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Thursday 2nd March 2006
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I haven't had Marmite for a while. Marmite, poached eggs and toast . . . mmmmmmm.
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Friday 3rd March 2006
This is a picture from my submarine that night. We were somewhere off Nova Scotia when I spotted these weird things growing from the sea-bed. I forget where exactly. I took this picture as I thought it looked a bit like a tree.
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Saturday 4th March 2006
     
This must be Silverdale, or thereabouts.
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Sunday 5th March 2006
   
Problem solved: Marmite purchased (was there a problem? More of an urge, really. Hmmmm, that gives me an idea - maybe I could photograph Marmite spotted in as many different food cupboards as possible. So that's two so far. Riiiiiiight). I probably don't look it (or it's hard to tell), but I was very hungover that day. Too much wine the previous evening. That first picture was taken at 08:51. Clearly A****** has no regard for those who need a lie-in.
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Monday 6th March 2006
Oh dear - A****** was sick tonight. Not good. It was probably about half past ten when we heard him wailing. We kind of ignored it for a bit, as you do, completely oblivious to his situation. But yeah . . . five/ten minutes later, M**** went to check on him, and the poor thing was covered in it. So, yeah . . . that happened. We got him changed and cleaned up and tried to get him to drink some water, but he really wasn't interested, and was just wanting to go back to sleep. Ah well.
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Wednesday 8th March 2006
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A****** went to the doctor's today, but it was all fine. Maybe it's just one of those things . . . that's what the doctors said, and that was also what they said after my third grand-mal seizure. It's just one of those things. We also did look around an end terrace house in Warton. It was on the main road, close to the ruin of an abbey, shortly to go up for auction (the house, not the abbey). The viewings were being done as a kind of mass-viewing thing, and quite a lot of the parking outside the house was taken up with transit vans, rather ominously. But yeah . . . lovely house, built some time in the 1890s, but a bit of a state, a tiny kitchen, and a tiny yard to the rear. Not that one then. On the way back, I heard this crinkling noise from the back seat. A******, strapped up in his car seat, had managed to reach the pack of rich tea biscuits from M****'s ruck-sack, pulled them out and was about to tuck in. Presumably must be feeling better then.
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Tonight I did also make some lime pickle. I kind of used this recipe, but also added a load of ginger (can't hurt, can it?) and topped up the mixture with a bit of cider vinegar. Oh, and four red chillies? That must be a mis-print. Instead, I bought this freaky selection pack from Booths that involved a selection of chillies (five altogether), including my favourite: the habanero. We'll see. I now have to leave it to stew for a few days.
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Friday 10th March 2006
 
Er . . . some pictures of A******. Tonight I did also set up a little local area network for my parents. This means my parents turn a computer on and wham! the internet's there already. Amazing. There's a wireless component to the network, so I changed the router's password, changed the channel, changed the, er . . . something ID . . . I dunno . .. . the name that identifies that wireless network . . . I changed it anyway.
Then I set-up 128-bit encryption with some crazily random key and then allowed only a couple trusted NICs to connect wirelessly. Last thing you want is some cheeky neighbour downloading a load of copyright-violation films/music/software, incurring extra download charges from your ISP. So yeah . . . might be a bit tricky if someone pops round with a lap-top, needing an internet connection. Anyway, now I watch a film that my brother did lend me.
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Saturday 11th March 2006
We've finally had an offer on a house accepted (the location is somewhere around
here). The property features a massive roof space (the gradient's quite steep, you see), which should become a permanent home for the Scalextric, at last (thinking about the important stuff first).
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Sunday 12th March 2006
         
