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September
30 - Woke earlier a couple of times and then by Sally. Eventually up around 7:30am . . walked . .BB headed off with LB shopping somewhere (which is something I am more than happy to have no part of!). More experimenting with the webcams and such while PCing this . . had a go at setting up internet banking with the papers sent through from the bank this morning - only to promptly get booted off their system as I was attempting to set up my password. Tried getting back in (three times) and was promptly locked out!!! Rang up the help line and was told they'd have to post me a whole load of new details - again! Useless. . .PCd/TVd . . ate BB made corned beef, mayo, cheese, onion and tomato sandwiches with crisps . . . napped for a good few hours and felt so much better for it. . . walked . . .ate BB cooked fried chicken and chips . . . PS popped round for chats, coffee and biscuits and had to endure me surfing videos and TV channels most of the evening until just past midnight. .one of the clips I bumped into meteor crash was SO realistic, we had to watch it several times. VERY clever! . . carried on watching until around 1am, the French webTv channel (Lol TV) I'd bumped into, which seemed to be featuring a prolonged sequence of amusing/entertaining varied clips . Didn't feel tired at all and ended up surfing some more until eventually to bed around 2am. Bit of a thunder storm rolling through. s
29 - Woken by Sally around 7am or earlier . . . walked. Stopped off at the school reception (no kids - day off?) and dropped in the school pullover I'd found laying on the grass in the field . . .PCd. My paid-for domain has been off line since yesterday (when I was messing about with the webcam upload - and failing to connect. I eventually was successful on my other domain)! . went to an on-line support chat thingy, and eventually got to the bottom of it. I'd been locked out of their servers after 10 invalid login attempts!!! Clever. Got the guy to reset it and am back up and running. . .nasty headache - yet again!? :o( . .received an e-mail from the duff laptop motherboard seller, confirming the offer of a refund (through Paypal)of nothing more than the original purchase price of $163.35. No refund on the postage etc etc etc. Grrrrrr. :o( 'Accepted' the refund (some weird PayPal thing) , intending to maybe pursue that further, once I've got my hands on at least 'some' of my money! Not happy. That's more than £50 thrown away - for nothing - except lots of hassle!! Makes me sick just to think about it. B*****d! :o( . . . I've been umming and ahhing for days, looking at the Maplins website 'on sale' items, with my credit note burning a hole in my wallet. They've been advertising a 320GB SATA hard drive for £79.99, which seemed like a really good deal. Finally persuaded myself it WAS a good deal and good way of getting rid of that credit note - and it could largely answer all my 'back up' data storage hassles in more or less one go. . left Sally and BB at home and drove to Maplins over Brislington and did the deal, and also invested in an extension lead for the wired keyboard in the living room (which has mostly become BBs machine). I dug out the wireless keyboard I've had in the cupboard for years the other day, but it interfers with the awful cheap and nasty CCTV remote, so back to wired with an extension seems like the best answer for the time being. . . ate corned beef, cheese, onion, mayo, lettuce and tomato sandwiches with two bags of crisps . .TVd for a while but that horrible burning headache that no number of annadins would shift, eventually saw me HAVE to lay down for a nap for little more than an hour or so, only to wake with it still!! :o( . . . all walked . . . TV/PCd while BB cooked in the kitchen. . . ate BB cooked fried chicken and chips . .uh oh! The cocoa type desert thing that BB had cooked (intending to give it to LB in exchange for the monk fish she gave her) did NOT turn out well. Prompted to check on the age of the cocoa she'd used, which she'd found in the back of my cupboard, I found the use-by date was June 2000!!!! Ooops. Guess I need to clear out those cupboards! . . TVd/PCd/CCTVd, struggling to stay awake until bed around midnight. aaa
28 - Woke earlier then up at 6:30am . . .woke with a coffee and cigarette in front the PC typing a bit of this . . walked and found 3p . . . balanced my accounts . . . did NOT manage to muster the energy to work in the attic and somehow ended up blowing the whole day by surfing and generally messing around on the PC again!!! Even downloaded a neat bit of software called Fwink and played with my webcam again for the first time in years (but probably not for long), just to see how it would work with my broadband. . . ate garlic sausage sandwiches with two bags of crisps . . . napped from around 3:45pm until 6:15pm. . . all walked in the dark. Just as we were heading back, a police van slowed as it drove past the boulders at the edge of the field and turned on a roof mounted light and 'lit up' the groups of kids that were hanging around there (the remaining groups that is - plenty had scarpered already on seeing the van approach). . PCd playing around some more. Oh WOW! That webcam software can take the input from my TV tuner too! Sooo - if I tune it to the distribution amplifier CCTV channel - yayyyy! I can 'webcam' the CCTV picture! Freaky. :o) (My webcam captures). Haaanggggg on! That means I can connect up any camera type device to the video-in on the TV card (or the VCR input and then through the distribution amplifier) and use THAT as a webcam picture. That could mean my camcorder or wireless CCTV camera!!!! Blimey. That opens up a whole new world of experiments doesn't it! Not sure I can even work out what I 'could' do! Blimey. .briefly proved the point by setting up the wireless spycam and experimenting around the house, before leaving it running on top of a cupboard in the kitchen while I cooked up a couple of beefburgers to go with reheated left over roast potatoes, peas and gravy. Finished off with a choc ice and then TVd/PCd until around 1am before eventually to bed. s
27 - Up at 7:15am . . .all walked late . . . ate BB cooked omlette, mushrooms, potato, scones and figgy bread breakfast . . vacuumed a little. .PCd but couldn't face typing this and ended up aimlessly surfing around looking at things I can't afford. . .napped for less than a couple of hours until around 5:15pm. Heavy dreaming and weird wiped out feeling when I woke . .ate a handful of biscuits with coffee. . . walked in the rain . . . sat in the attic for a while. I 'think' those bits of fibre glass insulation I rammed into the gaps around the skylights, has had a positive and noticeable effect. :o) . . . PCd a bit of this . . TVd . . ate most of half a chicken with four pieces of bread and butter, ice cream, a choc ice and some chocolate. . TVd until bed around midnight. s
26 - Up around 7am . . .walked . .ummd and ahhd about getting on with some work in the attic, but eventually just couldn't face it, especially since it was a really beautiful blue sky sunny day. . . finally decided to 'do' something with the amazing weather, and all set off in the car around 10:30am down the motorway heading for Glastonbury. One of those 'local'(?!) places of interest I figured BB should see some time. . . drove right through Glastonbury looking for a parking place before driving back and eventually finding a spot in one of the pay and display car parks. Paid £2 for four hours and then all set off on the long signposted walk towards the tor. Took the first posted turning and ended up doing a bit of an 'off-road' route across fields, before eventually joining the steeper 'side' path up the hill. Plenty of cows in those lower fields made Sally a handful on her lead. A couple of breathless stops for a 'breather' (and a cigarette of course! Ain't smokers crazy!) on the way up. . beautiful weather and amazing views with not 'too' many people already up there. . all of a sudden some hairy bearded guy was wandering around telling everyone he was about to give a talk on the history of the place, and we were all welcome to wander over and listen. Turned out he'd apparantly had some sort of brain tumor and was convinced that walking up that hill once a day for a prolonged period had sorted out his problem! Uhuh. Don't bet on it! . . as part of his speil, he inevitably started talking about all the lay line intersections up there, and produced some bits of bent coat hanger for people to have a go at dousing. BB was well up for that, and was first up to have a go at walking along the path that crossed the lay lines. Worked for her. Didn't work for me! lol . . not too sure what the deal was with that guy. Was he expecting everyone to tip him or something? Well - no one did - and I have a horrible feeling Sally ate some of his packed lunch!! . .Eventually headed down off the hill by way of the rather less energetic inclined path and back to the main road. Once back on the main road, just round the corner was what appeared to be something else for BB to have a look at, called the Chalice Well Gardens. Unfortunately dogs weren't allowed in! :o( Suggested BB go ahead and I'd wait on the nearby seat until she returned. Sat on the seat waiting for BB to do the tour. If it wasn't for the ever present sound of the heavy passing traffic, just sat there where I was would have been quite nice, with the sound of the 'magic' water running behind the hedge somewhere. A dog bowl of water placed next to the seat was in an awful state, all green and slimey, so I asked the woman on reception if she had some water I could wash it out and refill it with. She said yes and came running out with a bottle of the 'magic' (ha!) water from the spring they were selling at the entrance! Cleaned out the bowl and filled it with the precious water and offered it to Sally who MUST have been really thirsty after her climb up the tor (despite having a handful or two from my drinking water bottle). What was bizzare and perhaps something of a warning about the quality of that 'magic' water, was that Sally refused to drink any of it! Uh huh. I'll trust the dog on that one!

