Still busy

Spot the difference.  Apart from the fact that one is sunny and the other is cloudy we weren’t sure how much we had achieved in two days until we saw the photos.

We took Tuesday off to pay a visit to the bank and to buy a small notebook computer to keep in the kitchen for e-mails and tweets.  My laptop is showing its age now and will need to be replaced, but if we can keep it happy for a while longer, at least until the loft study area is up and running properly, life will be much easier.

The little notebook is tiny and will take up hardly any kitchen space.  I’ll use it for e-mails and the internet, looking up recipes, mine and other peoples.  We are running Thunderbird on it instead of Outlook for mails and I’ve got Tweetdeck for instant Tweets which are great fun.

Work will continue in the garden for a while yet, so if it’s quiet in blogland I do apologise.  This is a very slow process, bringing down trees without touching the pool (not always sucessful, those trees have a mind of their own), or the shed or the chalet is quite a challenge and we don’t want to rush and risk anything.  And yes, Steve and Jim before either of you ask, we are taking all the proper precautions, safety stuff and so on.

The tree clearing does of course mean that the loft bedroom is still waiting for our attention but I hear that rain may be on the cards this weekend so perhaps we’ll get started then.  Maybe.

Happy Spring, everyone!

No spam thank you

Ste Juliette

Do excuse me for not blogging today. I am trying to sort out both computers which have been going far too slow for far too long.

It’s a very nice 31 degrees outside but in here it is a lovelier cool, so it’s the ideal afternoon to set to and sort out anti-virus software and spam blockers.

If I’m not back tomorrow you will know that it has all gone horribly wrong!

Who ate all the cookies?

Ste Annonciation

Our ISP very kindly offered us a three month free trial of their anti-virus and firewall software. I thought that the programs we had were working well but, well, you never know, and it was free for three months.

Unfortunately it has eaten all my cookies and set my internet security access so high that I have to remember all the passwords I ever had (impossible, especially if I’ve had to change them for any reason) and sometimes, but not always, blocks me out of my blog page.

So please forgive me if I am not around from time to time.

And blame it on the cookie monster.

This and that

Ste Agnès

I’m still struggling to get our big PC working properly. I’ve reloaded the operating system and it worked fine, then we seem to have got a virus – heaven knows how it got through the firewall and the anti-virus software but I gave it a Lemsip and it got better. Now it’s started giving me funny messages, something to do with Visual Basic, hunting for the solution to that the virus came back again so I had to repair the operating system (trying Beechams Powders this time).

Now the screen is playing up and I lost the use of the webcam which was working nicely with Skype last week.

So, between doing the housework and getting lunch I’ve been sorting out Skype (webcam now working again), and now we’re going through a mammoth defragmentation, which is soooooo slow!

It was great to use the webcam as we were able to ’see’ our grandsons over the weekend. Jack has lost his two front teeth – with a little help from the school playground I hear – Leo is talking much more than he was and they both seemed to enjoy seeing us too. Hopefully this means that Leo will find us a little less frightening next time we see him in a few weeks’ time. This may not be the case of course as he might think we are very small people who live in a computer. He was looking behind the screen for us the other day when we were talking to him and he kept kissing the screen. Can’t wait until we see him for real.

We’ve been making the most of some milder weather and sat out in the garden the other day. We were just chatting when Figgy appeared with one of his little mouse friends that he likes to bring back from time to time for a game of tag. I don’t think the mice much appreciate it but he thinks they are more fun that the balls he usually plays with indoors. Figgy and the mouse took a breather and we were astonished to be joined by a young tabby kitten. We were more astonished by Figgy’s and Misty’s behavour – they just sat and watched it as surprised as we were. The kitten clambered all aound the veranda of the chalet, where we were sitting, rubbed itself up against us and generally tried to make itself very appealing.

We were steadfastly ignoring it (we’re certain it comes from our new neighbours) when suddenly the mouse decided it had had enough of a break and made a bid for freedom. Figgy went to go after it but our new friend, who was a good 20 yards further away than he, also leapt into action and got there first.

