on my way, but was prone to driving all fast and like a lunatic for quite some time after, and can still start shaking when I think about it now! Of course my mind dwelt on things much – lots of replaying – lots of fantasising about criminal acts of retribution etc, etc. Better write the account all here – that way I’m trapped into not being able to do anything aren’t I!! I could write more here about such things - but I don't want to think about it.. . .Drove to Frenchay and took a pic or two and then continued on to Snuff Mills for another couple before returning home. . . PCd a handful of pictures and uploaded them to the new site, but my heart wasn't in it and I was prone to reliving the earlier events - over and over and over!!!!!!! . . . ate a couple of big garlic sausage/mayo/grated cheese/lettuce/tomato sandwiches with crisps . . .lay down despite the hammering and eventually managed to nap until around 5:45pm . . . TVd/PCd this . . .walked and found a penny. Couldn’t help myself taking a snap of the nutcases house from earlier as I passed, so I can recall which one – and will know the number plate of the nice shiny jaguar that parks in the driveway, just in case anything else happens!!!! Stopped for jumbo sausage and chips (£2:10) takeaway on the way home but didn't have much of an appetite and ended up giving lots to Sally . . . BB called . . . TVd/PCd until early but was all feeling paranoid about earlier and couldn't help frequently peeking through the bedroom curtains and checking on the car and such at the slightest hint of a noise from outside!! :o( ps
28 - Woken by Sally earlier, then finally around 8am . . . walked and found 5p . . . walked locally in a hint of drizzle, taking a couple of photos . . . drove to town and paid the £1:70 for one hours parking on a pay and display meter near Castle Green and then walked with Sally into Broadmead to take some photos. Dunno why but I've been hankering to try and do a couple of panoramics down amongst the shoppers. Didn't work out too well - think I was a bit self conscious about being amongst all those people and didn't spend as much time as I should have making sure the tripod was set up right with my spirit level. Eventually ran out of camera memory and headed home. Shame. I'd wanted to get a picture of that weird modern art thing that's down there. Lots of artificial fish in an artificial river - kinda. The nearby plaque said that it was called something like "only dead fish go with the flow" - which I thought was kinda neat. . . Lots of police on the Lawrence Hill roundabout? The evening news revealed a body had been discovered in the underpass - 'maybe' natural causes! Grubby place to die . . .PCd disappointing pictures . . . ate a couple of huge corned beef/mayo/grated cheese/lettuce/tomato sandwiches with crisps . . . no builders in next door today, so napped for a few hours . . . woke with the same persistant headache I'd had all morning. . . walked and found 2p. A car went round the block three times as I was walking over the field, and blew its horn each time as it went by. It then pulled up outside the nutcases house from the incedent yesterday!! Uh huh. :o|. . . BB called . . . PCd until around 11:30pm and added the couple of new Bristol Broadmead panoramics, a couple of additions to the Kingswood Two Mile Hill Road page, and another to St George #1 on the new site! paa
29 - Woken by Sally around 7:30am . . . walked and found 3p . . . drove with Sally to St Georges Park for some panoramic picture taking. Peace and tranquillity throughout the park was being spoiled by some lunatics on mopeds racing around up the top somewhere. Some old guy saw me looking in that direction disapprovingly and called them ‘knuckle draggers’, which pretty much seemed to sum them up! . . took photos and was half way through a panoramic and then as if on cue, a moped came shooting across the grass between all the dog walkers and kids, with a girl without a helmet on the back!! Managed to get them in the panoramic – twice! :o| . . . drove to Snuff Mills and finally managed to get an almost passable ‘now’ shot of the Snuffy Jack mill site. . . PCd . . . ate a couple of corned beef/mayo/grated cheese/lettuce/tomato sandwiches with crisps . . . slept for an hour or so until woken by insistent Sally!? Uh oh – she needed the garden with an upset stomach. Good dog. :o\. . . walked . . . PCd . . . BB called . . . PCd until around 10:30pm and uploaded the new St George panoramics and the updates to the Fishponds, Frome Valley page on the new site . . .ate biscuits and some cheese pastry slices and TVd until around 2am, despite there being nothing on worth watching!! pas
30 - Woken by Sally around 7:30am again. . . BB called . . .weather looked pretty ok so drove with Sally to Eastville Park for walks and photos.Found 5p . . . stopped off at home and downloaded all the pics and then ended up in the car again heading for Longwell Green and more photos . . .detoured on the way home and had a look to see where the Kingswood Museum is located in Warmley. Found it ok and was amazed to see a group of people all milling around lots of old (all looking like new!) Douglas motorcycles. The museum was open and they were about to all leave on a ‘run’ somewhere. Couldn’t resist the photo opportunity and parked up and leapt out with Sally and grabbed some shots. Even managed an ‘almost’ successful hand held panoramic, on my knees amongst all the people!! :o) . . . PCd pics of bikes and mailed them to DS in case he's interested. Took forever to send!! Ended up preparing and eating a couple of corned beef/mayo/grated cheese/lettuce/tomat/onion sandwiches with crisps in front of the grand prix before they were done!!. . . lay down to nap but strangely couldn’t and didn’t seem to feel as tired as usual . . . Trawled through ALL the digital photos I've ever taken and was really chuffed to be able to do my own 'now and then' photos of the old boathouse in Eastville Park. :o) PCd the rest of the afternoon and early evening away before finally uploading new panoramics to the Warmley and Longwell Green sections, and a new Frome Valley page to the Fishponds section on the new site . . . walked and found 3p. Sally ignored all my frantic calls to ‘come’ and took off, way across the field after a woman who’s given her treats in the past!! This has to stop!!. . BB called . . .ate some cheese pastry slices. PS popped round for chats and coffee and biscuits till early. Eventually to bed around 2am. ps
