Bellerophon symbol, variation 7 jonath.co.uk
Friday 1st October 2004

So, anyway . . . I've added loads of stuff towards the end of September, and I'm just writing this before going off to work. I still haven't implemented the method for updating this thing on-line . . . so updates will have to await my return from holiday. Oooo, look - a comment from Rav on 24th September. Yay! Anyway, BYE!
So . . . later that day . . . I got a train (the 16:49 . . . the only direct one that evening, I believe) from Leeds to Carnforth, where I was to meet Tarn at the, er . . . Station something pub . . . whatever. I met my dad there as well, but that was by accident - neither of us knew the other would be there. Very odd. We had a drink of two there, and then Tarn drove us back to ********* . . . the infamous ********* Hall. This picture here is very close to where numerous 'odd' incidents have occurred (taken at 20:31 that night). I might go into detail later . . . when I have the time.
. . . and this is the room I slept in that night. This was taken at 21:42 and, erm . . . well, yeah - maybe it was a rather long exposure . . . 15 seconds. I don't think it goes much further than that. You can imagine trying to get to sleep and it's deadly silent . . . just the wind blowing through the trees outside, when you see the shadow of someone stop on the other side of the door . . . but there were no footsteps. The shadow moves away and you leap out of bed, pull the door open and there's no-one there . . . This is actually close to what happened that night, but maybe I just imagined it all. Tarn was downstairs, watching television or something, whilst I tried to go to sleep . . . it wasn't changes in light I was aware of . . . just the creaking of floorboards. Maybe old houses just creak like that. Over-active imagination, maybe. Anyway . . .
These two were taken around 5 to eleven. Tania's neighbours were away that night, and there's some kind of mutual arrangement between the two adjoining households, whereby they kind of look after each other's house . . . this also means Tarn's allowed to pop round and play pool. But before that . . . we just kind of wandered around outside. Yeah, I know - they're not brilliant pictures, but hey . . .
So these were all taken around 11pm that night. That third picture from the left, yeah? Well, I'm not sure what's going on there . . . this is something decorative on the, er, sideboard thing. Note the curious framed affair, bearing the logo, 'Pax Per Scientam'.
. . . so that's Tarn's dad in the first picture to the right there. At some point during our pool session, we just stopped to look at the pictures in my camera, when there was this almighty noise and the door burst open. Yes - it was Tarn's dad, trying to freak us out. It kinda worked. That last picture, the furthest right there . . . they must be part of the family living here, I'm assuming. That was taken at about quarter to twelve, I guess on our way out.


Saturday 2nd October 2004

So today was mainly travelling . . . it took most of today to get to Tobermory. Starting off badly, our train was delayed at Oxenholme for over an hour. Checking our various connection times, it didn't seem like we would make the last ferry from Oban to Craignure. During the train journey, I explained this to the, er . . . Virgin Trains employee . . . she seemed a bit stressed . . . I guess the simple people assume that every single employee of Virgin Trains had planned this delay very meticulously, not expecting those affected to be upset or anything. But they are upset, and anyone vaguely connected with Virgin Trains . . . well, it's their fault. But, all things considered, it all went very smoothly, Virgin Trains providing a taxi from Glasgow Queen Street all the way to Oban. We reached Oban barely twenty minutes late. Must be the only time I've had a taxi for a one hundred mile journey . . . and not directly paid for it. So, yeah . . . that was good. That weird flag was on the Oban-Craignure ferry (run by Caledonian MacBrayne, or Cal-Mac for short). I love ferries . . . you can buy alcoholic drinks and run around like a mad thing . . . then stand on the top deck . . . so windy your drink almost gets blown away. Great. Those first two pictures were taken just before our ferry turned up at 18:00. It was a 45 minute journey to Craignure. On reaching Craignure, it was pretty dark and pouring down . . . but the free shuttle service to Tobermory was there waiting for us and . . . another 40/45 minutes later, we were there. I checked into my place first, as that was on the way to Tarn's hostel . . . Tobermory was tiny . . . pretty much just a main street.
These pictures here were all taken between 21:28 and, erm, quarter to ten. So this is the Mishnish, one of Tobermory's three pubs. It was kind of okay here . . . lively and all . . . but, by the end of the week, it wasn't our favourite pub. It was funny because when we first entered this pub, trying to decide where to sit, we found this cute little room pictured here. Later on, we left and came back around midnight (the pub shut at something crazy like 2am, but you had to be in before midnight), and the place was heaving. Just on a whim, I made my way through the crowd, trying to find the same room and, crazy enough, it was empty.

