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May
1 - Woken by Sally around 7:45am after only a couple of hours of sleep!! :o( . . .set a record recording and walked. Found 11p. Popped in the newsagent and borrowed a pen and paper and jotted down the phone number of the rabbit hutch seller for LB to call when she gets back. Actually - the first thing she'll have to do when she returns is go straight out and buy food for her animals - she hardly left me enough (especially since I am giving the poor rabbits pretty much double what her written instructions dictated!!) and I'm certainly NOT going out shopping for her! . . PCd the last handful of my record collection, while PCing a bit of this on the living room PC. Very frustrating having to sit around and tend the recordings, not being able to use my main PC like this. A handful of e-mail replies I need to do have been left undone for weeks! Yayy. Managed to polish off at least the recording of them ALL by a little after 11am. All the track splitting etc still to do, but a hint of light at the end of this mammoth digitising (how many months? Six! More?!!) tunnel of hard graft. The next 'target' I'll impose on myself will be to sort through/record/MP3 and get rid of to a charity shop, all those cassettes I found over the field that time. That'll help tidy up the big mess I'm in around the house and just leave a whole bunch of my own cassettes still to do - but probably here and there at a much slower pace. One side of a cassette each time I walk Sally is a pretty good use of the time. . .PCd this . . .drank a glass of red wine and then defrosted and microwaved some roast chicken and roast potatoes and ate a huge feast with some broad beans and peas and around a pint of instant gravy at about 1:30pm . . . napped until around 6:30pm . . . recorded a cassette and walked. Still very warm out . . .fed LBs animals . . .BB called . . . TVd . . . ate bowls of cornflakes before bed around midnight. pds
2 - Up around 7:30am . . . walked. Beautiful quiet, warm sunny morning . . .fed LBs animals - and got into a fight!! Damn little black rabbit bit my finger as I was putting the food in - drew blood! Thought I'd better teach him not to do that so I gently tapped him on the head - at which, rather than flee, he attempted to have another go at me! Went back and forth like that for a while before I made a tactical withdrawl, to tend my wounds. I think the rabbit won that one! :o/ . . . PCd music non stop for hours, splitting, trimming and naming as many of the recorded records as I could . . . cooked and ate three cheeseburgers for a late lunch . . . set the batch conversion to MP3 of all the ready tracks going, and lay down to nap next to the whirring PC. Uh oh - what the hell is this? Before I'd managed to get to sleep, the PC turned itself off in the middle of the processing!!!!!!????? Bugger!!! That clinches it - I DO have a problem! It'd done that one morning while it was recording a cassette while I was out walking Sally. I'd come home to find it off, but had decided to believe it was my mistake and I'd done something silly when I was starting it recording while still half asleep. Turned it back on and poked around and read manuals and eventually homed in on the motherboard 'probe' diagnostic software, and ran all that. Oh my god! The main CPU is overheating!!!!!!!!!!!!! Luckily the motherboard has a temperature cut out - and it was THAT which had shut me down! The default CPU temperature warning threshold is set at 72C - I was running it up around 80C!!!! Blimey - didn't realise (although it WAS on the forecast) the weather (particularly the bedroom, heated by the morning sun and with the PC and stereo running all day, every day) had got so suddenly warm! Probably not helped by my never having gotten round to putting the case back on the PC! . .So much for my nap! Ended up getting the big fan out of the cupboard and blowing that over everything, and then screwdrivers out and messed with the PC. Refitted the 'oh SO noisy' heavy duty case mounted cooling fan, the case sides and screwed it all back together. Phew - seems to have done the trick, without having done any damage - although still seems to get up pretty close to that 'threshold' a lot of the time!?. . . LB called in and dropped off my duty free tobacco. Twenty three x 40g packs - and 'some' money to come back to me when her guy changes the euros back over. Actually - upon checking the maths - '40'g packs ???? - how much money back to me? That's a hell of a lot more expensive than last time (50g packs)!! Almost 'shop' prices unless I get a lot back! Hmmmm - something a bit not right about that!!! I trust no one is trying to 'pull a fast one' on me! :o( . . . PCd music and split the rest of the recordings before setting the MP3 conversion going around 7:30pm . . . walked. Moved lumps of a broken paving slab that had appeared from somewhere, and was laying around in big pieces, dangerously out in the main road by the pedestrian crossing! Walking back home, up ahead of me I could see a couple of young kids showing a strange interest in a parked car - and then one of them even opened the drivers door and had a look inside, before scooting off as I approached! Good grief - is nothing safe around here?!!! Knocked on the door of a nearby house and told the car owner - who didn't seem 'particularly' concerned at having left his car unlocked and having kids in it???!! The world HAS gone mad! . . . dismantled two sets of my PC amplified speakers to see how much of a hassle it would be to fit a headphone socket, but although I'm pretty sure it's just a case of splicing into the speaker wires, the fact that everything was PCB mounted and my multitester showed everything was connected to everything else all the time, put me off the idea of risking messing them up. Screwed them all back together and didn't bother. . . .TVd . . .ate three defrosted sausage rolls with crisps . . . the PC finished processing the 340 tracks around midnight . . . PCd until bed around 2am. ps
3 - Woken by Sally around 8:15am . . .set a cassette recording and walked in the pouring rain. Found 3p. . . Mum called to suggest I may wish to catch a TV show that was on. They were gonna show how guys should do testicular self examination!! Good grief! Thank you mother - but I know all about that (years of 'practice'!!) thank you very much! lol Blimey - I can even remember some ITV daytime show in the past where they broke new ground by actually having a naked from the waste down guy in the studio being examined by a doctor, live on air! . . . PCd cassettes for hours . . .ate three defrosted sausage rolls with crisps and lots of chocolate. . .napped until woken by Sally barking at some charity callers - who never EVER get anything from me! If it wasn't so 'old manish', I'd put up a notice next to the door bell saying 'No catalogues, sales callers, collectors, mormons' etc, etc. . . PCd more . . . walked in what turned out to be a dry spell, overdressed in all my waterproofs and found 6p. . . PCd . . . BB called . . . PCd . . ate curry and four pieces of bread and butter around 11pm . . . TVd a little and then PCd yet more until exhausted to bed in the early hours. pas
4 - Woken by Sally around 7am. Dunno what's up with her - seems to be all full of energy and rushin' about. . . set a cassette recording and then walked - and played ball and such. . . PCd cassettes, trying to record as many of those damned singles I found, as the number of hours in a day would allow! Even moved stuff around in the living room and recorded a bunch on that machine at the same time . . sorted out some of the old heaps of snapped/broken cassettes I've had laying around for years and actually managed to dismantle two of them (old 'Boots' C120s!) and carefully operate with scissors and tweezers etc, and successfully cellotaped the snapped tape and got them all back together in different cases, and playable. Wow - what a 'blast from my past' some of that stuff is - various 'pop' tracks recorded from the radio when I was a kid. Even managed to salvage a really still quite listenable-quality recording, I once made from - um - 'Radio One' then was it? Part of a John Peel show - where he played the entire 'new' ( musta been 1978!! ) Stranglers 'Black And White' Album back to back! :o) . . . celebrated with a glass of red wine as I cooked a frozen meat feast pizza for lunch . . . napped . . . straight back to more cassette recording . . . LB called to touch base and to let me know her guy will be changing up the left over money owing from my tobacco supplies trip, probably on the weekend. Gently attempted to raise the issue of the cleaning out of her animals in the conversation. As usual I backed down, changed the subject and defused the 'argument' before it got too heavy. Her response included some nonsense about how if you clean everything out of the rabbit hutch, they'll all get too stressed - you 'should' leave a bunch of the old straw and muck in there! Yeah - right - ain't no place like home without an inch of poop, old rotting straw and food and maggots under your feet!! :o( Some mention of her going away yet again next weekend or the week after, but thankfully she's allegedly arranged someone else to come in and do the chore, rather than ask me again so soon. GOOD! . . . walked and found a penny . . .carried on PCing . . . BB called . . cooked and ate two beefburgers and chips . . . PCd cassettes deep into the morning - some light in the sky as I finally lay down to sleep!! pasd
5 - Woke around 8:30am . . . set a cassette recording and then walked. Stopped off at home to turn the cassette over and then walked with Sally to cast my vote in the election. Voted for - um - well - does it matter? . . . Mum called to touch base and confirm she'd spoken with Sis2 for the first time in a while - she's doing 'ok' . . . PCd cassettes . . .checked the TV schedules and noticed that comedy show of 'Peter Kay on stage in Blackpool' was supposed to be on again later. Find him a very funny guy right now - clever observations of growing up in a certain time and culture. I want to record that if I can. Messed around with the PC in the living room, trying to figure out the optimum way to record TV with that cheap nasty confusing TV card. . climbed up into the attic and retrieved that big spool of high quality coaxial cable AC once donated, and cut off a length to reach around the edge of the living room directly from the PC to the cable box. Soldered on sockets and ended up with the best signal quality I'm gonna achieve between the sockets. Experimented with recording some stuff and settled on an 'it'll have to do' procedure. . . ate grated cheese sandwiches with a bag of crisps around 3pm . . . napped - dreaming on the effects of the cheese. . . woke around 6:30pm, in time to do a 'proper' full length test of the PC/TV recording (or that's my excuse anyway!). Set it all recording on 'medium' quality, one of the two music channels I have - a special two hour set of Destinys Child versus The Sugababes pop videos!!!! Bootilicious! lol If that turns out ok, I'm good to catch the one hour Peter Kay show later. . . walked - actually a bit 'chilly' in the wind . . . PCd this . . . BB called . . .well, looks like that recording test is passable. . . watched and recorded the Peter Kay show . . . ate bowls of cornflakes and then four pieces of buttered toast . . . PCd until bed around 1:30am. psd