Erm . . . more pictures. From left to right . . . some plates that I believe M****'s auntie has donated to M****. We don't know how much they're worth, so I took some pictures (well, okay, two), thinking I could somehow do a bit of research. And that's some fire, some snow (you see what I did there?) and then A****** being very attentive as Simon played the guitar.
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Wednesday 15th March 2006
Why don't people leave comments any more? Has the novelty worn off? Maybe if I said something like . . . (M**** wouldn't let me write what I had intended to write here . . . perhaps something cryptic involving the need for a larger house) I might get the odd one or two, but probably not. But, yeah . . . we had this induction today at work. At one point, a lady had been talking to us about disabilities . . . then we were split up into three groups: one group was visually impaired, one was hearing impaired (my group) and the other was mentally impaired (?!). Then Einstein's famous equation relating mass and energy was displayed onto the screen, but we all had to remember our various disabilities. There was a bit of confusion at this point, and someone in my group was going, "What?! I can't hear you!" to the speaker, but I'm not sure how he knew that the speaker was asking him anything. Eye contact? Maybe? Anyway, I couldn't work out when the role play was supposed to end (maybe it hasn't yet) and so when the speaker was asking if there was anyone around to explain the equation I didn't know what to do . . . perhaps that was why no-one else spoke up. I really wanted to explain how energy and mass are one of the same (the constant term is just a conversion factor) but, more importantly, energy and time are one of the same, and why this is so. I suspect everyone was thinking the same but the mentally impaired people were too confused/agitated/crazy to say anything, the blind people . . . well, I don't know what was their problem . . . because they probably heard enough to know what was going on . . . I don't know what their excuse was. I mean, someone says, "Einstein's famous equation" and what do you think of? It's not like you need to see the equation written down. But yeah . . . oh, I think it's bed time.
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Thursday 16th March 2006
I don't think anyone's reading this any more . . . which is kind of inevitable, I guess. Anyway . . . today I received another cold call at work. The caller display showed the number up as 'T75 trunk' or similar. 'T75 trunk' is how lots of external numbers appear, so it's not really helping me much here. Anyway, I pick the phone up, say hello and give my name and then there's silence . . . all I can hear is the faint workings of some distance call centre (although truth is, it could have been anywhere, or course). "Hello?" I enquire and then this Indian woman says, "Hello, I am calling from Syngumpta Communications about your mobile phone contract." so I say, "From where?" and she repeats, "From Syngumpta Communications. I believe you have a mobile phone contract," so I just say, "Erm . . . no I don't" to which she responds, "Oh, okay," and then hangs up on me. How rude. These people often end up hanging up on me. I think I say the wrong things. Anyway, I have a maths assignment to do for Open University. It's all to do with groups.
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Saturday 18th March 2006
        A******, floorboards, piano, blah.
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Wednesday 22nd March 2006
      
There was a gorgeous sunset that evening. Unfortunately, my view of the sunset was partly obscured by telegraph cables and the like. In some of these pictures I've used a bit of image manipulation to remove those cables that could easily be removed. I've left the other pictures unaltered partly because I got bored of fiddling around with pixels and partly for comparison . . . before and after. Anyway . . . that's another good thing about Lancaster - the sunsets.
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Monday 27th March 2006
Bored of writing here. Can't someone else take over? Ah well . . . I suppose I should answer all those dull house moving type questions. No, I haven't moved into the house on Windsor Avenue yet (still trying to work out what this Deed of Grant thing is, signed in 1981 between the current owner and someone called Reg). No, my house in Leeds isn't sold yet (still trying to agree possible reduction related to damp). But yeah . . . it's all still chugging along as best it can. We're hoping to move in some time around late April, early May.
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Tuesday 28th March 2006
Anyone in Lancaster on Saturday night (the day before my birthday, you see), we're at the Spaghetti House (somewhere on Mary Street, round about here) from 8pm. Table's booked for eight people. I'm not sure how many are turning up. They said I can ring closer to the time to confirm the exact numbers. If you're a friend, and I haven't contacted you, then I probably didn't know you would be in Lancaster. Something like that. Ah, whatever. It's not like posting this message is gonna make any difference to anything. Blah, blah, blah.
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Friday 31st March 2006
     
A****** and the raisins.
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A******, floorboards, piano, blah.
A****** and the raisins.
