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.

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

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.

For several weeks now, Outlook has persisted in reminded me about reminders I have already dismissed and I kept dismissing them only to be reminded again. I finally got annoyed enough to do something about it.

Close Outlook
Start/Run
Type “outlook /cleanreminders” (without the quotes)

This doesn’t always cure it but it sure helped me.

I realised the other day, as I professed ignorance to the whereabouts of Edmonton, that there is seldom an excuse for ignorance these days, if you have any kind of Internet connection. A few moments with the web browser of my choice and not only would I know where it was but I could also learn about its history, town flower, principle attractions, grazing rights and almost anything else I could care to learn. Including a reasonable journey plan should I wish to see for myself. My ignorance was my own fault and the fact I did nothing to remedy this leaves me vaguely guilty.

My forebears would have swooned at the information available for the mere effort of searching. It’s not even as if you have to actually perform the search yourself- typing a few choice words in a box does not involve effort - it’s all done with computers these days you know.

I often feel, at work, that I’m mocked slightly for my keenness to get to the bottom of a problem, to find out what the cause is and squish it once and for all. I flex my google-fu at the slightest provocation in order to find out what exactly an annoying error message means; instead of telling the user to close the application and open it again.

There is just no excuse for being ignorant of things these days. Not that you have to remember everything - I outsource most of my memory to Google these days. I’m always reminded of the wonderful Feynman anecdote ‘map of the cat’ where he is incredulous that biology students bother to memorise the internal structure of a cat when it can be looked up in moments. I totally understand that sentiment, and generally feel it’s more important to get the gist of something rather than remember every little detail (unless you’re the surgeon performing an operation on my person, I suppose!). What I mean is, understanding is more important than being able to parrot back facts and figures. If you can’t tell me *why* something is true, I won’t be impressed when you say it is.

I will be forced to go find out where Edmonton is, it’s like a nagging toothache.

On a completely separate, but bitterly related, note, I give you How Email Works - a child’s view of the internets. Well, my inner child’s view, anyway.

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.

We discovered today that our dying kitchen timer makes an interesting noise if you squeeze it.

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.

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?

Excessive Detail,
originally uploaded by Purplekitten.

I do realise that there aren’t hordes of gnomes lovingly hand-carving these cat treats, but at the same time I have to wonder about why the detail is there at all.

Smart as the Mog is, she’s not going to a. know what an actual fish looks like or b. appreciate that the cat treat attempts to resemble a fish.

Actually, she licked it and turned her splotchy nose up at it anyway. So much for marketing..