6 - Woken by Sally around 7:45am. . . TVd to see Labour'd won the election, although definitely 'punished' by the electorate. . . . walked . . . PCd cassettes while doing all the dishwashing chores . . .PCd this before doing yet more cassettes. Actually turned into a mammoth session with both machines running for hours. . .cooked a chicken kiev, chips and peas for lunch around 1pm. . . managed to stay awake and carried on recording the cassette singles (actually two or three tracks on each tape) I'd found over the field, until they were 'at least' all in the PC. Did vacuuming chores between cueing up tapes and 'worked' right through until 7pm . . . walked and found 9p. After a mostly warm sunny day it was all clouding up and the brisk wind actually made it feel cold. Bumped into the talkative dog walker as I was leaving the field. He told me he'd walked around 5:30pm the other evening and had seen a policeman cracking down on some of the local 'go-ped' riders! There seems to have been an explosion in the number of kids happily cruising the streets and pavements and anywhere they like on those noisy, motorised aluminium scooter things with the miniature wheels. Irritating mostly because of the incredible noise they make - amazing there haven't been many fatalities, with the way they drive them with complete disregard for legitimate road users. According to the dog walker, the policeman had loaded up the gopeds and had three of the riders detained in the back of his car before being driven away!! Yayyyyy. :o) About time. Wish I'd seen that. . . PCd with a glass of wine which went absolutely straight to my head and made me feel rather tipsy! One glass!!! lol . . . BB called . . .TVd . . . ate garlic sausage sandwiches and crisps and then a whole bunch of Lidl jaffa cake chocolatey things . . . PCd until bed around 1:30am. psd
7 - Woken by insistant Sally at 7:15am. . .walked . . . PCd . . . ate garlic sausage and grated cheese sandwiches with crisps for lunch . . . napped . . PCd splitting and trimming tracks and made enough progress to set the last of the 'field found' cassette tracks converting to MP3 . . . walked and found 5p . .stopped off at home for some money and then walked with Sally to the kebab shop and treated myself to a kebab and chips. Blimey, only 30p change from a 'fiver'!!! SOooo expensive. Could have bought two cooked chickens at the supermarket for that - and squeezed out in excess of four meals from them!! . . . PCd and started the laborious scanning in of the casette covers for the media player album art . . . touched base with BB . . . PS popped round for chats. He'd brought the latest couple of Cds he's bought, for me to 'borrow'. :o) One of them was the greatest hits of a band called 'Mountain' I'd never heard of. He took some delight in getting me to play one of the tracks - 'Nantucket Sleighride (To Owen Coffin)'. Blimey - yes - I DID recognise that part of it - someone had sampled that bit back when I was a kid and used it as the theme music to 'World In Action' on ITV. Funny ol' world innit. . . LB called asking if I could copy some of her CD collection for the friend she had staying, who'd be returning home midday tomorrow! Ugggh. That is the LAST thing I want to be doing right now. Said ok, I'd give it a go, but no guarantees, I couldn't give her any 'jewel cases', and if I had troubles and it took too long she'd have to do without. She popped straight down and dropped off the pile of CDs and a french bottle of wine as 'encouragement'. . couldn't relax with that chore hanging over my head, so poor PS was dragged up onto the PC while I ripped his CDs and handed them straight back to him (so as not to get them mixed up with LBs) and then tested how easily my software would copy a CD. Actually got in a bit of a mess and had some difficulty in managing to make a copy. Probably just not particularly familiar with the software and how to do it - because I never normally do. Eventually seemed to prove easier to burn the discs from the already ripped MP3 files I have on my hard drive (because of course I've already ripped and 'assimilated' all of LBs collection into my own!). Having determined how I was gonna manage it, we adjourned back to the TV. . . back on the PC as soon as PS had gone and eventually succeeded in burning and labeling the eleven CDs for LBs friend! A chore I could definitely have done without. :o( . . eventually to bed around 3:30am!! pas
8 - Woken by insistant Sally around 8:20am. Wow I'm tired! :o( . . .walked and found 50p. . Popped up LBs and dropped in her CDs and the bundle of copies for her friend . . . PCd music mostly scanning in cassette covers pretty much non stop until around 3pm . . . cooked up a chicken kiev, peas and chips for a late lunch with a glass of red wine . . . napped for a couple of hours . . . walked . . . PCd music and kept bashing away at it until around 11pm when I'd finally managed to more or less absorb all the 'found' cassettes into my MP3 collection. Yayyyyy!! AT LAST!! . . . touched base with BB . . . ate bowls of cornflakes before exhausted to bed around 12:30am. pd
9 - Woken by Sally more than once but manged to growl her away until she eventually insisted I get up at around 7:45am . . . walked . . .returned BBs early ansaphone call . . . dabbled with splitting just a few music tracks . . . left Sally at home and drove to the doctors to pick up my repeat fluoxetine prescription (£6.50). Oh NO - YET another different brand of tablet!!!!! 'Dr. Reddy's Laboratories (UK)' this time!!! Hardly a brand name to inspire confidence!! :o( . . stopped off at a charity shop and dropped in the big carrier bag of all the cassette singles I'd found over the field, which I completed MP3ing to the PC last night. Very pleased to get rid of all those . . drove to Sis1s, let myself in, in her abscence, and left her record collection in her kitchen with a thankyou note. That's just a 'little' less clutter around my house at last :o) . . stopped off in Fishponds and toured a DIY store looking for a possible replacement for the broken drive belt from my precious 'turbinette' vacuum cleaner attachment, but no surprises, no joy. :o( . . stopped off in Morrisons on the way through and bought myself another two cooked chickens for £5 . . . ate half a chicken with four pieces of bread and butter for lunch . . . PCd/split a handful of cassette tracks and PCd just a bit of this . . .napped for a couple of hours. Woke feeling a bit unwell and suprisingly very, VERY 'down' in mood! I think sleeping immediately after having eaten half a chicken and a large proportion of a loaf of bread and a tub of Flora margerine is - um - unwise. I'm also pretty sure I've been seeing little or no benefit from these 'Tillomed' fluoxetine tablets I've been on for the last few months. Difficult to be objective under the circumstances, but I DO feel as though I've been gradually almost imperceptibly slipping back 'down'. Avoidantly immersing myself in this music collection project (and yes - there ARE many times when I am overwhelmed with how ultimately utterly pointless and meaningless it all is) has enabled to me to - um - well - just have the months slip by unnoticed pretty much. . . TVd . . . walked. Some pratt on a definitely stolen moped came zooming around a corner of the field between me and Sally running loose!! Grrrr. SO hard not to throw the miniature wine bottle I was carrying to the bin, at him. Just had to make do with silently mouthing easily understood obscenities at him as he rode away. Found a ball for Sally and a rained on wet purse in the grass. Popped the purse straight in a pocket and waited until I'd got home before excitedly looking in it. Rather disappointing to find no money in it. Actually - if that is all of what was in it when it was lost (a mobile phone top up card, couple of bits of meaningless paper and a photo of a German Shepherd dog called Sasha), I'm not sure why anyone would have been carrying it?? Maybe the contents have already been stolen? Called the mobile phone number on the top up receipt, but the phone always seems to be turned off. Guess I'll have to ask dog walkers who knows 'Sasha'. Actually - I have a suspicion it 'could' be a woman who walks three german shepherds, usually rather earlier than I do. We'll see - although hardly worth all the bother, just to return a cheap nylon purse. . . PCd/TVd . . . touched base with BB . . . sat around needing to just be quiet a bit . . . ate bowls of cornflakes before bed. pa
10 - Woken by Sally earlier and then finally forced to get up around 7:45am again! . . .damn! I thought it was. The flippin pond has decided to start leaking in earnest again. Seems to be watertight from about six inches below the top! Put one of my 'roof tile frog steps' in one corner to enable frogs and whatever else may need it, to climb out, now the water is well below the edge. :o( Daren't try to do anything about it or top it up with tap water because of all the tadpoles. . . walked . . . PCd music . . . ate chicken and bread and butter . . . napped late . . . woke feeling VERY down!!? . . . PCd . . . Mum called about a TV show I may wish to watch. About a bunch of people who'd volunteered to go and live in a monastery with the monks for 40 days and nights! Actually - yes - I reckon that WILL be interesting. . . touched base with BB to say I'd be calling a little later. . . walked late . . . TVd and watched the monastery show. Found it really interesting and totally absorbing. I CAN understand that way of life I think. Shame about all the praying and religious stuff though. lol. . . touched base with BB . . . ate garlic sausage sandwiches and a whole tray of Lidl jaffa cake chocolatey things . . . took one of the new brand of fluoxetine before bed, even though I haven't finished the course of the other brand yet. I figure it 'may' be beneficial (just in case there IS a difference between the two) to gradually change over, by taking one brand one day, the other another, for a couple of weeks. pas
