Future Proofing Past memories

Do you ever see blank spaces on the form and feel your mind go blank as well? That is exactly how I feel at the moment. There is a form which has been sitting on my hard disk for ages and I really need to deal with it but whenever I look at the form my mind goes wordless.

There is so much I could say. Like when I started in journalism there were no computers in editorial rooms, unless you count the PA teleprinter. Reporters had only typewriters - manual typewriters at that. There was no room for typos or for cut-and-paste. You had to write your story perfectly in one go. You had to produce three carbon copies, one of which would be used by the typesetter to key in the words I had just typed in. Headlines had to be counted in units - 1 1/2 units or a wide letter like m and 1/2 unit for little letters like i.You would have to count up the unit values of every letter until you found a headline which fitted the space.

All that had to change. The double-keying in of copy was anachronistic but change was a bloody process. I saw a riot break out in front of Murdoch's printing plant at Wapping. I reported the event for my student paper and I had to run away from a line of helmet-clad, baton-wielding riot policemen. That "new" technology must be fit for the grave yard by now. But do I really want to go wandering down memory lane when the admissions officer is probably younger than me?

Cutting Cloth to Suit One's Purse

I rather dropped out of the poetry festival today. I could not afford the tickets and I certainly could not afford the lunch at the Duke's Head so I lost my chance to fratenise with the likes of Stephen Fry. I had not any money to spend on books because I have just spent my cash on music books and papers and I think music has a higher priority for me. That was a shame but one has to have priorities.

So instead I spent my time practising a troublesome Chopin passage consisting of triplets in unison. They usually sound stiff with me but I have to get them flowing like liquid. I'm still having a problem with note accuracy so it feels hard to relax. The passage is marked forte but my teacher Aubrey does not want the notes hammered. He wants them to flow like quick silver. I have isolated the pasage and given it some pretty intensive work but I am not sure it is sounding any more fluent.

I ordered a bunch of past papers from the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music by way of preparation for grade 5 theory. If I am going to do this exam I want to get a good mark. I would be embarrassed if I did not score as highly as I did when I was a 12-year-old.

Hot Gig

I was at the hottest show in town tonight. All the tickets had sold out. I did not know that so I turned up quarter of an hour before the start. The ticket lady told me to wait to see how full the hall would be. Extra seats were crammed into every available space of Thoresby College. There were people perching on window sills. Other late comers stood in the hallway but I got a seat right by the door with an excellent view. And the occasion of this? Australian poetry.

The stars of the show were Les Murray, Clive James and Peter Porter. Clive James was undoubtedly the main draw on account of his television work but I was rather taken by Les Murray, a poet I did not know but now I have heard him speak I would like to know more about his work. Having been to Australia I had a prior interest in the country of origin. I was intrigued by the language and odd references to flora and fauna as well as the frequent allusions to history.

The hall was hot and the readings were hypnotic but I could not help but wonder how the poets felt when they spotted members of the audience nodding off to sleep. I also noted that festival goers walked across the grass in the quad. The vandals! And they had grey hair too! That is something frowned upon by the Thoresby College grass police aka the King's Lynn Preservation Trust. They normally spend their time reprimanding Citizens Advice Bureau advisers for trampling down the vegetation. The CAB is also housed in Thoresby College. This time, however, the delinquents were elderly and middle aged festival goers.

Victory

Victory today! I made my first free Skype call to a friend of mine called Francis. He was identified by Skype by his email address. I felt a little uncertain when I pressed the call button as I did not know who would be on the other end but then the familiar, absent-minded tones of Francis tuned in. The sound quality was better than that on a regular telephone call but it wasn't high fidelity. Skype for me has considerable attractions as I am poor enough to worry about the cost of telephone calls but most of my friends and family are rich enough not to bother so their incentive to download Skype is minimal. Without their cooperation I cannot get free calls. That's too bad.