-//unfinished//-

walked up and down the main high street giving BB the chance to look at all the shops and roadside stalls. Bagged me another long sleeved black sweatshirt in one of the charity shops for £3.50. :o) . . started to get all wound up about how close to the end of our four hours parking it'd got, and was getting all grouchy as we inched along from shop to shop. Eventually demanded we head straight back to the car - but relented when starving BB insisted on going into a little bakery for something for us to eat. . sat in the car and ate a filled pastry roll selection and figgy bread before eventually heading back . . still on the motorway but more or less back in Bristol, we hit the horrendous rush hour traffic as I'd feared. Reminded me of my daily commute during my last days at work. Pretty much a car park from Patchway onwards. Parked in the queue on the A38 hill by Filton church (where Mum and Dad got married in some distant 'olden days'), it became apparant that the car engine was starting to get rather hot! (Damn - I thought I'd fixed all that - thermostat, fan sensor, etc.- the last time I broke down with BB in the car. Something weird about my car and BB - whenever she is in it, it thinks it's time to break down!??) By the time we'd crawled along down to the UWE roundabout, it was in the red and I was looking for somewhere to pull over!! Just before I did I decided to give the interior heater fan a go, on hot with all the vents open. I didn't think it would work that well (if at all), but it did. Actually pretty quickly too. Within only a few minutes the temperature guage was back down to an elevated 'acceptable', although the interior of the car was like a sauna!. . stopped off at Snuff Mills on the way through to give Sally an early walk and get that out of the way, so I wouldn't feel obliged to walk her again later and have to face the local streets! A quick walk along the river and then eventually back home around 7pm. Predictably nowhere near the house to park! :o( . . briefly PCd the photos we'd taken during the day, just so we could both look at them on the TV. SUCH a shame my camcorder doesn't take slightly higher resolution still images to the memory card. Definintely a must when I eventually buy a replacement some time in the future when it breaks (or 'wears out' with all this carrying it about in my 'bum-bag' belt pouch. I NEVER go out without it these days - ever - just in case there is something interesting to 'capture'! I no longer carry my digital camera (its memory card now lives in the camcorder) and can just about make do with the low resolution camcorder stills. . TVd feeling really, REALLY exhausted . . ate a meat pizza with extra cheese and onion . . . TVd until bed around 11:30pm. aaas
25 - Woke around 5:30am as a neighbour went to work, and then couldn't get back to sleep. My back was aching and my usual attempts at moving my pelvis in a certain (almost pornographic) way to ease the ache, simply resulted in a sickeningly audible clunk! Got up and sat in the cool of the garden with a coffee . . . walked . . .eventually mustered the energy, despite my headache, and did a little work in the attic. Awkward and hellish hard work, bending over backwards working over my head with the disc cutter and hammer and chisels, but eventually succeeded in hacking back to horizontal, the two bits of rafter at the top of the rear pair of skylights. . while I worked, BB went to the post office with Sally. I always worry SO much when Sally goes out without me (BB too actually!) - even though it's BB she's gone with. I couldn't bear it if 'something' happened to either of them - I'd feel 'responsible'! :o( . . I quickly looked out of the skylight at one point, to see a moped rider cruising down the road with his legs outspread, pushing two kids on pushbikes with his feet, alongside his front wheel!!! Very weird to then see BB crossing the road back towards the house with Sally. :o/. . Tried working for the first time in the old ear-defenders my nephew had given me (and my goggles - and my dust mask!! Blurred, hot and stifling!!). Wow - they worked really well. No whistling/deafness in my ears after, for a change. :o) . . ended up hellish headachey and exhausted. . . ate chicken with garlic bread and then a choc ice . .napped for a couple of hours. HAD to! . . walked. . . one of the neighbours from down the road (the one with the annoying hedge which fills more than half of the narrow pavement) called in, asking if 'we'd seen anything' the last few nights. Appaparantly both hers and her boyfriends cars had been 'keyed' on sperate nights!!!! We'd seen nothing specific - other than the usual groups of kids and drunks walking in the road, in the dark, next to that side of their cars of course. I assured her if we had, I've had told her. All ended up having quite a long chat with her actually. Even forced her to take a copy of my 'compilation of anti social incidents' CCTV etc DVD to have a look at if she can stomach it. (Her upset and exasperation about her car having been keyed was clear, and she acknowledged she needs to move out of the area for peace of mind. I figured maybe that horror DVD would help her make up her mind and give her the nudge she maybe needs?). Seemed like a neat opportunity to let others in the street know what the area is REALLY like (if you dare to look outside your tightly closed curtains every night 'like what I do'! ) . . pottered in the attic and forced in some fibre glass insulation in most of the gaps around the skylights, to help cut down the draughts up there. Surely this weird mild weather is going to get cold again, some time soon!? Surely?!!!! :o( . . . ate BB cooked pork chops, roast potatoes, string beans and gravy. Livin' like a king! :o) . . TV/PCd until bed around 1.11am. aa
24 - Woken in the night by a thunderstorm and then up around 7:30am . . .walked. I forgot to mention here, a couple of days ago, the bags of someones refuse which had been dumped at the edge of the field had all been removed (presumably by the council?). Well - this morning someone has dumped another black refuse sack in the same place! . . collected up a few carrier bags of rubbish (left all around the place by yesterdays rugby match supporters) and threw them high over the fence into the 'litter louts RFC' compound to spill out all over the place - and was seen to do so by whoever it was that had just unlocked their gate and driven in. I thought I may have received some hassle from them, but just then one of the two passing dog walkers called out in support saying "Well done!", so I guess they thought better of it. .ate BB fried mushrooms and eggs with four pieces of bread and butter . . .PCd this . . .PCd on line TV shows again . . . ate biscuits and then napped until around 6pm. . . walked . . .PCd some more while BB popped up LBs briefly . .got a nice feedback e-mail from someone who works in a PC store up on Gloucester Road, suggesting I could try them for purchases and delivery and such. MSquared. Actually, that seems like some reasonable prices compared to what I've been looking at (PCWorld?Maplins etc) of late! £50 router! <Hummmph> They need to open a store up the road - walkable - for when I get that occasional 'I want it - I need it NOW!' mood! lol :o) . . . LB popped in briefly with two packs of thai cakes for BB to try some time . . . ate BB cooked pork chops and chips in cider gravy . . . TVd until bed around midnight. as
23 - Woken by some noise or other around 6:30am . . . walked. Looked as though there'd been a party over the field last night! Bottles, cans and debris all over the place. Filled a couple of carriers with rubbish and relocated them to the bin. I don't normally entertain the idea of putting the work in to bring any of that rubbish home for the recycling bin, but today I made an exception. Struggled home with a carrier bag containing a total of 22 glass (mostly beer) bottles I'd collected up from the grass, and filled my recycling bin up with them!!! :o( . . . PCd this. Seems to have been a recent increase in the amount of junk e-mails I get every day! . wasted a couple of hours surfing, looking for replacement motherboards for BBs laptop - again - and coming up with nothing - again. :o( . . . ate BB made chicken and sausage sandwiches with two bags of crisps . .napped through until around 6pm . . walked. It would appear, someone has somehow made unreadable that graffiti which was sprayed on the pavement by those girls the other day. Found 3p. . . sat around in front the TV feeling fragile and unwell again!?? Dunno what's going on with me. Maybe it's as simple as don't keep going to sleep on such a full stomach (although I AM starting to worry about some strange 'twinges' from the site of my hernai op.!!!) ? . . TVd but seemed to be in a funny mood and was sick and tired of watching all the usual nonsense. Ended up PCing and surfing all sorts of internet radio/TV/video clips stuff, while playing the results on the main TV screen. Actually quite enjoyed the poking around and ended up spending quite a bit of time on the Yahoo video site playing various old music videos 'on demand'. It really is getting there isn't it. Given the way things are going, give me a place to live in total isolation and a broadband connection - I'll give you my TV. lol . .ate multiple bowls of corn flakes . . PCd/TVd until bed around 1:15am. s
