2008 — 20 November: Thursday

Tonight's picture of Christa takes me back to our first holiday on Guernsey in August 1977:

Christa on Guernsey, August 1977

The first of about half a dozen visits. It was great fun. G'night.

Nice and sunny start...

... to the next day's worth of adventuring. It's not quite 09:00 and definitely time for a cuppa to swill away the cobwebs. That's better! By the way, Christa, the last of the grapes are coming to an end. I think this is the latest I've ever picked them. Amazing.

Right! That which it was needful to shop for has been shopped for. I have a minor-league ERNIE (that I forgot) to deposit in my "safe as Spanish villas" bank, and will then whisk my main co-pilot out on an unrelated financial mission, followed by a little bite to eat somewhere. The sun is still in evidence at 10:58 but would, I suspect, disappear by the time we got down to the coast (especially in light of Brenda's guvmint's proposed increased focus on speeding offences. (Six penalty points in one go would see me immediately disqualified as I'm still in my two-year probationary period as a recent learner.) Not that I speed.

Back safely...

... with another sixty or so miles on the digicounter thingy, another all-day breakfast bap from the Hilltop Café under my/our belt(s), and with my first-ever visit to Old Sarum castle similarly stowed away. It was brisk, and breezy, so visibility was excellent. What a great shame Christa and I never went there in the quarter century or so when it was (as it were) almost on our doorstep. Life is now, at times, moving from the melancholic "last time I was here was with Christa" phase into a differently melancholic "isn't it a pity Christa will never see" phase. Oh well. Time (14:56) for another cuppa. And — I must say — it's always nice to arrive home to another small bundle of Amazonian goodness, too.

DVD and CDs

And if "Brass" is no good, don't tell me, because I've never caught a single episode of it! It looks like a hoot. Since that which I don't do doesn't do itself, I'm going off the air again now (17:27) while I struggle with the rest of the infernal rewiring up here. TTFN!

Nearly back!

Who needs printers and scanners? But tell me why the Dell screen is so much less bright than the newer Samsung.

It's 22:44, audio is restored (and much simplified) and both main XP machines are back online with individual keyboards and 24" screens. Two mini-Dyson loads of dust (and worse, probably) have been removed from my immediate vicinity, Little Dorrit has been watched, and it's way past time for my next cuppa. What a performance. Still, there's one less co-ax cable meandering up the stairs and a fighting chance of getting some integrated audio I/O working from one, or maybe even both, machines. (I have a small backlog of requested recordings to start work on.)