Windows 7

I've upgraded my laptop from Vista to Windows 7 and so far I like the usability improvements a lot. I can't say there's a big difference in starting up etc but it's early days.

A good Christmas and the snow returns?

The TV weather forecast suggests that heavy snow will return tomorrow but that doesn't seem to be confirmed by the Met Office. What will happen?

Diverted by drink

We decided to walk round the line of the city walls tonight and starting from Chapelfield we got as far as St Crispins but then we realised how close we were to the Golden Star.

That was it. I had a pint of Big Red from the Ossett Brewery which was excellent and with a pickled egg it was pretty much perfect. A second pint and I would still be in there now. It was that good.

Little Chef Surprise

A couple of times recently I have driven to Loughborough on business and stopped at the Kettering Little Chef and had a cracking breakfast. Properly cooked tomatoes, tasty bacon and sausage, wonderful mushrooms, fresh egg and the toast is gorgeous. That is all after real, freshly squeezed OJ. I also love the new decor and the musical toilets and I've been running on to anyone who'll listen about how transformed the LC experience is.

I've just seen a programme on Channel 4 about Heston Blumenthal revamping three Little Chefs and apparently Kettering was one of them. Now I don't feel quite so embarrassed that I took a photo of my breakfast on Monday so here it is.

If you are anywhere near Kettering please try the Little Chef. They're trying very hard and I love it.

Clouds of smoke have a silver lining

We've been moaning like mad the last couple of weekends because our next door neighbour has been waiting until the weekend before going into bonfire mode and producing ridiculous amounts of smoke that drift down towards the houses instead of across the fields when the wind is in the approved bonfire direction. It happened again yesterday morning and we were pretty annoyed as we have to keep the windows and doors closed and we were hosting a birthday breakfast for Soupy. I had to go down the garden to get a spare table out of the shed and "imagine my surprise" (I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again 1973) when I saw that the wilderness that was the bottom of the neighbour's garden has been cleared and tidied.

This is really great news because the bottom of our garden, where we spend a lot of time, was dominated by the neighbour's 20 feet high laurels and conifers and they have all been reduced to about 6 feet so all that smoke will be worth putting up with for the difference it is already making to our garden.

Good job I didn't say anything in the heat and smoke of the moment!

Preserving pears and roasting chestnuts

I've picked the rest of the pears and now need to decide on the best recipe for preserving them. I think I know where to find one that includes chardonnay and cinammon. That's wine and spice, not the new girls on Hollyoaks.

I was mulling over the options while I roasted some chestnuts over the fire pit using my French chestnut roasting tool.

I love this time of year.

Time for a change of subject

I have just finished reading "The Sea" by John Banville which followed "Deaf Sentence" by David Lodge. Two excellent books that I enjoyed very much but both featured men who had lost their wives to illness as the central characters. I am not superstitious but I don't like taking chances so I am now reading "Principles and Practices of Marketing" by David Jobber to make sure I don't get a hat trick.

Keith Floyd

Keith Floyd died a couple of weeks ago.

He is the only person to have moved, excited or inspired me to write to a TV company to thank them for their work. The series Floyd on Fish (1984) was the event that caused this reaction and I suppose I should have addressed the thanks to Keith rather than the producer.

Too late now but thanks Keith all the same.

Shock news - Italians love footy!

I'm listening to the Fiorentina -v- Liverpool match on the radio and it reminds me of the first match of the Serie A season last year. LJ and I were on holiday in Montecatini which is not for from Florence (home of Fiorentina) and the bar nearest our hotel was the local HQ of the Fiorentina supporters club, Club Viola. The bar was pretty much empty as the locals were off in Florence watching the match against Juve and the staff were low as the Violas were down 1-0 with minutes to go.

Fiorentina resorted to classic British tactics and the keeper hoofed the ball up front for the target man to lay of to a nippy striker who controlled and turned in one movement and slammed the ball past the keeper. The bar owner let out a cry of delight and we were nearly trampled by all the husbands from the hotel across the road who left their wives on the terrace looking very unimpressed and dashed into the bar to see the replay. I can imagine the conversation early that evening. I say darling, it's ages since we've been out together. Let's go to that nice hotel with the terrace and have a drink. etc etc

Sweater problem

Today I put my navy sweater on back to front and didn't notice for about three hours.

I did the same thing yesterday.

Remembering the lark

I bought Nicola Benedetti's new CD, Fantasie, yesterday and it includes a lovely version of The Lark Ascending. I have a number of versions of that piece and it reminds me of the day I left Aviva and spent the day wandering around Southwold buying fish. I walked back from the harbour across the marshes and stopped to watch a lark ascending and singing as it went. It was a beautiful sunny day and I had the time to just wait and watch and listen. The lark goes so high that you loose sight of it but you can still hear the song and that happened that day.

My memories of larks go back to my childhood when I would "go over the field" near our house and lay in the grass watching and listening to the larks during the holidays.

The veg patch bites back

Now I'm working for a while I don't get so much time to look after the garden so I had a quick look this morning to put a bucket of water on the tomatoes. I'd taken a couple of courgettes off last weekend and they wee very tasty so I thought I'd see how they are getting on. There are two monsters there now and the one I picked weighs 2.5 kilos! I'd heard that they grow quickly when they get going but I wasn't prepared for that.

The rest of the bed is out of control. I reduced the recommended spacings for the seeds to get more in and everything is overlapping with carrots fighting the sprouts and the beetroot overpowering the onions. I'll know better next year.

