2011 — 4 August: Thursday

I didn't realise1 last night, sitting quietly among the weeds at the side of the house, enjoying a space opera set 6,000,000 years ago on Earth, the full extent of the insectile assault. A tick had attached itself by its external feeding parts to the surface of my second toe, right foot, between same and big one. I sincerely hope it has done no permanent or growing damage. (One of my chums had severe problems when he was similarly bitten on his arm recently, while clearing some river debris, and needed hospital treatment.)

The area is a small red spot at the moment, thankfully smaller and less red that it was some eight hours after I actually noticed the itching and nipped the nasty off with finger and thumb nails. He / she / it's now trapped between two layers of sellotape on a bookshelf in my reading room just in case anyone needs to check what killed me :-)

Right for once...

... the feather warcast, that is. Only a duck would be comfy out there at the moment, the moment being 09:20 or so. But, on the bright side, it's a bit cooler.

Shower-dodging...

... shopping completed, and fresh (if late) "lemonses" cuppa brewing, I was vaguely curious to see what — apart from the return of the death penalty — was on the minds of those of our 'Untied Kingdom' subjects who could be bothered to sign one of the new range of electronic guvmint petitions. I fell at the first hurdle, since the web site has apparently cracked under the democratic strain, but I have to admit the "error" message made me hoot with helpless laughter, which is always a Good Thing:

HM Guvmint

I wonder if the Nuclear Deterrent Launch button has the same message?

Better later...

... than never, I now have enough leisure to report a goodly little haul while my overheated evening meal cools to the point where I no longer risk oral damage. First, an interesting trio of books:


Followed by a Blu-ray and a CD:


Actually, I also got the CD "Ring" by Glasser (but the cover is too abstract to be worth scanning) and a 2m USB3 extension cable that will make recharging the as-yet-undelivered Transformer Tablet PC much more convenient (but who needs to see a coiled cable?)

I also spent an hour over at the care-home, enjoying a surreally repetitive conversational audio loop with dear Mama. She can still understand language, to an extent, but her access to any memories is not much hit and lots of miss.

One book, two CDs, and half a Blu-ray later, I'm off in search of the Lost Sleep. G'night.

  

Footnote

1  Until the itching started!