11 - Woken by Sally around 7:15am . . .coffee cigarettes and annadin tablet for breakfast . . walked in the sun around 8:15am. Weird weather - proper summer sunny and yet still rather cold when out of the sun. Even forecasting night frosts! . carried on walking and headed down to Eastville Park and along the river. Damned if I can figure out what is going on with this painful foot of mine, and my aching legs in general. Seems to change from one day to the next. Always painful, but different pain. Impossible to pin point what the hell is hurting or what makes it hurt worse. Is it possible it IS something to do with my back, like the doctor suggested (and even BB suggested my problems coincided with being flat on my back and unconscious when I had my hernia surgery!). I'm not sure. Not sure I even know when this pain all started - not much point in checking back on my own journal - don't think I mentioned it here until I'd been suffering with it for some time, and had eventually decided it WAS causing me enough problems to be worthy of a mention - and of course then lots! I HAVE experimented with attempting to walk, while holding my posture and back in different ways. If I walk along, kinda like I used to be in the military, extremely upright with a really straight back, it 'may' make things a little easier on my foot. Trouble with that is it takes a lot of energy to remain all upright like that and I can only do it for 'so long' before my back aches and I have to slump to a more usual 'wilting', looking at the ground posture! I've even dabbled with kinda swinging my hips a bit (when no one is around to see!) in an attempt to change whatever may be going on in my lower back, but that doesn't seem to do much good, and even if it did - no way am I gonna become known as the guy with the dog who 'minces' around everywhere!! :o( . . Walked the extra up onto the hill by the monument at Purdown and sat quiet and cross legged in the sun for quite a while . . eventually climbed back down and walked back home the way I'd come. Couldn't face doing the rest of the full long walk along the river with the unpleasant road walk back through Fishponds. Home by around 11:20am . . ate half a chicken, five pieces of bread and loads of Flora for lunch . . . slept the afternoon away until after 4pm. Woke feeling unwell again - but I knew I would. . PCd a bit of this. Seems to be gettin harder and harder to do of late - and feels increasingly rather pointless. . . walked . . . BB called . . .sat in the garden listening to some music on the MP3 player briefly, but SO very cold out! . . . ate bowls of cornflakes and then TVd until bed around 12:30am. pas
12 - Woken by Sally and or the sound of next door returning home from her night shift around 6am or earlier and talking loud in her bathroom!!? Managed to get back to sleep until around 7am . . .walked and did litter duty for the first time in a while. A stolen car radio was hidden in the hedge, but the front panel was missing so I just left it on a bench for some kids to no doubt smash up. . .phoned the number of the person who lost the purse (again!) and actually got a reply this time. Sounded like a kid - or someone a bit 'vague'. Got an address from them so I'll probably pop it round later and push it through their letterbox . . . checked my current account balance (uh oh!?), transferred some money over from my savings account and then left Sally at home and drove to the Aldi store at St George. Parked up in the car park and waiting outside by around 8:40am. They opened at 9am and in I rushed looking for the external hard drive they'd advertised as part of this weeks special offers. A "Gericom External 3.5", 250GB Capacity, 7200rpm Hard Disk Drive, with Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader and 2 built-in USB 2 ports" for £99.99. I've put SO much work into MP3ing all this music (and my websites and photos I guess) that I've definitely reached the point where I no longer wish to be so cavalier about running the risk of potentially losing it all if I have a virus - or hardware problem - or a machine theft - or - whatever?? My attitude towards this music collection has become something along the lines that, assuming I can safeguard the data, being all digital like it is (rather than records and tapes and such), theoretically it should be good to see me out through the rest of my days, no matter what new devices come on the market. The crux of the matter is having some method of relatively cheaply and easily, backing up all the data for safekeeping. A relatively cheap external hard drive seemed like a pretty good answer to me - to be hidden somewhere about the house - with the added advantage of it being fairly 'portable' for those rare occasions when that could be useful for 'sharing stuff'. . . After a short panic when I couldn't find any on the shelves, it transpired they DID have them in, but you had to ask for them at the till. I asked. Jumped back in the car and raced home to play hard drives and backups . . .formatted the new 250gb hard drive (takes a while when its so big!) and used the waiting time to peel a bunch of sprouting potatoes and put them in the oven with some garlic to roast, and to do dish washing chores. . . PCd a bit of this whilst attempting to copy the entire contents of the 'My Documents' folder to the new external hard drive. Uh oh - I think what I haven't banked on here is the slow speed of my USB ports! SssslllOwwww!!? . . . ate roast potatoes, chicken, peas and gravy for a feast of a lunch. Plenty of roast potatoes left to go in the freezer . . . as soon as the food hit my stomach I couldn't stay awake and ended up napping next to the copying PC for a couple of hours . . . BB called early before she heads back to Arizona . . . oh dear - copying this much data through my slow USB ports is starting to look more and more out of the question. I estimate it would take a whole day to do what I want - or longer!! Do I need to know something about faster USB ports? :o( Oh well - as long as it does the job 'eventually' and I end up with a copy (once a month or less?) which I can stash away somewhere, it'll do. Hell - as far as I can tell from the paperwork (without having yet dismantled it) it contains a 'normal' hard drive - if I change my mind and decide it's too slow and no good - I could always strip the hard drive out of the case and fit it internally as a normal drive. Still makes for a pretty cheap big capacity drive. :o) Not a total waste of money - I figure you can NEVER have enough hard drive space - particularly when you start messing with creating DVDs and recording TV shows and regularly end up with three, four, five+ Gigabyte individual file sizes!! . . . PCd this . . .walked. Detoured and stopped on the way to the field to take pictures of the progress at the builders yard. As I stood there taking pictures, a police car drove by and stopped down the road. A policeman got out all looking around and eventually wandered up and asked how long I'd been there, because someone had called in a report that kids were playing on the demolition equipment! No sign of anything like that while I was there. 'Joked' that I no longer bother calling them, and certainly on 'this' occasion it wasn't me, although it quite often IS! . Walked Sally up the field and then out of the top and headed off to find the house of the person who'd lost the purse. Actually turned out to be quite a bit further than I'd thought by looking at the AtoZ map! The stolen car radio I'd put on the bench this morning was now laying back on the ground by the hedge. Just along the road before the traffic lights, a moped coming along the road behind me drew my attention with its awful poorly silences strangled exhaust tone. Turned out to be three helmetless youths on a stolen (torn off number plate) and heavily frontal damaged moped, just driving along the main road like they owned it! They turned up a steep hill - poor bike could hardly make it. Just as the engine was about to die, they turned down a lane between houses. They reappeared a short while later at the other end of the lane near the main junction, ignored whatever the traffic lights were doing, crossed two roads and disappeared off along another road! The purse owner lived deep in - um? - well - an even 'less desirable' area! Actually - a lovely area - even, almost, lovely little houses with big gardens - lots of expensive cars - but - well - it's all about the people who live there isn't it - the way they act toward others. I posted the purse anonymously through the letterbox and headed back. Stopped briefly on the way, to dangerously dance with the traffic in the middle of the road with Sally, to remove a smashed beer bottle from the middle of the lane around a mini roundabout. It wasn't all smashed - just the jagged top of the bottle had come off, and the jagged rest was rolling around with cars having to drive 'over' it, and - well - I used to ride motorbikes didn't I - that sort of 'nuisance' to a car, can kill you on a bike! Why would someone do that? . . back in the field and a group of four 'kids' were playing with the small wooden ladder type thing that has been laying in the hedge next to the builders yard since it was used by people to get down the slope when breaking in. I was actually rather impressed by their play - they were taking it in turns to hold the ladder up vertically in the middle of the field as the rest of them climbed up it, over, and jumped off the top - kinda like a circus act! lol Less impressed by the same group when I was walking back up from the bottom of the field to go and sit on a boulder for a smoke ('my' boulder was occupied by other kids throwing bits of something metallic (or glass?!!) across the road!). They were hanging around by the gap in the builders yard fence, and then one of them appeared from the yard with what appeared to be a large sheet of metal. They then all took off across the field with the metal sheet and the ladder out of sight towards the swings, to do - who knows what - but it 'could' have been a poor attempt at making a skateboard ramp maybe? . . as I sat having my smoke I came in for a bit of 'taunting' from the nearby hooded yobs. I made NO response. Aha - I 'think' it may have been the same group I photographed running amock in the builders yard, and who set that hedge on fire the next day, a couple of weeks ago. The taunting increased when one of them succeeded in getting a photograph of me on his fancy mobile phone, as I glanced round to look at them! :o( . . It's just 'little things' isn't it - but it's ALL the bloody time - EVERY time I step foot out of the house so it seems!! It never used to be like this. . .ended up back home with a 'plunging' downward mood!! . . .Mum called to touch base. . . PCd a bit of this but soon ran out of steam and ended up in front the TV. Watched the 'Tonight' program all about the latest 'fad' which has apparantly taken hold across the country, inappropriately called 'happy slapping' - basically mugging people 'for fun' and capturing it on mobile video phones!!!!!!!! I despair - I absolute f****** despair! God help any 'kid' who trys that on with me - god help me too, cause I would, absolutely, try to hurt them REAL bad. . very down. Ate chocolate before bed. pas