22 - Woken by noise from a neighbour around 6:30am . . .walked . . . left Sally at home and drove with BB to ASDA at Longwell Green to do some groceries shopping and to stock up on dog food (36 x tins of Winalot @ £14.94). stopped for petrol on the way out (23.28ltrs @ £20). . . ate half a chicken with four pieces of bread and butter . . . TVd/PCd/vaccummed just a touch . . Mum called on her mobile to say she and Sis2 were on their way . . . Mum and Sis2 dropped in for chats and to 'de-brief' their overnight hotel stay in Birmingham and the NEC Johnny Mathis concert they'd been to. Mum seemed happy with it all (even Sis2 seemed impressed with his singing) , although apparantly he and his audience is noticeably getting older and more subdued, and he didn't do any encores like he used to. :o) Chats coffee and biscuits until after 4pm when Sis1 arrived. All of a sudden BB sprang into action and somehow produced a tray of cheese and crackers etc. nibbles - which was rather well received by everyone! They aren't used to getting food when they visit me, that's for sure! I don't do 'entertaining'. lol . . Mum/Sis1/2 eventually headed back out to drive home around 6:30pm. . . all walked. Large (intimidating) groups of kids were hanging around in different places. Approaching the exit to the field, a large group of fifteen+ beer drinking kids were all hanging around near the boulders. A police car drove down the road just then, and several of the group carrying carrier bags of beer (and I suspect from experience, some cannabis) ran to hide behind the bushes and secrete their beer under the branches. The police car (obviously having witnessed this) just slowed and then carried on its way, leaving them to it! I think that policeman should have stopped and got in those kids faces a bit and maybe tipped their beer away - but he didn't, which seems to be the way of things around here. . we had to walk close by that group as we exited the field. Shouts of 'informer' were called out at me as we did so. Ironic really - I mean, when the police look the other way all the time, just exactly WHO would I be informing of what?:o( . . . TVd feeling rather 'fragile' and unwell/exhausted with a slightly dodgy stomach . .a HUGE rowdy group of at least twenty drunken people walked down the middle of the street on the way to another pub at some point. One of them stopped on the way, put his beer glass on top of someones parked car, rolled and lit a cigarette, retrieved his beer and then carried on. . . ate BB made 'Keusadilla' (?) - some sort of grilled pitta bread sandwich type thing, with cheese and chicken and with a lump of Philadelphia as a makeshift dip! Not 'bad' but - well - seemed like a lot of effort for what was essentially a very thin sandwich! lol . . TVd . . . LB called to touch base . . . ate a choc ice and TVd until strangely overcome with exhaustion and 'early' to bed around 11pm. s
21 - Woken by insistant Sally just before 7am. . .all drove to Oldbury Court at Fishponds and did a small circular walk along the river and back to the car. . parked up in Fishponds and did a tour of the charity shops. Spent £10 on a bath robe and long sleeved sweat shirt . . . ate biscuits and then a garlic sausage, mayo, grated cheese, onion and lettuce sandwich with two bags of crisps . . . napped for a couple of hours . . . touched base with Mum/Sis2 on the mobile after having found a couple of weird ansaphone messages from their mobile on Sunday. I think Sis2 had been walking around with the phone in her pocket, with it somehow unknown to her, dialing my number!! . . . PCd experimenting some more with internet TV. Eventually switched to the living room PC doing the same thing, cloneing the image onto the TV set. Actually a suprisingly acceptable result. . . walked. Incredibly warm out. Really bizarre. . . PCd/TVd . . ate BB cooked sausages and chips . . . LB called to touch base . . .TVd with a choc ice and chocolate until bed around midnight. sa
20 - Up around 7am . . .walked around 7:45am and found a penny. Walking back from the field, some little girl on her way to school wanted to pet Sally and then ended up walking alongside me for part of the way, chatting about her dog!! Innocent and pleasant enough - but boy did that make me feel SO uncomfortable! What a world it's become, where one is made to feel so awkward by just exchanging a pleasant word with a passing child. I'd 'almost' rather just get the stand-off abuse I more commonly get! :o( . . PCd this all morning. . (bored?) BB headed off to scour the charity shops again . . PCd until mid afternoon and a headache, messing around with my old 'Links' page (actually the page I use as my own internet explorer home page), updating and deleting a bunch of the entries. . .ate spam and lettuce sandwiches with two bags of crisps and then a bunch of biscuits . .napped for a couple of hours . . .all walked. Sat on the seat by the swings, three mopeds each with an unhelmeted passenger came charging across the field and parked up right next to the remnants of the swings right in front of us! Felt obliged to lengthen our sit there, just so they couldn't sit on the seat to eat their takeaways as they'd planned. . a small handful of young girls were graffitiing the pavement next to the school ("Terri X is a slag!") with a spray can as we walked back! . . . TVd . . . ate BB cooked burgers and chips . . . TVd . .surfed a bit with the wireless connected living room PC, but it was such a poor signal and connecting SO slowly, I ended up reverting back to the old cross over cable, connected to the router. At least that router has THAT going for it - it automatically sorts out what sort of cable is being used and lets you use either type - so I can use the existing cross over cable (already routed through the house and under the floorboards etc) and not have to get a new one and 'plumb' it in. Guess I should have just bought an ordinary cheap wired router instead. :o( . . TVd until bed after 1am. as
19 - Woken by Sally around 7:30am after woefully little sleep . . .walked . . bin day. Kept an eye on the street, just to make sure my full-up-with-other-peoples-rubbish bin was successfully emptied. It was - but for some reason the idiots didn't take the carrier bag of cardboard I'd meticulously sorted out from all our refuse, and placed NEXT TO the bin as per the ridiculous council intructions, so that was just laying out on the pavement ready to be blown around the neighbourhood!!? This refuse-collection recycling business really has been turned into a chaotic mess. It seems as though the whole neighbourhood (and my journal here!! lol) is constantly covered in garbage! The black bin bag of refuse that someone dumped on the pavement next to a hedge further down the road around four or five weeks ago is STILL sat there! How much trouble would it have been for the bin men just to quickly toss that in the back of the truck? But oh no - they won't do that - so it stays there (like all those at the edge of the field), again, until inevitably some drunken yob decides to play football with it one night and spreads it all over the place! Arrrggggggg!!!! :o( . . .balanced my accounts and then touched base with Mum and Sis2 to see what their plans were for this week. They'll be stopping by later in the week when passing through on the way back from Mums much looked forward to, 'Johnny Mathis' concert in Birmingham. I suspect (because of BOTH of their ages!) that'll be the last time she ever goes to see him anywhere . . . all got in the car to drive to PC World at Cribbs Causeway to probably buy a router. (My 'local' cheap PC shop has recently closed and disappeared! :o( ) Just before we pulled away, we were confronted by the sight of an annoyed neighbour down the street, picking up someones polystyrene cup she'd found blowing around her garden, walking it out into the street, and throwing it into the road! Stupid woman! It really does seem to be an extraordinarily difficult mental step for people, to pick up a bit of someone elses litter! That little incident seems to somehow sum up to me how deeply sick, intolerant and insular todays society has become. The extent of ones 'social responsibilty' extends little further than your front door! Depressing. . . left Sally in the car in the shade of a tree in the PC World car park and wandered in to look around the 'Alladins den'. Wandered around the store for ages and looked at all the pretty toys. BB spotted a 'nice looking' (expensive!!) laptop, but confirmed it would be MUCH cheaper bought in the US. I've surfed up on routers a bit - but by the time I was looking at the boxes on the shelves, I'd gone a complete mental blank. Somehow I'd developed the midset that I WAS gonna get one, no matter what - and in the end I just grabbed one of the 'on sale' boxes from the heap near the front of the store and headed for the checkout, plastic in hand! I haven't really got a clue if it is a good one or a bad one but I ended up buying the 'NETGEAR WPN824 WIRELESS 108MBPS ROUTER & USB ADAPTER KIT' for £79, because it appeared to give me an instant all included answer to my current wants - and maybe even give me some longer term flexibility. (I have no doubt I could probably have done better if I surfed eBay etc, but after the recent experience of being ripped off over that duff motherboard, I have a newly strengthened mistrust of buying stuff on line like that. In fact, it's also made me reluctant to consider selling stuff on line, having to rely on postal services and recipients honesty, etc, etc! :o( ) . . straight back home to play routers. The router default setup and wired connection to the modem and my main PC was a breeze without a hitch. I guess the same could be said for the second machine using the wireless USB adapter, although I WAS utterly amazed to find that the reported strength of the wireless signal just down into the living room was 'low'. Good grief - the living room PC can only be a maximum of thirty feet from the router in a straight line through three walls, and yet it has a low signal strength, and reduced transfer speed as a result! Not much different to the signal strength coming fom next doors wireless setup! Dissapointing to say the least! . . lots of messing around and moving stuff around in the PC room to maximise the signal and tidy things up. I need more power sockets for all these damned seperate power supplies on everything (complicated by my preference for being able to turn off the power to the entire PC setup, with a single switch!) Why the hell don't the PC power supply makers get together with the equipment manufacturers and set up standard power voltages, currents and socket outlets for everything (kinda like they have done with the USB ports on everything) so that all these bits of hardware are powered from and simply plug into the PC power supply/case somewhere? If I knew what I was doing, I'd get into PC modding and do exactly that for my dream system! . . . walked. Little Xxxxxx and others were hanging around by the chip shop and made unintelligable 'comments' as I passed. A football was kicked high in the air over me and went sailing over the main road and into the school grounds. Little Xxxxxx and one of the others in the group have dyed their hair red! Seems weird to me they allow them in school looking like that. Well - what can I say? I think it suits them. 'Dick heads' springs to mind! lolololol . . . messed around some more with the PCs and router and attempted to change a few of the settings (passwords, disable broadcast SSID and such). That didn't go well (dunno why?), and saw me having to reset to the defaults and re-run the wireless USB adapter installation in an increasingly bad mood! Eventually got things back up and running after a bit of a struggle . . ate a BB cooked pizza with extra cheese and onion toppings in the middle of changing settings etc. . .TVd/surfed wirelessly until all of a sudden my lack of sleep caught up with me and I had to immediately lay down, early around 10:30pm. . lay there listening to BB having troubles with the living room PC wireless connection, and ended up 'having' to get back up briefly to satisfy myself all was working ok. . eventually to sleep after 11pm. A military coup in Thailand today!
