Well, it’s Wednesday afternoon.

My bike’s in the bike shop for a second week running so that the Raleigh
rep. can come and look at it and see that the part he keeps bringing is the
wrong part. Last week he didn’t turn up. Both myself and the bike shop manager
is hoping he will this week. Yes, I’m still trying to get the replacement
chain guard for my bike. It’s only been a little over 18 months since I first
ordered it!

As for other things, not a lot is happening other than the nice, cold, sunny
weahter has changed into not so nice, cold, cloudy weather.

Alec might be popping over tonight to see or pick up last week’s buffy on video. I’m not sure which of the two it will be.

That’s about it, really. Other than I’m feeling surprisingly cheerful especially
considering I’ve hardly had any real human contact since last Friday evening.

Tuesday morning comes.

It may be sunny but it’s a bit chilly.

I’ve just discovered two things:

Firstly, Friday the department will be officially closed. This doesn’t mean
a great deal to me. I’m going to be in here anyway saving one holiday day
for another time.

Secondly, the new drinks machine won’t be installed until Thursday now (it
was due yesterday) which means I have another couple of days of being without
the help of machine coffee in the morning. Admittedly, I only use this in
emergencies to get my brain jump started, but it’s an important stand-by.

Life around the department at the moment is totally dead. There’s hardly
anyone around at all and no-one I can really have a conversation with. It’s
getting to me a little but I’m fighting the feelings of isolation and this
mornign I’m not feeling too bad about it. Definitely better than I was feeling
yesterday afternoon.

Well, you’ll be pleased to know that someone killed that alarm last night before bedtime so I got a decent night’s sleep.

What I totally failed to do yesterday was get the grass cut or wash the car.
I also forgot to bring into work with me this morning my sterilisation tablets
for my water bottle, so I’m having to drink cans of expensive fizzy water
instead.

As I mentioned before, most of the people in the department are actually
away at the moment, so I’m a little bored. I’m therefore filling my time
with trying different ways of installing Mandrake 9.1 on a machine just to
see what differences it makes.

I have zero social plans for the rest of the week, unsuprisingly. At least
I do have some household chores to fill my time though, like doing the washing,
cutting the grass etc. Saturday I drive down to Cornwall for a 2 week break.
I do hope the weather stays nice.

Yesterday’s Brazilian Grand Prix was sort of interesting in places, as much
for the farce as for the actual racing. It was all very silly and a bit dangerous.

Anyway, I’ll stop my whittering on now.

My experiment with cooking lamb worked nicely this evening.

Lamb steaks were covered in a paste made from Colman’s Mint Sauce, vinegar and some salt and left for about 3 hours to soak in. They were then fried on a very hot cast iron griddle pan with no oil or fat as lamb’s quite fatty anyway. They were cooked for about 10-12 minutes, turning regularly.

They were then served with mini new potatos and peas.

It’s twenty to nine at night.

That flippin alarm’s been going ALL DAY.

Ok, for a while it sounded as though its battery had run down, but now it’s got its second wind and it constantly shrieking away.

I just hope someone manages to kill it before it’s time to go to bed otherwise I’m likely to have a rather sleepless night in store.

It’s sunday morning, there’s a car alarm constantly going off a couple of hundred yards away making an intermittent racket and being really annoying. The sky is cloudy but for the time of year it’s quite warm.

I’m sitting here on my sofa trying to ignore the car alarm in the near distance as otherwise it’d send me rather potty.

So, on to happenings…

I did stay for Happy Hour in the department on Friday evening and had an enjoyable time talking to those who were there, most of whom were flying out to Caan(sp?) in the south of France to pick up a couple of 35ft yachts to sail to Nice to use as floating accomodation for the AGU/EGS/EUG combined conference there. As it turns out, it’s cheaper to hire these two yachts for a week than it would be to stay in a cheap hotel in Nice! (There are 12 people, 6 to a yacht.)

Yesterday turned out to be very productive. I managed to get my hair cut, get some new shoes (well, trail shoes, Columbia Sawtooth), buy a replacement timer light switch for the living room and fit it. It was also a very nice, warm and sunny day. You have to take the opportunity to make the most of these sorts of days when they appear at this time of the year. I even needed to turn on the sir conditioning on my car at one point to cool the inside down!

This morning, I was going to wash the car but it’s a bit too windy. Not only would I get rather wet, but conversely, the car would dry too quickly for me to wash it properly. I will probably cut the moss in the back graden this afternoon. The bits of grass which ar eleft are getting a bit tall. I’ll also probably do the washing and hang it outside.

Well, I went to see a film last night, “The Life of David Gale.”

It’s not a bad film. It definitely didn’t drag. In many ways, the style reminded
me of Erin Brokovich. There were one or two places where the story seemed
a little contrived though I’m not sure for what reason. The main one being
that the hire car had a faulty cooling system causing the end (and the beginning)
of the film to be a little over dramatic. Oh, and why did Kate Winslet’s
character bother to watch all the video in that bloke’s house when she was
on such a tight schedule? Surely in that situation you’d find the right video
cassette from watching a couple of seconds, eject it and run?