13 - Woken by Sally climbing on the bed and laying down next to me at 7:15am . . . walked. Some idiot had dumped a big pile of (stolen) newspapers at the top of the field and the strong, really very cold wind, had picked the papers up and spread them absolutely EVERYWHERE around the field! Impossible to walk without having to wade through it and get bits of newspaper wrapped around your ankles!! Jeeze - what a mess! . Down by the swings, the old dog walker guy was busy trying to clear up a bit of the mess. Turns out, the 'metal' sheet those kids took from the builders yard last night, was actually a sheet of foil backed plasterboard - which now lay in broken crumbling pieces all over the place. Spotted the refuse sack from the bin, blown away against the fence in the distance, so went and grabbed it and helped clear up the mess. . . phoned the planning department as listed on the plans I'd found and asked them what they wanted me to do with them. Some suggestion by the woman on the phone that it may have been the company MD who dropped them. lol She eventually phoned me back, got the details and serial number of which plans I had, and then asked me to destroy them. She thanked me for my 'honesty' - which struck me as a bit weird. I mean - what was I gonna do - take advantage of having found those plans and secretly go off and get the contract for building the retirement flats entrance gates somewhere in Gloucester??!! :o/ . . . PCd music but felt oh SO 'down'!!?. . . ate corned beef, grated cheese and onion sandwiches with two bags of cheese and onion crisps . . . TVd until I could sleep and then thankfully succeeded in sleeping the day away until around 6pm . . .walked . . .PCd and drank a glass of red wine - just one single small glass. Heading downstairs with my wine glass in one hand and my coffee mug in the other, somehow I slipped. I slipped on the very first top stair, fell sort of onto my back and left side, and the next thing I knew after a lot of banging crashing noise, I was in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs, surrounded by the broken glass from the wine glass!!! Ouch. Blimey - I've never had anything like that happen before!!! Poor Sally came to investigate the noise, all ears down as though she thought she'd done something wrong. Luckily somehow I escaped without serious injury - as far as I can tell, just a badly bruised left elbow and bruises and scrapes down my left hip thigh and leg. I think on balance (despite having had the glass of wine), what caused the slip was my dodgy foot, and having both hands full and not being able to steady myself using the stair rail, like I now always have to do. . What a pratt! . . . BB called . . . PCd/TVd and ate bowls of cornflakes before to bed around midnight. psd
14 - Woken by Sally around 7:30am . . .pretty stiff and sore and black and blue down one side!! Annadins for 'breakfast'. :o( . . . walked. Crashing down the stairs last night doesn't seem to have done my foot any harm. Maybe if I throw myself down again it'll be all fixed?. Three of the big school windows were all boarded up again, where someone had smashed them - again! Retrieved the stolen broken radio - which had once again been thrown back in the hedge. I'm gonna cut off those useful phono sockets from the back and then put it in my bin. Down by the swings (where the kids had all been drinking beer last night) was the usual mess, and indications of some stolen stuff having been smashed up and thrown around. Looked like some of the contents of a workmans shed or van - safety spectacles, bottle of lawn feed, aerosol of expanding foam (exploded and stuck to the grass everywhere), and in the hedge a huge tangled mass (most of a full reel!) of heavy duty electrical cable. Weird - five core cable with a brown, blue, two blacks and an earth!?? Not sure what that is used for, but it was too good to just leave there to be destroyed by the yobs. Ended up carrying all THAT home as well! More clutter!! . . . dismantled a bit of the radio and removed the useful wires with the phono sockets on the end, before putting it in the bin . . . PCd a little music but got a bee in my bonnet about my slow USB ports . . left Sally at home and walked round the local computer shop and asked silly questions (mistakenly assuming I had to buy a high speed USB card). Cheerful and helpful as usual, he pretty much confirmed 'I' had simply done something wrong or hadn't set something up right! Hmm? Returned home (without buying anything - just!) and had a damn good poke around in motherboard manuals (helps to realise you are reading the wrong motherboard manual!!), driver disks, re-installed drivers, etc, etc. Eventually I stumbled across a BIOS setting - where I had USB 2 support turned off for some reason?!! Yayyyy. :o) Did the trick a treat. Now have my super fast USB ports like I should. Now copies music to the MP3 player in a jiffy - and that external hard drive as a back up device is now a useable reality (although a full 'My Documents' copy (129GB and forty thousand files!!!) will still take a few hours!!). .felt much more 'up' today - and so easily sorting those USBs out, helped. . . Hmmm - seem to be in the mood for some 'retail therapy'. Left Sally at home and drove to the Rajani store in search of some of the cheap audio cables and maybe some headphones, which I saw there last time I was there. . spent a mere £10 and came home with a three into one switchable SCART socket block for the TV, a pair of cheap headphones, and two long headphone extension leads complete with bonded plugs and sockets . . . messed around with the PC and the cables and figured one of those extension cables plugged into the PC speaker socket and brought round the front was a neat way out of my not having a headphone socket. And those cheap headphones work quite nicely - and on the MP3 player as well. It's been driving me mad trying to keep those stupid little earplug type things in my ears - they keep falling out. Guess I must have weird shaped ears. . . jumped back in the car and went and bought another 95p extension lead and a very slightly more expensive coiled one. Those cheaper ones may well end up being cut off and modified to replace the leads on my PC speakers. The shortness of the current leads drives me mad. . .moved PC/stereo stuff around and made things a bit neater and more space saving . . . cooked and ate a pizza with extra tomato, cheese and onion toppings . . . napped until around 6pm . . .PCd a cassette or two and then walked - without incident! A pleasant and most welcome change. Maybe all the yobs were at home watching Doctor Who?. . .PCd this . . . BB called . . .ate corned beef, onion and cheese sandwiches with two bags of crisps . . PCd/TVd. I just can't leave it alone can I - spent hours experimenting with the TV card in the living room machine, trying to figure out what combination of settings I ought to be using for best quality/smallest file size. I just can't seem to get to the bottom of it!!?? PCd until daybreak before bed. pas
15 - Woken by Sally around 7:20am . . .walked. Two wooden pallets and some large plastic bread type trays were blocking the pavement round the corner and half laying in the gutter! . . Did a little litter duty, but there is far too much newspaper in all the hedgerows to make any impression without filling dozens of carrier bags! Found a handful of cigarettes in a packet. Beautiful calm sunny start to the day. A jogger I often see and sometimes talk to, told me all about how the other day there had been lots of motorbikes going round the field. He'd spotted a policeman while on his run so he reported them and the policeman DID go have a look. Seems like everyone (who actually goes out and walks about in the area, rather than just walk from their car to their front door) has similar sorts of tales to tell. The REAL extent of the increasing antisocial behaviour around here, is truly little realised. :o( I've tried to figure it out, but of course with little success. I ended up looking up 'empathy' in the dictionary. Seems to me, whatever are the causes, - it is a lack of 'empathy' which is causing all this trouble. People are no longer brought up to 'feel' for anyone, other than themselves. That's kindof psychopathic isn't it? And here am I, officially labeled with a 'schizoid personality disorder'! I'm the one who isn't 'normal'! Sheeesh! :o( . . .PCd this . . .cleaned and polished my almost worn out, 'fire damaged' shoes. . . sat in the sun briefly, and even 'touched' a dusty guitar, but that didn't last for long . . . drank a glass of red wine and then feasted on defrosted roast chicken, potatoes, peas, carrots and half a pint of gravy . . . slept the afternoon away until around 5:30pm . . . walked. Very pleasant and warm out. Not so pleasant when a group of maybe half a dozen black youths turned up in the field with a clearly stolen moped (numberplate removed), and one of those weird miniature 'racing bikes', and started riding around and up and down the cycle path between the dog walkers. Dunno why but I felt 'strong' enough, to immediately call the local police number on my mobile and report them. As I was making the call (damn I'm gonna have to learn a few more of the road names around here) the one who was currently riding around the field spotted me, and headed straight back to his mates, all sat on the other side of the field. They immediately took off, out of the far side of the field - two kids on the stolen moped, only one with a helmet, drove straight down the road and out of my sight. The other ones disappeared into the distance pushing the miniature racing bike along the pavements. I was still making the call to the police so said they'd all gone so never mind, but the call handler did say they'd put out a call for observations in the area. . sat on my rock and played ball and smoked a cigarette or two as the sun sank toward the horizon. Very pleasant. Just then a small mini van pulled up behind me containing a couple and their teenage daughter. The young girl got out of the back and came over and asked if I'd seen a pink moped in the field!! I asked why before responding. Turns out, her sister I think it was, had recently had her moped stolen - and someone they knew had told them they'd seen 'so and so' riding it over the field on Friday night! They were miserably spending their Sunday evening desperately touring the area looking for it!! It'd only recently cost her £1,500 and she'd only got third party insurance on it - no theft cover! Terribly sad. Told them all about having just called the police but was really pretty sure the one I'd seen was a dull silver, certainly not a shocking pink. Damn - should have taken a photo, see! Felt so, SO sorry for them. Commiserated as best I could. . I dunno - it really IS tempting to 'fight back' and start some sort of vigilante type 'patroling' of the area, making masses of phone calls to the police, 'zero-tolerance' like, of every single illegal thing I see - which believe it or not is actually quite a bit more than I ever type here!! :o( . . . returned PS ansaphone call and said 'see ya later'. . .BB called . . . PS popped round for chats. . . ate chocolate biscuits and then garlic sausage sandwiches with two bags of crisps . . . straight to bed around 12:30am after PS had gone. pasd