18 - Broken sleep and then woken by Sally around 5am needing the garden . back up around 8am, with signs of a bit of a stomach upset myself again!? MUST have been the chicken sandwich we 'shared'!!!. . . walked and did the now pretty much daily, filling multiple carrier bags with litter. Found 2p. Last night when I walked Sally, I'd picked up a glass wine bottle laying on the grass of the field. I couldn't be bothered with the extra hassle of having to walk out of the field to the nearby overflowing (because I've filled it!) refuse bin, so I lazilly just dropped it into the poop scoop bin (yes I know you shouldn't). Better there than eventually smashed amongst the grass. This morning at some time, the council workers had emptied the poop scoop, and had just tossed the glass bottle onto the ground next to the bin!! No one gives a toss any more do they. Absolutely no one! :o( . . . attended to the laptop motherboard - again! God I'm sick of that damn laptop business, costing me a fortune for nothing, and hanging over my head all the time! Drove to Kingswood to withdraw some money and then on to the Post Office to weigh the faulty laptop motherboard, complete with all the packaging, so I could find out how much it would cost to return. £10.73 they worked out. Bought a £1 roll of brown wrapping paper. . returned home and knocked up a quick letter to the motherboard seller, detailing my total out of pocket expenses ($262.54!!!), ALL of which I said I expected to be refunded because of the false "REFURBISHED, TESTED WORKING CONDITION" advertising. In reality of course, I fully anticipate some 'rogue trader' nonsense, where I'll get absolutely nothing back at all! We'll see. :o( . . grabbed a few photos of the original packing and then put it all back as I'd received it, re-wrapped and labelled it and then drove back up Kingswood to post it. Somehow magically it was now heavier and eventually cost me £10.92 to send! Grrrr. . . back home for BB made spam sandwiches with two bags of crisps . . . napped until around 6pm . . . walked. As I'd suspected would probably happen, the remaining hedgerow alongside the bottom of the building site is being scratched out, and half of it is destroyed already (together with that rather excellent metal fencing! What a waste!)! . dragged one of the long-ago broken rugby goal posts from where some kids had presumably dumped it at the bottom of the field, all the way back up to the edge of the rugby club compound. .on the way back from the field approaching home in the half light, I had a quick peek under the lids of a couple of the neighbours wheelie bins already out on the pavement, to see if there was any space in them. There wasn't (without getting in there and pushing the contents down - and I wasn't gonna do that!). God knows what anyone would think seeing me peeking in their bins like that! I did it because I am sick and tired of having to pick my way past two black refuse sacks of someones houshold rubbish, all stinking, split open and spilling out all over the pavement, four houses down. Those sacks have been laying there like that for FOUR WEEKS now, and no one has lifted a finger to dispose of them!!!!!! Every now and then some passer by in the night will kick them about and more stinking filth and beer bottles will spill out onto the pavement! What is it about society these days - where everyone seems able to ignore stuff like that, even right outside their own garden gate? And 'I' am the one with the schizoid personality disorder? HAH! Dropped Sally off at home, dragged my wheelie bin all down the street and then trying to make as much noise as possible, crammed the disgusting mess into the top of my three quarters full bin before dragging it back up the street and then racing in to wash my hands. Grrrrr. :o( . . . ate reheated meat balls with BB cooked potatoe fritter type things . . . TVd until to bed around 1am, while upset BB made extended frantic phone calls to and about her daughter, in another 'crisis' - again!! :o( . . couldn't sleep, tossed and turned for over an hour before getting back up to TV until getting on for 4am before finally back to bed. as
17 - Broken sleep, woken by Sally earlier and then up around 8am . . . walked . . . messed around with BBs laptop and extracted the faulty motherboard I'd been sent, swapped over the processor, memory, bios battery etc, and then rebuilt the machine (yet again! I could almost do it - quickly - with my eyes shut now! Sick of it!) with her broken original motherboard. . while I was 'playing', BB did all the laundry and then took it upon herself to defrost (long overdue!) the fridge-freezer! Poor BB - she seems to have ended up doing ALL the housework, with the exception of the very occasional vacuuming I do! She's even ended up doing all the dish washing because she doesn't like seeing it left for days in a big pile, waiting for me to do it!! It's making me feel terribly guilty, and yet I absolutely WILL NOT spend ages EVERY day stood at the sink doing chores! I HATE it - especially when I've just eaten and all I can manage is to just about stay awake, prostrate in front the TV! Dunno why she puts up with me? . . . PCd and surfed, trying to find tips and info on how to speed up the slow windows startup on my main machine, and make things run smoother generally. Deleted most of my desktop icons, ditched the wallpaper and effects, etc, etc, etc. Removed everything from the startup menu. Switched the pagefile to my fast SATA drive. Deleted stuff. Defragged. Removed some prefetch files. 'MSConfig'ed and removed services and disabled start up programs, etc, etc, etc. Hell - I forget all I did! . . BB had just made me a chicken sandwich when it began to rain - with all the laundry on the line outside. Both raced out to gather it all in. When we came back inside, a couple of slices of tomato were on the kitchen floor and the top slice of bread from one of my sandwiches was gone!!! SALLY! BAD dog! Grrrrr. (lol) Funny that. I can guarantee, she wouldn't have done that normally - I can leave my food on a tray on the low foot stool in front of the TV and walk away, and she won't touch it. It's something about having BB here. Almost like they haven't yet quite sorted out their 'pack' position? . took the risk of 'repairing' the sandwich by just putting a replacement slice of bread on it, and ate it anyway. Ate the last buttered hot cross bun to finish . . .trimmed my hair . . . napped until woken by Sally around 6pm . . .walked. 'Informer' taunts from a bunch of kids. . Felt nauseas and unwell (more than has become usual in recent months) . . PCd some more, trimming more stuff down. I've pretty much done everything I can do, I think - with not 'that' much effect. The machine will now boot, from off to desktop-useable (with the antivirus on-access scanner software loaded), in two minutes ten seconds. It shuts down and turns off in around thirty seconds (after modifying that 'WaitToKillServiceTimeout' entry in the registry!!). With hindsight, I strongly suspect the slow bootup got slower and ended up as it is now, after I downloaded and installed the most recent Windows updates! Humph! . .ate BB cooked meat balls and pasta . . .more PCing with a little TVing in the down time until bed around 1am. Tossed and turned before eventually to sleep around 2am.
16 - Broken sleep then up around 7am . . .all walked. Found 5p (and BB found £2! lol) . . . briefly touched base with Sis1 and then drove over to have a go at setting up her TalkTalk broadband connection. According to all the paperwork she had, it should have been a simple matter of apply the installation software and stick a couple of 'filters' (splitters really) to her phone sockets. I tried everything I knew how, but time and time again after the installation, the computer simply would NOT connect. . ate a Sis1 supplied grated cheese and pickle bread roll in the middle of tearing my hair out . eventually I had to accept failure, and suggested she had no choice but to call the customer service help line. Uh oh - hasn't their service department/helpline been the subject of articles on the national news? Yep - I think it has! Sis1 and I called the helpline on multiple occasions only to get put on hold for ages before eventually simply getting cut off without actually getting through to speak to anyone!! Each 'on hold' call lasted around thirteen minutes, at 10p a minute!! Yeah - they're making a nice income out of that aren't they! . . . in desperation I ended up firing up Sis1s old Windows 98 machine in her attic, and attempted a fresh instal and connection on THAT one, just to make absolutely certain it wasn't some PC configuration type issue. It wasn't. Ended up with an identical failure to connect. . after what had turned into a good few hours of trying everything I could, I eventually admitted defeat and suggested Sis1 attempt to get in touch with the helpline a couple more times, at a potentially less busy time. At the end of the day, if it was me, I told her, I'd cancel the subscription and go with a different company! . early afternoon just as I was about to leave, BB called wondering where the hell I was after all that time!!! . . . returned home and ate a pork pie . . . BB set off to tour the charity shops. I WAS intending to have a much needed nap, but somehow ended up doing a bit of vacuuming and then having a go at hand washing a bit of the conservatory carpet!! Sally had dealt with much of the last bone she had out there, and the carpet was in a ransid, stinking, awful state as a result! Much on my knees scrubbing only to improve things just a little. Put the desk fan on the floor blowing across the carpet towards the conservatory door, to assist in drying it all out. . pottered around clearing up some of my junk and messing around with this and that until BB returned. . . walked . . . ate reheated fried chicken, boiled potatoes and peas with a pint of instant chicken gravy. . . ate ice cream and TVd until bed around 1:30am. s
