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Saturday 1st April 2006
 
Boring house update . . . mortgage and everything has been approved for the house we're moving into, price agreed for my house in Leeds . . . erm . . . all surveys have been completed . . . what else? Oh, I don't know. What's next anyway? Searches? I think they're the next thing. I'm not sure.
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In the evening, of course we were at the Spaghetti House. I think we then went to what used to be the Blob Shop, but is now something like Borough. Another of these odd little affairs that sells decent beer from the tap and from bottles. I don't think it would look at all out of place in Leeds, but Lancaster?! Not sure what that's about but, hey . . . whatever . . . bring 'em on, as they say. There were a few more pictures that night, but I must have got a bit carried away with the deleting thing. So yeah . . .
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Sunday 2nd April 2006
After the previous night, today was very much a lazy day. Not much happened. That's A****** and me there, lying in bed, eating raisins. Some more presents . . . then we went to M****'s mum's place over at Halton for dinner. Whilst M**** was at mass, Liz and me were at the Greyhound. Some old dude looked a bit like Jim Bowen, but I suspect lots of people look a bit like Jim Bowen.
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Monday 3rd April 2006
   
Somewhere in the Lake District. Shepherd's Bridge? Holme Farm? Near Coniston? So that's M**** wearing my coat. This was because I agreed to carry A****** and had to have a fleece on so that this could be stretched around to cover up A******, who was being carried on my front. Not that it really made any difference. He still cried and screamed and generally protested throughout most of this walk . . . oh, except when he was being physically held by either myself or M**** and, even then, when we stopped he wasn't happy. So yeah . . . I dunno what that sign was about, the yellow one. I think we saw one car use that road.
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Tuesday 4th April 2006
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Feeding the ducks, we were feeding the ducks. I smelt the bread and there was this kind of alcoholic smell. I don't think bread should smell like. Beer, maybe. But not bread. But that didn't stop A******. A bit of mould ain't gonna bother him. The ducks didn't mind too. So yeah . . . we fed the ducks and A****** our mouldy bread and everyone was happy.
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Friday 7th April 2006
So yeah . . . after work, flattened a load of huge cardboard boxes (thinking ahead here, to imminent final move out of Leeds) and whilst doing so . . . "What is that noise?" I thought. I looked up the stairwell, none the wiser. Then I looked outside and noticed how windy it was. Hmmmmm. So I've got seven flattened cardboard boxes (the kind you would put a laser printer or CRT monitor in) and I'm thinking of walking home in that. I have a little practice at carrying these but can barely hold them all at the same time. Ah well . . . better ring M**** then. M**** picks me up, I dump the cardboard boxes at home and we head for Morecambe, hoping to catch another of these glorious sunsets. Only problem: the weather was still really windy and the heavens had clouded over. Ah well . . . but, hark! Is that not Morrison's over there? Yes, I used to work there. Let's get some dinner. So that we do. I was most disappointed to be unable to find anyone working there I recognised, but then it was, erm . . . twelve years ago? Twelve years? Yeah, that sounds about right. Blimey. Erm, yeah . . . so I think that's everything. Can I go now? I did also bump into Danny today. Hope Street Danny or Danny as in Geoff Danny Francis (they all used to live at Hope Street, number 10 I think it was). Although it was more a case of Danny bumping into me going, "Jonathan," and me staring at him blankly. "It's Danny." This is often how we greet each other. In subsequent e-mails, we arranged to meet at college 'Social Bar' on Tuesday night. I've no idea why it's called a 'Social Bar'. Of course, that just gets you in the mind of other bars, that are not of the social variety. I haven't found them yet.
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Saturday 8th April 2006
And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the soil; Why the long face? Note to self: above are partly remembered lyrics from Joanna Newsom. I liked that song, but don't seem to have it anywhere on my computer. Apparently it's from the song 'Sawdust and diamonds'. Hmmmmm . . . not readily available. |
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Sunday 9th April 2006
      
. . . and so we went to morning mass instead of the evening one. I'm not sure why. It was weird. They weren't ringing the bells, which confused the hell out of us. We thought we were late or had got the time completely wrong. Then, when we got in, they were handing out bits of plant matter. "Erm, no thanks," I muttered, as I struggled with the pram, heading for our 'usual' spot, over on the left side, near the back. M**** explained it was palm, and something to do with showing honour/respect to Jesus, as in laying palm branches down in his path. "So no connection with Palmolive soap?" No. "and nothing to do with palm oil either then?" No. As ever, a quick internet search (obviously not possible at the time) would have sorted things out - hence. So yeah . . . and loads of people turned up, but it was quite a show . . . .lots of stirring organ music, children singing, strange dead plants, a long story about Jesus forsaking someone, or someone or something forsaking Jesus . . . I forget now. P'raps someone forgot about Jesus and hence he thought he was forsaken. I'm not sure. Anyway, doesn't matter. Me and A****** ran out early, as it got on for an hour and they were still going on about stuff. We headed up for the Ashton Memorial (the cafe thereof) and M**** met us there about twenty/thirty minutes later. That afternoon, we went over to Halton. Sam and Jackie met us at the Greyhound and then we went for a walk along a path following the river Lune.
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Monday 10th April 2006
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So yeah . . . I'm thinking about completely redesigning my web-site (although I'm not sure why . . . I have a vague idea) and I'm looking for some good web-site designs for me to rip off (but nothing too fancy), when I get completely distracted by http://www.americasarmy.com/. Wow - you can get it for Linux too! So that's currently being installed.
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Thursday 13th April 2006
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Friday 14th April 2006
       