16 - Woken by Sally around 7:45am . . .walked. Very warm - overdressed! Something different going on at the local school today. Some of the 'usual' entrance gates were locked shut and teachers were manning the main entrance. Excellent. Have they finally figured out how to take a register of attendees I wonder? I took some little pleasure in spontaneously having a word with one of the teachers and remarking "see that girl behind me with the white shirt?" - and then pointed out that she never ever seems to attend lessons and is skipping classes most every day. He seemed to already know - but I figured maybe if some 'passer by' mentioned it, they may make it harder for HER to do. You see - it's that girl who's given me a lot of 'lip' in the past and who has thrown her litter AT me on more than one occasion. :o/ . . PCd music . . . Mum called to touch base . . .good news in the post - a £150 win on the premium bonds this month. Guess that kinda pays for that hard drive I bought then doesn't it. . . ate garlic sausage, mayo, onion and grated cheese sandwiches with two bags of crisps for lunch . . . TVd . . . slept right through from around 2:30pm until just gone 6pm . . .PCd a little before walking. Over the field and half way round, that same little kid on the miniature off road bike I've had the run ins with recently, turned up riding along the cycle path. He spotted me in the distance and started with the hand gestures, abuse and taunting. I pretended to start using my phone - with that he shouted out 'w****r!' across the field at me and then rode off. It's pretty unpleasant to have this sort of thing to look forward to, most every day now. :o( . . . PCd . . . BB called. . .recorded cassettes . . . ate a tray of Lidl 'Jaffa' cakes and then ended up cooking up four cheeseburgers and eating them a little before midnight. . .listened to some music (loud with the headphones on) and then made the mistake of getting absorbed in trying to edit some of the MPEG stuff I'd recorded from the TV. Usual disappointing time consuming nonsense - much (all?) of it an unsuccessful waste of LOTs of time. To bed with daylight showing through the curtains again!! ps
17 - Woken by Sally just before 8am. Guess I'll be sleeping the afternoon away again then!. . . walked in the sun - but still strangely cool air. Found a penny. . . briefly surfed the local stores sites to see what the up and coming offers are. Blimey - Lidl are doing an internal 250GB hard drive for around £70!! That's cheap! Resist, resist! :o/ . . . carried on PCing TV-recorded music videos where I'd left off last night, and mostly sat around all frustrated waiting for processing to complete (but too tired to really do anything else). . . got bored waiting on the PC so walked with Sally around midday and took photos of the progress at the builders yard. (Damn - some big van parked in the way of one of my vantage points, so I couldn't get that sequence like usual!) They haven't even finished demolishing the site, and yet have already started putting in the foundations for the new buildings! Walked Sally around the field and played ball a bit. . treated myself to a £3.20 cod and chips takeaway for lunch on the way home . . .TVd/PCd this, before catching up on sleep. . .disturbed sleep and then up again around 5pm . . . usual mass of junk mail and attached viruses to the site to have to try and sort through. One of them almost had me! Allegedly from the service department of own ISP titled "*WARNING* YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT WILL BE CLOSED", which of course would draw ones attention, in a panicy sort of way wouldn't it! Looked up the (real) originating IP address ([193.99.213.5])on ARIN , RIPE etc, and ended up figuring it was bogus and good for deletion. Can 'Dieter Knobelspies' really be who owns that IP?!! . . . Mum called and said she'd been in touch with some vacuum place or other, asking after a replacement drive belt for my turbinette vacuum attachment. They didn't have any belts, but DID have a whole replacement (old) turbinette they'd let her have for £10. Yes please! She called them back and they arranged to drop it in to her (because they were passing) on Thursday! Excellent. :o) . . . touched base with PS and drew his attention to the Lidl hard drives on Thursday . . .PCd this. . .damn-just about to walk Sally when I found my mobile phone has stopped working! :o( I'm gonna feel a bit lost without that - and I just BET I have cause to need it tonight! Sods law.. . . walked and found a penny. Walking towards the field, yet again, that same unpleasant kid was on his miniature off road motorcycle (on the road) and when he saw me approaching he started waving and making gestures and calling out at me (I ignored him and didn't respond at all) - before turning his bike round and then riding along the cycle path across the field, between the playing children and dogs. He parked up on the grass on the opposite side of the field with a friend of his who was on one of those motorised aluminium scooter things. As I walked along the cycle path following my normal twice daily route, they started up their machines and headed off at first towards the top of the field - but then the little idiot who has become a real thorn in my flesh, turned his bike around, rejoined the cycle path and then raced STRAIGHT towards me, playing chicken, presumably as fast as his bike would go! I don't care how young or how much of a 'child' he is - if he'd kept coming, I WOULD have had him off! I think he must have realised that at some point because he suddenly veered off onto the grass. Despite the humiliation involved, I had a go at chasing across at him as he did so (wow-is my foot getting better?), and even shouted something unpleasant like 'I'll f****** 'ave you!" after him . :o( I think there WAS a bit of a look of panic in his eyes there for a bit, which WAS rather satisfying. Off he rode. (had to apologise to a woman dog walker and her daughters nearby for my behaviour!!!!) Remarkable that the field was pretty much full of playing children and dog walkers and such, but everyone tried to ignor what was going on - as everyone seems to do these days??. .at the top of the field there was a small group of children stood talking with the one on the motorised scooter (and yes there WERE comments like 'is that him?' as I approached). I asked the kid on the scooter if he was the one with the other motorbike rider. Surpsingly he said yes he was. I asked him what that kids name was. 'Charlie' he said after a pause (hmm - that's a name I've heard before isn't it! Bet everyone is called Charlie around here.). I asked what his surname and address were, but of course he said he didn't know. I guess I HAVE turned into a nasty, twisted, bitter old man, but I really, REALLY don't want to have to go through all this sort of s**t every day. This one particular kid is starting to make my simple little life of walking Sally, a misery. It's all getting out of hand - and I just want it to stop (WITHOUT taking my car out one night and driving it straight to the scene of the accident!!). Rightly or wrongly, (and yes I've no doubt it is probably wrongly in the eyes of anyone who hasn't been tortured and ground down almost every day like this) but I was wound up and upset and blurted out "Right. He's f****ing with me. I'm gonna f**k with HIM! You tell 'im - alright?!" before walking off. A 'bluff' of course, but oh dear!! :o( Bet that's earned me the chance to be the ingredients in a nightime omlette again - at least!!!! :o( . .There was a sobering TV show on last night, all about old age pensioners who have been issued with 'Anti Social Behaviour Orders' - like the old seventy+ year old guy, totally obsessed by the 'normal' car parking in his street - who claimed many were breaking the (letter of the) law, as detailed in clause such and such of section such and such of the highway code. Madness over silly stuff. It was uncomfortably 'familiar' - and I had to test out what the psychologist said about the REAL reasons behind their innappropriate behaviour, on my self. It was something along the lines that these old people were generally loners, no longer in employment, had little or no contact with family friends or relatives, and were effectively powerless in their community - and their 'fixation' on the subject of their inappropriate behaviour, was the only way they could feel empowered. Well - sums me up I guess!! :o( . . .PCd this . . . touched base with BB . . .TVd and watched the second of the 'guys in a monastery' program. Fascinating - and somehow, some of that 'path to enlightenment' self analysis stuff they are going through, projects across out of the program in a personal way. Ended up feeling different and wiser about 'silly stuff' - temporarily of course. . . PCd and tried to surf looking at mobile phones but too many options and too confusing. . . ate bowls of cornflakes and ended up watching the news channel for ages. Most entertaining thing I've seen in a while. Vote George Galloway for president! . . . to bed around 1:30am. ps
18 - Woken by Sally at 7:15am . . .walked and found 2p . . . PCd a little and did dishwashing chores as cassettes recorded . . . walked with Sally up to Kingswood to bank the premium bond wins and shop just a little. Popped into the mobile phone store to try and start getting an idea what on earth all these different handsets, networks, features and prices are all about. Good grief - seems as though there is an almost infinite number of options and prices. How the hell does one choose? Do I just want to make the occasional phone call to the police and carry it as 'insurance' - or do I want all these extra gimmicks - like a camera (too low res for anything serious) and MP3 player (but I already have one) all built in?!! Good grief - how do all these school kids end up wandering around with such expensive phones as toys? Damn - I need to talk to 'Charlie' and see if he recommends any, like the one he used to take my picture the other day maybe? :o/ . . .surfed and tried to learn about phones, but mostly failed. Trouble seems to be - the difference in price between the cheapest most basic, and the most expensive and feature filled - really isn't 'that' much. And how long is it liable to actually last? And, and - oh hell I dunno! All I know is, I no longer feel comfortable out and about, without that ability to 'call for help'. I WILL be buying one, and pretty soon - but definitely it'll have to be a 'pay as you go' type without a nasty contract. . (Funnily enough, Lidl are advertising one 'on special' tomorrow, but I'm not sure that it's actually a good deal. I'll probably realise it was, when it's too late! (A Motorola V220 without a SIMM lock for £99)) . . . ate two cheap and nasty meat and potato pastry pies with two bags of crisps and then ended up sleeping the afternoon away until around 5pm . . . PCd this . . . had a go at looking at my broken mobile phone and succeeded in pretty much fully dismantling it. Found no sign of anything simply loose - put it all back together and still it didn't work, so I guess that's that. :o( . . . walked Sally - with 'prudence'. Figured it was prudent (although humiliating) to alter my routine and walk a little later than usual, in the hope of avoiding more - um - 'unpleasantness'. The unpredictable unpleasantness of my OWN reactions as much as anything else! . . Reached the field around 7:50pm only to see a mass of maybe a dozen kids in the distance - complete with the little brat on the miniature off road bike and two more on 'go-peds'!! "It's that bloke. There 'e is". Ohhww s***!! :o( I let Sally off her lead and started my normal walk - which unfortunately initialy took me straight towards them! Can't tell you how relieved I was, when somehow the group kinda dispersed. A whole bunch walked off out of that far side of the field, the two on go-peds pretty much stayed where they were on the cycle path, and - good grief, I don't believe it!! The brat I've had the real trouble with, started his bike up and high tailed it away at right angles