Anne and I are doing a sponsored walk in a few weeks. It's 13 miles for Oxfam. For your convenience Anne's set up a website so you can sponsort us online. Here's the link.
Throwing money at a good cause has never been so easy.
Friday, April 29, 2005
Friday, March 25, 2005
Finding Nematode
Our new wormery arrived yesterday. There were some raised eyebows at "Goods In" at my office when a package arrived for me containing live worms. My office closed at lunchtime, it being Good Thursday, so I popped home to set up our new garden feature.
The wormery is a compost bin, which turns organic waste into liquid fetilizer and compost using lots of special worms.
It was fun to set up, and though I was initially a little squemish about handling the little funny fellows (the worms) I soon overcame that.
Aren't they adorable? After they've had time to settle down they should be able to eat all our kitchen waste, and help us feed the garden. Job Done!
Today, Easter Friday, we spent in the garden. We did loads of digging and got exhausted. We sowed some grass seed on the large area of wasteland we've been preparing. I think we put too much down, but we'll see. The birds are already eating it so maybe it's a good thing that we've put too much down. A few weeks ago we planted some strawberry plants, some blackcurrants, raspberries and rhubarb. Today we planted the first of our veggies: carrots and parsnips. We're on our way to becoming Tom and Barbara. Anne's even begining to look like Felicity Kendall!
We then went out to Homebase and bought some garden furniture. Now all we need is some nice weather (like last weekend which was glorious!) We sat out in cloudy weather and had some hot cross buns.
The wormery is a compost bin, which turns organic waste into liquid fetilizer and compost using lots of special worms.
It was fun to set up, and though I was initially a little squemish about handling the little funny fellows (the worms) I soon overcame that.
Aren't they adorable? After they've had time to settle down they should be able to eat all our kitchen waste, and help us feed the garden. Job Done!
Today, Easter Friday, we spent in the garden. We did loads of digging and got exhausted. We sowed some grass seed on the large area of wasteland we've been preparing. I think we put too much down, but we'll see. The birds are already eating it so maybe it's a good thing that we've put too much down. A few weeks ago we planted some strawberry plants, some blackcurrants, raspberries and rhubarb. Today we planted the first of our veggies: carrots and parsnips. We're on our way to becoming Tom and Barbara. Anne's even begining to look like Felicity Kendall!
We then went out to Homebase and bought some garden furniture. Now all we need is some nice weather (like last weekend which was glorious!) We sat out in cloudy weather and had some hot cross buns.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
We often miss movies at the cinema, and don’t get to the video library regularly. So, in the new year we decided to start a DVD rental contract. We plumped for Amazon: £9.99 a month for a maximum of six discs per month, three at a time. Not bad!
As a consequence, we’ve seen some good movies lately. And a few not-so-good ones. Here are the verdicts:
The Station Agent: a good little American indie film. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The Day After Tomorrow: I got this mainly to test out my new subwoofer, and it certainly did that. I didn’t have high expectations, but I actually quite enjoyed it. I will say though that when NY is flooded and frozen and our heroes are trying to save their friend’s life by fetching medicine and also having to run away from a killer freeze, I didn’t really need the bizarre added threat of some bad-CG wolves.
Fahrenheit 9/11: It’s quite sad seeing this after Bush’s re-election (or, rather, first election – let’s not forget he cheated the first time). Michael Moore can be interesting, but he’s a bit base at times. A bit of balance would help. And annoyingly this film was on Channel 4 two weeks after we hired it. One word: Grah!
28 Days Later: Been wanting to see this for ages, and I liked it. Good, clean zombie fun. (NB: They’re not actually zombies, technically.)
House Of Sand And Fog: Oscar winners like this are often quite dull, or at least that’s the impression I get. This was enjoyable though, mainly thanks to Ben Kingsley. It’s funny that I can watch horror films with no problems, but it took me a while to recover after seeing Jennifer Connelley step on a nail. Yuck!
Pitch Black: Another one I’ve wanted to see for ages. This is a really good little sci-fi/horror. I have no interest in seeing the sequel.
Anchorman: Absolutely hilarious. I kept thinking “I shouldn’t be laughing. This is puerile and silly.” It was brilliantly done puerile and silly though, and that’s what matters.
City Of God: A Brazillian Goodfellas. Great stuff!
The Terminal: After Catch Me If You Can I was looking forward to this. However, I found it dull. Avoid.
Super Size Me: I was wary of this documentary as I figured it wouldn’t tell me anything I didn’t know (“Fast food is bad for you and if you eat nothing but McDonalds for a month you won’t be well”) but I enjoyed it a lot. The film-maker is likable and engaging, and there’s plenty of variety in there.