The bulk of my working day was spent on music theory. I did more transposition exercises and converting an extract of a piece of one key into its enharmonic relative. I've done far more exercises than Aubrey can possibly mark in the space of one lesson but that should help convince him that the exam will pose no great difficulty to me. I did some scale work but nothing on my piece. In a fit of diligence I ordered a whole load of music text books from Amazon. I want to get that grade 8 in theory as well.

The thing is I did not think I was an exceptional enough a musician to make it as a pro so I did other A Level subjects that I did not really enjoy. I just was not as good at Maths and History as I was at Music. Having reached the age of 40 I have decided to rebel and do some non-vocational work just for the hell of it!

Patience in Music

I have this grand aim. I want to pass my grade 8 on the piano. This is a childhood ambition, one I gave up on for a good many years but now I have some time I have come back to it but there is a small hitch. I am struggling at the moment to prepare myself for grade 7 and before I do that I have to pass my grade 5 theory.

I may have done grade 5 music theory when I was 12 but unfortunately I have lost the certificate so I have to resit the exam. I am 40 now. The syllabus is not the push over I recall. Transposing from the tenor clef to treble clef or bass clef and vice versa is quite an exercise. I can do it but not automatically. I have to calculate every interval. Sometimes I see a triad or a stepwise sequence and I am able to transpose a clump of notes all in one go but at other times it is a pretty mechanical exercise, mechanical rather than sonic. When I look at as piece of music in the bass or treble clef I can hear it in my head but I cannot do that with the tenor or alto clef.

So theory presents a challenge as do the scales and arpeggios. Today I have been concentrating on scales in contrary motion. The more black notes there are the higher my error rate. With these technical exercises it is just a matter of steady practice. I enjoy practice once I settle down to it but I find any amount of excuses not to sit down at the keyboard.

All this is preparatory to playing the pieces themselves. Aubrey seems to keep me playing the same piece for ages. I become bored of it before I have become proficient. I was playing the same piece before the summer holidays began and now we are into the autumn term and I am still playing the same Chopin Nocturne. If I want to get better I should not take this attitude. I should be ready to polish my performance and push myself technically and musically but it is hard to do that. Playing at that level requires a level of concentration I just do not have at the moment. Maybe it will come.

Skype Success

It may sound like no big deal but today I made a successful test call on Skype. My new headset came through the post today. This may sound weird to jaded call centre workers but I have never tried one of these devices before. I tried it out in Windows Sound Recorder first. I sang a few Arsenal football chants just to satisfy myself that the device worked off-line and then I tried the Skype test call for real. It worked!!!

No matter I know no other Skype users. I can call Skype users for free but none of my mates has Skype - at least not to the best of my knowledge. I did however make a successful call on Skypeout to my mum. I woke her up. She was exhausted having been to a funeral in London. She had fallen asleep on the sofa. Not that I knew that. It was ill-mannerly of me to wake her up but then I just couldn't contain my excitement. I love new gadgets and I have great plans for Skype. Email gave me the chance to relaunch an old political idea. I had always held back from making phone calls on account of the expense but now that Skype and other VOIP operators have slashed the cost of telephone calling I might just hit the blower to see what I come up with.

By the way if any one wants a primer on VOIP they could do worse the try this one.

The rest of the day was uneventful. I printed out loads of manuals for Macromedia's suite of web applications Studio 8. It does annoy me that software houses do not print hard copy manuals any longer. Macromedia manuals run into thousands of pages and I just cannot read all that on screen without getting a big headache. I have to read the printed page if I am going to get through that kind of volume.

The piano lesson with Aubrey was something of a revelation. He got me to play my scales softly. I played more slowly but it sounded less laboured nonetheless. That is a trick for my practice. He generally wanted me to play the loud triplet section on the Chopin Nocturne with more fluidity. He said I tended to hammer this passage. It is after all marked forte but Aubrey does not want the keys hit with all my might. We ended the lesson with a discussion of Michael Rosen's Piano Notes. For pianists it is a fascinating read. Highly recommended and it is only a cheapie Penguin paperpack.

