kestrel

when we went out this evening, Pepper was performing eternal vigilance on the bookcase at the bottom of the stairs. Presumably the frog which she hurtled in with earlier, had taken up refuge under there (and who can blame it?).

when we got home a couple of hours later, she was asleep on the bed.

so where’s the frog?

perlmonger and I have joined a gym. This doesn’t sound so much in and of itself to most of you, I’m sure. But to those of who know us, I’m sorry we didn’t give you prior warning … you probably all need to go for a lie down now. We’ve signed up for Holmes Place at Redwood Lodge (don’t look at this in Mozilla, cos their browser sniffing code is broken) – only five minutes or so from home, and open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. during the week – surely we can find some time?

but we’re middle aged, overweight (in my case), overworked and completely stressed out, and we need to do something. Hopefully this will help. I’m actually quite looking forward to it.

I think.

I have my assessment on Monday afternoon [scream], and Pete has his on Sunday evening, and they’ve signed me up for a yoga class while he does it. Will we survive, I wonder?

gradually installing things on this G4, ready for it to replace my XP Pro machine. Big problem is mail … thousands and thousands of messages in The Bat! on the Windows box – I have to find a way to get them into (ideally) an iMap client, probably Mulberry. Still pondering on the best way to do that.

also, we discovered that we didn’t after all have the right connectors to plug my two NEC TFT monitors into this machine, so the Big Switchover will be delayed until the Applestore delivers same.

and, although this machine is very noisy, Apple have at last bitten the bullet, and are replacing the power supplies on this model – hurrah!

I like cooking, but sometimes I’m completely uninspired. And I don’t seem to have much time for shopping at the moment. I opened the freezers this afternoon, and nothing appealed.

so tonight, I layered sliced parboiled potatoes, a chopped red onion, some chunky mushrooms, a few cloves of garlic and some rosemary into a buttered dish, dumped some double cream on them, and covered the lot in grated gruyere cheese. It smells ok, and it will keep the wolf from the door …

as we went to bed last night, we noticed Pepper’s (our beautiful golden marble Bengal) face was very swollen on one side, and further investigation revealed a horrible lump under her right jawbone, spreading across under her chin. We spent a very restless night worrying that she might have a tumour.

whizzed her over to the vet this morning, to find it’s an abscess – huge relief.

http://www.jonhadley.com/uploads/blush.mov

These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed

passed to me by etrigan

I hate the commercialisation of Valentine’s Day, but I succumbed and bought Pete a bunch of red roses yesterday. I’d planned to hide them in the shed overnight, but the forecast said it would be too cold (and indeed it was). So I stuffed them, paper and all, in a vase with a couple of inches of water in it, and hid them in the study cupboard.

when Pete arrived home, he too was bearing a bunch of red roses, muttering similar epithets about commercialisation (!) – and like me, he had planned to leave them in the garage, but had to bring them in the house. So I fetched the others from the cupboard, and we put them in the same vase :)

good day, business wise.

• quotation for makeover of new client’s site accepted
• quotation requested for more work to do from big client
• got invited to discuss redesign of pretty high-profile site

also got another client’s pesky e-mail stuff working properly, and am well on the way with the teachery site, database included. All in all, most satisfactory :)

not only does the master, Richard Thompson, have a new album out, but he is also playing our local (dreadful) music venue here in Brissle, the Colson’all, next month.

and I have managed to secure tickets! [all go hurrah!]. Not, of course, via the Bristol City web site, because it’s broken (like the rest of the council), but via the good old fashioned dog ‘n’ bone.