31 - Woken by Sally around 8am. Wow I need more sleep! . . . Received feedback from my site. No e-mail address – all it said was ‘boring site’. Nice of them to go out of their way to let me know like that. Phew – thank goodness they told me – otherwise I may never have known! :o\ . . . walked. Uh oh - poor old Sally has an upset stomach again. Bit the bullet and asked most of the people over the field who’ve been giving Sally titbits, to please do so no more. Her behaviour has changed quite a bit since they’ve been doing so. I need to ‘regain control’ and be the main source of her interest! . . . ate a bowl of muesli for breakfast and then couldn't resist laying down and trying to get some more sleep . . . woke around 2pm!! Ummd and ahhd, looked at the sky and figured I just had time and it WAS worth checking out the ‘event’ that had been advertised going on in Kingswood park, although it was sure to rain pretty soon. Walked with Sally and managed to reach the park before 3pm. Found 6p. Poor dog – got a real bad squirty stomach! Hope it does rain now – wash away some of the trail she left on the way up there which I couldn't possibly pick up!!!!!! Ewwwww! . .not ‘many’ people in the park. Stooged around briefly and took a few photos, but it soon began to rain (typical bank holiday weather) and that and all that ‘ram it down your throat’ preaching, soon saw me leave. . . signs were advertising a flower festival type thing on at the main Kingswood church so I decided to go check it out on the way past. At last I’ve seen INSIDE that church. The number of times I’ve been to have a look and found it all locked up and closed. Actually quite impressive in a small sort of way. Been toying with the idea of trying a panoramic series of photos indoors somewhere and figured now was as good a time as any. The guy who seemed to be running things didn’t mind (even said I could bring Sally in, but I thought with her stomach at the moment, best not!) Did some test shots – turned the auto flash off – set up my tripod in the middle of things (despite the disapproving looks from the old lady in the pew)and took my shots. Couldn’t resist asking a little girl all covered in face paint from the park event, to stand and pose in a shot for me. She took it SO seriously! (She could hardly have taken it any more seriously if she'd been asked by Jesus himself! lol) She stood there all kind of at attention! Got my shot and thanked her but then she saw I was about to start taking another, so she stood all at attention and frozen again – and again!! Eventually managed to explain I was done and thank you and I would be carrying on taking the rest now. Cute. lolol :o) . . . the supermarket was surprisingly open, so, briefly shopped on the way home in the rain . . .PCd and added the ‘Holy Trinity Church pan’ and ‘Kingswood Park Pan #5’ to the new site. I AM aware that this obsession with the new site is just pure avoidance. I've been doing pretty much nothing else for weeks!!! And yet - I can't help it - I reckon what I've ended up with so far, IS pretty interesting in a funny sort of way. I quite often sit back and surf through some of those pages myself - in the same way that maybe a stamp collector may sit and look through his collection. Sad? lol :o) . . . walked in the rain and found 7p. Walking part way down the cycle path, in my rain gear with my hood up, I could hear a moped leave the road, cross the pavement and start making his way down the cycle path behind me. Having to worry about Sally and dodge such illegal traffic has become a real irritant to me. I could hear he was going pretty slowly so I figured I’d have some fun and maybe teach him a lesson. At the time this seemed quite reasonable, but of course with hindsight was complete insanity! What WAS I thinking??!! Without looking behind me, acting as though I was oblivious to his approach, I unexpectedly suddenly turned right and walked into his path. I’d timed it perfectly. He slammed on his brakes and came to a halt without hitting me too hard. His initial shocked reaction was to say sorry and then say ‘I wasn’t going very fast’ as if that made it ok! I let go with a torrent of abuse calling him an idiot and saying he should be on the road etc. He carried on riding along the cycle path but once he’d put a safe distance between us he screeched to a halt and then shouted abuse at me and made various offensive hand gestures!! Incredible! As far as he was concerned - he’d just driven into an innocent pedestrian – he’d got away with it(without being hit which I’m sure many would have done these days) – he then saw fit to hurl abuse at the victim!!! What hope can there possibly be for society when people act like this? It’s just getting worse and worse. I am SO fearful for the future. :o( . It's not easy being me! In church one minute - raving psyclepath the next!! lol. . . saw LB arriving home and popped out and warned her she'd left a vanity light on in her car . . . touched base with BB. LB popped down and handed over a small bag of weird chilli sausages she said she couldn't fit in her freezer. Froze them cause I already had some in the fridge getting old . . . cooked late and ate sausages, eggs and mushrooms with bread and butter. . .TVd . . . to bed just after midnight. ps
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