Middle age has set in. It’s Friday evening, and what am I doing? Eating an M&S Cantonese takeaway and watching Gardener’s World with the missus.
But it’s ok – tommorow’s excitement is going out food shopping! 🙂

So much to say, so little time. Spent yesterday in London at my Dad’s funeral (which was actually a lovely service, and huge numbers of people turned up to pay their respects, which was nice). I do find travelling by train very civilised, even if they have stuffed up Kings Cross tube station while they do whatever their doing. That said, the plans for the new tubey bit do look quite nice, and it will be ace to be able to get a train to Kings Cross, and then change over to get a train to Paris! Yorkshire to France in 4 hours or something.

I’m never sure if it’s better to have long rambling entries, or to split up entries into sub-sections by topic. I guess back when I first started this diary thing (January 2001) I decided against having a title for each entry, mainly because it started life as a side-bar to my webpage, with one or two line entries. In those days I did it entirely manually, by hand-editing the HTML each time I put in a new entry! Wasn’t very long before it went semi-automatic, with various source files being ‘compiled’ together whenever I changed anything. Now, of course, it is fully automatic, and each page is generated on the fly from my database of diary entries, reviews, etc. I do sometimes wonder about introducing topics or titles, but I figure bandwidth is so cheap these days I may as well just serve a whole year’s worth of entries in one go. One day I might get around to writing a web interface to my database, but it’s not too hard to just ssh into my machine and enter stuff into the database directly (and probably also more secure). I guess it wouldn’t be too taxing to put a search feature in here, that brought up any entries that matched said search string. Nervous about allowing too much access to the database though…

On a related note, I’ve switched back to using CSS for the layout of this site. It’s a much nicer solution, and I decided I would rather hack a solution for naughty browsers than bodge the entire site. The result is not entirely satisfactory for browsers like Netscape 4 or IE 5, but it is all legible now, and approximates the layout I designed. Early versions of IE 6 aren’t quite right, neither is Netscape 6, but c’est la vie. It’s perfect in Firefox and Opera (as long as you don’t mess with the user-agent setting!)

OO – just found out there is a second season of Tru Calling! The website what I looked at only had about 5 episodes listed, so I guess it’s only just started airing in the states… Sky have got nothing to say about it yet, so I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

Phew – made it through The Return of the King. Got the DVD from the library, and watched it over three sessions. Was getting into it by the time they finally got rid of that ‘ol ring, but, just like the first one, I was relieved when it was finally over. Perversely, I find myself inclined to read the books again, now I can put faces to the characters.

On the other hand, Tru Calling has also finished, after only 2 series, which is a little surprising. I can also understand it, as the concept ran out of steam after episode 2 or 3, and not even the introduction of new elements could really rescue it. I do have a sense of unfinished business about it though, and I reckon they could squeeze one more series out of it.

I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised that I haven’t had the time to write anything, but I’ve written lots of entries in my head that were stunning and sparkling in their humour and insight.. but I’ve forgotten what they were now, so it’s back to the usual drudge.

I should mention that that last entry was never meant to be my final word or eulogy for my Dad, I was wanted to mark his passing on here; seemed suitable somehow. One of his legacies is that he taught me plumbing, so for a little bit of today I’m going to be fiddling with dodgy bathroom taps!! His funeral is next week (3 days after Ben’s baptism), so it sort of encapsulates life and death (and yes, there has also been a wedding in the last week!)

Just an entry in loving memory of my Dad, who passed away this morning, after a prolonged illness from cancer. He taught and inspired me to think technically, to try (almost) anything once, and to do absolutely everything to the best of one’s ability. Rest in peace. He has gone home.

Phew-ee – babies are hard work, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Ben has been having trial days at nursery, and so picked up the expected cold, so has a very runny nose. His upper central and lateral incisors are also coming through, which has turned him into a total grump for the last few days. He either wakes up in the middle of night because he’s rolled over on to his front, and can’t do anything about it, or wakes up an hour or so early crying, presumably because of his teeth. I thought we’d got past the sleep deprivation stage, but oh no.

Still, Calpol works wonders, and between times he’s his usual happy chatty stuff (and very close to saying “dada” now, although I think he’s just trying to get on my good side).

On a different note, we’ve been trying to continue our habit of a weekend stroll – nothing too heavy, just an hour’s toddle or so. We’ve done Swinsty and Fewston reservoirs, Bolton Abbey (although I’d almost broken my toe that morning, so it was a curtailed walk), and yesterday was the “seven bridges” at Fountain’s Abbey (there are, in fact, 6 – but for some reason the walk is titled with seven.) The revelation for me was getting a GPS receiver, which I can program up with the walk in advance, and then watch our progress round as we go. I still find it amazing that, with a small hand-held device, I can pin-point my location to within about 10m anywhere in the world. That’s better than I can do with a map on most scales. I know it makes me a saddo, but if it motivates me to actually get out and walk (and enjoy it) then it can’t be too bad in my reckoning!

Oh yes, saw Lost in Translation too over the weekend. What a strange film, in a vaugely endearing way. Thing that most surprised me was how un-glamorous Scarlett Johansson is in it. I’ve not seen her in anything else, so have no baseline comparison, but her looks weren’t really what I was expecting. Will consider my position after after I’ve seen Girl with a Pearl Earing.

Had a very exciting weekend, when I was stung (twice) by a wasp. I know that this normally wouldn’t classify as exciting, but I’ve never been stung by a wasp before! My mum has anaphylaxis to wasp stings, and I’ve always been worried the same thing might happen to me.. It’s not meant to be heriditary, but I have the same reaction to the tetanus jab, so it’s been a concern of mine for all my life. Well, up until now anyway. Didn’t stop me swatting the begger either. 🙂

Actually it was a lot less painful then I’d anticipated – no worse than a bad nettle sting I’d say. Although a few days on it is very itchy, especially in bed.

On a happier note, weight is going the right direction again – back down to 80kg last night. A reckons my target of 70kg is probably a bit too low, so I might take stock at 75kg (assuming I ever get there). Chocolate drop sponge cakes don’t particularly help, although it was very tasty.

Great website – Animals on the Underground, basically making pictures of animals out of the tube map.

Also, for those that are interested, getting a replacement mirror made by Knaresborough Glass, who seem like a really good organisation – they do made to measure with a 24hr turn-around, and were dead friendly on the phone. Half the price the original one from Wickes too! I guess I should reserve judgement until I see the actual mirror this evening…