Life begins at 40!

Ok, so the inevitable has happened at last. Today's the day. I'm 40!
As for "Life beginning at 40" I guess I shall have to wait that one out and see, however today has been a pretty normal day workwise, actually I've been so busy at work I've barely had the chance to reflect on this special day. Managed to get out on time and then home to meet Barnaby and Carl and then off out for a treat to a local restaurant in Bloomsbury.
Had a lovely meal of muscels in pernod butter, and a wondeful beef bourgignon followed by a very rich chocolate mousse.
Now I'm officially middle aged, I guess it's about time I ........... (Bugger that thought, I'm only as old as I feel, and I still feel like a teenager!)

Oh no! Not the slippers!

Wizard of Oz ruby slippers stolen

A pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz have been stolen from a museum in Minnesota.

The pair, insured for $1m (£560,000), is one of four sets used in the film.

The slippers were taken at the weekend when a thief entered the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids through a window and broke into a display case.

As Dorothy in the 1939 movie, Garland wore the slippers as she clicked her heels and thought to herself: "There's no place like home."

Police Chief Leigh Serfling said: "There's not a whole lot of evidence. We're hoping that someone in the community has seen something."

'Major attraction'

The Judy Garland Museum had the slippers on loan from their owner, a Los Angeles man, for several weeks.

The museum is part of the Children's Discovery Museum in Grand Rapids, where Garland was born in 1922.

Museum director John Kelsch said the slippers were a "major attraction".

"It is our hope that the slippers can be recovered immediately," he said.

Another pair of ruby slippers was sold at auction for $666,000 (£412,000) in 2000.

Another addiction!

Wow, if you thought Flickr was an addictive website, then I reckon this one I have discovered today will complement it, especially for vlogging. YouTube does for video what Flickr did for photos. And it makes it so much easier to put the vid in your blog. Now that I have found something a little easier to use, then I will no doubt get out with my digicam on a more regular basis. At last I have managed to get a rough edit from the recent camping holiday and uploaded some footage retrospectively. Keep watching this space, this blog is about to become more exciting!

Bank Holiday weekend - Let's have some fun!

Dreamspace

At last, an evening with no rain. So on our third attempt this week, Barnaby and I made it to Dreamspace. Helen came along as well and we paid up and went in. This is one huge bouncy castle type thing that you can walk around inside the inflated area.
Lots of interlinking pods, coloured PVC making an amazing light filled space. Totally magical. Only on until Monday 29th August, at Potters Field, the park area adjacent to City Hall, by Tower Bridge, so get your skates on and get down there before the bank holiday weekend is out. As usual, click the pic above for a link to the other 45 photos inside this amazing and totally transfixing thing.

Summer Garden Party

A very pleasant afternoon spent with the neighbours in the communal garden. The garden has been here now for nearly 3 years and is maturing nicely. Good to catch up with the neighbours over a glass of wine, some idle chit chat and banter with people I've not really had a good chat with for ages.
What makes it all the more pleasant is that since it used to be a tarmacced area, the new planting and structures (including the stained glass window I made for the garden hut) have all matured nicely, making this a wonderful spacious but private area, right in the middle of Covent Garden, overlooked but a few flats, but not so overlooked that you'd feel you were being watched.
In fact, now that it's matured to the point of not looking so spartan and new, (and the fact that my wifi is accessable down there) I have promised myself that I really will take the opportunity to get down there more often and make the most of it. Pity now that the end of summer is in site, but I really will be down there, at least once a week for some nice 'me' time with the plants and the fresh air.

Home again.

Our final morning and the sun was streaming in from the start of the day. As hoped, we would not be having to pack up in the rain, there's nothing worse than trying to pack up a wet tent, especially as I have nowhere at home where I can possibly open it up to dry out.
A final breakfast of bacon rolls and then we started the packing. It didn't take half as long as it did setting up and we were on our way by 10:30.
A quick run down the motorway with one brief stop for a pee then back into Covent Garden. I remembered for once to set my trip meter before we left and found the journey to be exactly 160 miles. Barnaby gave me a hand to unload, which was very helpful seeing as how the scaffolders blocked any local parking. I'm sure I'll be seeing more of scaffolders and builders between now and Christmas as they do the cyclical works on the building.
Dropped Barnaby back home then came back and started on a mountain of laundry and cleaning. At last, there is a pic as promised. As usual you may click on it for a full set of the camping pics.
I'm knackered now, so off to bed soon.

Late addition @ August 28th. At last I have managed to get online for your enjoyment a rough edit of the video we took.

Day Two.