Anyway, these are minor quibbles. Even the sexual scenes were done with taste
and very little actual nudity or explicit flesh of any kind. On the whole
I’d give it an 8 out of 10 score as the story was mostly transparent so you
could guess what was going to happen at the end mostly by the time you got
half way through the film.

Now, I’ve no plans for the rest of the week. I’ll probably watch Buffy &
Angel tonight. I doubt I’ll turn up to Happy Hour in the department tomorrow
evening as none of the people i talk to will be here. The weekend will be
taken up with chores which need to be done before I go down to my parents’
place in Cornwall for Easter such as getting my hair cut, washing the car,
getting and fitting a security timer light switch for the living room. That
sort of stuff. Oh, and I may give the rear moss^H^H^H^Hlawn the first cut
of the year.

A – Act your age? It depends upon whether you take chronological age or mental age. You’re only as old as the *add member of opposite sex* you feel. In this case I’m therefore of indeterminate age.
B – Born on what day of the week? Well, cal(1) tells me it was a Saturday.
C – Chore you hate? I think washing up is amongst the worst.
D – Dad’s name? Raymond
E – Essential makeup item? None at all.
F – Favorite actor? Matthew Broderick, if only for Ferris Bueller and WarGames.
G – Gold or silver? Gold, it’s the most ductile metal, is great as shielding against ionising radiation and is a wonderful conductor. Oh, and some people think it looks nice.
H – Hometown? The closest town to where I lived when I grew up was Ampthill. The village was Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire, England, UK, Europe, Sol3, Western Spiral Arm, Home galaxy, Andromeda group. That should tie it down.
I – Instruments you play? I got up to grade 1 classical guitar when I was 11.
J – Job title? IT Systems Administrator
K – Kids? None, I don’t breed goats.
L – Living arrangements? Alone with many old computers to support.
M – Mum’s name? Patricia
N – Number of people you’ve slept with? It depends upon whether you mean slept next to or had sex with. If the former, a couple. If the later, it’s something that happens to other people and not to me. Sex is as much a myth to me as storks bringing babies with only slightly more evidence (storks don’t live in Britian).
O – Overnight hospital stays? When I was 6 I stayed over with concussion for observation.
P – Phobia? I’ve no fears I could classify as a phobia as such.
Q – Quote you like? Well, it’s not a real person, more a character’s words… “It’s too late for the pebbles to vote. The avalanche has already started.” Kosh.
R – Religious affiliation? I’m not affiliated with any religion. You could call me a humanist, or an agnostic, or an atheist. Then again you could call me a duck or a dolphin, it has as much meaning to me.
S – Siblings? None at all. (Which, funnily enough, is the amount of damage a bulldozer would suffer if it ran right over a person.)
T – Time you wake up? Weekdays, 7:28am. Weekends, as late as possible.
U – Unique habit? None. I don’t wear habits and I’m not unique.
V – Vegitable you refuse to eat? It’s not a vegitable but a fruit.. Gooseberries.
W – Worst habit? Procrastination, when I can get around to it.
X – X-rays you’ve had? Chest, teeth, hand. I think that’s it.
Y – Yummy food you make? Well, I do a decent banana and walnut loaf. Give me the algorithm, sorry, recipe and the components, sorry, ingredients, and I’ll fabricate the desired gastronomic item.
Z – Zodiac sign? Aquarius. The age of which dawned and then faded away.

Well,
the weekend was not what I had envisaged mid-afternoon on Friday. However,
it was generally what I envisaged when Alec invited me over to help with
his gardening, except for the lack of post impaling.

Friday evening was spent trying to recover from Thursday night. ie. it was
quiet and chilled. I can’t exactly remember what I DID do but I didn’t do
much.

Saturday morning was spent quickly getting the weekly shopping in Sainsbury’s.
It’s a whole lot of no fun, really. Still, I don’t have to worry too much
about thinking about what I need to get as much of it is habitual and automatic
these days.

So, it was off to Alec’s place in the afternoon. We weeded, we dug herbs
up and planted the same herbs elsewhere. (And I’ve just realised that I forgot
to pick up that mint root I’d put to one side to take home.) Food followed,
a nice roast vegitable and bacon toasted sandwich made from freshly baked
bread etc.. Thence it was on to watching last week’s Buffy & angel which
neither myself nor alec had seen due to other commitments.

Sunday started roughly at 9am.. or rather it should have been 8am, well according
to my biological clock it was, anyway. So, it was go downstairs, listen to
Broadcasting House on Radio 4 and drink some coffee. Wash, have breakfast
and then more gardening type stuff.. Well, mostly roughly pegging out where
Alec’s going to put his new bike shed.

Various other things happened, including sitting in the sun watching cats,
taking photos, going to Waitrose and knocking on Rachel, Graham and little
Christopher’s door and then going away again as they weren’t in.

Anyway, all this fun finished around 4pm as it was time to go home.

I got home thinking that my video was watching Time Team for me… but then
I realised with horror that it was still on GMT and so would be an hour out.
Time Team was already half way through by the time I got the telly on. Not
that it turned out to be that good an episode anyway.

I just slouched for the rest of the evening, still stuck on GMT in a BST world.

This morning it was SO hard to get out of bed!

At least the notification of my jury duty expenses came through the post
this morning.. £28. Not bad for three week’s not work (on top of my
normal salary).