15 - Woken by Sally around 6am and up pretty soon after . . . walked in light showers. Someone has dumped another two huge black bin bags of rubbish just off the pavement at the edge of the field, near where others (and that huge empty tin of cooking oil) were dumped a couple of weeks ago! Walked round the field and then dragged all the 'old' dumpings (disgusting filth spilling out of the now torn-open-by-animals bags) out of the hedge and added them to the new stuff, to make the eyesore more noticeable! . . . PCd. .bit the bullet and took BBs laptop apart again. Luckily the broken DVD drive socket hung-in there pretty well as I oh SO carefully prised out the drive. Eventually got the motherboard out of the case and then got serious with my multitester, and had a go at testing all the leads, sockets, motherboard pins, etc, etc. in the region of the modem connector. Eventually, at length, using BBs old motherboard (perfectly ok in that area) as a comparison, I narrowed it all down to the replacement motherboard. Good grief - under a strong light (and with the aid of a magnifying glass for my aging eyesight), it was actually possible to identify that the replacement motherboard had been 'messed with' in the area of the modem socket!!!!!! Clear evidence of heat (soldering iron) damage to the motherboard laquer, where the modem socket and attached network socket is soldered to the motherboard! More careful prodding with my multitester revealed (referring to the image) that the two used pins in the phone line socket, inputs i1 and i2, were soldered through onto the motherboard at solder joint pairs s1 and s2. The internal circuitry of the motherboard connected soldered joint s1 to the p1 pin at the back of the modem connector socket all ok. The motherboard circuitry to connect soldered joint s2 to the p2 pin at the back of the modem connector socket was NOT present!! THAT was where the break was! Simply no connection between s2 and p2 because of a damaged/faulty motherboard. HAH! SO - I DIDN'T make any mistakes. I've been sold a faulty motherboard! Grrrrrrrrrrr. (And I didn't even get round to testing the network socket when the machine was last running, to see if THAT one was working ok!) So - now what do I do? Dragged BB up to the 'operating room' and showed her my conclusions and carefully probed with the multitester again to prove what I was saying was right. She seems determined to contact the seller and see what he has to say. I think I may let her! It really is tempting to actually have a go at soldering a jumper wire straight across from p2 to s2 (because I'm pretty damn sure that is all the circuit board does) but of course that may not be possible, could cause more damage, I can't try anything like that until we've resolved the issue with the seller. If he even accepts any sort of responsibility and suggests a refund, he's bound to want the thing sent back - which leaves us back at square one, with a completely useless pile of laptop parts requiring a new, hard to get motherboard, AND out of pocket for at the very least the customs charge!! :o( What a ridiculous pain in the ass this has all become. I'm sick of it - and despite sucking anndins as I worked, have an absolutely raging headache! :o( . . stashed all the screws and dismantled bits and pieces safely(ish) out of the way above the PC table, and then set about going on line, trying to see where I stand. NOT good news. The sellers original eBay advert says "RETURN POLICY: Warranty is 14 days from the day auction ends, We will exchange a defected unit only, NO refunds, Unless it is out of stock in which case we will give you a refund, Shipping/Handling is None refundable under warranty, Warranty does not cover defects which result from Physical abuse. IF ANY ITEM FOUND TO BE DEFECTED OR NOT SATISFY, PLEASE INFORM US BY EMAIL. -//- THE RETURN ITEM HAS TO BE POSTED WITHIN 7 DAYS -//- OR IT WILL BE DENIED. BUYER HAVE READ AND AGREE TO ALL TERM AND CONDITIONS AS STATED AT THE ABOVE". The auction ended on 29th August!! :o( . . started knocking up an e-mail nonetheless. . . stopped to eat BB made tuna and tomato sandwiches with a bag of crisps and then finished and fired off the e-mail (complete with both the photos as per here), after BB had vetted it. "The above Gateway motherboard was purchased by me on August 29th 2006. The motherboard, 'rattling' around in a UPS box due to insufficient packaging, was delivered to me on September 8th 2006 (after I'd paid a further £18.78 customs charge). When the motherboard was examined, the optical drive connecting socket was found to be damaged!! (See attached image 400SD4MBrd_1.jpg) Despite this damage, it was felt worth installing the motherboard since the nature of the optical drive mounting is such that it should hold the broken socket in place and still function. Once the motherboard had been installed and the laptop rebuilt, the modem was not working. Extensive time consuming diagnostics, eventually necessitating a further complete dismantling of the machine and removal of your motherboard, eventually revealed the motherboard was damaged in the region of what appears to have been some past, faulty repair to the phone line socket!!! (See attached image 400SD4MBrd_2.jpg) The motherboard lacquer displays clear re-soldering heat damage, and the internal motherboard circuitry that connects the socket soldered joint pair (s2), to the pin (p2) at the rear of the modem connector, is NOT functional. Under these circumstances, reliable functionality of the adjoining network socket would seem unlikely. Your eBay advertisement stated "REFURBISHED, TESTED WORKING CONDITION". This is clearly NOT the case and has caused me considerable inconvenience and professional embarrassment. You will no doubt wish to provide me with a working replacement, or a full and immediate refund of my money. Please let me know as a matter of urgency how you wish to proceed with this matter. Yours Sincerely Terry Jones". . . god my head aches!! GOTTA go lay down for a bit! :o( . . tried to sleep but couldn't and ended up getting back up to crunch yet another annadin tablet. God I felt ill with that headache. Closest thing I've had to a proper migraine for a while. .eventually lay back down and managed to get to sleep . . . woken by the noise of the neighbour's kid playing around 6pm, feeling much better for the nap . . received a pretty prompt one line reply from the motherboard seller, simply saying 'return it for refund'. All very well but what with the likely return postage costs, I estimate that's gonna leave me a good £60 out of pocket for nothing! Grrrrr. :o( . . . . . . all walked. Two large (intimidating) groups of kids were hanging around by the chip shop. One of the groups (from which emanated 'bin-man' taunting to the tune of the Batman TV theme music!?!) included little Xxxxxx. Haven't seen much of him of late. Apparantly BB maintained eye contact with him as we walked close by - which may have accounted for the relative lack of 'comments' directed at me. . .PCd . . . ate BB cooked fried chicken (SO good!) with boiled potatoes, peas and gravy . . .TVd with biscuits until bed around 12:30am. aaaas
14 - Woken earlier by Sally I think, snoozed on then up around 7:30am . . slow getting going, which put me in the 'danger zone' of the time the schoolkids would be about. Eventually walked in the pouring rain around 8:30am. Received lots of shouts ("hey YOU! HEY OLD MAN", catcalling and abuse from different bands of little yobs hanging around in the rain by the shops and thereabouts! :o( I spat at the floor at one point (yes I have sunk that low under the pressure!), in that way that some may do, to show ones utter contempt for someone. One of the kids shouted out that I was spitting AT him. That all changed the hue of my whole day - and put me in an anxious/depressed/life like this is pointless mood right away. :o( . . PCd this feeling lifeless, then surfed this and that looking at routers and wireless cards etc. and then property sites. . .ate BB made tuna salad sandwiches with two bags of crisps before laying down and trying to sleep off my bad mood . . . back up around 4pm to sit around feeling frustrated and fed up . . . walked with BB. As we were entering the field, two guys (late teens early twenties?) walked past us and one of them started 'singing' (!!????) some bizarre little song he'd just made up about how we should be picking up all the dog poop!!!??? Yet again it was a case of , completely without cause, he was simply doing that to 'have a go' at someone and create a confrontation - like I've said seems to be ingrained in the people around here. Got my back up of course (with BB alongside, I had the opportunity to respond by saying to her in a loud voice "Did you hear that ******* idiot?" - but the guys kept walking) , but it WAS kinda satisfying that BB was with me, for her to finally have experienced some of the unprovoked nonsense of which I speak here - which must surely be hard/impossible to believe, until you actually suddenly have it happen to you like that. . . PCd trying to get to the bottom of why my main PC seems to have dramatically slowed its boot up sequence, but to no avail . . ate BB cooked pork chops and chips . . PCd more and had one last go with BBs laptop (damn - I need to swap over the motherboard BIOS battery) at making sure the duff modem thing wasn't simply a settings issue. It definitely isn't. Dare I try and dismantle it all again? With that broken DVD drive socket on the motherboard, the liklihood of success is extremely remote, and I'll probably end up with the thing not working at all again! :o( . . downloaded and installed Spybot Search & Destroy, and Ad-Aware SE Personal and ran the sweeps on my main PC. A couple of things were flagged up, but essentially everything was pretty clean - which was of course actually a bit of a disappointment. I was hoping I'd find something and improve things. . .TVd and drank a glass of LBs wine. That went straight to my head (BBs too I think) after only half a glass, and gave me an instant headache and overwhelming feeling of tiredness! To bed around 12:30am only to toss and turn with a pounding head until gone 1am before sleep. ad
13 - Woken earlier by Sally, snoozed on then up just after 7am . . .all drove down to the river Avon at Hanham for walks . . . back home and gave Sally one of LBs donated bones . . . ate an early lunch of BB cooked ham ring, fried egg, baked beans and four pieces of bread and butter . . . napped for a couple of hours . . . Sis1 popped in with her laptop. Poked and prodded at her settings and to be honest, couldn't really find a thing wrong with it, other than maybe one or other of her pay as you go dial up accounts had expired, and she had the 'never dial a connection' option selected! (she'd aborted a broadband installation half way through, which I imagine selected that for her). . messed around online on my PC for a while, and then set her up with a new pay as you go account just to enable her to get on line and do what she needed to do, as an interrim measure. Promised to pop round some time on the weekend and have a go at setting up her broadband connection. .I've really become rather out of touch with how PC things have moved on - particularly with regard to 'wireless'. Sis1s laptop was a Dell with wireless built in. (BBs doesn't have wireless inbuilt, and seems like another reason for her to get a new machine - although I think on reflection, and particularly because of the pricing and 'country specific' issues, we've agreed she'd be better off getting one back in the States when she returns). Came as quite a suprise for it to suddenly announce that a wireless network connection was available! Turned out to be my next door neighbours set up (- obvious from the name she'd given it. I vaguely recall her having told me some knowedgable relative had set up a wireless connection sharing network for her and her sons machines). Of course it was password protected, so I couldn't get on to it - but of course felt obliged to have a try! lol . . . walked Sally with BB, a little later than usual. A few 'comments' and calls of binman from a bunch of kids as we passed. . TVd . . . ate BB made chicken and tomato sandwiches and then a bunch of biscuits through until bed around 12:30am. s