across the grass in the direction of the top of the field, and disappeared out along the roads! Blimey!? :o/ I walked my usual circuit 'in peace' - although extremely up tight, wondering if 'home' was safe. Doing my usual perimeter circuit, I eventually had to walk back down past the two kids on the go-peds who were driving noisily up and down the cycle path and around on the grass. Seemed like a prudent idea to attempt to engage them in a little not 'too' confrontational conversation, rather than turn into 'neanderthal man' again. Might have worked out better if I actually had a clue about such normal social interaction. I ended up acknowledging I had a 'problem' with the attitude of their friend, but said I'd really like to know - and then proceeded to ask lame questions about the machines they were riding (although, I REALLY DID, want to know.) Turns out the engines are around 22cc and they cost around £500!!!!! Jeeze - some 'toy'! What on earth goes through the minds of the parents that bought them for them - and who happily accepts that they go riding off on them down the road each evening? I couldn't help it - I HAD to ask them what in their minds, makes them NOT a 'motorbike' - requiring tax, insurance, licence, helmet, - the road, etc etc! The straw they clutched, was that it did not have a seat, so was not a motorbike. Duh!? I laboured the point and somehow got on to the subject of what would happen if someone called the police? They knew. A glaring enough contradiction in reasoning I thought. I carried on my walk with a wave - and they carried on (after a mildly insulting comment to my (deaf) back) with their racing up and down the cycle path! :o( . .bumped into LB out in the street as I reached home, and used the opportunity to gently broach the subject of the duty free tobacco money she still owes me. (Giving her (her guy) the benefit of the doubt, allowing for some payment for the hassle in having to get it for me, I've calculated I need about £50 back, to prevent some 'ill feeling' in me). . .BB called . . .A short while later LB unexpectedly called and confirmed the amount owing to me was about £70, and I'd have it when so and so changed the Euros back and this and that. Ok. Phew. I was starting to wonder if that was gonna end up - um - 'being a problem' between us. Of course, me being me, such a 'problem' would result in the immediate lack of any further contact, and that individual consigned to history, a-la R.I.P.!!!!! Although - on reflection - I don't even usually need the problem!!!!! :o( . . . called BB back. . . TVd and watched Crimewatch UK but yet again sadly didn't recognise anyone to 'grass up'. Actually - the way things are going - I guess I could soon be recognising myself - and having to call in to say I think I may know who I am!!??!! . . . ate the remaining cheap and nasty meat and potato pastry pie with two bags of crisps, and a tray of Lidl Jaffa Cakes. . .to bed around 12:30am. Definitely not a healthy diet today! ps
19 - Woken by Sally earlier but managed to growl her away. Up just before 8am . . .walked and found 2p. The school is still doing its 'teachers-on-gate-duty' thing, with what would appear to be plenty of records taken of who is late. Sure is having an effect - the streets are noticeably SO much quieter. Took some little pleasure when walking back home around 9:20, in telling the teachers still on the main gate that there was a group of eight kids skipping classes and smoking, down by the swings (their presence stopped me from sitting there for my usual cigarette). The group included 'that one with the crutches who never EVER attends classes' - they knew his name and who I meant immediately. He is SO young and has SUCH an attitude already! I've seen him around often enough to know that he is, without doubt, a key player in much of the low level thefts and damage that occurs in the area. Something terribly terribly wrong with his home life. Not much hope for him at all. :o( . . Mum called to say the turbinette thing (different to the one I had) had been delivered and seemed to work ok. Goodo. Shame about her fridge which has packed up!! . . . surfed looking at phones but made no progress in making any decision . . . left Sally at home and drove to Emersons Green to shop. Couldn't resist a look in Lidl but no sign of any special offer phones or hard drives - which was probably just as well! Shopped 'big' in Sainsburys (£40) - and couldn't resist two of their ready cooked chickens for £5.50! This really is becoming a bit of a habit!! Just slightly more expensive than the Morrisons store in Fishponds, but they look bigger and are apparantly 'seasoned'. . stopped off at the pet store in Longwell Green on the way home and bought Sally food supplies (17kg of PAL complete for £17.95 and 48 tins of Winalot for £16.20). I couldn't help it - ended up dashing into the Hanham Lidl on the way through, but again no sign of the interesting advertised goodies. Oh well - mustn't waste the visit - bought four boxes of cheap and delicious, Lidl (better than anyone elses own brand cheap ones) jaffa cakes. :o) . . . ate half a chicken with loads of salt and four pieces of bread and flora - and more flora with each mouthful, like a sauce!! Wow - that seasoning sure makes it even nicer. . . ended up getting bogged down in trying to record a couple more music videos onto the PC from the TV and had to resist the oh SO strong desire to sleep. . . PCd music . . . surfed more mobile phone sites before eventually giving up, still none the wiser. What is particularly annoying about all this, is that the country must be drowning in unused mobile phones, laying around all over the place from where people have upgraded for reasons of 'fashion'! I assume one of those would do me, assuming it was on the Orange network or unlocked, to take my existing Orange SIM card (which DOES have some unknown amount of credit still on it!) That's how it works isn't it? Actually tempted to put a 'wanted' advert in a local shop window or free ads paper. :o( . . . damn - I get up tight when it's getting near time to walk Sally these days!! :o( Walked in the lightest of drizzle without a coat and without really any 'incident' (unless you want to count the group of really, really young hooded yobs (including the one with the crutches - who lets it be seen, he actually doesn't need them!) who in the time it took me to walk around the field, suddenly had a quick release mountain bike wheel in their guilty-acting possession, and who walked off up the lane behind the shops talking about 'stashing' it somewhere!) Found 3p . . . PCd this while watching the boring TV show Mum had left an ansaphone message suggesting may be worth a look. Eventually returned her call and said it wasn't for me. . . PCd this for ages!! . . .TVd and ate bowls of co-co pops . . . to bed around midnight.pas
20 - Woken by Sally earlier more than once, and then finally up around 7:30am. SO tired - god I could do with a proper lie in one day . . . walked. Good grief!!!?? A huge group of kids (mostly girls) were all noisily congregated near the shops, all dressed like - um - well - hookers basically!! All belt like mini skirts and bare midriffs. I would have said 'St Trinians' girls, but in comparison, the St Trinians girls are very well covered/dressed!!! (More like Christina Anguilera in the 'Dirrrty' pop video?) Would have made for an amazing unbelievable photograph, but of course that would have been an arrestable offence under the circumstances! Very uncomfortable actually - they ARE just 'children' after all - didn't know where to look!!!!! Good job I never wanted/had kids. No way would I have allowed a child of mine to go out (un)dressed like that! I asked a group of passing kids over the field what was going on, and they said it was the last school day of 'year eleven', whatever that is. I joked they wouldn't know where to look - they assured me they would! Poor (hetero male) teachers!! Found a soft guitar pick. . . dabbled with a little music and videos. Finally got round to finishing off the MP3 tagging of the boxed set of Classics I'd scored from the charity shop, so figured I may as well get on and post it to Mum to get them out of the way. Burned a copy of the Peter Kay show I'd recorded from the TV and slipped that in the box as well. Ate half a chicken with bread and butter as the DVD burned . . .walked with Sally round the Post Office and posted the package for a couple of pounds. Found 5p. Briefly stopped in the little nearby electronics shop and spent a pound or so on a handful of solder-on phono lead plugs and sockets for future use. . . napped until woken by Mum calling . . . PS called saying 'tonight?'. Said yes and broached the subject of did he have a spare mobile phone laying around because his daughter is always trading up, keeping up with the school yard fashion. Oooh, oooh - it's her birthday sometime soon and is actually liable to be going down town tomorrow to buy a new one - hers will then go to PS wife, and PS would have hers - and that would leave one spare and likely up for grabs. Yayyyy. . .walked. Looks like the school kids have a party going on in the rugby club building tonight. HUGE numbers of kids all noisily roaming around the streets drinking cans of lager and beer and such - and a small bunch hidden in a bush doing who knows what, although sounded like they were passing a joint. There's gonna be plenty of 'trouble' in the area later - you can feel it building in the air almost! :o( Seemed amazing there was no visible police presence in the area, at all. They'll be busy tonight for sure - all over the country no doubt. . .PS popped round for chats and let me have a look at the little mobile phone I may be able to have tomorrow if his daughter buys a new one for her birthday. Blimey - cheap and cheerful - that'd do me nicely. . TVd and ate masses of chocolate biscuits . . .actually very suprised to hear very little of anything going on outside. Phew. :o) . . . PCd once PS had gone. Lot of noise in the street around 2am which saw me sitting at the window for quiet a time watching the little drunken group that was stood opposite. One of the 'youths' in particular seemed to have developed tourrets (spelling?) and ocassionally suddenly had to shout out for no apparant reason. It was actually heartening to see one of the girls continually telling him to be quiet. . . returned BBs ansaphone calls and touched base around 2:15am! . . .ate a banana and PCd some more. . . finally to bed, getting on for 5am! Looked like a clear sky and toyed with the idea of a long early sunrise walk, but just couldn't face it. pas
