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Voice tweets
Friday , December 21, 2007 – 20:40
I’ve just caught myself providing my household with twitter-like updates as a sort of running commentary. Apparently this isn’t a new feature of wife 1.0, I’ve always done it.
Thinking about it, I guess it dates from my time as a home carer. I used to look after a variety of elderly and confused people, as well as a blind lady with cerebral palsy. I instinctively updated her every few moments about what I was doing and where I was, so she would feel involved in her care and not be worrying about where I was. It wasn’t something I consciously thought about doing, it just seemed appropriate.
Now, I have a twitter account, and my updates are merely vanity, as no-one really has a need to know what I’m doing, but I find it as natural and instinctive as my carer techniques. Sorry, world.
Lemon update – 4.5 years old
Saturday , December 15, 2007 – 14:16
It’s been a while, and we’re probably the only people who care about them, but it’s time for an update on the lemon-children..
Sadly we lost two of them over the summer, to ravening hordes of something-or-other. Leaves vanished and eventually the poor trees died. Still not sure why. The losses were Spindly Lemon and Sturdy Lemon (turned out to be a bad name, really!)
So we got a replacement from a bona fide garden centre thing, and it seems to be happy enough. Not sure how old it is, so at the moment we have no expectations of fruit.
GoGoGadgetLemon is growing yet another strange robot arm thing, despite our best effort at attempting to persuade it into a nice tree shape. It has also grown the largest leaves I’ve ever seen on a lemon plant: large shiny, luxurious and deliciously scented. It seems ridiculously happy, for a tree.
BifurcatedLemon is still plodding onwards. Has a lovely shape but is clearly unwell. There are strange brown things on the leaves so I need to take it outside and give it a good scrub with soapy water and it’ll be fine.
PointlesslyTallLemon has been brutally truncated in the trunk department (it was either that or a ceiling extension to the house..) so is now not so pointlessly tall. It also nearly succumbed to whatever took its brothers, and is left with only 3 leaves. These remaining leaves do look happy and glossy, so I think we’ve rescued it in time. I hope.
Finally we have 
– a new addition to the family. A Christmas present from my mother-in-law and presented early in case anything happened to it at her house! We’ve decided to use it as a Christmas tree, as it has ready-made baubles of a lovely lemon hue. Delicious.
Blame the cat
Tuesday , November 13, 2007 – 12:53
We spent intervals of the morning tracing back Phil’s illness as well as we could, as he has a GP appointment this afternoon and tis best to be prepared. It would appear, after much analysis, that it all stems back to the appearance of Random Cat (aka The Stripy). There was certainly a lot of sneezing in the early days, but it seemed that Phil got accustomed to the cat and settled down.
Phil went to the ENT unit at the Royal Berkshire last Monday to have a buildup of earwax removed from his ear. The gentleman performing the task mentioned that there was evidence of a severe allergic reaction and he was wondering how Phil put up with it. So it seems likely that our stripy friend is to blame.
I’m not sure what we will do about this as The Stripy is so bonded to Phil that it would be heartbreaking to separate them, and I’d miss the tabby turnip. He’s such a loving, docile, timid, trusting, fearful bundle of silliness that it’s hard not to adore him. But Phil is in a terrible state and must get better.
We will have to work ultra-hard to keep the house spotless and vacuum the carpets and furniture every day. Possibly an ioniser may help too.
I suspect the hardest part will be trying to tell The Stripy that he can no longer snuzzle on the bed every night. He’s not going to understand that. Not that he understands very much anyway.
Weep You No More Sad Fountains
Sunday , October 28, 2007 – 10:34
This song has become my latest obsession. It may yet cause me to attempt to learn to play the piano in order to accompany it, because, gods know, I cannot hold a tune! Watching Garageband monitor the tuning was an excruciating experience. I suck. But I love the song…
I recently watched ‘Sense and Sensibility’ and was so taken with the song that I decided to seek it out and learn it. Probably driving the husband nuts in the meantime 
Fierce cyclist
Saturday , October 13, 2007 – 7:32
I was going to write this last night, but ‘Becoming Jane’ had arrived from Amazon DVD rentals, so I was forced to watch it. Yum.
