Liverpool Cathedral

The other one - Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral
















I was stopped at the traffic lights. Nice picture but I was told that the roof leaks?

Bigblue has a picture of Billie - here is Laura - our cat/madam - 3am and she wants feeding...you get up.

Pining for the Fjord

Well...t'internet actually.

Following a "keep off the internet" email because people have been fired last week we've all been pining today for lack of surfing. Mart resorted to drawing a picture of an "error 404 page not found" on the whiteboard to keep our spirits up. There's only so much Spider sol you can take but my average is up from 15% to 16% today. Been reading "Poker for Dummies" but the concentration isn't up to it.

Those 500,000 fraction of a penny shares are up today (I'm looking at them on our home computer)
















Maybe they've all decided it's best if they come back from the pub today? I rang the delivery people yesterday because I've been waiting for 6 more vertical blinds to be delivered. They had left a note saying "we missed you" so I arranged for them to call again today and leave them in the garage (the door was open).

No blinds. And they had taken the card they left the previous day so I didn't have the contact number anymore.

Frantic searching of the garage revealed nothing - you ever have that "I'm sure I must be looking at them and not seeing them" moments? Definately not there - grand - the buggers have nicked them. Moment of clarity (few and far between) go to the side gate and there they were - thrown over the gate. Thanks guys.
















Also, having gone ebay mad I bid £4.99 (Opening bid) on a Palm Tungsten cradle and charger - and won (coz nobody else bid) - we needed it because our old house in Winchester had 10,000 volts up its jacksie when the overhead high voltage power line fell onto our domestic power line.

Thankyou trustedgoods.com - I'll leave positive feedback tonight.

These were the trees that dun it guv:
















It fried just about everything electrical that was plugged in after it leapt across the circuit breakers.

We moved after that.

Missing Authoris(z)ation

We frequently get calls, sametimes and emails about missing authorisations in SAP.

Sometimes accompanied by an SU53 screenshot or some totally unrelated dribble.

Occasionally we have to resort to this to try to resolve the problem:

















An authorisation is a small blue/green beastie that lurks under cups and behind laptops. Everybody in SAP has one but they only know about it when it goes missing.

M6

3 and 3/4 hours. That's how long it takes to travel from Ashby de la Zouch to Blackburn if they close two lanes between junction 15 and 16.

Normally it's about 2 hours.

The peeps at the Highways Agency over-ran and it caused mayhem back to junction 19 - cars were driving along the hard shoulder/nipping into the services and back out the other side just to gain a few hundred yards (and about 30 minutes).

There was a football match on which made the traffic worse but I can't remember which one - lots of scarves hanging (not fluttering) out of car windows.

I saved 15 minutes because I got into the outside lane and kept there (insider knowledge - Amanda) and just kept there until the lanes disappeared. Just after I drove past a lorry it moved over to block both lanes to stop anybody else doing the same. I can understand why too. A little pang of guilt but then I've got a schedule..

Happy days, emulsion living room, hanging vertical blinds (I will show the steps to put them up next time as my phone battery died trying to use Wayfinder to avoid the jam), destroying the bathroom and inhaling loads of plaster dust and finally laying the tile flooring in the kitchen. Cheated by not taking up the vinyl tiles so hoping that next week they stay stuck down.

Tile laying whilst playing hopscotch - that's what it seems like when you try to get around the nicely laid tiles to the other side of the room. Leave gaps - thanks Martin.

Oh, and somebody decided to key Amanda's car. Vengeance and cold dishes...that person is going to regret it eventually.

Monday 8.30am (not in a bigbrother accent) and it's Redbush tea time. Stef Kunneke drank this stuff all the time at HRL in sunny Morecambe (that's MORE RE CAM BAY to a South African who didn't know how it was pronounced). The tea is vile but it's supposed to do you good.

Colin and Simon

This was their weights on the 24th Feb 2006
















Apologies for the photo quality - it's a camera phone and it doesn't do close up very well

24/2/06
Simon = 140g (1yr old)
Colin = 170g (2yr old)

and yesterday


















16/3/06
Simon = 150g (1yr old)
Colin = 210g (2yr old)

Simon gained 10g and Colin 40g. Colin is a gready tortoise - eats and eats (especially cat food if he can get to it in the kitchen)

Talking of increasing numbers the FTSE is over 6000 today and that's caused a bit of a scare.

Unlike my 500,000 in EIRX Therapeutic which is down to 0.19p today (total loss so far of £66.00)...I reckon they all went out to celebrate somebody buying 1/2 million shares and just haven't bothered coming back.

It's a slow news day...

Bin day

We put the bin out this week (because our next door but one neighbour was putting his out when I got back). It's empty now - our stuff has become public property and is bimbling around Britain.

I bought 500,000 shares in an Irish company today but they are only 0.24p each so that's not too much to risk - £1,200. Wonder if they're going out for a Guinness to celebrate (and maybe buy a new kettle)?