Seeing Red

Today I saw a red suit that would be perfect for me. Red looks good on me though it is rare to see it in this season's palette. I liked the cut of the skirt and jacket. The jacket was short while the skirt was calf length. It looked very feminine. I like that in a suit. I don't like it when a suit looks like a bloke's suit in drag. I also have something of an aversion to pin stripes. They remind me of Essex girls. I much prefer a more womanly fabric. That may seem odd coming from a self-confessed tomboy like me but if I am going to make the effort to dress smartly I like to do the job properly. I didn't dare look at the price tag but the shop was Hobbs. Smart but pricey.

I had the chance to do this bit of window shopping because I was paying a preparatory visit to Anglia Polytechnic University. I wanted to check out APU before submitting a formal application. The building was nice and clean and modern. The staff were friendly, courteous and informative. It only took me ten minutes to walk from the station to APU. En route I passed a Chinese supermarket - not something I would see in Lynn - and I went past numerous hair dressers, computer retailers and nick nack shops. Parkside swimming pool is very close. I like the idea of taking a dip after attending my classes. Over the next four years I shall get to know that route very well.

I wouldn't be me if I didn't fit in a bookshop trawl while in Cambridge. I have to admit I bought a copy of Talk Is Cheap - Switching to Internet Telephones
by James E. Gaskin. This subject has not been on my radar until recently and I'm hoping that this book will tell me more about internet telephony and Skype in particular. I have done an initial trawl of VOIP internet web sites. I am ready to be convinced of the savings but I would rather understand the arguments. I want to know why it is that plain old-fashioned telephone services are dearer than their upstart internet cousins. I do not like to accept assurances that I will save huge amounts of money without understanding why. I am prepared to be persuaded but I do need to understand before I commit myself. I'll give Skype a trial run but I'm not hanging up my regular phone yet.

This subject is just a bit too intangible. I find material things easier to comprehend. That is why I will be dreaming of that bright red suit tonight - not packets of bits flying across the net.

Telephony Twister

I've signed up with Skype without really understanding what the service involves. Free calls via my computer sounds very attractive and the idea is the theme of this week's Economist cover story. It is just a bit hard to get my head round it. For example it said you could be living in Paris but have a Chicago Skype number. Well that's fine for Parisians with friends in Chicago but I want an Australian Skype number as well as a UK number. I could not quite understand how to get a Skype number for the UK and you cannot get Skype numbers for Australia so all my plans to call Australia for free will have to go on hold. I was also unable to try the test dial as I did not have a Skype-ready headset. Just ordered one from Amazon.

This is all a bit of a diversion from my Ikea assembly work. I have put together another bedside table and a lamp but unfortunately the television stand seems to have gone missing. Perhaps said article was never purchased in the first place. I only have two more bedside tables plus a cd cabinet to assemble and then I can bask in consumer glory.

Flat Pack Flusters

A couple of days ago my mother and I went to Ikea. We got there by noon, had lunch and then braved the showrooms and warehouse. I do not know if I am unique but I find Ikea particularly stressful. It feels claustrophobic and you never do more than exchange a word or two with the check out staff at the exit. It is an anonymous experience. Mum and I filled the boot with six bedside tables, a chair and a CD cabinet plus a few clocks and lights. I got what I wanted but I felt less than enthusiastic about the experience.

I was not looking forward to assembling the various items of furniture. So far I have put one bedside table together. I hit a problem when I was trying to tighten a screw with a Phillips screwdriver when I should have been using an allen key but I overcame that little hitch. It took a bit of fiddling around to get the door hanging right from its hinges. I know have one functioning bedside table.

Having got that far I was intrigued to read an article on the BBC web site which suggested a more hi-tech approach to self-assembly:

Anyone who has ever attempted to build a piece of flat-pack furniture will be pleased to hear scientists are working to make them fool-proof. Smart furniture of the future could be fitted with microchips that will flash to let you know which piece to fit next and alert you if you have done something wrong.

Scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich fitted sensors to an Ikea wardrobe which worked out where all pieces go in relation to one another, reported New Scientist magazine.

Even if they were cheap enough to go into mass-produced furniture I think the self-assembly experience would not be the same with beeping chips. I know I feel a real sense of accomplishment when I assemble a piece of furniture. I do not often make things so it's nice when I do create a finished product.

Power vacuum

I have heard of chilling out but there are extremes which are best avoided. My central heating system has become depressurised and so this morning I had no hot water. Undeterred I took a freezing cold shower in which I washed my hair. Maybe I had a bug beforehand but by the end of the shower I was not simply chilled to the bone. The bone marrow was ice I tell you. It may only be late summer but the temperature of the mains water was fit to freeze. I spent the rest of the day sniffling and sneezing and shivering.

A mug of hot sweet tea did little to raise my core body temperature so to compensate I had a hot meal for lunch. I normally just have a sandwich but today I pigged out on Moroccan chicken with cous cous. I was still a little shaky when I took the minutes for the cycle forum meeting but fortunately I can do shorthand on auto-pilot.

The main matters of contention were the efficacy of local government consultation procedures and the effectiveness of motorcycle inhibitors. Cycle parking was also on the agenda. The problem with the forum is that its chief contsultee, the King's Lynn Bicycle Users' Group, depends critically on a few key people and if any of them drop out the whole lobbying machine may grind to a halt. One of these key individuals has signalled that she has had enough of cycle campaigning. She has been the local rep for the Cyclists' Tourists Club for yonks and I think she has had enough of a good thing but her loss will leave a power vacuum in the world of King's Lynn cycle politics.

Merlin strikes again

Merlin, my mother's dog, has bitten the postman.

Admittedly the poor chap did look a bit like a scared rabbit and whippet-instinct is to go for such creatures but the event has hugely embarrassed my mother. She know does not know what to do.

Keeping the dog inside is one option but the postman's arrival time is variable. Another option is to ask the vet for some guidance on how to curb Merlin's guarding instincts. He does like to defend the house and garden by barking loudly and, for such a small dog, he has a very deep bark. He has never bitten people before biting the postman though he does regularly nibble the legs of Milo, my dog.

What would you do to curb these attacks on the poor postman? Answers appreciated.

The value of musicianship

For £45 a term my piano teacher Aubrey is very good value. He sometimes forgets what scales I've done but if I make an error he never misses it and he's ever so good at diagnosing the cause of the mistake. Rather than instill in me the fear of god he gently shows me how to play it right. Often it is a fingering matter or perhaps the position of the hands. With practice good habits are formed. Aubrey insists it is a bad thing to play the piano when angry so if I find myself getting cross I close the keyboard and go off for a cup of tea.

Somehow or other I will need to build up my stamina as I have committed myself to sitting grade 7. To do that I need to have all the scales and arpeggios in sparkling form and I need to have three demanding pieces at my fingertips. Part of me rebels at the commitment but having spent all day at the Citizens Advice Bureau dealing with personal finance problems (not mine, those of my clients) piano playing seems a very cheap diversion. There are the tuition fees of course. Reckon on four terms of tuition - £180. Exam entry fee is £50. I would of course have to do grade 5 theory before hand but that is just £23. The pieces cost £6.50. The total is £259.50. That is a cheap hobby. Just imagine what I would pay were I a smoker and think what I would have to show for it.

Travel in Mind

OK so I can't afford to travel far. Normally I am limited by my cycling fitness but just now my bike is in the repair shop and I have to walk everywhere. From time to time I visit Cambridge and occasionally I go to London. I have to limit these trips on account of the expense and it get right up my nose when I go to middle class parties when they all start boasting about their holiday destinations. Do they even notice the season changes when they get home?