12 - Up just before 7am again . . .walked and found 2p . .uh oh - my stomach stilll isn't quite right! . . .PCd a bit of this. Messed around briefly with the 'Slimgate' 2.5" external hard drive enclosure and packaged it all back up, to look as near as new as I could. .had a quick look to make sure my accounts were in order and then left Sally at home and set off with BB to Maplins over Brislington, to attempt to get a refund (as they'd said would be possible if it wasn't what I wanted). . did my "I'd like a refund because my old hard drive is too thick to fit in the case, so it isn't any use to me" pitch to the little girl on the counter. Unfortunately because it was over 14 days since I'd bought it, she said a refund wasn't possible, although I COULD have a credit note. Ok - that'll do. :o) I was almost tempted to spend it (with more) straight away on another big SATA hard drive (on sale) but managed to resist. Guess I'll be surfing their site looking to spend some more money on something. . drove on to Argos at Emersons Green and accompanied BB in, while she got a refund on the weird keep fit rubber bands (rubbish!) she'd bought there the other day. . drove back to ASDA at Longwell Green for groceries. In front of us at the queue to the till was a woman wearing 'out of the ordinary' clothes, giving the appearance of an immigrant from Roumania or some such. She was queuing up (NOT in an 'express/few items' lane) to buy nothing more than a box of tissues. She paid for the tissues with a pound coin and then had a conversation with the girl on the till where she appeared to have asked if she could change some ten pound notes for some higher value notes!!? Suprisingly the girl on the checkout accepted her request and handed over a bunch of twenty pound notes in exchange for the woman's two or three hundred in tens. As soon as she'd done this, the immigrant woman asked her if she had fifty pound notes instead, and when the girl on the checkout said she didn't, the woman requested that she have her £10 notes back instead of the twenties - which the girl on the checkout proceeded to do! The girl on the checkkout DID make sure the woman got back the same bunch of ten pound notes - but with hindsight, I bet that wasn't what the exchanges were all about. Was it the £20 notes which the thing was all about - which the checkout girl didn't look at too closely as she received them all back? Whatever - there was something EXTREMELY suspicious about the whole thing, like it was some sort of money laundering/fake £20s type deal!! Stupid of the checkout girl to have entertained any of it! . . ate half a garlic and herb chicken with four pieces of bread and butter for lunch, followed by coffee and chocolate . . briefly vacuumed a little before laying down for a couple of hours fitful, overheating, dream-laden sleep. . woken around 6pm by Sis1 calling asking for help with a PC problem (she couldn't connect to the internet!). Wasn't much help (especially having just woken up) and only made a couple of lame suggestions along the lines of - do a restore to undo what you just did - try another phone socket - use your other machine! . . . walked! Girls peeing under the hedge. Large numbers of Polish kids hanging around - one with a noticeable 'attitude' who walked up to a girl and grabbed her breasts! . . touched base with Sis1 who'd had no joy and suggested she'd pop in with her laptop on her way home from work tomorrow. . .PCd this . . . TVd and ate hot cross buns, bowls of cornflakes, biscuits and chocolate until bed around 1:30am. s
11 - Broken sleep then woken by Sally around 6:45am, feeling oh SO tired again. . . walked and filled three carrier bags with litter . . .PCd this and then dabbled with the 'Slimgate' 2.5" external hard drive enclosure and the little hard drive from my old useless laptop which I took to the tip the other day. Oh dear - that hard drive has the same socket as modern drives, but a slightly larger body. It was thicker and wouldn't fit in the enclosure! Oh well - put the drive straight in the bin. Guess the money I spent on that enclosure was a waste then! :o( . . . Mum called to tell me to put the morning-TV reality hospital show on. They were about to show a hernia operation!!! lolol Eeeewww - yeah - been there, seen that, done that, got one of those inside me! . . .rang the electric company in response to an unfathomable letter they'd sent this morning. That got me angry (angrier than my existing sleep deprived, short tempered mood!). The gist of it seemed to be, they have removed the financial incentive of a small discount each bill, for those of us who pay their quarterly bill by variable direct debit!! So - because I automatically pay my bill in full, promptly, on demand, whenever they ask for it - I no longer qualify for the cashback incentive! If I cancel my direct debit and backwardly revert to paying the bill by cheque or at a post office etc within ten days of the issue date, I get the cashback!! They've gone mad! So - I'm gonna have to get serious about changing my supplier aren't I. :o/ . . . felt all yucky and tired (and frankly very down in mood) and attempted to nap but failed, and ended up getting back up to sit all miserable in front the TV . . . ate five defrosted sausage rolls, two bags of crisps, and a couple of bowls of co-co pops for 'lunch' . . napped for a few hours until around 6pm . . . walked . . .TVd the evening away watching what appeared to be program after program about scumbags preying on decent people to screw them out of money ('Rogue Traders', 'slam on' accident insurance frauds, etc, etc.). . . ate re-heated left-over rice, mushrooms and beef and then biscuits with coffee . . .TVd until bed around 12:30am. a
10 - Broken sleep then up around 7am . . .walked. Despite having decided yesterday, not to do so ever again, I ended up picking up litter all around the field again, unable to stop myself starting because of the handful of large glass Gin etc bottles that were strewn all around. . Sounds of a rave in the distance. Must have been miles away, but it was still pretty loud - an old dog walker guy said he was disturbed by the base from it in his bedroom all night! ( later on, an item on the local TV news reported a bunch of 'travellers' had parked up and set up an illegal camp on a private field over in Whitchurch. That WAS the direction the noise was coming from, albeit several miles away across town!) . having finished all my multiple carrier bags of litter duty work, I figured it was high time I was 'paid' for my unnoticed efforts. For the past week or so, a part reel of mains cable has been laying down in the bushes at the edge of the field amongst the other debris next to the building site fence, where people have previously 'broken in'. It was the fact that it was RIGHT next to the fence and obviously from the building site that put me off 'looting' it days ago - but because it was laying there for SO long, unmoved, just waiting for some kids to play with and destroy it, I figured it was high time I had it. I guess I 'should' have been honest and thrown it back over the fence, but - well - with everything else that goes on around here, I reckon I should be able to get away with having it without 'too' much of a conscience. I'd even come out this morning 'equipped' to loot! I'd brought a large black plastic bin liner to put it in, so I wouldn't feel SO guilty walking back across the field carrying it in full view. As it happened, a lady dog walker was next to me as I walked across to the bushes, so I told her what I was about to do. Her attitude was why not, and she stood and watched as I scrambled down the steep slippery slope and retrieved the reel. Certainly enough cable left on it to be useful. Returned home with my booty and guilt . . . PCd a bit of this . . . spent the next several hours working on the laptop, having a go at dismantling everything and replacing the motherboard (despite being pretty convinced it wouldn't work!). After close examination I figured it was worth having a go, because the broken socket was actually the DVD drive socket, and should be pretty much held together in position once the DVD was inserted and screwed in place. That turned out to be the case. . at long, long last, I had the replacement motherboard mounted in the case and the machine all back together (one case screw missing this time?) and powered it up. Fingers crossed - holding my breath! Yayyy. It booted ok. Spent the next who knows how long, checking to make sure all the ports, sockets, drive and everything else was working. Oh no!!! The modem isn't working!!???? The very thing you absolutely need from a laptop these days, and now it isn't working!!??? How is that possible? The modem is a seperate little circuit board attached to the motherboard by a straightforward socket and cable - there isn't any way I could have done anything wrong with reinstalling that! Oooooh, I wonder! I wonder if that is how that, in all other respects apparantly working motherboard, came to be broken out of a machine and put on a shelf for sale? I'll never know will I. WHAT A BUGGER! What a nightmare this has all turned in to. I'm sick of it. :o( Now what do I do?. . . ate BB cooked four sausages with mushrooms and four pieces of bread and butter . . . napped around 3:30pm in an attempt to shake off a debilitating headache, caused by the anxiety and all that concentrating on the laptop . .woke around 6pm . . walked . . . played with the laptop settings a little, while TVing, in an attempt to make sure it wasn't simply a change in BIOS settings etc which was crippling the modem. No - no matter what I do, that modem isn't working (and yet all the diagnostics I run say it is working fine, except it won't find a dial tone!?). . ate BB cooked steak, rice and mushrooms with gravy . . . PCd, downloaded and installed a 40 day trial copy of WinRAR 360 and then managed to belatedly download a full (in four 'RAR' chunks) 'Gateway 400 SD4 service Guide' for the laptop, which showed exactly how to dismantle everything, complete with photos! Should have looked for that before I did all the work. Superfluous now, cause I already know how - and it doesn't shed any new light on the modem problem (and no - I didn't forget to re-connect the cable)! :o( Bugger, bugger, bugger! :o( Oh well - guess I still need to fund a new laptop for BB. At least I can keep and make use of her old one I guess. Working ok except for the modem, I guess it's worth to me what I've spent on it so far (£130 - ish) - kinda - ish. Miserable mood. . TVd until bed around 1:30am. aaas
9 - Woken by poor Sally needing the garden around 5:20am. I know how she feels!! . . back to bed until up around 7:30am . . . walked and picked up all the beer cans and baggies littering different parts of the field . . . returned Mums call and declined rushing over to their hotel to join them for breakfast. Didn't want to have to start running around straight away, and my stomach really isn't up for it still! . . LB stopped by briefly and dropped off the bones she'd got for Sally from the 'out of town' butcher she goes to. . .sat around expecting a phone call from Mum etc. to say they'd finished their breakfast and we should join them to go wherever they were gonna go . . . Mum/Sis1 called from JMs (nephew). They'd already checked out and gone there! Left Sally at home and drove with BB to JMs after getting directions on the mobile. Apparantly he moved to that house over two years ago with his partner!! Damned if I could remember that. .wow, has he turned into a talented confident young man. A carpenter by trade, his house, all 'done' by himself, was immaculate! I felt SO jealous and ended up pretty soon feeling - um - frankly, inferior and inept! :o( . . . all drove in convoy to KMs (neice) new house for chats and coffee with her. Wow - she seems all grown up and confident too! I ended up feeling even more 'broken' and useless, and found myself awkward, with nothing to add to any conversation. . . all drove to see KMs horse over Chipping Sodbury common somewhere. . .left KM and on to Sis1s to see the progress on her house, chats, coffee and biscuits. . . home and ate Ritz biscuits, Philadelphia cheese and tomatoes while Sally started work on one of the bones . . walked and got 'told off' by little girls!! They saw Sally having a pee and called out after me that I should clear up after my dog. I explained that she was peeing rather than pooping etc, at which the girls said they were just 'concerned about their environment'!! How utterly bizzare. Their behavior (as BB pointed out) could be viewed as funny and even commendable, but I didn't get it that way. It seemed more to me as though even though they were such young girls, they had already been ingrained with this repulsive modern 'attitude', prevalent around these parts, where young people will 'have a go at you for the sake of it' for anything if they have the slightest opportunity. And they just cared about their environment? The field was once again absolutely covered with litter following a football match earlier in the day. I missed the opportunity of saying they should pick up some of THAT! . home in an even fouler mood. Poor BB was exposed to it, which felt VERY difficult to me. I couldn't just close the door and crawl away into my usual solitude and eventually sleep off the mood. BB was there with me and had to endure it!! :o( . briefly touched base with Mum/Sis2 to see they were safely home . . . ate chicken sandwiches, ice cream and chocolate . . . TVd until bed around midnight. aas