Belleville Rendez-Vous: Technically good I suppose, but I wasn’t impressed with this French cartoon. Avoid this and go for Spirited Away. Anne’s sister Kerry says I didn’t like it because I’m “not very French”. That’s criticism I can happily accept.
The 25th Hour: I enjoyed this Spike Lee “Joint”. Not great, but Edward Norton is good as usual.
Cube: I got this because the new films I’d wanted were out of stock. It’s a decent little puzzle sci-fi film, though I’ve been warned to avoid the sequel.
Layer Cake: The latest Brit gangster film. Pretty good. Not too “Lock Stock”, and with some really good scenes. Good to see Chief O’Brien from Star Trek back on the screen!
So that’s what we’ve seen so far (fortunately Amazon keeps track for me, so you won’t miss out on any we’ve seen!) However, all these were eclipsed by a film we saw on Friday night: The Incredibles. I loved it. All superhero movies should be made like this! It was almost too fast for me to follow (though I admit that may be thanks to the wine). See it (unless you already have).
As a consequence, we’ve seen some good movies lately. And a few not-so-good ones. Here are the verdicts:
The Station Agent: a good little American indie film. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The Day After Tomorrow: I got this mainly to test out my new subwoofer, and it certainly did that. I didn’t have high expectations, but I actually quite enjoyed it. I will say though that when NY is flooded and frozen and our heroes are trying to save their friend’s life by fetching medicine and also having to run away from a killer freeze, I didn’t really need the bizarre added threat of some bad-CG wolves.
Fahrenheit 9/11: It’s quite sad seeing this after Bush’s re-election (or, rather, first election – let’s not forget he cheated the first time). Michael Moore can be interesting, but he’s a bit base at times. A bit of balance would help. And annoyingly this film was on Channel 4 two weeks after we hired it. One word: Grah!
28 Days Later: Been wanting to see this for ages, and I liked it. Good, clean zombie fun. (NB: They’re not actually zombies, technically.)
House Of Sand And Fog: Oscar winners like this are often quite dull, or at least that’s the impression I get. This was enjoyable though, mainly thanks to Ben Kingsley. It’s funny that I can watch horror films with no problems, but it took me a while to recover after seeing Jennifer Connelley step on a nail. Yuck!
Pitch Black: Another one I’ve wanted to see for ages. This is a really good little sci-fi/horror. I have no interest in seeing the sequel.
Anchorman: Absolutely hilarious. I kept thinking “I shouldn’t be laughing. This is puerile and silly.” It was brilliantly done puerile and silly though, and that’s what matters.
City Of God: A Brazillian Goodfellas. Great stuff!
The Terminal: After Catch Me If You Can I was looking forward to this. However, I found it dull. Avoid.
Super Size Me: I was wary of this documentary as I figured it wouldn’t tell me anything I didn’t know (“Fast food is bad for you and if you eat nothing but McDonalds for a month you won’t be well”) but I enjoyed it a lot. The film-maker is likable and engaging, and there’s plenty of variety in there.
Belleville Rendez-Vous: Technically good I suppose, but I wasn’t impressed with this French cartoon. Avoid this and go for Spirited Away. Anne’s sister Kerry says I didn’t like it because I’m “not very French”. That’s criticism I can happily accept.
The 25th Hour: I enjoyed this Spike Lee “Joint”. Not great, but Edward Norton is good as usual.
Cube: I got this because the new films I’d wanted were out of stock. It’s a decent little puzzle sci-fi film, though I’ve been warned to avoid the sequel.
Layer Cake: The latest Brit gangster film. Pretty good. Not too “Lock Stock”, and with some really good scenes. Good to see Chief O’Brien from Star Trek back on the screen!
So that’s what we’ve seen so far (fortunately Amazon keeps track for me, so you won’t miss out on any we’ve seen!) However, all these were eclipsed by a film we saw on Friday night: The Incredibles. I loved it. All superhero movies should be made like this! It was almost too fast for me to follow (though I admit that may be thanks to the wine). See it (unless you already have).
Sunday, February 20, 2005
What would Buffy do in this situation?
We've had a busy few weekends, visiting Anne's sisters up north (see first photo) and having friends visiting us in Cambridge. Showing friends around Cambridge, we realised there are still lots of things here we've not seen, having spent (it seems) most of our weekends last summer searching for a house.
