Had a pretty good Samhain gathering last night, around a blazing bonfire here at the Steadings. Not much ritual, but a fair bit of talking, and drinking and eating. Made our wishes over the flames…. It was dry, pity it was cloudy – the few times the Moon showed, She was a wonderful sight. Meant […]
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Val
Whoo-hoo! Finally got myself a new soundcard today! Haven’t installed it yet, but I’m looking forward to having some music finally. I had been intending to go to Dumfries’ one and only computer shop, when I spotted Clearwood Computing’s shop on the way to the library. I popped in and asked if he sold computer […]
We went for a walk yesterday, around the castle grounds next to our house. Signs of autumn were everywhere, especially in the square of ancient beeeches where the leaves were thick underfoot. We were surprised to find several clumps of crocuses sprouting in the sheep-meadow – it set B muttering furiously about global warming putting […]
Astrologers amongst you may rember a free astrology program called Astrolog. It was a DOS-based program, rather unwieldy, but with lots of features. And totally and utterly free. There’s a new and better version of Astrolog out now – Astrolog32. It’s not by the original Astrolog creator, Walter Pullen, but is based on it; the […]
Yesterday was not one of my better days – my knees hurt like h*ll. We went into town for some shopping, bill-paying and a library visit. I did very little walking and I snapped at B for fussing over finding parking spaces close enough to the places I needed to go (I HATE being an […]
What’s with the mosquitos around here lately? They are swarming onto anything warmblooded, biting like crazy. Just last week, B got bitten on his arm; the two bites swelled up into golfball-sized lumps, so he went to the doctor. The doctor had half-a-dozen similar lumps of his own and had given up counting the number […]
This was on the TV (OK, much of what is on TV these days is stupid – witness the supermarket PR woman this morning explaining to viewers how to read the ingredients lists on food packets). The programme was something about obesity in Britain today; the picture they were illustrating this piece with was a […]
It has been beautiful here today. I’d been planning to take the bus to Dumfries, to get some library books, but when I woke up the sun was shining on the hill and the sky was a cloudless blaze of deep blue. So me & B went off for a walk instead. With my knees, […]
Time: This afternoon. Location: Driving into town along a twisty little country road. In front of us, a small Fiat car; in the back of which, sitting on the parcel shelf, was a dog. A medium-size terrier, evidently enjoying itself, sitting up, moving around, taking up most of the window-space. A live nodding-dog. With a […]
…just a little. We have our friend Norm staying for a few days and we are showing him the local sights. Which consist mostly of trees and hills. And sheep. And trees. And hills. And a few more sheep. And trees. Oh, and a few cows as well, for variety… Anyway, today we drove him […]