Sunday 3rd October 2004

Right, so . . . I guess this is Sunday. In the afternoon, we went for a walk . . . I think it was about a mile . . . a coastal walk, with a lighthouse at the end. Oh, and there was this weird, erm . . . remains of what looked like a cannon, I guess - that's the third picture from the left. The fourth picture from the left, 14:36, and we're heading back from the lighthouse. Still no otters seen.
Then, coming back in to Tobermory, there's this other path going up rather steeply, with this war memorial at the top; that's, not surprisingly, the middle picture on the left there. Went we got back to Tobermory we were like, "Oh, that didn't take long. Now what?" So we followed the other path following the coast northwards. There were lots of waterfalls. I couldn't resist taking one of those cheesy over-exposed shorts of one such waterfall. We carried on a bit further . . . passing just one person - a jogger. When we realised we were facing a larger network of paths than first envisaged, we headed back. Another of those days when the gods seemed to be looking down on us . . . the heavens properly opened just as we were sat down in the pub (the one near the distillery) with pints of beer in our hands.

Monday 4th October 2004

So yeah . . . I tried to use this 'stitch assist' feature of my camera with, erm . . . some degree of success. This is about twenty to twelve, and we've decided to see how far those paths go from yesterday. The individual pictures are there to the right and my awful attempt to join them all together is below there. Hmmmmm. As you can see, the weather was a bit better today . . . less clouds. I could point out individual buildings, but I'm not sure I can be bothered . . . the Mishnish is the yellow one near the right hand side, between the red and blue buildings. Then you've got the MacDonald Arms (?!) (or the Aros Lounge . . . whatever) - that light blue building in the left most picture. I think my B & B, the Harbour Guest House, is largely obscured by trees on the far right. Tarn's hostel was perhaps that red-ish building to the left on the second picture from the right end. Anyway . . .
Then we found this gorgeous lake . . . set amidst Aros Park. It was about quarter past twelve when we got here. We sat down at the edge of the lake and rested for about half an hour.
Then we carried on walking around the lake, diverting slightly to check out some more waterfalls and this curious bit of machinery (12:57). . . I reckon it was some kind of generator, converting the potential energy of the water into kinetic and then electric . . . it would make sense. Dunno why they don't still have these working. But hey . . . then there was this hoooooj waterfall (13:02), the photo of which barely does justice, of course. Then, four minutes later, third picture from the left, who should we bump into but an excellent example of amanita muscaria. Looks slightly pink, doesn't it? And the other mushroom, don't know what that was . . . the gills had a curious blue/purple tinge to them tough. Hmmmm. We walked back down towards the lake and carried on walking around the edge, passing a few people fishing and a dog.
Yeah, so then we carried on walking . . . stumbling upon this flat bit of green (a picnic site, according to the map). Just as we were deciding where to sit, it started pouring it down again. But it was okay - the benches were sheltered. We sat there for a while, drinking water, eating Go-Bar and Tobermory hand-made chocolate. And, then . . . erm . . . it's 13:31 and we spot someone walking their horse, which was kind of weird. And then, half an hour later, two more pictures of a waterfall, this time from the top. We were heading back at this point, but had spotted a signpost pointing to a waterfall, so we couldn't really resist. Oh, and that's a tree and some stone steps to the right there . . . 14:22, almost back at Tobermory.
So yeah . . . we get back to Tobermory, we wander around the boardwalk for a while, checking out the various boats, catamarans (okay, maybe there was only one) and dinghies . . . but we're a bit wet and the rain's getting heavier, so we head back to MacGochan's, mindful of the next tour of the distillery, due to start at 16:00. We got there slightly late. The first part of the tour was this video (as can be seen in the first two pictures there). There were only four of us there. I had to try very hard to hold back the hysterics, as that cat was just staring at me with those dopey kind of eyes . . . That last picture . . . I think that's the inside of Mishnish, at 18:41.

