Dustpuppy pointed me in the direction of this which I think is a really nice idea. I love the music of Helen Love, although it’s cheesy, out of tune and silly, it always makes me grin and sing along. Helen Love is summer, to me.

Must get one of these! It is basically pure philb.

For those that do not know, philb has an owl collection numbering several hundred miniature owls. And he is, of course, a leet haxxor, so it would be perfect.

Not sure what the mogret would make of it. But.. OWL!

For those interested in things of a newly-painted nature, I present Painting Fun

There is further painting fun happening at the moment upstairs, but there will be no before pictures, as I forgot to take any. But it was magnolia. Again. This time with a pink carpet. Walls are currently becoming a delicious pale lilac. Yummy.

We moved into this house in May 05 and have mostly enjoyed its magnolia blandness. The husband and I have been off school all week, and accidentally bought a lot of paint and brushes. So we’ve been painting. There are no pictures as yet, as it’s still largely chaotic in here, but I shall definitely be taking pictures at some point tomorrow. It’s gone from wall to wall magnolia, to red/purple/cream. Which sounds ghastly, but I think I do actually like it.

I blame the rug.

When we moved in, we looked for a rug to fill up some empty space with some colour. Well, after much looking and tutting, we came across a gloriously-lush red/purple/plum/damask/scarlet rug. It cost £300 but was worth it. Also, it meant I could then get away with inflicting nice deep reds and purples on the rest of the furnishings, as the overall carpet is a ghastly gold colour. Philb likes it or else it would be long gone. In fairness, it does feel nice to feet. But gold, really.

I guess the ultimate test of our new colourscheme will be the arrival of the parental units on Sunday. Please, if there are any gods out there with an Internet connection and reading this, let her like it. Or at least not actively dislike it.

I shall also be attempting to cook, which is always good for a laugh.

For those that haven’t seen this yet, I dyed my husband’s hair red yesterday.

As you may or may not know, we got married on the isle of Mull in Scotland. That was over two years ago now, and we haven’t been back since. This sorry state of affairs must be remedied at the earliest convenience of the lovely Caroline Wood who graciously provided accommodation, a wedding reception and a witness for the ceremony itself.

I can now excitedly confirm that we have booked a two week stay and now just need to organise trains to get us there. I’m unbearably excited: I’ve felt what can only be called a call to go back there, and I’m really looking forward to having a bicycle to potter around on. But I so need to get fit again, in order to be able to negotiate some quite fierce hills.

Last time we went I was regrettably ill-prepared: I had purchased new walking shoes, and had thought that I had broken them in, but a combination of unsuitable socks and the new-shoe phenomenon led to me being blister-riddled and unable to do much exploring. Those shoes (fondly known as my Clomping Shoes) are now 2.5 years old, and much worn. I shall purchase some double-layer socks for us both, and all shall be well, in the foot department at least. I think I need to start preparing my legs for the shock, several months in advance!

I had occasion, yesterday, to assist the blind lady onto, off and onto a different train. She was effusively grateful, for missing the train at Reading would have meant missing her last bus home, and her son was still in London and unavailable for rescue purposes. So, as she was unable to run for her train (the one from Basingstoke having come in late), I ran on her behalf (in impractical shoes) and persuaded the station staff to hold the train while I fetched her onto it.

On my way home after this, I was musing about exactly what it was that drives me to interfere in other people’s business and try and help them. I remembered a quotation that I had on my bedroom wall as a teenager. It was rendered in beautiful calligraphy with an illuminated first letter, but my mother deemed it not perfect enough, so gave it to me.

The quotation was:

“I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.” Stephan Grellet

For some reason this struck me at the time as a Good Way To Live and I remember it often, as if the words were written on the inside of my head.

From: Kathy Bragg [mailto:kathy@purplekitten.co.uk]
Sent: 05 February 2006 11:37
To: ‘webmaster@********* - better now?’
Subject: From purplekitten.co.uk
Importance: High

Hi *,

Whilst I appreciate your interest in the photographs of my husband, I would appreciate it if you would cease your DoS on my webserver. Your spider is requesting the photographs so fast that our DSL connection is being overwhelmed, resulting in a severe degradation of our service.

You might not have noticed but your requests are now being met with a 403, and will continue to do so, so that we remain connected to the internet. Yes, it was that bad.

I have no objections to people looking at my site, that is what it is there for. But I do object when we get knocked off the internet because some thoughtless spider is downloaded every single picture with barely a space for breath.

I’m sure you understand our point of view on this matter, as you are a Network Manager. I’m sure you wouldn’t like the same thing to be happening to your network.

Please cease and desist this inconsiderate spidering of my site.

Many thanks

Kathy Bragg
Webmistress of purplekitten.co.uk

Sample log provided below:
*.*.*.*- - [05/Feb/2006:11:31:30 +0000] “GET /pictures/phil/2004-06-15%20029.AVI HTTP/1.1″ 403 351 “http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/pictures/phil/” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98)”
*.*.*.*- - [05/Feb/2006:11:31:31 +0000] “GET /pictures/phil/2004-06-15%20030.AVI HTTP/1.1″ 403 351 “http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/pictures/phil/” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98)”
*.*.*.*- - [05/Feb/2006:11:31:31 +0000] “GET /pictures/phil/imgp0238.jpg HTTP/1.1″ 403 345 “http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/pictures/phil/” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98)”
*.*.*.*- - [05/Feb/2006:11:31:32 +0000] “GET /pictures/phil/imgp0239.jpg HTTP/1.1″ 403 345 “http://www.purplekitten.co.uk/pictures/phil/” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98)”