2009 — 3 September: Thursday
I've had some trouble dating this next picture of Christa. She's not wearing the gold chain necklace I bought for her in our first year together, so that would suggest it was no later than July 1975. On the other hand, I suspect it may have been in Penzance, in which case it would have been September 1975. And she certainly caught the sun a bit on that holiday:
One of Life's little insolubles, I guess. Last night's film was Little Ashes, at least until I became bored about half way through. So I settled for a book and some delicious music. Plans are well afoot for another walk later today, though (with all the recent rain) it will have to be on roads if we're to avoid a mud bath. A pity my new set of walking shoes has yet to show up. (They're half way between traditional hiking boots and high-tech trainers — an experiment in decreasing the blister problem.)
G'night.
Depending where you look...
... it's a cloudy start or a sunny start. But the rain has stopped.1 I await my rendezvous instructions. Now, about that cuppa...
Mercy me! Ikea is changing from Futura to Verdana. Unless you tinker with your browser settings, you'll see Verdana on this very page (providing you have it installed, of course):
Wonder if it will affect their meatballs? Well, that's Simon Garfield's next book sorted, then. I didn't realise quite how many of his interests interest me. (Source.)
Froxfield beckons. A quick packed lunch, and off I shall set...
Somewhat later...
... it's 16:25, a kettle full of nearly boiling water awaits its meeting with a tea bag, the new boots were waiting on my doorstep, and there was only really one shower to be unsuccessfully dodged during the 7.4 miles or so wandering around starting from the car park of the "Pub with no name". Lots of contour lines (these are felt, rather than seen, of course) but it's supposed to be good for us.
Email glitch?
While the spam continues to get through, there's the merest, tiniest, teensy-weensy hint that something is not quite tickety-boo with my email service. No problems on the "status" page (of course) but I have at least two bits of evidence that I sent stuff, but said stuff failed to show up at stuff's destination. One late yesterday evening, one fairly early this morning. This is annoying. Not much seems to be arriving, either, but how could I tell?
Oh well. It's 18:01 and I'm just about ready to contemplate an evening meal. I've been reading one of my new arrivals — Francis Wheen's very promising examination of the "strange days indeed" that were Britain in the 1970s. I didn't pay all that much attention to the politics and trends of that distant era; I was quite busy finishing my tertiary education as an aero engineer, then moving across into the world of computers, meeting and marrying Christa, carving some sort of a career in ICL with parallel freelance careers as a hi-fi reviewer and journalist, and applications programmer,2 and, by the end of the decade, becoming a father.
Every little helps...
... was one of my Dad's favourite sayings. That must be why, after his summer break last month, Mr ERNIE has sprung back into action with another (tax-)free £25 note. I wonder where he keeps all the good stuff?
Meanwhile, tonight's delicious wodge of hot crockpot was much enhanced by my own variant of meatballs. I chopped up and slung in the last two sausages before setting the microwave phasers to "stun". Even the almost rock-hard granary slice of bread didn't spoil things, though I have to say that it's not usually possible — speaking as a single chap of gradually decreasing domestic ineptitude — for me to get very far through a loaf before Madame Nature renders it furry and horrible. Not that I know Fungus to be horrible...
(Raymond Briggs' "The Snowman" was a book I gave Christa as a present, for Christmas 1974.) On a related topic, I've been waiting for this. And have finally given in and pre-ordered it from Amazon.
Email glitch update
Oops. One of Junior's commercial web site clients on the same domain as us has (as usual) sent out several thousand monthly emails in a batch. This time, for whatever reason, the ISP has decided to treat this legitimate action as potentially spam-related, and has therefore (temporarily) shut down our outgoing email. Shoot first and ask questions later, I guess. Incoming email is unaffected by this policy change. The lad is doing what he can to get us both back on the air.