Tuesday 5th October 2004

So, today the plan was to get a bus to Calgary (I think we got there about 11-ish), walk around there for a while and then get the last bus back (due at something like 16:15 . . . maybe). We followed this path along the south side of the bay for a while (first couple of pictures there, taken at 11:18 and 11:24), before heading back the way we came and walking across the sand to the other side of the bay (third picture from the left, taken at 11:44). I recall a huge, black, lolloping dog pounding towards us on the beach, tongue hanging out . . . it was more like a bear, really. Then we followed a path going along the north side of the beach, hoping to reach the remains of a fort (according to our OS map) . . . seemingly accessible via a coastal path . . . but maybe that dotted line represents rocks or a cliff or something . . . hmmmm. We followed the path as far as that pier (fourth picture from the left, taken at 12:02), but our further was blocked by fencing and barbed wire.
That picture on the left there, taken at 12:11, is where we stopped for lunch. If you could turn through 180 degrees you would be looking at the corrugated metal side of some kind of sheep sheering shed. The metal kind of made nice whistly noises and provided excellent shelter from the wind and occasional rain. That other picture . . . (taken at 12:38) I guess that was after we had finished lunch and were trying to decide where to go next. Our route to the so-called ruin seemed impossible, so we headed back . . .
So we headed back towards the bay and followed the road towards some kind of woodland trail and gallery thing. First picture there, first on the left (14:01) is some kind of wooden sheep thing set in some kind of circular maze-like thing composed of shells . . . and then a couple of pictures of freaky trees . . . they were odd . . . it was almost like they were musical instruments, through which the wind was blowing . . . at one point, I was drawn . . . compelled up this steep path, just because of the gorgeous noise they were making. And then there was this kind of wicker tunnel construction thing . . . with a domed bit in the middle . . . and a loose wooden seat, on which Tarn tried to sit. Oh, and more tiled things on the ground (14:10).
and then this . . . what the hell is this? Me and Tarn were just staring at it for ages. It wouldn't have surprised me too much to have heard people whispering . . . like, erm . . . in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix . . . that's what it reminded me of . . . you know . . . that freaky arch that Sirius Black fell into when he was fighting with Bellatrix Lestrange (erm . . . I think) . . . it had that black veil that was just kind of blowing in the wind, but there was no wind. This . . . cabinet reminded of that archway somehow. It was oddly compelling . . . it kind of drew you in, hypnotically. "Erm . . . Tarn . . . I think we should move along now. We better go. We can't stay . . . we have to . . . get the bus in a couple of, erm . . . hours."
now I'm not quite sure of the order of events here . . . but after looking at the freaky box thing for a while, we went for a coffee (or hot chocolate) at a gallery/cafe place nearby. We weren't there for a long . . . it was all a bit too clean . . . but the floor was stone. Yes. So I guess we went back through the wood and found this rope swing affair (14:39). Oh, and I'm not sure what the structure is . . . first picture from the left . . . it looked interesting. Probably another generator of some description. So, yeah . . . wood, rope swing, and then a slow walk back to the bus-stop, as we had pretty much exhausted stuff to do in Calgary. I think the bus was at about quarter past four or something.

Wednesday 6th October 2004

So . . . today we went over to Fionnphort . . . this meant getting the shuttle bus back to Craignure and then a coach from there to Fionnphort. Once checked in to our B & B, we took the ferry over to Iona and had a wander around. We probably got there around 15:15-ish, I reckon. On our way to the Abbey, we stumbled upon this ruin (15:30) . . . and then a Celtic cross . . . there were a few of these . . .
Looks like we got to the Abbey at around quarter to four . . . pictures to the right there. The, er . . . visitors centre was funny. You know - the place where you pick up souvenirs and tea-towels and stuff . . . there were four people working there (all female, I seem to recall), clearly with very little to do . . . all eager to profer information about how long such-and-such is open until, how long the ticket I had just bought was valid for . . . all that kind of stuff.
First picture, that was taken at 16:14 . . . it was some kind of tiny museum containing ancient Christian artifacts. I liked their pillows. After this . . . we went for a wander . . . to the other side of Iona, using (though it was hardly necessary) 'Walking in South Mull & Iona' (by Olive Brown and Jean Whittaker) that I had bought in Tobermory the other day. Second picture, that was taken around 17:12. It was pretty bleak on the other side of the island . . . a tractor and Tania's jacket being about the most colourful things going. There was meant to be a 'Spouting Cave', "a burst of white water and a plume of spray [rising] high up the cliff," but it wasn't really a burst, as such. Still some of the clouds were very pointy (pictured to the right there) and there was some strange stuff lying around on the beach (erm . . . below left somewhere, taken at 17:25). On the way back, we stopped again outside this isolated house with a selection of items for sale outside . . . and a tray to put money in. On the way up, we had each bought tiny pots of honey and Tania had bought a bit of marble with a cross engraved into it. It all relied on trust, you see. However, on the way back, Tania thought she might swap her bit of marble . . . and the owner of the house came out . . . an old man, with a strange accent . . . English, certainly, and he kept saying 'see' at the end of his sentences. "Those houses, those back-to-backs, yeah, they're firetraps, see." But he was very sweet, and asked me what I did for a living, which is how we got on to talking of Leeds, which is where his daughter either lives or had lived. I pointed out that the honey was popular . . . half an hour ago or so, there were several pots left. "No. They steal 'em, see. I take them in," which almost seemed impossible to believe (my immediate thought was that he was referring to some kind of rodent or bird or something), but they're you go. We chatted for a while, thinking, "Ah well, maybe we won't quite get the 18:00 ferry back to Fionnphort, but what the hell?" . . . it really didn't seem that important. However, we hurried back, and could see the ferry approaching as we approached the pier . . . made it in time.
So, we probably got back to Fionnphort five to ten minutes later. First picture from the left, 18:21, and the sun's just starting to go down. Being further north than Leeds, the sun obviously takes a lazier path to the horizon than I'm used to . . . it doesn't just plummet down, you know? I've got two pictures of that house (those houses) for some reason . . . perhaps I couldn't decide which one to keep. I kind of liked the way the sun was penetrating the house in these pictures. Tarn went for a walk along the beach, and I think I popped back to the B & B to go to the toilet, drop my bag off maybe . . . I was also gonna get us a couple of bottles of beer from Fionnphort's only shop but - what was I thinking? - it had shut over quarter of an hour ago. Picture third from the left there (18:24), those were some birds Tania was curious about . . . I'm not sure if the picture is actually helping identify them, but that was the idea. So, we walked along the sand a bit and then headed up those rocks you can see in afore mentioned picture. That picture to the left there . . . more weird vegetation in the sand . . . shame it's a bit blurred, damnit. And the last picture (bottom right, taken at 18:38). . . that was from the highest rock I could scramble up to . . . the sun (no, really?), just before it sank below Iona.