21 - Woke earlier to the sound of heavy rain (good job I didn't go walking) and then woken by Sally around 8:45am . . .walked in the rain and found a cheap gawdy dangly silver and diamond effect earring to add to my collection. . . Mum called to confirm receipt of the CDs and DVD I'd sent. :o) . . .PCd a little music splitting tracks and such, as heavy showers drifted through. . . ate garlic sausage, grated cheese, mayo, onion, lettuce and tomato sandwiches for lunch, and then a couple of slices of coffee madeira cake . . . LB called before I'd finished my cake asking for assistance because she thought she'd heard something alive in her bathroom behind her washing machine (her cats often bring live stuff into the house, which has a habit of escaping and then crawling off to die and rot somewhere!! Yuk!!). Told her to close the door and I'd be up after I'd finished my cake . . . popped up LBs and scrabbled around in the muck in her bathroom but found nothing. If there was anything behind there - it's somewhere else now, and being very still and quiet! . . . lay down to nap around 2pm as a huge downpour and thunderstorm passed through. Even saw the closest lightening flash through closed eyes and curtains, before the almost immediate crash of thunder (emergency service sirens in the distance not long after). . slept through PS leaving an ansaphone message until around 5:45pm. Uh oh - there's a weird bubble appeared in the wallpaper beneath the front bedroom window!?? Rubbed around it with my thumb to investigate and it turned out the bubble was full of water!!!!!! Oh dear. Where the hell is that getting in? Knew I should have got round to getting the ladder out and climbing up and restoring and repainting the outside of that sandstone window ledge before now. The paint surface was damaged by the scaffolding when I had the roof done, and presumably allowed the rain, damp and frost in, and now all the paint is coming off it all over the place. :o( . . PS called and said he'd pop round again later and bring his phone for me to 'borrow/familiarise myself with' for a week. Suggested he could maybe bring a record or two as well. . walked between showers and found 18p . .well, at least all that rain has topped the pond up again nicely. . .PCd this . . .touched base with BB . . .PS came round complete with phone and a carrier of a handful of records, of bands I'd never heard of. . . TVd. Ate a banana, biscuits and a bag of crisps . . . ate multiple bowls of co-co pops after midnight as soon as PS had gone. . . messed around with the manual and phone, familiarising myself with 'some' of what it does. A Panasonic EB-GD67. Cute little thing (SO much smaller than my broken Philips Savvy) - does pretty much everything one needs from a phone - and then some. Eventually felt brave enough to take the back off and drop the battery out and try it with the SIMM card out of MY phone. Damn - it wouldn't do anything except tell me to insert the correct SIMM card, so I guess it must be a 'locked' phone. Shame. . eventually to bed around 2:30am. ps
22 - Woke earlier but managed to sleep on until almost 9am thank goodness!! . . . walked and found 2p. Experimented with the mobile phone and called myself at home and left a message as a test, to know how it sounds, and then touched base briefly with Mum . . .PCd . . Mum called to touch base . . . surfed for ages trying to learn a little and get to the bottom of whether or not that mobile phone can be 'unlocked'. Pretty sure it can, but as far as I can tell, I can't do it. It needs a cable or some such to do it? Eventually actually called up the Virgin helpline and explained the situation and asked dumb questions. The young guy on the phone was REALLY helpful and clued me in quite a bit about stuff. Seems like I should be able to get it unlocked for a modest fee in a 'Carphone Warehouse' store somewhere. The phone WILL need transferring into my name because it HAS been registered as PS daughter's - but she will have to do that! . . PCd recording some music while watching a bit of the monaco grand prix on the TV . . . drank the last of the cheap red wine (actually poured much of it down the sink) and then defrosted and reheated some roast chicken and roast potatoes and cooked some peas and ate the feast with a pint of instant gravy. . . slept the afternoon away until around 6pm . . . walked and found 2p . . . PCd music . . . BB called . . . TVd and ate ALL of the rest of the coffee cake. . . PCd and listened to loud music/videos with the heaphones on etc etc until bird song and daylight!!! psd
23 - Woken by insistant Sally at 7:30am . . . walked . . .TVd . . . fried up some ham, mushrooms and onions for a mid morning meal with four pieces of bread and butter and a glass of orange juice around 10:30am . . . slept until after 3pm . . . PCd music and sorted some junk out. Filled another bin with 3.5inch floppy disks (after having stuck a sharp knife through them all to make sure no surviving data was retrievable). Found an old 1GB hard drive in a drawer and decided it had definitely outlived its usefulness to me - especially now I'm so often dealing in such huge files. Tempting to donate it to some recycling place or other, but I just couldn't be bothered to fit it to a machine just to make sure it was all wiped clean of data. Ended up taking it out onto the patio and introducing it to a large hammer (sacrilege!!!), before putting it in the bin!!. . . walked and found a penny . . . returned Mums ansaphone call about a TV show to watch . . . BB called . . . TVd while keeping records recording. Actually recorded the TV shows Mum had mentioned, because she can't get Channel 5 and she seemed pretty interested in them . . . TVd and kept records recording all evening . . . ate two bags of crisps and corned beef sandwiches and a banana . . . to bed around 1am when the last record had finished. ps
24 - Woken around 8am by the sound of Sally licking herself! Ewww. . .walked late around 9am and found 2p. Bumped into a policeman on a push bike over the field, who turned out to be the local 'Schools Officer'!! Blimey - he must be kept busy! He gave me his 'business card' complete with phone numbers and such and said to call him if I had anything to report (incluiding kids playing truant). In conversation I mentioned the kid on the cruches (he knew his name) and the bicycle wheel I'd seen the kids with the other night. Blimey - apparantly that day, a teacher'd had one of his wheels stolen. . .On this occasion he'd been called out by someone reporting the school kids riding around on a stolen motorbike. Sure enough, there it was hidden under the overhanging trees. Blimey - apart from the inevitable damage, it looked almost brand new! :o( . . . PCd this and updated just a little of my 'Hood' page, because I haven't for so long . . . PCd, laboriously splitting recorded records into tracks, before setting the conversion of the seventy plus tracks to MP3 going . . . mixed up a third of a tin of corned beef, some grated cheese and a grated onion - briefly microwaved it all so I could mash it up and then spread it on sandwiches for lunch, with a couple of bags of crisps . . .napped . . . split the last of PS records. Can't help wondering if he went out of his way to sort out a stack of records that didn't have any obviously discernable track breaks!! SUCH a struggle trying to identify where one track ends and the next begins before splitting them all! Ended up having to listen to much of them - and the funny thing is, I can't imagine ever doing so again - not my cup of tea!! . . . set a cassette recording and walked. Found a penny. .sat on a boulder smoking my cigarette, a hooded, baseball capped youth started trying to play with Sally, throwing the empty plastic drinks bottle she was gnawing on. Made a nice change to just have a reasonable word with someone, who wasn't intent on breaking the law in some way. Sally thought otherwise and gave a bit of a growl as he grabbed 'her' litter to throw. lol . . .franticaly PCd and managed to tag and assimilate all the records into my music collection before leaving my backup drive to update while I settled down to watch some TV. Tried to touch base with BB to say I'll call ya later, but her line was always engaged. Eventually she called only to be quickly told I'd call her back in a couple of hours. . a rare evening run of a couple of hours of absorbing TV. The Monastary fly on the wall program on from nine until ten (invoking the usual heavy self analysis). Change channel for a half an hour fly on the wall documentary program all about 'the real' Las Vegas CSI investigating a murder. (Little did that poor guy know, that he'd live a short life, be murdered by a prostitute, and then end up having his body feature in some 'entertainment' TV show, sold all around the world!! :o( ) Turn over to another channel and watch a real tear jerker documentary, 'One Life', about a sixteen year old mother (of a two or three year old child!!!) who died of cancer!!! Jeeze-what an emotional roller coaster ride all THAT was!! . . .touched base with BB . . . ate the last of the co-co pops, some jaffa cakes and a banana or two . . .PCd and sorted out my completed back up drive, etc until bed around 3am. ps
25 - Woken by insistant Sally around 7:15am . . . PCd a bit of this . . . set a cassette recording - or at least I thought I had! Turns out I'd forgotten to click on the record button (again!) so that was a wasted effort. Walked. Found another ball on a rope for Sally to ignore and ME to run after! On the way back home, did my 'usual' " 'mornin - two (truants) on the swings" as I passed the teachers at the school gate. Dunno if they ever follow it up, but it somehow makes me feel better to tell them. Just over the main road by the pedestrian crossing I spotted some litter in the middle of the pavement - oh no it's not - yayyyyy - a £10 note! :o) Went into 'hyperscan' mode - assessed the wind conditions - and - could it be? YAYYYYYY - I don't believe it!! Another £10 note laying in the road about thirty feet away!! To hell with trying to remain inconspicuous picking up money - I stood in the road and scanned all around. I ended up walking twenty or so feet back the way I'd come, to check out another piece of 'litter' laying in the gutter by the drain. Oh my god! It WAS another £10 note. Walked happily home clutching my £30, but feeling rather sorry for whoever it was who'd dropped it - unless it was that moped rider I'd seen, going in to the old post office shop, buying cigarettes (actually - was HE old enough to buy them anyway?) for the school kids waiting outside. Not a bad start to a day - and dare I say, even my bad foot hardly hurt this morning. :o) . . .PCd this - gloating. Think I'll be going shopping later. . . walked with Sally up to the local phone shop to see if they unlock phones. They didn't, but suggested the other shop round the corner - which is closed on Wednesdays! Second time I've walked all up there intending to look in that shop, only to find it's a Wednesday! . . . cooked up mushrooms, chips and a couple of frozen peppered beef things for lunch . . . slept - or at least tried to. With the bank holiday weekend approaching, it seems as though every store in Bristol is having their 'special offer' leaflets put through the door. Kept on getting woken by Sally barking at them. . eventually gave up trying to sleep and got up around 4pm to chew on an annadin tablet. . . warm and hazy sunny out. Set off with Sally around 5pm and did the long walk down to Eastville Park, along the river, up onto the hill at Purdown to sit by the monument for quite a while and then back down to Snuff Mills, into Vassals, along the river, and eventually back home along the roads through Fishponds. Found a penny. Home around 8:15pm. . returned Mums ansaphone call and touched base . . . TVd . . . BB called . . .ate the last banana, bowls of cornflakes and then 'early' to bed around 11:30pm. . woken by some shouting in the street, but I was SO tired I didn't do my usual leaping to the window to look, and eventually just fell back asleep. paas
