2008 — 25 November: Tuesday

The feather warcast is actually for "sun" so I'm vaguely planning a little adventure if I can persuade my co-pilot to come out to play. We shall see. Having spent much of the evening tracking down the dates of (radio) broadcasts of various bits and bobs I was recording on to minidiscs "for a rainy day" while otherwise engaged last year I have learned anew just how useful Google is (though my fancy desktop search comes in a very close second for finding stuff I know is on the PC somewhere...)

I've also been repairing a minor breakage (a "warning" technically) with a DTD and taking the opportunity of wrapping such stuff up into yet another server side include (if you don't know, you probably don't need to, either).

So, as the big hand has already overshot the 12 at the top of the dial, time for my next picture of Christa:

Christa and her parents in Old Windsor, late 1970s

She was obviously planning a day out for her parents on one of their frequent visits to stay with us. I have a suspicion this battered old print originated on the Polaroid camera I won as a prize in a competition run by a magazine called "Penthouse" — a story for another time, though I did a pretty neat bit of writing for them. G'night, at 00:19 or so.

Plan for a sunny day

Start with brekkie. Check. Nip out for the next round of crockpot stuff etc. Have a cuppa. Pick up neighbour and head due South and along a bit. Remember to take the pixel stuff. Destination? Last visited in February. Wonder if the swan is still there...

Right. That's brekkie done. It's 09:43 and there's a 2007 computer-controlled rendition of an Art Tatum arrangement of Dvorak's "Humoresque" currently detaining me. It had applause at the end, too!

Carnage elsewhere

Not for the first time, I've arrived home, turned on the radio, and listened in some horror to tales of woe and worse out there on the roads of the UK. Worst I had to contend with today was a slow driver on the outskirts of Bournemouth characterised by my co-pilot as a limpy b*****d as he waved his stick at them! It's just gone 16:00 and is turning even colder now that the sun is disappearing. Nary a swan to be seen in Mudeford, but I did catch a cormorant down at Sandbanks — we nipped along to see the refurbished chain-drawn ferry. Sunny, but nowhere near warm enough for the ice-creams I used to enjoy there. Beautifully clear ...

A Mudeford artist's view of the Needles

... calm sea, and a free lunch. Who says TANSTAAFL?

Meanwhile, on the little quay beside the Sandbanks ferry, I felt this composition had a certain vaguely comic potential, though you'll need to click the pic to see it:

An unusual hide

It's 18:18 and time for a bite to eat.

Who says dickie birds are graceful?

A comic tern?

Later that day...

I was absolutely delighted to have another chance to hear Alan Plater's wonderful play "Time added on for injury"1 on BBC7, and note, with even greater delight, a trio of his plays that are new to me coming up on the next three evenings. But now, at 22:06, I fancy it's time for another cuppa.

  

Footnote

1  Agreed, I already have it safely tucked away on minidisc and as an MP3 file — who can explain my psychology?