Thursday 7th October 2004

For some reason the Rough Guide had something against Fionnphort. We couldn't really work out what. The place was just a few buildings, really. After the sun had gone, we went for a few drinks at the only pub, Keel Row (another of these cosy affairs . . . okay-ish beer, a huge selection of whiskies, open fire, blah blah blah) . . . and a couple of games of pool . . . although there was a five pound deposit. What's all that about, eh? Tell a lie, it was a five pound deposit for the cues, the white ball and the chalk. I can only assume in summer it's a hell of a lot busier. At least, that's what the staff were saying. But it was a cute little pool room . . . the cues had been specially cut down to size as the room wasn't quite big enough for the table. Then we went next door, to the only restaurant in Fionnphort . . . it was one building, really . . . you asked for a pint of beer and the waitress would pop next door and get it from the bar-man. I can't remember what I ate . . . though it might have been something fish based. Or was it gammon? Maybe Tarn had the fish. Oh, I don't know. So, anyway . . . after that, maybe we went back to the bar, maybe we went for a walk, looking at the stars. It was a fantastically clear night, I remember that. One of those nights where you could see the milky way. Then we went back to the pub . . . I think it was starting to cloud over. That picture there was taken at ten to one in the morning. Erm . . . and I lost my snood, Henry. It had just acquired that name too. Damn it. I got a new snood anyway now . . . this one's called Ken. So I don't know what happened to Henry . . . probably left at the pub, no doubt. Ah well. So, yeah . . . that sign . . . it's hard to make out, but it's basically a huge list beginning with the word, in red, 'NO'.
So . . . the following morning . . . I had scrambled eggs laced with salmon for breakfast (oh, and just a little bit of haggis . . . mmmmm, haggis). Tarn had smoked kippers. We had to be out of the B & B by 10:30, so I had a quick shower and then we waited for the bus (back to Craignure), not due until 11:20. The first picture was taken at 10:57 during this waiting period. Why did I take a picture of an old Shell truck anyway? Maybe it was the colours . . . there's only so much blue and green you can take. So after a bendy journey to Craignure, we had a few hours before the ferry back to Oban (we were to stay at Oban tonight), so we dumped our bags at the tourist information and went for a wander. The picture above to the right there, taken at 12:54, must have been soon after we reached Craignure, I'm guessing. I was trying to capture that yacht in the distance. Perhaps we were trying to decide what to do in the time we had. That picture to the left there, that was taken at 13:10 . . . this must have been when we had set off . . . heading south along the coastline, vaguely parallel to the train track of a tiny gauge train service . . . you know, one of those freaky mini trains . . . steam/coal powered. Anyway, the idea was to head for Duart Point (and Duart Castle) via Torosay Castle.
On our way, we bumped into some freaky creatures in a rock pool (13:35) and had to endure paths that almost weren't . . . clearly few people ventured this way . . . but it was worth it . . . eventually, we found this jetty set in this obscenely serene location . . . the sun was out, there was no-one around and I think the only sounds were that of the water lapping against the shore and the stone of the jetty. This was about ten to two. In the distance in the third picture from the left there, you can make out Duart Castle . . . a lot further away than it looked.
Up those steps in the previous set of pictures above, we found another cross . . . 14:14. But anyway, we carried on walking and reached Torosay Castle at about 14:25. We had no money to pay the entrance fee, but it was Duart Castle we were after anyway . . . the Rough Guide made it sound far more interesting. Following the path out of the grounds of the castle and back to the A849 (the main road passing through Craignure), we passed this weird looking house (14:29) . . . I thought the colours looked kind of Mediterranean . . . well, okay, so it was just the terracota and that huge archway, now that I look at it. But hey . . .