26 - Up late around 8:30am! PCd this . . . walked late in a hint of drizzle . . . stopped off at home and then walked with Sally up to the mobile phone shop. They DID do unlocking but it'd cost me £10!! Ouch - that's a bit pricey!? Almost makes the whole idea non cost effective. Depends on how much credit I have left on that old SIMM card. I know I could have got it done cheaper somewhere else (or somehow on line) but I like 'here and now', and can accept paying a bit of a premium for that. What the hell (I found that money yesterday) - go for it. While I waited the couple of minutes for them to do the little they had to do (easy money - and yes - I think I WAS being ripped off), I did at least get the chance to have a look at one of those camera phones, and got to see how good or bad they are. The one the guy was using only took little VGA pictures, but it sure wasn't bad. His even did video with sound, and with the extra memory card in the thing, it seemed to hold quite a bit. Turned out he had a german shepherd and I was allowed to look at two movie sequences of his dog! Amazing. No doubt about it - in the fullness of time (when things have advanced a bit more and the prices have maybe come down) I'm gonna have to get one with all the bells and whistles . . . returned home and played with the phone and confirmed my old SIMM now works ok in it - and there WAS enough credit left on it to make it 'just' worthwhile. . . Mum called to touch base with the good news her fridge was all fixed - a new thermostat fitted for around £40. . . messed around for a ridiculous amount of time with the old Ubi Soft Guitar tutor CDs I've had unused in a drawer for the last couple of years. Can't recall which operating system upgrade was responsible, but after it I found I couldn't run the programs. Well - seems like they DO run (but will not instal to the hard drive) 'reasonably' happily-ish in XP. Eventually figured out how to copy appropriate pieces of the disks to the hard drive (seems like the first program is hard coded to look for one of its sub directories off the root of the drive - so I unhappily had to make a directory off the root of C. Don't like doing stuff like that - makes messy bits and pieces everywhere that I'll forget about). Maybe I'll now get tempted to pick the dust covered guitar up some times (once I've finished doing all this MP3ing) . . ate a mid afternoon lunch of grated cheese, corned beef, tomato and lettuce sandwiches with two bags of crisps . . . napped until around 6pm . . . balanced my accounts . . . walked and found 15p and another ring (silver and amethyst look, but probably not real). Touched base with PS just to make sure his daughter'd bought her new phone and I was definitely good to keep this one. Uh oh. There's been a bit of a breakdown in communication/misunderstanding on my part, here. She hasn't yet bought a new one, and PS was 'unsure', but seemed to be leaning towards me having to give it back!!!!!!!! Bugger!! I think I may have been a little rude and kinda applied pressure for a simple yes or no answer - which I'm STILL not sure I got!?? Humph! Oh well - guess I'll be giving it back then. Easy come, easier go! :o( . . . PCd this . . . BB called . . .sat in the garden for a while. A very 'still' night. Spotted five frogs in the garden out a huntin'. :o) . . . TVd . . . ate a tray (half a box) of Lidl jaffa cakes . . .listened to some music and PCd until bed around 2am. Difficulty getting to sleep on a mostly empty gurgling stomach. Took the last of the 'old' brand of fluoexetine tonight, after having alternated the brands for the last couple of weeks. pas
27 - Woken by Sally around 8:30am . . . walked and found 3p . . . VERY warm with hazy sunny spells. 30 degrees C in the sunny parts of the conservatory! Cooler inside the house than out. . . . PCd, sorting out yet more cassettes, still trying to whittle them down. . .drank some orange juice and then ate a pizza with extra cheese, onion and tomato topping for lunch around 1:30pm . . .napped. . . walked and found a penny. Amazingly warm out. Sat on the grass over the field for quite a while. . . touched base with BB . . . TVd . . . sat in the garden and guitarred just a little . . . TVd and ate bowls of cornflakes . . . PCd and eventually to bed around 3am. pas
28 - Woken by insistant Sally at 7am . . . walked. Like a different season to yesterday - much cooler, breezy and cloudier . . . PCd a cassette or two but then got all distracted by a music channel (TMF) on the TV. It was running a special weekend of its 500 most popular pop videos or some such. Despite the channel's logo all over the screen, it seemed like an opportunity not to be completely wasted. Would be very cool to have an 'on demand' supply of a few pop videos on my PC to go with my music collection. Ended up experimenting (yet again!!) with the TV card in the living room PC (for hours) and eventually stumbled on an acceptable-ish combination of frame/bit rate/etc settings. Ended up attempting to record as much of the channel ALL day, as my small old hard drives in that machine would allow. Wow - even stumbled into the TV card software, MPEG editor, and found it is MUCH better than what I have been using to cut up the recorded files into the individual videos. Slightly larger end files, but oh SO much quicker at it. :o). . . PS called and said his daughter had just returned home with her new phone, and I WAS definitely good to keep the one he'd let me have. Excellent. :o) I apologised for my attitude on the phone the other day - and will do again later when he calls in for chats and biscuits. . . .did dish washing chores in between PCing . . . eventually ate tuna, onion and mayo sandwiches with two bags of cheese and onion crisps for a mid afternoon lunch. LB popped in during my eating with my £70 tobacco money returned (at last!), and a carrier bag with three large bloody bones for Sally. . . left the living room PC recording the music channel and slept for a couple of hours until around 6:30pm . . . wrapped Sally's bones in tin foil and put them in the oven to cook for a couple of hours . . . PCd this . . . walked. Saw SH driving by in his car - he stopped and had a brief chat. "You've put on weight" he said. He's right. I may be the heaviest I've ever been - around eleven and a half stone!!! I haven't been very 'active' this last year or so have I. Probably ok enough for someone of my height, but I don't like the feeling. I'm also aware that, for reasons unknown, I'm finding it harder to have self control, over whether or not I'll smoke or how much I eat etc, etc? :o( I need to try and get back in touch with that. . .PS called in for chats. Apologised, returned his records, and gave him £10 for the phone (mostly to cover the credit that is still on it). . chatted and ate a mass of biscuits while keeping the recording of the videos going all evening . . .some nutcase letting off fireworks around 1:20am!? . . . PCd the videos only to find disasterous lip sync problems on the long recordings I'd made earlier in the day!!!???? Why oh why does it do that? Is it maybe simply that the hardware I'm using, isn't up to the job? PCd, experimenting and messing around with settings (and getting nowhere) and somehow ended up going all through the night without going to sleep!!!! pas
29 - Walked around 7:30am. . . eventually to bed after 9am . . . woken by LB calling in around 11am, returning the outsanding £4 of the tobacco money she calculated she owed me. Tried to get back to sleep but failed and ended up getting up and watching most of the German Grand Prix . . . ate sandwiches and crisps for lunch and then to sleep around 3pm. . . woke around 8pm!! I'd received an ansaphone message from someone, supposedly interested in the pine table and chairs which I remembered to ring up and re-advertise in the free ads paper the other day. Called the guy back only to first of all get a wrong number and then to get through to what sounded like some kid, who said the person who'd phoned, no longer lived there!?? Huh? Oh well, so much for that. . walked late. . . BB called. . .LB dropped a huge plate of roast dinner left overs in for me . . . BB called . . TVd. Ate biscuits and almond pastry slices. Recorded the TV until 2am and then PCd splitting the pop videos until gone 4am before bed. pas
30 - Woken by Sally around 8am . . . walked . . . recorded pop videos ALL day!!!!!!! In order to attempt to avoid the lip sync problems on the long recordings, I actually sat there most of the day manualy recording the individual videos!! Why the hell am I bothering? So - I pretty much sat there, mindless, from around 10am until 7pm, pressing 'stop-record' every four minutes or so!! I HAVE gone mad haven't I!!. . . ate LBs donated roast lamb and VERY fresh vegetables and 'salad' meal, microwaved, with a pint of gravy for a late lunch . . .ate a mass of biscuits . . . finished recordings at 7pm . . . walked . . . BB called . . . PCd/TVd until just after midnight, messing with the videos I'd recorded. After a whole day of noise, I'm really ready for a bit of peace and quiet! Sick and tired of it all. pss
31 - Woken by Sally around 7:45am . . . walked. A couple of dog walkers said they had some sad news. The nice old guy with the collie dog called Ben, who was one of the first to make friends with Sally by giving her tit bits every time he saw her - he was visiting with his son somewhere and died of a heart attack over the weekend! Blimey!! :o( Feel sorry for his dog. How long would it take for him to accept his master was never to return and that he had a new life and home now! If only it could be explained to him. :o( Heartbreaking. If that ever happened to me - I'd want someone to bring Sally to view my corpse!! Weird business this walking the dog every day - different dogs and people become 'familiar' - and then just disappear (mostly without any explanation). . . continued messing with the videos (each of them a large 100+MB DVD quality file) and settings and such, but no matter what I do, the damn lip syncing is always a problem. . . in desperation I robbed the sound and network cards out of the old PC and fitted them into the main one, so I could turn off the 'onboard' functions, in case that improved performance. It seemed to, a little - but not enough :o( . . .I think the neighbours were all out, at around midday. Took the opportunity of being able to play things loud and actually just listened to some music and watched a few of the videos. . . cooked up a mushroom, onion and cheese, three egg omlette for lunch with four pieces of bread and butter . . .briefly touched base with Mum . . .napped. Woke around 7pm!! I surely MUST have caught up on some of my lost sleep today. Walked and found 2p . . . BB called. . . PCd messing with videos and such until around 11pm. PCd a bit of this . . .TVd and ate half a box of Lidl jaffa cakes. . .to bed around 12:30am. pa
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