I've also been building a PC. Anne begged me not to. Anne wanted me to buy a new ready-built one. I enjoy tinkering though, even if something inevitably goes wrong and it ends up taking me ages.
Something went wrong. I kept getting the Blue Screen of Death. It took me a while to figure out why. Anne had the patience of a saint.
It was the memory I was using (see memtest results below). The memory was cheap stuff, and wasn't compatible with my kit. That'll learn me. I ended up getting better memory, and it then worked (barring a few issues between Windows XP SP2 and the Athlon 64 processor, but you'd probably fall asleep if I went into that). Anne smiled, and nodded lovingly as I gave her a commentary on my progress. That girl is an angel. Pity her.
We don't give each other Valentine's gifts, but to thank her for her tolerance (and to apologise) I popped into Waitrose on my way home from work on the day after Valentine's Day and picked up a bunch of roses. They were £45 the day before, but had been reduced to a tenner by the 15th. Result! I left the price on so Anne could see her worth in pounds sterling.
This weekend, we had to ourselves. We spent Saturday morning in the garden, pulling out roots, pulling out weeds, turning soil and generally tidying up. The garden's much less of a mess than when we bought the place.
We're gradually getting it to a state where we can put grass seed where we want grass, and other seeds where we want veggies.
On Saturday afternoon we popped to the garden centre and came back with rhubarb, blackcurrant and rasberry plants. Yay! We'd planned to put them in the ground on Sunday morning, biut it snowed and snowed, so we left them in the shed.
So, instead, we had a lazy Sunday morning. In the afternoon we went to The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. It's a great building:
The musuem was quite good in places, but a lot of it was closed. There was a lot of Roman and Egyptian stuff, which is interesting but I'd sometimes rather see some British stuff than stuff stolen from other countries. Cambridge has a wealth of history, so we'll look out for a place that will show us some of that.
The day had started well when I woke Anne with fresh coffee and Green and Blacks almond chocolate. Anne told me she'd been dreaming that she was Sarah Michelle Geller (Buffy) and was trying to sort out an objected-oriented database she's dealing with at work. Of course she had.
Funny that: I've had many dreams in which Anne is Sarah Michelle Gellar.
I've also been building a PC. Anne begged me not to. Anne wanted me to buy a new ready-built one. I enjoy tinkering though, even if something inevitably goes wrong and it ends up taking me ages.
Something went wrong. I kept getting the Blue Screen of Death. It took me a while to figure out why. Anne had the patience of a saint.
It was the memory I was using (see memtest results below). The memory was cheap stuff, and wasn't compatible with my kit. That'll learn me. I ended up getting better memory, and it then worked (barring a few issues between Windows XP SP2 and the Athlon 64 processor, but you'd probably fall asleep if I went into that). Anne smiled, and nodded lovingly as I gave her a commentary on my progress. That girl is an angel. Pity her.
We don't give each other Valentine's gifts, but to thank her for her tolerance (and to apologise) I popped into Waitrose on my way home from work on the day after Valentine's Day and picked up a bunch of roses. They were £45 the day before, but had been reduced to a tenner by the 15th. Result! I left the price on so Anne could see her worth in pounds sterling.
This weekend, we had to ourselves. We spent Saturday morning in the garden, pulling out roots, pulling out weeds, turning soil and generally tidying up. The garden's much less of a mess than when we bought the place.
We're gradually getting it to a state where we can put grass seed where we want grass, and other seeds where we want veggies.
On Saturday afternoon we popped to the garden centre and came back with rhubarb, blackcurrant and rasberry plants. Yay! We'd planned to put them in the ground on Sunday morning, biut it snowed and snowed, so we left them in the shed.
So, instead, we had a lazy Sunday morning. In the afternoon we went to The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. It's a great building:
The musuem was quite good in places, but a lot of it was closed. There was a lot of Roman and Egyptian stuff, which is interesting but I'd sometimes rather see some British stuff than stuff stolen from other countries. Cambridge has a wealth of history, so we'll look out for a place that will show us some of that.
The day had started well when I woke Anne with fresh coffee and Green and Blacks almond chocolate. Anne told me she'd been dreaming that she was Sarah Michelle Geller (Buffy) and was trying to sort out an objected-oriented database she's dealing with at work. Of course she had.
Funny that: I've had many dreams in which Anne is Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Friday, February 11, 2005
Ruminant recycling
Some friends of ours,Ian and Sarah, are currently travelling in South America, on their way to Canada (there's a link to their blog on the left hand side of this page). Ian's sent me a photo of something which he thinks might solve Anne's problem (from her previous post):
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