so yeah . . . I think we got to the end of that driveway and kind of wondered . . . wondered how much time we had left. The tourist information in Craignure, where our bags were . . . that would shut at 5pm, and it was like about half past two now. We looked at the OS map, we looked at our watches, we considered how long it took us to get here and we thought . . . naaaaah. So back to Craignure. We could see Duart Castle another time. First picture there, 14:38, and some cows. and a road sign, and a road . . . blah blah blah . . . We carried along this road, dying for some pub food, maybe a pint of ale . . . the first pub we got to . . . more frigging rally cars and this guy outside telling us the pub was shut, and how disgraceful, but there was another one down the road, about a ten minute walk . . . such-a-such road house. Tarn would later say, "I guess he was the landlord there then." So we went to this pub and, bearing in mind we have no cash, we're like, "Do you serve food?" nope. erm . . . "And what's the minimum transaction on VISA you'll accept?" well, that'll be ten pounds. "Ah . . . so that's . . . " four pints of beer, maybe and some crisps . . . not really what we were after. So we left, and went to the Spar/Co-op thing and bought some food there. Sat on a bench, eating sandwiches, ginger beer, crisps and Iona cheese. Mmmmmmm. The ferry journey was a forty-five minute affair, leaving at 5pm. It was a gorgeous journey. Barely a cloud in the sky. This picture was taken at 17:16. I somehow wanted people in the frame, but not people looking at the camera, damn it. And I had so little memory left at this stage anyway . . . the fools. From the ferry, using our Rough Guide, we could just about make out the location of our respective buildings that we were staying at that night . . . close together, but still a ten/fifteen minute walk from the train station . . . those pictures to the right there were taken at 18:08 and 18:09 respectively, but I needn't have bothered. The beauty was in the movement. The way the light changed, the sound the water made. But hey, it also looked kinda nice. It was a good sunset that night. Later on, after checking in, we went back to our favourite Oban pub . . . the Oban Inn, and spent most of the night there, having an excellent meal and much beer and whisky.

Friday 8th October 2004

Various pictures of the water, taken very early on (well, for me) . . . 07:52, 07:54 and 07:54 (again). Compression was turned right up for these, as I had hardly any memory left. Didn't know who I was, where I was . . . nothing. And that last picture . . . that was the weird thing moving in the water . . . was it an otter? Some kind of monster? I zoomed in (optically) but due to the compression, it's hard to make out what the frig is going on there. Still . . . it was kind of weird, whatever it was.

Tuesday 12th October 2004

Still trying to put in all the pictures from recent Scottish holiday . . . taking forever.

Thursday 14th October 2004

Hey, check this out - http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/cyprus.htm. Apparently one of my ancestors was the vice chancellor to Richard I. How freaky is that? Yeah, erm . . . M****** is derived from Malus Catulus, you see. Roger should be somewhere on the family tree. What is a bough anyway?

Sunday 17th October 2004

It's all gone very quiet around here . . . what with M**** and her sister away . . . and it's recently dawned on me that I could have quite done with my camera and mini-disc player at the moment . . . but I've lent these to M****. Oooops. Time on my hands . . . OU term over, I thought I might master some of the Bellerophon music (finally) . . . but no. Not possible. I'm thinking maybe I should paint some of my walls instead . . . that'll be a surprise for when M**** returns . . . I think last time I removed all those irritating hand-rails from the staircases. Anyway . . .

