What! No Snow

The weather forecast almost promised us snow but we haven't got any. I saw a few flakes before I went to bed last night but woke up to nothing.

Feral Cat

This is or was a feral cat and it is as close as I can possibly get to it. It lives at my dad's but it was a long time before it would come in the house. It lived on the hillside behind the house but would come down every morning to get a bird from the bird table. A decision had to be made - Either kill the wild cat or feed it. A bowl of food was put out in the morning but not if it had killed a bird. It learnt to tolerate birds to such an extent that it would walk down the hill every morning with a pheasant, which also called in for its breakfast. The two of them would eat side by side from adjacent dishes. The pheasant is no longer around but the cat is becoming reasonably tame.

Shopping again - Bargain limitation exercise

Couldn't cope with this new camera and the rate it was going through the AA batteries so I went off to the camera shop and bought some high capacity rechargables and a super fast recharger. They cost me a total of £40, which means the camera didn't turn out to be as cheap as I thought. Don't you just love a bargin?
It is a good job I've got a sense of humour. I need it ........ the way I manage my life.

Boxing Day

I don't normally go shopping on Boxing Day but I've been out this year and bought myself a new eveyday digital camera for half price. It's a Pentax 6 megapixel 3 x optical zoom. There was nothing wrong with my old carmera save that it was a bit too bulky and it had a picture card in it rather than an SD card. It wanted the SD card so that I can view the photographs on my PDA simply by transferring the card. I can also transfer them easily to other computers without carrying the cable around with me. ( I have a little SD card reader. )

I forgot...........

to include a photo of the poinsettia. It wouldn't be Christmas day without a poinsettia just like this one. :-) All part of the tradition in our house.

My Christmas day - so far

Happy Christmas everyone and before I forget here's your card

I got up this afternoon just in time to see the end of 'The Railway Children'. ( I'd been up half the night playing with my my son's new toys. Santa called early. ) The queen appeared on my TV this afternoon. ( Christmas message. ) She referred to the natural disasters this year and said she believed that it was religious faiths that teach people to have the desire to help one another. That was the end of that for me - I got up and switched it off! When you consider that most of the people in this country are not religious, I think it was a daft thing to say and didn't do her any favours. Just shows how out of touch she is. I have nothing against people having a religion but the suggestion that the rest of us don't instictively care about others and rally to their assistance, is ridiculous.

I don't watch TV as a rule and often wonder if I am missing out or not keeping up to date in some way. I need not have worried - Casablanca was on and although I've seen it so many times I sat through it again. It isn't a film you can switch off that easily is it? :-)

I've just had a quick look back at the BBC website re the Queen's Speech. I see that ID cards were mentioned. These things were bound to happen - There was never any doubt about that in my mind but what a waste of money and a load of rubbish they are. They will happen because people want them but once I've got my card, what is to stop me becoming a terrorist? We could almost end up with authorised terrorism. Waltz in anywhere with your I.D card and then blow people up! The Queen and her Government do not inspire me one little bit.

Not having a good time

I've made this post once but it turned to trash just like everything in the last few days. My electricity supply went off not once but a few times during the night and early this morning. It trashed some of the files on my computer. Important files. I always make back ups as I go along but guess what! When I tried to use them the damn electricity went off again and those files turned to trash. I've ended up losing all my work of the last few days apart from a few fragments which I was able to retrieve and piece back together. There were also some files which I had transferred to the web but I had worked on them since then so I had to do that all over again. I made a mad rush for it and tried to do some of the work again but when I came to use Microsoft Office it refused to save the doc file saying that there was already a file of that name. Of course there was already a file of that name. All I was asking it to do was save itself. Save yourself for heavens sake - I need you! When I saved with a different name and tried to open the file up there was nothing there. My next bright idea was to at least print off a fragment I had managed to retrieve but that upset the laser printer and I have had to unplug it. I suspect a lot of people are using up all the worlds resources and cooking their turkey. They have no idea what they have done to me. I am exhausted with it all and fed up. Too tired to go to sleep in fact. Ah well tomorrow is another day and I am going to try to sleep through it.

Weird

I've been tagged by Jessie to list the 5 things that make me weird. That's difficult because other people are more likely to know that than me. I think I am perfectly normally, which in itself is the weirdest thing. My friends think I am weird because I blog.

I am very good at making sure that I am very busy and stressed out at Christmas. Is that weird?

I think the contents of a women's handbag probably show how strange she is. Mine contains:

• 20 gig portable hard-drive


• PDA and keyboard


• SD card reader


• headphones


• USB drive


• screwdriver


• pen knife


• scissors


• sellotape


• purse


• makeup bag


• pens


• spare batteries AAA and AA


• keys


• mobile phone


• digital camera


• safety pins


• hair brush

And that's only in my little handbag. I am going to look for a much smaller camera after Christmas. It is a good job I carry that sellotape - When my USB drive split in two I was able to fix it. Making that list was a good idea - I can get rid of the USB drive because it is redundant, and replace the screwdriver, scissors, and pen knife with a Swiss Army knife. I've got one somewhere. I know - It's in my other bag along with the highlighters, yellow sticky notes, coloured pens etc.