Our second and final day (It's a very short holiday) started off with a hot sun streaming into the tent, a big difference to how yesterday started off. Breakfast, ablutions etc. done and off we set to visit Puzzle Wood.
We arrived 40 minutes too early so we set off for a little drive to pass the time until it opened. Our drive took us nowhere in particular except through a small village named 'Sling' which conjured up some odd images of a place that elderly hirsute men with taches and leather caps go to retire!
Back to Puzzle Wood and after a 5 minute wait too elderly ladies arrived to open up. Despite being told where to park, where not to park, where we could not have a picnic and which way round to park our car on the grass, passing all manner of negative signage telling us what not to do, we eventually made it into the woods. This is an area of open cast iron ore mining from years gone by, where fires where made to crack open the limestone and release the ore. This has left a maze of little pathways, towers of rock and little hideaway points which has since grown over with moss and lichens, making it a most magical place. Almost expected little pixies and fairies to pop out at any moment. We passed the same points several times, got muddy, got hot and sweaty and eventually after an hour or so we found our way out again. Stopped for a coffee and cake in the tearooms then on to our next place where we had planned on visiting Ross on Wye.
On the way I decided we would have plenty of time to visit Raglan Castle, although Barnaby had said that he wasn't a great fan of castles we had time to go. It turns out that Barnaby thought it to be one of the highlights of our trip. Raglan is one of those places that has enough mix of ruins and complete buildings to make it a very intereting place indeed. Climbing to the top of one of the towers we could see for miles and get some great photos of the surrounding area.
Having done Raglan, it was time to hit the A40 and continue north, dropping into Weston's Cider at Much Marcle for a quick visit, however the earlier tour had obviously just finished and the shop was so full of people sampling that we left without buying anything unfortunatly.
On next to Ross on Wye. Nothing much here, although it was a very picturesque place. We decided that as the weather was still very good we would have another BBQ this evening rather than get some pub grub as planned. We found a nice little friendly butchers and a fabulous delicatessen then headed back to the campsite for the last time.
A relaxed evening, red sky at night means we won't be having to pack up a wet tent in the morning hopefully and as a nice treat to end our holiday a Virgin sponsored hot air balloon floated silently over the campsite.
Soon time for bed then up and away in the morning.

The first full day.

As I woke this morning, the first thing I could see and hear was the rain, forming little shadows on the outside of the outer flysheet. However it soon stopped and we decided over breakfast that today we would do the canoeing we had come to do.
We checked down with Chris at the Symonds Yat Canoe Centre and arranged to go for the afternoon trip.
We had a couple of hours to spare so headed off to Coleford to visit Clearview Caves, an ancient underground iron mine. Quite an atmosphere down there. No guide us such, just sort of amble through at your own leisure and read the rather tatty notecards!
The caves took all of 45 mins to do and we were soon outside again. A quick trip into Monmouth for some provisions then back to Doward Park to drop things off in the coolbox before heading off for our canoe run.
We got ourselves togged up in life jackets and onto a mini bus with several other groups and were taken to Kerne Bridge about a 10 minute drive away. We then set off on an 8 mile steady row back to the canoe centre. We had a few wobbly moments when we hit a bank and Barnaby almost had his head severed by various overhanging branches. We stopped part way down and I promptly half fell out the boat and got sopping wet. Good job the weather had turned round and I dried out soon enough. It was great to get to some of the calmer points of the river, such as below Yat Rock where we had been looking down from yesterday. Barnaby has promised to blog about the fimily singing troupe that sailed past us. We were soon back and finished, and totally knackered. Another BBQ, a few Jack Daniels and then it will soon be time for bed. I have decided after last nights problems of trying to attach a pic to the blog that it's not worth the touble so I shall link to them all when I am back home again.
Tomorrow we plan on doing Puzzle Wood and possibly go and have a look around Ross on Wye.

We have arrived

Here at last. A good run up on the motorway and arrived with dry weather. Got the tent up with an expected struggle, then went to hit Waitrose in Monmouth. Monmouth is having a week long festuval so the road was blocked.
A quick trip up to Symonds Yat to take a few pics from the viewpoint then back to the tent for some Jack Daniels and a barbecue as you can hopefully see in the attached pic. (yes this is my 1st proper attempt at mobile blogging).
Off for a walk now and hopefully I can get a mobile signal further up the hill. Back tomorrow with more exciting things that we have got up to.
(update: This post failed when I tried to send it as the pic attached was over 1meg and after it had failed my PAYG balance had dropped by £5, although I kept a sort of mini blog while I was away, I shall upload it retrospectively, with photos.)

A holiday experiment.

It's been a long time I know since I last blogged anything half interesting, but now I am officially at the start of a week off and the chance to go camping again. Barnaby and I are off to Symond's Yat first thing Sunday morning. Be great to get away for a few days and plans on doing nice healthy things, canooeing, hiking, stuff like that.
Was a bit of a shock earlier, I was starting to load the car up and amongst all the stuff that accumulates in the boot, I soon realised I had all I need for an impromptu picnic at any time. Nothing like feeling old to realise that you are carrying a selection of tartan rugs, foldable tables and chairs and that sort of stuff. Made me feel a bit like my Dad!
So, onto my experiment. I want to see just how easy it is to blog from the wilds, so with my new Lifedrive I am going to attempt to blog something interesting at least once a day over the next few days. Blogging from my tent, a canoo, a castle, a woodland, or wherever we may find ourselves. However all good plans say that I won't be finding myself a Wifi cafe or a good mobile signal. Recalling last time I went there, we had no signsl on T-Mobile at all.
At least I know that the technology works. This blog was written on the Lifedrive and sent via GPRS. Come back tomorrow eve for the first update and see if we managed to pitch the tent without too much hassle.