Thursday 21st October 2004

Hello there. What's been going on then? Eh? Well, I've been at work this week, naturally, but today, after work, I went round to Gav's house to watch a film called Quills, lent by Michael. It was a film about the Marquis De Sade. Is that spelt right? Feel free to comment if not. Now I'm home, trying to set up another computer with Gentoo . . . I'm remotely logged in, following the instructions given here. It's all fairly straightforward, really. I've done this before, but I seem to be having problems with the video card in that machine . . . it's an ATI Radeon 7000, and based on dreams I've had recently (no, really . . . they were almost shouting at me), I suspect support under Linux is . . . temperamental, to say the least. I know this video card is supported under Linux, as SuSE auto-detected the video card and had it working fine . . . playing graphically demanding computer games and all that . . . however, Gentoo isn't so happy with it . . . so I'm reinstalling Gentoo, giving it another chance. After all, the video card is pretty important. Anyway . . . back to work.

I'm surprised no one has yet cottoned onto this . . . you take someone's PC . . . promise them that they never be troubled by viruses, spyware, reboots . . . everything you associate with a Windows system . . . you make sure they've backed-up anything important and give them back a PC without Windows, but that is stil able to do everything it did before, but without all the hassle . . . seems strange to me . . . but hey . . . I can still see minor hardware problems (damn you, ATI Radeon 7000 . . . I want at least 1000 frames per second, not this 250 you keep reporting). . . nothing too bad though. And if you really still want Windows . . . heck, it can be emulated, and if Windows crashes, it's only the emulator, an application, that has crashed, and not the machine itself.

didn't realise people were going here still. Hmmmm. Maybe I should use this place more. Not much wrong with the Golden Ratio after all.


Friday 22nd October 2004

My god - Oldboy finally has a UK release. Go watch it. You get to see a man eating a live octopus (or is it a squid?). Though you probably won't believe me, it is purely coincidence that the screen-shot I took from this film just happens to be very close (the smile is only beginning in my screen-shot . . . the lift door is opening, you see) to the one used in the review that the image links to. According to the Rav, the next film to look out for is 'Garden State'.

And here's some of the strange answer phone messages I have to deal with . . . they MUST be wrong numbers. Translations welcome:


Saturday 23rd October 2004

One starts to worry when one cannot remember whether they sent an e-mail to anyone with the subject 'New Seastrike 12 ft Aluminium Boat with console Ref: F47099 Make: Seastrike Price: £1,500 Country: UK Region: London Posted: 29th Sep 2004' Don't you have a sent items folder, you fool?


Wednesday 27th October 2004

Oh, hello. I don't think I've written much here recently, have I? Thing is, yeah, I've been transferring all the files from my main PC over to this one, the one I'm using now. This machine is running Gentoo (another 'flavour' of Linux) and works like a dream. The main PC will get reformatted and I'll, erm . . . well, make it into some kind of dumb terminal (thin client?!) that will log onto the Gentoo machine . . . something like that. So, yeah . . . Don't think I have much news, really . . . move along, move along.

Sheesh . . . how long does it take to copy 26GB of data across a LAN anyway?


Saturday 30th October 2004

So, due to a rather hideous mixture of alcoholic beverages the previous night, I wasn't really in the mood for going out tonight. Instead, me and M**** stayed in, watching a couple of films - '50 First Dates' and, erm . . . 'How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days' or something like that. Both what you might call 'chick flicks', but the first one was okay . . . especially as it had a tiny snippet of 'Do you Realise??' by The Flaming Lips. Whenever people were talking about this film, I kept thinking they were saying, '51st State', so I was kind of disappointed when I realised what it really was. Ah well. These are pictures of my fire (gas), in case you were wondering. I was kind of bored when the second film got going, so alternated my time between installing more software on this machine and taking pictures like these. Kind of passed the time, you know . . . I couldn't decide which was my favourite one.

Sunday 31st October 2004

Today me, M****, Liz and Anna went up to Ilkley Moor again. The weather was pretty grey most of the time . . . not wet, just grey. Occasionally the sun would break, hence the picture to the left there. On the way back, we spotted some people in flourescent jackets walking a couple llamas (or were they alpacas? What is the difference?). I took a few pictures of these . . . you should be able to make 'em out. After that, we were going to go to the Cow and Calf for a late lunch or early dinner, but there was a 55 minute wait for food, so we finished our drinks, paid the bill and left. On to Booth's . . . for food and strange bottled beers . . . and organic Green and Black's chocolate (with butterscotch . . . mmmmm) . . . and more mustard, and some strange green fig jam and something in a similar jar that was just labelled 'Ginger'.