Snow Person

Make your own snowperson at Snowfun. Recommended by Nogbad

define: dead

At what point is it acceptable to pronounce my poinsettia as officially dead? It is droping all its leaves left, right and centre but I am not sure whether it is dead or dying. When is a plant dead? How do I know whether it is still photosynthesizing or at least trying to? It isn't easy to pin point the exact point of death in a plant is it? I have worried about this all my life. I've often looked at my salad and wondered whether the lettuce was dead or whether I was eating it alive. Don't worry over this too much folks. I'll make myself an appointment of some kind.

Working for peanuts

One of my employers rang today and asked if I had noticed anything wrong with my wage. It turns out that the clerk hadn't bothered to type any of the noughts. There's me putting in all these hours and wondering if I'm earning as much as 2 quid per hour and it turns out that it is exactly what I am earning. When you consider that I put in a good many more hours than I ever get paid for, I really have been working for peanuts. Still, I will get a nice lump sum after Christmas which should bring me back out of the red. I hate money and wish we didn't have to bother with it. I never know who is paying me what, exactly what it is for or even when they are going to pay me. I need the money just as much as anyone else but I hate dealing with it. When you do contract work, here, there and everywhere but get paid through one wages department, is an itemised wage slip too much to ask?

Nepal and Kathmandu

Three of my friends have recently returned from Nepal and I put on a presentation for them last night displaying all their photographs. I have promised to do a blog or a website but I think that will have to wait until after Christmas now. The lads climbed Everest to base camp one. Yesterday I called in at the travel agents. I've decided that I'm going to go to Nepal and Kathmandu myself this year. If I can't get anyone to go with me, I'll go it alone.

Please help me to look after my poinsettia

Yesterday I bought my poinsettia. I get one every year. They are beautiful and more important than my Christmas tree. The problem - Every year the poinsettia dies or starts to drop before Christmas. What am I doing wrong? How do you look after a poinsettia and how long should they live?






On another note - This morning I visited Pal's blog and I can't tell you how impressed I was with her word verification. She is so posh, she is having them custom made for Christmas.

Oh dear Oh dear

I am beating my head on brick walls.

I've just caught my son writing out Christmas cards and in every single one of them he has written the words 'and please don't forget my Christmas present'.


:-)

I am a mean miserable cow

I managed to fall out with 3 of my family members yesterday and they are not speaking to me. Additionally, I am not very well and I feel as miserable as sin. I also had a bit of an altercation with a man in the street. Why the fall outs?

I am being pressured into buying Christmas presents for nephews, nieces and other relatives who are now well over the age of 18. There are 9 of them and I simply cannot afford it. I barely see these youngsters from one year to the next. A simple present costing about a fiver isn't sufficient it seems, but what do you buy the twenty year old who has everything? I wanted to go shopping for photographic paper and simple stuff like that. I have been working with homeless youngsters and we have been doing digital photography amongst other things. It upset me a little when one of the youngsters brought in her 16-year-old brother and said that she hadn't seen him in months but had just found him on the street. She asked if she could take and print his photograph so that she could keep it with her. She treasured it but the fact is it was printed on the cheapest crappiest paper imaginable. Others want to send the photographs to parents as surprise Christmas presents. One told me that there was a small chance that he might see his mum before Christmas. I just want to get some decent stuff. I am not being an angel here. I will charge the paper to my employers if I can get away with it but I did want to spend the time yesterday looking for and buying this sort thing. I also needed to get my hair cut. I look like a sheepdog at the moment. Anyway, to cut the story short I stormed off, got in the car and went to the barbers. Yes, that's right the barbers. I can't stand all the faffing about in the ladies hairdressers. I parked the car with the usual amount of consideration. There are no car parks nearby but I always try not to park in front of anyone's house. As it turned out, one of the guys in this particular street doesn't like anyone parking in his street at all, not even if it is away from the houses. He came over to have a go at me but I told him that I was legally parked and that's where I was staying. I also told him that throwing tantrums wasn't as good idea and suggested that he grew up.

Everyone hates me and to top it all I think I am coming down with the flu or something. Other family members feel the same way about the big exchange of presents but they have got their heads down at the moment.

Word Verification

I am having big trouble wth the word verification and I have had to turn it off. The same letters are coming up time and time again on everyone's blog but it will not accept them. I am unable to make any comments on blogs with the word verification. Anyone else having this trouble?

Motto

Do you have a motto? Either one of your own or one you have borrowed from someone. Mine is Hold Fast. I pinched it from the MacLeod Clan many years ago. Not sure that I like the look of that bull on the crest though.

Last night, after work, I had arranged to do a bit of Christmas shopping at the Asda with my sister. Actually my sister made me go. She always forces me into the Xmas shopping.

I arrived at her house, knocked once on the door and walked in. Unfortunately she was unable to warn me, in time, about the loose strip by the door. I fell head first into the house. This must have looked highly traumatic to the King Charles Cavalier. It came bounding over and licked me from head to foot. It wouldn't stop and I couldn't get off the floor. My sister and her husband had to pull it away. The dog continued to watch over me and followed me everywhere. I couldn't convince it that I was okay. Considering I don't normally pay a lot of attention to the dog, it was showing a great deal of concern.

I didn't get a lot of shopping done even though the store was quiet. I dislike shopping.