Sparrowhawk and Father-in-law's plums

I was chatting with F-i-L yesterday morning when I heard a commotion coming from his bird feeding centre (it's a bit big to be just a bird table) and it was being caused by a sparrowhawk that had caught one of it's talons in the netting that protected the plum tree adjacent to the feeding area. Presumably it knows that the feeding centre attracts it's own food as sparrowhawks prey on song birds and pigeons etc. I was wondering how we might rescue the bird from the predicament it was in without losing our fingers, eyes, ears etc when it ripped a hole in the net and sped off. That sort of makes sense as the talons are designed to do damage, if not to plum nets specifically.

It's my first positive sighting of a sparrowhawk at close quarters so a good day.

Calibrating my wedges

I bought a gap wedge yesterday: a Vokey 5208. I tried it out at the practice area and the results were horrible. The club looks so gorgeous it has to be me so I took it and my PW to the range today and the results were glorious. Funny game golf.

Chickens under control but not the mole

We got home last night to find the neighbours from Chankly Bore chasing chickens round the garden, watched by Sue from next door.  They were very embarrassed and I wish I'd taken a pic because it was hilarious.  LJ had said I should've picked the chickens up and taken them back but seeing the trouble the owners had getting them I wasn't so unhappy at my efforts.  LJ also assumed I know where they came from which, at the time, I didn't.

The neighbours brought some eggs round later which was a nice touch. 

Unfortunately the mole has the vegetable patch to itself now and the damage this morning is horrible with most of the beetroot plants in trouble.  It looks as though the chickens kept the mole away!      

Moles and chickens

I have spent a lot of time and effort on our new raised vegetable bed. It is beautiful and we are very proud of it so when I found a mole tunnel in it this morning I was not pleased and set a trap. A little severe you might think but it's an organic bed and who knows where the mole's been.
That was bad enough but when I got back after lunch I caught THREE rogue chickens destroying the bed. I could weep!

After a couple of hours the chickens had found their way through to Richard next door and he got two of them into the field at the bottom and the other one came back to me.  I then came up with a cunning plan.  I laid a trail of bird seed from close to the third hen, past the vegetable patch, over the compost heap and into the field.  It all started well with the chicken following the trail so I dashed in to get changed to meet LJ.  By the time I came out again the cunning plan had back-fired and the other two had followed the trail back into the garden.  

I give up. 

Blueberry muffins

My first attempt at blueberry muffins was amazing. I think I may have to quit while I'm ahead! I used a Mary Berry recipe with Sainsbury's fruit. Gorgeous.

Lazy boy!

I'm sitting in Starbucks in the sunshine with a coffe and a good book. I am struggling to find a good reason not to stay here all day.

Pink Panther

I'd forgotten how good this film is. Very funny, very classy. The predictive text feature on my phone decided that the film should be called Pink Panties. Lucky I spotted that!

Uncle Basil comments on the memorial gardens

Uncle Basil has contributed to the debate on the state of the memorial gardens between the market and City Hall.  It's a great shame that such a central location in the city looks like a bomb site and gives the city a post war rather than post millennium feel.  I remember sitting in the gardens with hundreds of others watching the firework display over the Castle that celebrated 800 years of Norwich as a city and now I am ashamed of what used to be a pleasant place to sit and enjoy a few minutes rest.  I know there were problems with misuse but I'm sure that a design can be found that will encourage appropriate use.  We encourage visitors to look at the Norwich 12, the 12 buildings that highlight the development of Norwich over the last 1000 years but in doing so they have to walk past the shambles that is the memorial gardens so perhaps we should start a new Norwich 12.  A dozen examples of civic indecision and embarrassment.    

Perfect Sunday night

Glass of wine, chocolates, Inter against Milan on the box.
Does it get any better?

Woodpeckers

Plenty of territorial drumming today and some sightings because of the bare trees.

Bella and The Norwich 12: The Guildhall

She wasn't very co-operative today and I think it's a lot to do with the recent bad weather denying her the daily walk around the City.  The layoff must have frustrated her and I don't think I've seen Bella more excited about a walk than today so when LJ came out of Starbucks with my DTL Bella didn't know which way to run for the best.   By the time we got to the location for this pic we had been walking for nearly an hour and she was still struggling to get down and charge off towards The Forum.  The second attempt was even worse so I'll have to get a better one later.  She's sleeping soundly now and probably dreaming of chasing rabbits! 

Over helpful HP

I'm trying to save electricity and the planet by avoiding standby mode for our electrical devices as much as possible. This is working fine and I feel good about the small step I am taking towards a greener future but almost all the good feelings are wasted by the messages from HP Solution Center (sic) giving me helpful advice on solving my "printer offline" problem.  I KNOW IT'S OFFLINE.  I TURNED IT OFF.  I'M SAVING THE PLANET AND ALL YOU CAN DO IS ANNOY ME WITH FACILE MESSAGES.

I really am turning into a grumpy old man.

Bella and the Norwich 12: The Castle

Not a bad picture - a reasonable amount of the Castle in the shot -  and Bella seems happy!

Why was it a rush this year?

Every Christmas we have loads to do to get ready and with both of us working it often took until exhaustion set in in the small hours of Christmas day before we were finished. 2008 would be different: I was no longer working so I could have everything ready in plenty of time and LJ could enjoy the lead up to the festivities. We got to bed at 3:30 Christmas morning so what went wrong? I didn't consciously take things easy. In fact I seem to have been working towards Christmas for over a month and still there was a mad panic. Perhaps I tried to do more preparation this year because I had more time but I don't think so.

After sombre if not sober reflection I have to conclude that the preparation for Christmas starts today. It's not really preparation for Christmas after all: it's a checkpoint for the assessment of progress with the house and our lives over the year so trying to cram everything into the last month is never going to work. So I'd better get started. I'm not even sure I have time to write this - oh no I'm behind already!