On the way home last night I encountered, as I often do, a herd of 50 or so stampeding joggers, occupying the whole of the pavement on the Braywick Road. This pavement is a cycle path and pedestrian walkway so we were all entitled to be using it. What amused me greatly was, as I approached, the lead jogger yelled ‘bike’ – a cry which was rapidly taken up by the rest of the herd as they veered out of my way. It put me in mind of a flock of sheep avoiding a predator, with the bleat of terror being propagated back through the herd, and I was forced to giggle crazily as I cycled past, no doubt adding to my reputation as a fearsome beast. Can’t be helped.
Sundry news
Wednesday , September 5, 2007 – 17:07
Hello, it’s been quite a while, sorry. Various things have happened, some things haven’t happened, and much continues the same. There, that’s an update.
Oh okay, where to start..
We went to the isle of Mull again and had a wonderfully relaxing, chicken-filled holiday. There are various pictures available on my Flickr. Not so many of the chickens, but I video’d them mostly and haven’t processed the videos yet. One is 550MB. Ahem. Hey, I like chickens. Especially the ones that roost in trees…
We did go and see a house while we were there, and formed plans of purchase, but these have come to nothing as the lady has realised that it’s a jolly nice house and is going to stay in it. Oh well.
I managed to pour orange juice into my trusty dell laptop. There was a fruity electrical-burning smell and a sad fizzling noise. A day of being open to the elements seems to have sorted it all out though, as it is back to life. However, I trusted Phil’s adamant opinion that the thing was toast, and ordered a shiny new bottom-of-the-range MacBook (didn’t want to remortgage the house to afford a nice one!). Am totally in love. To be fair, I could have cancelled the order, and could have sent it back, but you will have to claw this MacBook out of my cold dead fists as it’s BEAUTIFUL. MINE.
I’ve taken the advice of Merlin83b and MattT and purchased a copy of Delicious Library, whereupon the husband and I have spent an hour or so gigglingly scanning in barcodes of various items (including a jar of Branston Pickle, which it declined to recognise). Amusement was heightened when scanning in various Harry Potter DVDs and a spooky voice hissed ‘VOLDEMORT’ at us. Very funny, you strange people.
Unexpected ‘music’
Tuesday , July 3, 2007 – 18:41
We discovered today that our dying kitchen timer makes an interesting noise if you squeeze it.
Bristol and other stories
Saturday , June 30, 2007 – 14:45
NaCl,
originally uploaded by synx508.
Last weekend, where weekend begins on a Thursday for purposes of this tale), Phil and I headed out to Bristol to meet up with my brother Andrew, his friends from uni and some beer. We also went to see Pete Atkin in a church in Bristol.
Pete, as usual, was fabulous, if nervous, and a good time was had by all.
Friday, Phil and I wandered blithely around Bristol, making our way to Clifton for an evening of drinking with Andrew and friends. I can totally recommend Bath Ales’ “Gem” if you enjoy a warm toffee-ey ale with plenty of flavour. Much merriment and foolishness ensued, but the very pinnacle of the evening was Chris and Aaron’s chemistry-symbols-with-fingers display. They also do organic molecules, with long-chain molecules dependent on obliging friends to provide extra carbon chains.
It was fun. We should meet up with those guys more often, they are delightfully strange and deliciously intelligent, being Maths and Physics graduates all. Sadly, I’m the dunce of the family.
Bread mystery solved
Tuesday , May 22, 2007 – 10:15
Some time ago, we were baffled as to why our cat was hunting and gathering squares of bread. Today brought revelations in the form of our neighbour. It is he that puts the squares of bread out for the birds. And Mogret has taken to making off with it.
He informs us that she drags the bread close to the shrubs in his garden and then attempts to pounce on birds that come down to eat the bread.
That’s not normal is it? Do cats set traps?