8 - Up around 6:30am, actually a little cold. . . walked and filled three carrier bags with litter . . .PCd a bit of this with the CCTV on next to me. As I was typing, I glanced at the CCTV picture and noticed someone walking past carrying a child. Just then, unknown to them, they dropped something out of the shoulder bag they were carrying. Raced headlong downstairs and dashed out into the garden and called out after them that I thought they'd dropped something. Sure enough, just up the street was some sort of plastic card (credit card/phone top up maybe??) laying on the ground. Can't imagine what the person thought about someone suddenly appearing from a house they'd just passed like that saying they'd dropped something back up the street! He offered not a word of thanks. I made no mention of the CCTV and just went straight back inside to the TV to watch him go retreive whatever it was, before carrying on his way. lololol Funny ol' world. . .the postman put a card through the letterbox. HAD to be about the laptop motherboard which I've been eagerly expecting for a few days now - but it was saying that an £18.78 fee was due and I'd have to go to the post office to pay for it before I could have it!!!!!?????? Grrrr. To annoy me further, they hadn't filled out the bit of the card that said why the fee was due! It couldn't possibly be for postage - could it? After all, I'd had to pay $43.85 US postage and packing and $3.35 insurance. If the postage hadn't been paid, it wouldn't be in this country! Attempted to ring the post office (of course there was no way of simply calling the local sorting office for the answer - had to go through to the national helpline!) and asked them to clarify why the (extortionate) charge was due. They were unable to tell me!!!? After a bit of ranting from me, the woman on the line suggested it was probably a customs charge and I should ring them, on such and such a number. Rang the number only to find there was no such number! Rang the Post Office back and explained, and was given a different number to call. That number DID exist and they eventually confirmed that a customs duty WAS due!!!?? GRRRRrrrrrr. :o( That REALLY got my back up! The hidden extra cost of ordering stuff on e-Bay? FOUL mood! . . . drove up to Kingswood (narrowly avoiding a collision with an idiot emerging from a side road, which put me on the opposite side of the road!) and engaging in a little 'road rage' tooting of my horn at some black guy in front of me in an old VW Beetle, dawdling along and continuously slowing down looking for something, and to hell with anyone else on the road! Withdrew money from my building society account and then went to the post office to pay for and collect the parcel. . the big red 'CHARGE' notice on the parcel read - "Please note that all consignments entering the European Community via the postal system with a value exceeding £18 are generally subject to Customs charges. - Import VAT £14.78. Royal Mail Clearance Fee £4." Oh well - what choice did I have? Paid the extortion fee and headed back to the car with the parcel - which incidentaly was crushed on one side and had the contents rattling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. . . back at home I gingerly opened the parcel, resigned to the likely outcome. What sort of a bloody idiot was it who packaged that up? The motherboard was wrapped in a plastic bag, inside a thin UPS 'padded' bag, and was knocking around inside a larger UPS Express Box without any other padding!! (Incidentaly, the postage paid sticker on the address label said $15.75! So - the 'postage due' as per the e-Bay advert ($43.85 ) was a nice little earner for the seller wasn't it! Grrrrr) . . sure enough, on laboriously close inspection, at least one of the sockets on the motherboard was broken!!! Ended up in an even yet fouler mood (is that possible?) and just plonked the thing out of sight in the back bedroom - mentally writing off the throwing of good money after bad. Yes - I suppose I should start contacting the seller asking for my money back, and contacting customs etc etc, but I just can't be dealing with alll that hassle!!!!! I am starting to feel utterly overwhelmed with things (and yes - I AM aware it doesn't take much!). It just seems as though the whole world is an inept dysfunctional mess, with everyone out to screw everyone else for whatever they can get. It also feels as though everything (laptop/plastering etc) I've turned my hand to of late has ended up being a disaster! :o( I'm tired of having to try and make it on so little money. I'm just so, SO tired, generally! :o( . . . on my insistance (despite her saying the turkey smelled funny even though it was well in date - AND, THAT was what both Sally and I had eaten the other day when she hadn't) BB made sandwiches with the turkey in for my lunch. I ate one before accepting that she was right and it DID taste a bit iffy, at which point BB INSISTED I not eat the rest!!! Pulled out the meat and gave it to Sally before eating the bread and butter as crisp sandwiches. . .dabbled with the PC and quickly knocked up a data CD containing the raw slightly improved recording of Mum and Dads wedding I'd lifted from the old cassette Mum loaned me, together with the scans of the wedding photos from her album. I've not got round to doing anything creative with it yet, but with Mum and Sis2 due to be coming up today, I figured it was best to give all the precious originals back, together with the digital data as a back up. Checked it was all burned onto CD ok on the living room PC and then somehow ended up having a look at a few of the old DVDs I'd done for Mum of Dad. Haven't really looked at those for ages. They ARE pretty powerful, and saw me get a bit teary!. . . sat around waiting for Mum and Sis2 to call. Uh oh. Oh NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That turkey WAS off! VERY off! In pretty short order, my stomach was in a terrible mess with frequent and urgent trips to the bathroom!! :o( . . . Mum called on the mobile from up Sharpness way saying they'd be heading for my place in a while, and that Sis1 would be stopping in to join us all after 4pm . . . sat around until Mum and Sis2 eventually turned up mid afternoon for tea/coffee and chats and to make suitably encouraging noises about all the DIY attic room work. . Sis1 arrived after 4am . . more chats (in between more frequent urgent trips to the bathroom!!!! :o( ). . left everyone chatting and walked Sally about 6pm to get her all done and sorted. Returned home to find Mum and Sis1/2 had left to drive around town to see the changes and redevelopments of Broadmead . . . left Sally at home and drove with BB to join up with Mum and Sis1/2 in Fishponds at the old Vandyke cinema (now a Weatherspoon pub) to eat (although with my stomach troubles, I was really, REALLY NOT in the mood to do so - let alone be more than a few steps away from a bathroom!! :o( ) . . arrived shortly before everyone else. How bizzarre - LB and her guy were in there having a meal! lol . . . Mum and Sis1/2 soon arrived and we grabbed a table and all ate. My stomach 'just' held out and I even managed to eat sausages and chips, a fudge cake type desert and even much of BBs curry (of all things under the circumstances!!) . . . drove with Sis1 and BB as a 'pathfinder' to Mum and Sis2s hotel, to save Sis2 from trying to figure out which way to go to get there. Left them safely at the hotel and returned home. Quick goodbyes to Sis1 who headed straight off in her car. I headed straight for the bathroom! . TVd . . LB popped in with an open bottle of wine and briefly stopped for a drink and chat before heading back home, leaving us with most of the open bottle still to drink! . . . TVd until early to bed. asd
7 - Woke around 5:25am. Tried to snooze on but bizarrely developed some serious stomach pains which actually had me doubled up with the discomfort! Eventually had to race for the bathroom with a seriously upset stomach! :o( . . . walked early and did 'litter aerobics'. Seems to be an unusually large number of small plastic milk cartons all over the place? Something to do with the recently publicised drive to make the school meals healthier and remove the fizzy drink dispensers maybe? A passing woman commented on how she wondered who it was who picked up the litter, and then went on to tell me how she'd objected to a couple of kids about them dropping litter, only to have them tell her to 'F-off'. . Beautiful clear sky, cool morning. . . dabbled briefly in the back garden and planted the pot plants that BB had brought back from the shops the other day (whatever those plants are, they were being given away for nothing, so she couldn't resist! Wish she had! lol) . . . PCd this . . .poor BB was right in the middle of having a shower, when she was almost forcibly urgently ejected from the bathroom by me, so I could answer the uncontrollable demands of my upset stomach again! lol . . .managed to muster the energy to have a bit if a 'prod' at things in the attic, as BB did laundry chores. I need to get over this 'just sitting about is all I can manage' inactivity I seem to have developed since BB arrived!! Started having a look at how to cut back the pieces of timber above each skylight which I need to do to progress things. I've been putting it off and putting it off because of how awkward (impossible?) it was going to be, and it had become a real mental block (the latest!) to getting on with things. Tried all manner of tools, but nothing was going to fit in the awkward gap. In the end, there was no choice but to use the disc cutter to grind out lots of vertical cuts in the timber before hacking away at it with a hammer and chisel!!! Nasty, nasty, nasty! Tried at one point to use the circular saw (in an incredibly dangerous way, above my head!!!) to speed things up, but only succeeded in almost losing it (and my head!) and put a saw cut right across the wood frame of the skylight!!! I could have cried. :o( The only saving grace about that absolute disaster was that 'most' of the cut will eventually be lost behind the plasterboard, and the remainder which will have to be disguised with wood filler, will be at the very top of the skylight above ones head. :o( . BB supplied me with a coffee and banana and then wisely left me to it, and headed off up the shops and library. .at long, LONG last, after practically laboriously 'wittling' the section of timber away, I reached the level I require. It HAD to be done. That means I can eventually put a piece of plasterboard cleanly horizontally across from the inner face of the roof slope to the top of the skylight when I eventually finish it all off. If I left those timbers as they were, I'd have had to have done things in a different more obtrusive 'boxing around them' way, at right angles to the skylight, and it would have meant having to badly duck to look out of the skylights. Taking those sections of timber away like this means a 6ft-ish tall person should be 'just' able to walk up to those skylight windows without ducking at all. . made a start on the second one at the front, and happily found that it was much softer timber and far 'easier' (relative!) to do. Yayy - eventually had that one done too (without damaging the skylight this time!) . So - now I know how to do it - I know what sort of work I'm facing with the back two. They'll have to wait for another day - too exhausted to continue. . .called a halt somewhere near 4pm and tidied up the sawdust. Ended up with a REALLY bad aching back, after all that 'bending over backwards', overhead work! :o( Showered and just HAD to lay down for a bit, but was unable to sleep (much lower back pain) and was up again as soon as BB returned . . walked. Hmmmm - Sally seems to have a bit of a 'stomach' too! What did we both eat - but not BB?. . ate a mountain of BB cooked chips with chicken followed by a ridiculously small but extremely delicious small tub of 'teramisu' (??) which BB bought the other day . . .tried one of BBs 'Oxycodone' pain killer type tablets to see if it would help with my back pain. It didn't seem to make too much difference. :o( . . . left BB watching a TV show I'm not into (the two parter, last ever, Will & Grace) and ended up stood in the darkened attic looking out of one of the front skylights at the moonlit evening. As I did so (unnoticed), a small band of kids came down the street and past the house right below me, and I saw them 'showing an interest' in my car and could overhear them remarking how it WAS taxed!!!! What the hell is going on? What on earth is this sudden interest by people in my car? I guess I'll be 'losing' it pretty soon then. :o( . . . TVd (actually CCTVd mostly) struggling to stay awake until bed after 11pm. o