This is the bid hitting the market - and it dropped from 0.24p to 0.23p. Maybe they thought it was a joke or something? An instant loss of £16.00. If I had really tried I could have put them into receivership!

Springtime

And the carrier bag trees are in bud on Caulfield Way in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. They appear over-night throughout the year but are particularly noticable when the trees have lost their leaves. This particular road is also inhabited by lorrius horribilis which gathers in vast numbers during the the evening to sleep nose to tail.
Maybe some litter bins might be a good idea to put the discarded flowers of the carrier bag trees (and for the benefit of the owners of these creatures)?

Air Conditioning

A very bad picture of the air conditioning button in my citroen picasso. It needs re-gassing to get that nice "ice cold" temperature in the height of summer when stuck on the M6...
















That will cost about £70 + VAT - unlike planet Earth which can't be re-gassed. Today the BBC reported on the Today programme that we have now exceeded 380ppm CO2 in the atmosphere - possibly not seen for 30 million years.

Short but not sweet blog

My weekend

7.30am (don't say it in a Big Brother geordie accent)

Off "up the road" to Blackburn

















10am - sausage egg and bacon butty time. This roadside caff is on the Whitebirk industrial estate next to PC World, Curries and a shed load more fun places to visit in your spare time. The two people "cooking" were wearing 3 jumpers and a coat each to keep warm. Don't get the chillie burger - it's too hot. The sign says "Blackburn's Fast Food Centre Open. Next right". Do that and you end up on the grass verge after driving over the chap waiting for his butty. They call them cobs in Alfreton.

Don't know who the person is in the picture (it's not me)
















This is our house in Blackburn, it's been occupied by Carl and Maria for a couple of years whilst they were saving up to get married and my weekend project for the next few months is "doing it up" hopefully to sell in early June.

I put up the vertical blinds in the kitchen patio doors on Sunday afternoon. Easier than I expected - if you want vertical blinds then this company has a good deal on now - £15 per blind for any size. I'll show you how to fit them next week when I do the living room ones.

That conifer is coming down very soon...

Measham, Derbyshire

Yesterday the BBC reported that the big 4 supermarket chains - Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys and Morrisons are "facing a full investigation" regarding their highstreet presence.

Measham is a small, friendly village with a mixture of old and new housing and a main shopping street. It seems to be packed with at least two of everything when it comes to shops.

Two hairdressers, estate agents, and lots of "mini marts":

7.40am
Co-op at the bottom end of the street. They have parking at the rear but I've never been in. Think I'm too lazy to drive(!) that extra 200 yards.

After this some of the photos get a bit blurred because I'm driving up the rise over speed bumps - shouldn't have done it but there wasn't any other traffic and I was travelling at about 10 mph...and I didn't have to do my makeup. Well, not this morning anyway.















"Corner shop" but no parking but lots of school children so must be busy on sweets in the morning and after school.

















This one is ON a speed bump - Tesco "Express" - one of the big 4 in question. The busiest shop and lots of parking - even got two sets of double yellow lines at the side for good measure but locals seem to "park" their cars on the pavement at the front of the shop instead of at the back on the car park (maybe because it's closer that way?) It's got a cash machine at the side that causes people to park on the double-double yellow lines - they widened the road which already had double yellow lines down it and then painted another set on the new edge as well. But it doesn't make any difference (maybe two cancel each other out).

















Another one - been in once at the weekend but no parking - think it might be struggling?
















Of them all the one that appears to "dominate" is a Tesco shop. Wondering why it is? Is it the easy parking? The Co-op has parking but it's not in the "centre" of the street but then it is easy to get to. Is it because there's a Tesco supermarket in Ashby and people feel comfortable buying the things that have familiar labels on the shelves? Answers on a postcard please - or the comments.

By the way - my blog time is way out - anybody know how to set it to the UK?

It's Thursday 9th March 2006

The red objects to the right of the picture are recycling boxes, they are empty because the dustbin men called at 7am to empty them and the normal wheelie bins.















I forgot to put our wheelie bin and recycling box out last night (again). They won't take anything that isn't in the bin or red box...anything at all.

This is our compost bin















It's the one with the brown top which means you put garden waste in it. South Derbyshire district council starts it's composting collections today.

Hopefully we won't need to use the brown bin as we bought a compost bin last month through the discounted compost bin programme.

It's bigger than we expected - 700 litres. Doesn't sound a lot but I'm thinking of renting it out.















We got it because Amanda now has two Hermanns tortoises
















The substrate used in a tortoise enclosure depends on the owner and the available materials. some "experts" recommend a mixture of 3 parts John Innes compost and play sand. You need to change the substrate frequently (or buy very small nappies) and the border was getting a bit full. We now put the used substrate in the composter together with the household waste so hopefully it will make a nice rich compost in a few months time.

This is Mark..