Of course that's envy talking. I would love to have a bit of adventure but seeing as I don't I have to improvise. So I bought a couple of Teach Yourself books - one on French conversation and the other on Russian. My French was up to A Level standard so I am not a beginner. My Russian is non-existent. I did wonder about getting Chinese and Arabic as well but I could not afford it. Maybe in a few months time. Maybe I will learn enough to surf in different languages. It is not the same as visiting a place but it is better than nothing.

Break-in at the Doctor's

My mother's cousin Joan, an eminent doctor, lately received a telephone call from a worried neighbour. There had been a break-in at Joan's house, a dwelling overlooking the fields in rural Oxfordshire.

Joan drove home in some trepidation. She cautiously parked the car outside the house. She could see the broken sitting room window from the driver's seat. There were shards of glass everywhere.

Mobile phone in hand she called the police. The officer told her that it was fine for her to enter the premises. Her finger prints would be all over the house in any case but she was to be very careful lest she disturb the intruder.

She entered the house through a side entrance as the front porch was covered with glass. The house was still. Joan reported this to the officer. He told her to proceed with extreme caution.

She approached the sitting room. There was not a sound. Her hand touched the door knob. She could not hear anything. Just to double check she asked the police officer if she should go into the room. "Yes," he said. "But be careful."

Joan pushed the door open.

"Ah," she said. "We have an intruder."

"Get out!" cried the officer.

"She's dead," Joan replied.

"Don't touch anything," ordered the officer. "This is a crime scene."

"She's dead and she's a beautiful hen pheasant," Joan surmised.

Passage to India

During the nineties I worked briefly for a law publisher called Context. Context specialised in electronic databases. All the text was keyed in in India. At the time I never stopped to consider the implications of outsourcing to Asia but since then the practice has become more common. Whenever I ring BT Yahoo Broadband for technical help I speak to usually helpful Indian support staff.

Now I worry a bit that my professional and technical skills are put at risk by this trend towards outsourcing but until today I have never explored Asian websites to see what is being offered. Have I reason to worry about competition?

My internet foray was pretty random. I was principally looking for data entry businesses. It did not take me long to find half a dozen. All the businesses I found dealt with a wide range of computer skills and they could deal with many different format types. Right now I could not hope to compete with these Delhi businesses. In technical terms they are ahead of me but then again I recently had a job in which I wanted a set of manuals copied. It would have been very nice if I had been able to have the text keyed in but the cost of doing that in the UK for me was prohibitive. For these Indian firms that particular text entry job would have been small fry.

So there you have it. I like it when I can get grunt work done cheaply but I do not like it when my own skill set is threatened.

More Hair

A gentleman called Barnze asked me where the photo in my last blog entry was taken. The picture shows Miller's Dale which is a couple of miles south of Tideswell, a village 10 miles due east of Buxton. The river running through Miller's Dale is known as the Wye.

I could not help but notice Barnze's hair cut. I do apologise for coming back to the subject of hair but Barnze seems to sport a mohican. I never actually went for the out-and-out punk look but I did have very short hair at one point. I thought I looked tough but loads of people used to stroke my hair because it was so soft. That hair style did mark me out from the other financial journalists knocking round the City at that point. In Barnze's photo he raises the finger. That aggressive sign masks a bit of sentimentality because if you look through his pictures he has been hunting around for a period fire place. Appearances can deceive.

The fireplace Barnze chose looked like a Victorian reproduction. I have to confess I had an art nouveau reproduction fire place installed in my sitting room. It looks just like the original fireplace in my guest bedroom upstairs.

But back to the hair thing. One of my regulars Stegbeetle sports long, wavy hair which only goes grey in the school holidays. My pal Francis has dark, dark hair with no signs of grey but he has rather little of it. Another pal of mine Tim has loads of hair but it has mostly gone silvery grey. Forgive me the corny line but it just goes to show - hair today, gone tomorrow!