6 - Woken around 5:50am by the sound of someones (neighbor?) loud car stereo as they pulled up and parked in the street. Grrr. Minutes later Sally decided it was time for us to get up!! Grrrrrr!! Snoozed on just a little before up shortly after 7am. Headachey. . . walked . . . did a little dishwashing/vacuuming chores . .TVd . . .PCd a bit of this. . .ate chicken sandwiches . . . napped for an hour or so, only to wake with the same nasty headache and have to crunch yet another annadin tablet. . TVd . . . all walked. Found 11p. With the new school term all started, the field has returned to its daily covering of fresh litter. :o( . . .ate reheated soup with four pieces of bread and butter . . . TVd with chocolate until bed around midnight. aaas
5 - Up around 7:15am . . . walked . . .left Sally at home and drove to Longwell Green for a sack of PAL complete dog food and then on to Emersons Green to shop. God I HATE shopping - and made the trip miserable for BB with my sulking short tempered attitude. . ate half a chicken with four pieces of bread and butter and then a couple of doughnuts . . . napped until woken by the sound of Sally barking shortly before 5pm. Aparrantly BB had answered the door to a 'youth' who was enquiring about whether or not my car was for sale!!????? She told him no, at which he then apparantly said "So it's used every day is it?". Huh? That was really unsettling to me. That just doesn't happen - someone knocking on the door out of the blue expressing interest in buying a wrecked and rusting Fiesta. Bizzarre and unsettling. So much so, it's seen me putting the VCR and CCTV camera into continuous record mode again! :o( . . . walked. Sat on the seat by the swings, my attention was drawn by the screaming of a little kid down on the main road. Two black guys were walking along real fast with one of them dragging a very young child (waist height?) along. The child was screaming and crying (I think because of the pace they were going) but all that did was get the black guy ranting and swearing in response, and get even rougher with his dragging the child along!!!! The child was almost pulled off the ground as he dragged it around a corner and down a footpath out of my sight! Very distressing. :o( It was SO out of the ordinary and distressing that more shouting and screaming and crying in the distance eventually saw me leash Sally up, leave the field, cross the road and head off in the direction they'd gone, 'just in case'. I eventually ended up sat on a grassy knoll which gave me a vantage point from which I could view the path down which they were going into the distance, rather than continue following, because a lady dog walker was coming up that path and the guys and screaming kid had to pass her. If anything really untoward was happening, I assumed she would react in some way. She WAS prompted to stop and turn to watch after the screaming child on more than one occasion, but she kept on walking, so that persuaded me to do nothing, uncomfortable and upsetting as that was. That little child was being dragged at a very fast pace, a very long way for such little legs!!! We exchanged a few words as the lady dog walker approached and discussed what had been going on. She said they had takeaway food in the bags they were carrying and the nasty black guy was shouting that the little girl would be going straight to bed when he got her home. So - I guess that was just his style of 'parenting'!!! All very upsetting. Based on what I saw, I'd say that child 'was at risk'. :o( . . . TVd and drank a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale, although strangely it didn't seem to affect me as much as it usualy does?. . ate turkey sandwiches . . .TVd until bed around midnight. da
4 - Only a handful of hours of broken sleep yet again, before woken by insistant Sally before 7am. . . walked . . . PCd a bit but felt awful tired and ended up grabbing a bowl of muesli before having to lay back down. . napped a heavily dream laden sleep for only an hour or so until back up around midday, but feeling so much better for it . . . PCd re-coding music files for a few hours while doing some laundry . . . all drove to the river Avon at Hanham for a short walk along the river and back up through the woods. . Absolutely amazed when Sally went running off into deep undergrowth after a scent - it turned out to be a full grown deer! It froze briefly as our eyes met before it darted off. Beautiful golden brown colour. Eventually managed to get Sally to come back to me, albeit absolutely covered in those 'sticky' seed things. Absolutely covered!! . All sat at my usual sitting place in the woods for a bit, as showers of drizzle passed through. Very warm. Incredibly I managed another brief sighting of what I presume was the same deer up the hill behind us, just before Sally disappeared ignoring my frantic calls in another headlong pursuit. Persuaded her back eventually, thankfully without having a deer to carry home and cook! lol . returned to the car after 6pm and drove home, stopping at a nearby store briefly for milk and a handful of groceries . . . ate re-heated BBs soup with turkey sandwiches . . . TVd with biscuits and a choc ice until bed around 1am. . Steve Irwin died this day - by way of a stingray!? Can't help thinking a 'death by animal' for him was well overdue, especially since some of his reckless behaviors seemed to be borderline animal abuse! s
3 - Woken by insistant Sally just after 6am. . walked in the strong wind and rain. . PCd a bit of this and then surfed a bit . . had a gentle prod at the faulty DVD player. I thought at one point, when it seemed to be acting normally, that it was just a bad scart connection, but it eventually transpired it was an intermittant fault - which of course is the worst kind to have. Popped the case off and had a go at cleaning the lazer lens and things (actually all pretty clean and in good nick apart from the odd dog hair! Amazingly small amount of electrics in a mostly empty box!) but to no avail. DVD players have come down SO much in price, there really is no point in thinking about a repair. Better to work up to spending the money and replacing it with a hard drive recorder at some point I think, to replace my aging VCR at the same time. (Hard to resist driving straight to the local ALDI store and buying a 160GB one, co-incidentally advertised as todays special - but I resisted!!) Eventually bit the bullet and put the thing in the bin! :o( . . Mum and Sis2 called to touch base . . . ate BB cooked buttered 'biscuits' (what Americans call biscuits anyway. More like scones I reckon) with bacon - and marmalade!!!? VERY rich!! . . as soon as that hit my stomach I was heading to lay down for a bit. Slept through until woken by the noisy local kids playing football (bang - bang - bang, etc!) in a nearby garden around 4:30pm . . . PCd re-coding a few music files . . .walked . . .ate a bowl of BB cooked 'soup' (more of a stew I'd say) with four pieces of bread and butter. Loads left over for more meals. . TVd until bed around 1am. a
2 - Woken by Sally just after 8am. . walked in the rain and found a refillable lighter . . PCd a bit of this . .vacuumed briefly, just a little of the Sally hair from the living room carpet . .PCd music files . . . ate four small defrosted sausage rolls with two bags of crisps . . . napped for a couple of hours . . . walked . . . ate BB cooked mince burgers in gravy with chips . . . TVd with ice cream until bed around 1am. as
1 - Up around 6am . . . walked . . . PCd and couldn't help surfing e-bay and here and there, drooling over hard-disk DVD recorders etc. . received a call from the 'Witness Care' people around 9:20am!!???? What nonsense! Turns out it was regarding the statement I gave to the police on the 11th of May about the break-in done to the neighbours car on the 18th of July 2005. Apparantly, the scumbag they've got for it is pleading not guilty and the lumbering legal process has been forced into movement and they were contacting everyone even remotely involved, to check to see if they'd be available as a court witness if required. Yeah yeah - I've no commitments - but I hardly believe my statement ("I went out one morning and saw the neighbours car was broken into, after 'maybe' hearing something the night before") could in any way be of any use to anyone for anything. Madness. . .PCd this . . .put in a few hours generally trying to tidy up the PC room and throw at least 'something' away! Still ended up with huge amounts of 'junk' bulging out of every cupboard and drawer! Spent ages sorting through stacks of CDs and DVDs which have been laying around for months, and which I'd lost track of what was on them. .very headachey . .. ate the last of the brussel pate in sandwiches with two bags of crisps and then multiple bowls of heavily sugared cornflakes. Too much! . . . napped for a few hours until around 6pm. Woke feeling nauseas, 'heady' and absolutely awful . . .all walked. BB popped up LBs to touch base. It's been a long time since I've been up LBs like that, but I knew exactly what BB was gonna be 'in for'. LB would be the generous host and offer glasses of wine, and keep refilling them, no matter how much you try to say 'hold - enough'! I fully expected BB to end up returning home in the early hours (damn - she didn't think she'd need to take her key), pretty much the worse for the drink. . TVd trying to shake of my unwell feeling. It very slowly subsided as the evening wore on . . suprisingly BB returned home (with LB briefly) after only an hour or so - but sure enough, she was VERY 'tipsy' to say the least. lolol . . .LB soon returned home only to briefly re-appear shortly after, to drop in a bottle of wine for us!? . . . IHB unexpectedly popped in on his push bike somewhere getting on for midnight. He was pretty drunk, on his way back home from drinking in various pubs again. Silly chats until around 2am! . . . ate a left over stuffed chicken breast with two pieces of bread and butter and then TVd eating chocolate until around 3:45am before bed! aass
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