Today we did go over to this pub in Oakenclough, Calderbank something or another. Ooo, they have a web-site. Well, who doesn't, eh? I think we got there some time between midday and 1pm. I had this gorgeous omelette affair, containing cheese, ham, tomatoes, mushrooms, red onion and maybe something else. I don't know. Portion of chips. M**** had some kind of toasted sandwich. A****** had mushed up everything, washed down with peach yoghurt (ours). They had two interesting looking bitters, so I went for something like 'Sky Rocket' or similar. Damn fine beer whatever it was. I feel like I should extol the virtues of this pub, as we read in some kind of pub guide that they don't get much business because of their location. But, erm . . . I don't really have time for that. Anyway, after lunch, we turned left out of the pub and drove . . . A few miles down the road, there's a T-junction, where we parked and then wandered down Snape Rake Lane, towards the River Brock.
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So yeah, this area has warm memories for me, having camped there a few times, many, many years ago. We were wandering around there for quite some time, checking out familiar ground and exploring bits we had never been to. Oh, and check out the glider. In those last couple of photos, that was when we were heading back - you may be able to see Blackpool Tower in the distance.
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First picture from the left is A****** at my parents' house and the other three are where we were back at Halton, and A****** was freaking out about the grass. He really didn't like crawling on it. Strange boy.
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Sunday 16th April 2006
  
Today we were at M****'s grandparent's house over in Ambleside. My camera was sometimes being used by M****, sometimes me and sometimes a small person. Anyway, third picture from the left (or first from the right) above is my favourite one from that day. Just thought I'd let you know. I think Freya (sp.?!) took that one, but not entirely sure. That's Olivia in the bottom right of the frame, Simon (of course) in the background and Mark on the bench.
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Today I did also meet Mark's younger (?!) sister, Renata, and her husband, David. I thought I had met David before, and I think he likewise, but M****'s convinced such a meeting never occurred. I think all those pictures of A****** occurred during lunch time. We were hoping A****** would just amuse himself on the floor with a few toys whilst we ate but, of course, he soon bored of that and started crawling around, looking for mains plug sockets. Cue Olivia and Freya to keep A****** entertained.
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After lunch, Simon and I had a game of ping-pong (table tennis), although it wasn't really a game, as there were no points . . . we were just hitting a ping-pong ball around. Other people joined in and swapped over, but then there was a movement towards this park thing. The bridge pictures were where some of us were playing pooh sticks. And that's A****** on the swing. I dunno why he insisted on being at such a weird angle. He looked a bit demented like that. I thought it was A******'s first time in a swing (judging by the smiles and laughter) but M**** said, "NO! YOU ARE MISTAKEN!"
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Monday 17th April 2006
        
Isn't this weird, eh? Like having your family photo album permanently (well, okay, almost permanently) open on view to everyone. Only I'm not really sure who 'everyone' is. You people are just numbers . . . IP addresses. What is that? What is that like? I cannot imagine an IP address looking at a family photo album. My analogy is falling apart before my very eyes.
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Monday 24th April 2006
  
So do I use the flash? Do I not use the flash? Black and white? Colour? Length of exposure? Macro lens? By the time you've decided, the moment's gone.
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Tuesday 25th April 2006
 
Web-site? Blog? Oh, I remember now. Yes. I'm meant to update this thing from time to time. Oh, okay. Well . . . let me think. I think it was Sunday night I had this strange dream . . . A****** wasn't a great deal older than he is now . . . and I think we were at my parent's house . . . A****** must have just woken up, as he was still in his grobag thing (sometimes I call these body-bags by mistake) and was in the corner of the living room, screaming about something. So yeah . . . I had no idea what he was screaming about but I figured I might as well release him from the grobag, let him crawl around a bit, you know? So I do this, and then A****** stops screaming and turns into demon-child, saying, "Well-done, daddy," in this horribly sarcastic manner. I'm kind of amazed, because it's his first sentence and so I'm prepared to kind of overlook the fact that A****** has turned into some horrible, demonic, possessed thing. M**** said during the night A****** was going, "Da-da-dadda-dad-dad-da-da-da-dadda-dadda," in his sleep, (et cetera) but I don't recall this . . . not consciously anyway.
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Wednesday 26th April 2006
I was gonna say, "Sorry the web-site was down yesterday," but then realised that it's often down at the moment. But this down-time was seriously weird. I did some kind of system update and I think this involved updating Apache, but I'm not too sure - I didn't read the list of packages being upgraded. Following the update/upgrade, I noticed my web-server just wasn't working, and it took my ages to work out why. The new version of Apache insisted on knowing where localhost was and so I had to alter /etc/hosts to give it the IP address of the web-server and assign that to localhost. Crazy.
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Sunday 30th April 2006
Today was A******'s christening (well, baptism, really). Simon was the designated photographer; all I have is this one picture of the Noah's ark thingy from the top of his cake. So yeah . . . expect more pictures here once I've managed to get copies from Simon (there they are below).
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April 2006
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Web-site? Blog? Oh, I remember now. Yes. I'm meant to update this thing from time to time. Oh, okay. Well . . . let me think. I think it was Sunday night I had this strange dream . . . A****** wasn't a great deal older than he is now . . . and I think we were at my parent's house . . . A****** must have just woken up, as he was still in his grobag thing (sometimes I call these body-bags by mistake) and was in the corner of the living room, screaming about something. So yeah . . . I had no idea what he was screaming about but I figured I might as well release him from the grobag, let him crawl around a bit, you know? So I do this, and then A****** stops screaming and turns into demon-child, saying, "Well-done, daddy," in this horribly sarcastic manner. I'm kind of amazed, because it's his first sentence and so I'm prepared to kind of overlook the fact that A****** has turned into some horrible, demonic, possessed thing. M**** said during the night A****** was going, "Da-da-dadda-dad-dad-da-da-da-dadda-dadda," in his sleep, (et cetera) but I don't recall this . . . not consciously anyway.