We expected a battle, a chase and lots of caterwauling but Figgy just let them go! He and Misty just watched the kitten ‘deal with’ the mouse in it’s own way. If they could have been sitting with dropped jaws I’m sure they would have – so would we. In fact the only time Figgy growled at the kitten was when it tried to walk round behind him – he obviously felt a little threatened.

Yesterday the little thing was back again, trying to climb through the kitchen window (which was shut) and looking very endearing.

We don’t want to encourage it so ignore the little scrap, whilst not wanting to chase it away – next door is not so far after all. We are trusting to our cats to let this one know whose territory it is here. Not that previous actions lead us to believe they are capable of it!

Feeling quite intellectual

Ste Nina

We spent a very nice day yesterday with friends discussing the last two months’ reading group books. We have developed into a nice group of 8-10, all early retirees of similar age and interests- mostly renovating our houses and gardens to various degrees.

For the first time yesterday we settled down to proper organised discussions on the three books. Raymond Queneau’s ‘Zazie in the Metro’, Albert Camus’ ‘The Outsider’ (both books read in English, in case you were wondering), and Alan Alda’s autobiography with the wonderful title ‘Never Have Your Dog Stuffed’.

Everyone had enjoyed the books, which was also a first. Usually one of us hasn’t managed to finish a particular book because of time (actually some people were still a bit behind with the last book) or just can’t be bothered to finish a book because they don’t like it. We are very proud to say that we have both finished all the books so far chosen, even though we don’t always like the subject matter.

During the afternoon one couple were talking about a local restaurant they have been going to. It is a school for hoteliers and the restaurant is open most weekday evenings and lunchtimes for the students to practice on ‘real people’. The menus are amazing and several of us plan to try the restaurant out in the next few weeks. Fortunately I wasn’t nominated as the organiser of these outings, especially as I was the nominated scribe for the book group this month.

I spent this morning writing up our notes ready to post to the internet which, stupidly, I did live on the website. Then I tried to backspace something out and the whole lot disappeared never to be seen again. You’d think that all those years working as a PA, document formatter and indexer would have taught me to do everything in Word, save it over and over again and then, and only then, post it to the website! I had to write it all over again this afternoon and it took me an hour each time.

Maybe a year out of the workplace has made me forget these basics!

Organising the ‘puters

St Guillaume

I spent the morning ‘playing’ with the computers. Ever since I mended the big computer by reloading XP I’ve been meaning to get round to setting up a home network. I’ve got a bit of a cold so it was a good excuse to sit in the study with the heater on and sort the things out today.

The Gates bit was easy but my ISP isn’t the most user friendly and doesn’t know the meaning of the word ’simple’ – maybe it’s just anti-Gates, so many people are, but eventually I have managed to get it all up and running, the two ‘puters are now talking to each other and I can spend many hours sorting out all the thousands of duplicated photographs we have stored on them. I’m sure they will both run much quicker when I get the photos organised and onto a couple of CDs freeing up hard drive space.

I don’t know how long this is likely to take because I did try to start and every time I think about it, I think of another way of organising and filing them all. Should I do it by date? Maybe by location would make more sense? When I’ve finally got these all done, there are all the old photos that I want to scan in and store too. I don’t think I can make my cold last long enough to do it all so it will probably take me many months.

I know there are lots of software options out there to help me organise all this media and I love MediaMonkey which has helped me sort out all the music we’ve got stored, I think Picasa will be the best option for photos – but of course I still need to decide exactly in what order to file all this stuff! More particularly how to file it so that we can both find what we are looking for next time we want it. It’s lovely browsing through the photos though and especially to see what we have been upto in the last 11 months.

LOST CONTACTS – please help

St Brice
Yesterday’s weather: duller but mild, excellent gardening weather

I am currently repairing my desktop computer and have lost many of my contacts and old e-mails.

Please, please, when you read this can you send me a quick e-mail to the usual address so that I can put all my contacts back together again.

If you don’t have or have lost my e-mail address, please send a comment WHICH WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED including your e-mail address and I will e-mail you back.

Thank you for your help.