Peak District Memories

Two years ago my mother and I went to the Peak District with our two dogs. My dog Milo is on the left of me and Fingal, the grey dog, stands to the right. The two dogs both learned how to climb stone stiles. Fingal died within a year. He died from a disease called chylethorax. It is a debilitating illness in which the internal plumbing springs a leak and vets do not how to treat this condition. The poor dog died a ghastly death.

This picture is probably the last decent one of me. I had to reduce the resolution to get it on screen but in the original my features are much clearer. That said the web version of the photo is good enough to show the shortness of my hair. It is a utility hair cut and it is soon going to be history. I spend regular moments in front of my bathroom mirror wondering whether my hair has grown. I focus my attention particularly on my ears. I want my ears to be covered by hair but at the moment only a few milimetres stick over the top of my ears and those strands are usually pulled back by the arms of my glasses. I dream fond dreams of being able to toss my hair as a horse tosses its mane.

Tea at Crofters

I saw Frances today for a cup of tea in Crofters. She's ever such a proud mother. Her eldest son has won a place at Christ's College, Cambridge to read Natural Sciences. He got four As in his A Levels but I think what distinguishes him is his natural sense of curiosity and his degree of application. Frances has one other younger son Paul. She has mostly been a full-time mother though she did spend some time teaching graphic design but before that she was an artist. We know each other because we both used to work at North Wootton County Primary School, she as a teaching assistant and me as a midday supervisor - that means a dinner lady in plain parlance.

Our venue for meeting deserves a mention. Crofters is situated in the basement of the Guildhall of St George (pictured left). It now serves as the King's Lynn Arts Centre. The Guildhall is a sizeable medieval building with a brick frontage and, if you go down the steps, you find yourself in a cafe with a vaulted brick ceiling. This space used to be used for storing wool, the commodity that once made King's Lynn rich.

From time to time I do miss the vibrancy of London. I was born there and I lived in the capital as a young adult but I do not miss the unfriendliness of London streets. I do not miss the crowds and I do not miss the expense. King's Lynn can be a bit parochial but there is a good train line out of town. If I am in need of some esoteric stimuli I simply jump on board a carriage bound for Cambridge. My trips to London have become less and less frequent. I like to see old friends and family members but I have made a life for myself in Norfolk. The newer parts of King's Lynn may be undistinguished but the older parts of town are special. I like the way these ancient buildings are just there, just a part of the everyday life of the town. Just somewhere where you can go and have a cup of tea and a natter as I did today with Frances.

Hair Dare

I have never had long hair. My three elder sisters did but by the time my mother reached me she cut my hair short with a fringe. In length terms it has pretty well stayed that way all my life. Short hair for me used to be a stylistic statement. In the seventies and eighties I would have it spikey but in the nineties short hair simply became a matter of convenience. As a kid I was a tom boy and as an adult I am happier doing sport than I am in the beauty salon. I did have a go at growing it. My aim was to have a sleek and sophisticated bob but I lost patience - that is until now. I am going to dare to grow my hair.

I have taken a look at all the other short haired women of my age and over and I have decided that short hair dates you. It can also look a bit butch. I would not dream of cosmetic surgery and I do not like the idea of dying my hair but simply allowing my tresses to lengthen seems to me a natural way of changing my appearence. Right now my hair is clipped short enough to show my ears. I plan to grow it so that is shoulder length. It is very straight hair. I do not have much grey yet. My hair is mostly mid brown and I want to enjoy that colour for as long as I can. Hence the urge to avoid the clippers.

It is going to take a certain amount of determination to get through the imbetween stage when I am growing out the fringe and growing out the layers. It will be neither one style nor another - just a bit shaggy and shapeless. I will not aim for a bob this time. I do not think I have the sophistication for that style. Instead I will go for long layers. The urge to go along to the hairdresser and ask for it all to be hacked off will be great but I will resist. Think of all the money I will save in hairdressing bills!

