Today I visited Meriel and Chris. Much talking was done, as was drinking of tea.
In the afternoon we installed Mandrake Linux 10.0 Official on an old machine so that they could see if they’d like to use it instead of Fedora. After completing the install we tried out GnomeMeeting seeing as they had a few webcams that they’d picked up from car boot sales.
After a slow start to the day we popped into Truro and did stuff.
Other than that we had a visit around lunchtime by a couple of women who worked for a water testing company who wanted to test the kitchen tap water. Apparently it’s part of a random survey being done for the local water company.
Not an exciting day but restful. Tomorrow I’m off to see Meriel and Chris.
Today, as illuded to previously, I went for a nice walk along the cliffs. They weren’t just any old cliffs, no they were the cliffs at the bottom of the country, at The Lizard Point.
It was a nice walk, the weather was fine, though there was quite a stiff breeze off the sea which stopped you from overheating whilst toilling up the steep valleyside paths.
Returning to the car I was greeted by a brass band. OK it wasn’t actually for me, it was for the RNLI fund raising event taking place on the green. With a repetoire which included ABBA’s “Mummamia” and a Barry Manillow song, they seemed stuck firmly in the 1970’s.
Having videoed the Grand Prix we watched that after we got home. It was good to see button doing so well and some useful overtaking for a change. It’s very worrying for McLaren about the structural failure of Kimi Rikanen’s rear wing though.
Not a terribly exciting day today. It’s surprising how long preparing to wash the car can take, especially when you don’t have the correct stuff to begin with.
It started this morning with a trip into Helston to get a woollen pad for doing the actual washing. I asked my dad if he had enough car shampoo. He replied that he did, though he thought I was talking about wax polish. Hence, I didn’t buy the soap.
After getting home, having lunch and failing to get “Black & White” to run on my laptop I started getting ready to wash the car. I set out the hose, got the bucket ready and then asked where the shampoo was.. Which was when the misunderstanding came to light.
At least this gave an opportunity for a brisk walk up the village to the local garage.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, my car is now washed.
Tomorrow, weather permitting, a nice walk is planned, probably around The Lizard somewhere.
As mentioned in my previous entry, we went off to Plymouth to visit The National Marine Aquarium.
Now, the place is pretty big and boasts (literally) that it has the biggest tank in the UK and the deepest in Europe. I was expecting a mind blowing experience on a par with the Science Museum in London.
The facilities were fine but despite its grandure in some ways it was nowhere as good as the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay that we visited the day before yesterday. For a start, there was very little documentaton about the species in the tanks. What there was usually didn’t tally with what you saw. The tanks themselves, although larger, we less impressive as you did seem to get as close to the fish. Also, the café was pretty poor and would better suit a small railway station than a national tourist facility.
Anyway, it did pose an interesting challenge for low light action photography and showed up the real problems with this for my cameras. The Canon Digital IXUS II was basically a non-starter. I managed to get a number of decent pictures with the Fuji Finepix 602Zoom but only in the better lit tanks. The camera has far too much shutter lag as well as poor low light ability due to both the sensor and the relatively small lens size.
After leaving the aquarium we crossed over a swing bridge onto the road which skirts the old barbican. We then took a stroll along the seafront almost as far as the Hoe before returning.
The nice weather made the day really. It’s a pitty that there were so many poor drivers on the road to spoil the journeys to and from Plymouth though.
Today started off wet, so stayed in bed.
During the dull afternoon watched a couple of episodes of Babylon 5.
In the evening just talked with my dad about “stuff” in general.
That’s the day, really.
Tomorrow we’re off to Plymouth to visit the National Aquarium. Hopefully the drugs my mum’s taking for her shingles recovery won’t make her as tired tomorrow.
After a leasurely start due to my mum having a doctor’s appointment to check on the recovery of her face from a bought of shingles, we all went off to Newquay to visit the Blue Reef Aquarium.
Although the stuff on show was quite interesting, there wasn’t as much to it as I would have expected from the leaflet. What I did come away with was the knowledge that skates and rays love to watch people. They came to the surface of the open pool they were in, swam to where people were standing and gazed at them in the same sort of way begging dogs do, with as soulful eyes as any fish can give. They’d just sit there on the surface, eyes out of the water and beg. OK, after a while they’d move on to the next possible food source, but it shows that they’re not as dumb as many people may think.
On the way back we popped into a cider farm at which my dad picked up a couple of litres of cider and some strawberry wine. When we got home he suggested that I try a little of the wine as it “just tasted of strawberries.” Well, to me all I could taste was alcohol.. OK, after about five minutes after the sip and after the disgusting taste of the ethanol had disappated I did get a slight aftertaste of strawberry.
Didn’t do much during the evening other than watch “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” on DVD.
What can I say about today other than it was wet?
Well, I got up quite late for a start. After lunch I helped my dad replace the telly I gave them about a year ago with the 28″ widescreen one they acquired from my uncle and nan’s house. It was a package they bought about 18 months ago or less containing the JVC telly, DVD, and S-VHS video recorder.
It took about an hour or so to move the old cabinet out of the way and fully cable up the boxes and configure them. It’s annoying that the telly still only has RGB input on one SCART input. I had to put the DVD onto one of the S-Video inputs, as I did the video recorder.
Other than that I tried out my new headphones as they had finally fully charged. The sound quality’s good… As long as there’s no RF interference, which seems to be a slight problem, even when you’re using the headphones right next to the transmitter.
This morning I had to help my dad take his car to be serviced in Helston. This meant that I had to get up at just gone 8am. I could really have done with an extra couple of hours in bed.
I’ve been thinking for some weeks about getting some new headphones as the ones I have at home have far too short a cable to use with my laptop and the old ones I have here are uncomfortable after a while of use as they rest on the ear and aren’t well padded. Anyway, when we got back from the garage I had a look in the Argos catalogue. After looking at a number of the wired headphones I had a thought about how useful it would be to have wireless ones as then I could use them with my HiFi at home. Having mentioned this while sitting on the sofa it was changed by my dad from an aspiration to being, “Oh let’s get our coats on and be off then.” The upshot is that I now have a nice set on Sennheiser wireless headphones and a cheap pair of on the ear phones.
I had wanted a pair of cheap in-the-ear phones for use on the move with my laptop but all the ones but these Philips ones were out of stock. Still these Philips ones were half price, about £4. They’re not brilliant but for £4 they’re do.
Right, enough writing for tonight, time for bed.
I awoke at just before 7:30am this morning. My internal alarm is still set on workday time. Despite this I lay in bed listening to the radio ’til just gone 10am, after Broadcasting House on Radio 4.
It’s been a recovery day, really.
I have played ‘Return to Castle Wolfenstein’ which continued where I left off last Sunday. I think I’ve now got to the end ‘boss’ which is why I’ve pretty well lost interest now.
There was a very nice sunset this evening, though the sculpured clouds did spoil it a bit.