For more on the social role of hair see Wikipedia.

Technology Triumphs

When I worked on a newspaper I realised that the late shift was always the best one for way-out calls. Some people just like to ring up journalists for a bit of a rant or a chat. Well blogging feels a bit like that. You do not quite know who is out there. You do not know if anyone is out there and if you assume no one is listening then somebody leaps out of the shadows just to surprise you.

I guess some people stumble across me the way I stumbled across JonnyB's Private Secret Diary. He is a regular blogger and a newcomer to Norfolk and, if his posts are to be believed, he has a following. I guess I warmed to him because he too has suffered from technological trauma. After my tribulations yesterday with my tv, bike and computer I felt for Jonny.

Actually I have had some progress on that front. Last night my tv screen was filled with grey flecks and the speakers emitted white noise. Today I was reluctantly working out how long it would take for me to save up for a replacement and then this evening the machine just decided to work. I dare not switch it off now.

I guess you would not call a bicycle a high-tech device but it is still annoying when it does not work. Well I solved the problem by taking it along to the bike shop for a thorough overhaul. The front mech has seized up. The chain has stretched. The sprokets are worn. So are the brake pads. The cables need changed. I will be somewhat the poorer once that lot is fixed but not as poor as I would be were I to rely on four wheels.

So the television was never broke, the bike is going to be fixed and the computer is now behaving. Yesterday's woes are gone. I'm happy.

Breakdown Trauma

First the computer goes wrong. Next the television packs up and now my bicycle is in need of repair. The chain has stretched, the sprockets are damaged, the derailleur gears have seized up and the brakes are well nigh useless.

That bike must be at least ten years old so it is not surprising that it needs a major overhaul but it is an expense and inconvenience that I could do without. I do appreciate the fact that the bike could have lasted longer had I cleaned and maintained it properly but even if I had done that nine years of daily riding does a lot of punishment to even the best maintained mechanical system.

I do not have a car so my bike is my principle means of personal transport. It is also one of my key forms of recreation. I am a member of the King's Lynn Bicycle User Group or BUG as it is known colloquially. I am secretary of the King's Lynn and West Norfolk Cycle Forum so I am really honour bound to ride a bike.

I still have my old Claud Butler but that is 24 years old. It has two flat tyres, the frame is crash damaged. It is really not worth spending money of fresh repairs. I should take it down to the dump but the thought of wheeling it down to the tip is really rather sad. It may be a useless heap of old metal but I have done a lot of miles on that Claud Butler. I feel sentimental about saying good bye to it even though I know I have to clear some space for my next bike.

Clearing out

I'm much relieved today. I did a whole load of checks for viruses, trojan horses and the like and come out with a clean bill of health. Of course that doesn't mean to say my system is not infected with a new as yet undetected bug but at least I know my system is free of known impurities. Andre, my mother's computer adviser, was very helpful. I even managed to get my email up and running again.

Having got myself in the mood for a clear-out I filled two green bin bags full of jasmine cuttings. My next door neighbour's jasmine bushes have spread over my wall and now reach from head height to chest height. They are very difficult to cut back. It is not that they are spiny or anything. It is just that their shoots are springy and it is difficult to get any purchase with the shears. I will need to pull that mahonia out. It is too big for my small garden. It is almost head height and the stem is a good 2 cm thick.

I am trying very hard not to think too much about the flooding of New Orleans. I live in a flood-prone area and my mother was once flooded. This picture shows what the sea has done to King's Lynn.



There is very little I can do about the risk. King's Lynn has a lot going for it from my point of view so I just will have to live with that niggling worry about what would happen if the sea were to rise. I have a nice home and garden within easy reach of the Walks (King's Lynn's main park) and within walking distance of the bus and train station. In an hour I can be in Cambridge. In two hours I can be in London. After cycling for 15 minutes I can be out in the country. No location is free of minus points. King's Lynn fares pretty well.