Not totally weird

You Are 40% Weird

Normal enough to know that you're weird... But too damn weird to do anything about it!

How Weird Are You?

It all happens on Drury Lane

Firstly, apologies for another delay in my blogging. You know how it is, sometimes there's just too much to report back on that it's difficult to know what to say. London has pretty much got back to normal since the bombings last week. Partly due to the Britishness of "Having a cuppa" and mostly due to the defiance that we will let terrorism destroy our way of life. The 2 minutes silence on Thursday with almost everyone on the streets, certainly showed the terrorists just how defiant we could be.
Seems I now have the new PC in a position that is totally like my old PC, reinstalled all the old software, installed some that the old PC would never run, got myself a Palm Lifedrive with wifi capabilities and so also got a wireless network. I can now blog and Flickr without having to get out of bed!!!
Heard an almighty noise outside about an hour ago, looked out and saw the London Air Ambulance hovering overhead, obviously looking for a place to land. The only open space I could think of was Lincoln's Inn Fields, but no, they decide they can land on the crossroads just a few yards from the flat. Of course, I was out there with the camera as soon as possible, that junction has seen so much lately, filming of Basic Instinct 2, spaceships getting parking tickets etc. etc.
You've really got to hand it to those guys who pilot that thing, landing it with only inches to spare on either side, surrounded by scaffolding poles on one side and street signs all around. No one was carried away in it, although I didn't see any paramedics return before it took off. Overheard that it was to do with a car accident nearby, but not sure where though. I heard it again a few minutes later so perhaps it was trying to land again nearer the scene of the accident.
As usual, click the pic for a slideshow of all the pics I took.

London terrorist blasts

As you probably already seen in the news, there have been a number of terrorist explosions in London this morning. Several on the tube and one on a bus. I'm fine, was at work at the time, and have now made it home. I don't think anyone feels like work today when there's so many more important things happening on their doorsteps.
Here's hoping that anyone I know, and readers of this blog that I don't know are ok.

Oi Chirac!!!

Have you missed me?

I know, it's been over a week since I last blogged, but I've been having a little holiday and took some time away from blogging as well. So here is a little catch up of what's been going on.
Firstly the car went in for it's MOT and I got a full service on it as well. Nearly £500 later and it's in tippity top condition again, with new exhaust and other odds and sods, so ready for our little camping trip at the end of the month.
It's been a busy weekend as well, what with Saturday being the annual Gay Pride march in London and also Bob Geldof's latest venture with Live8.
Barnaby came over for lunch and we watched the beginning of Live8 before heading off to wander the streets and see what Pride had in store for this year. To be honest, we're were both glad that we hadn't planned on joining in, just being bystanders. This year they had separated the march from the festival not only in distance but in time as the festival will be later in the month. This meant that the thousands on the march would end up in Trafalgar Square with not a lot to do other than watch whatever happened to be on the main stage. One of the fun elements of pride day in the past is the drug fuelled queens tripping over each other on the way from the fairground to the Trade Tent. Without a funfair and various dance tents, this Pride day seemed somewhat lacking, and it showed as people milled around with seemingly nowhere to go.
Onto Leicester Square to see what was happening with Drag Idol, only to see the gates to the square being policed by security removing any alcohol from anyone. Don't they realise that half the fun of watching drag is having a pint at the same time. We passed by and came back home.
Spent the rest of the day/evening watching the Live8 concert, and to be honest it had nothing on the original Live Aid (was it really 20 years ago??). I hadn't seen a playlist so had no idea what time the various artists would be expected on, however Robbie Williams seemed to be the first one to get the crowd going. A moving moment when Bob showed us some video of a girl with only 10 mintues t live 1st shown at Live Aid, and then brought her onto the stage, proving that his work had not been in vain. Pink Floyd were worth waiting for to seem them play together again for the first time in 24 years. Let's hope they have settled their differences and decide to do one last concert before they all croak. I saw the Division Bell tour in 1994 in Paris and London and would love to see a concert with the old line-up (sans Sid).
And so the holiday has now ended, back to work tomorrow morning and I shall try and keep the blog going a little more regularly in future.

I need to get out more!

As promised last weekend, I was in desperate need of a new PC. Well, one has been purchased and I have spent all of this weekend getting the new system up and running. Now, I'm relatively competent with PCs and their insides but this has had me completely stumped. My old PC has a slave hard drive where all my data was stored. The purpose of this rather than storing everything on the C: drive was with the intention of a future upgrade where I could just move the drive over to a new machine with no trouble.

Of course, this is where the trouble started. The new PC has a SATA drive whereas my old drive is an EIDE. Connecting it up was no problem whatsoever, but getting the new PC to recognise the drive was a different matter althogether. I can see it in the BIOS, I can see it in Device Manager, but whatever configuration I use it is not visible in My Computer! After many phone calls to help desks, (Compaq will not help as the old drive is not made by them, Western Digital will not help as the PC is not made by them...) I finally resorted to copying the whole lot onto a stack of DVD's and moving the data across manually. I am not happy, have hardly slept (it tooks hours!!) and now at last have a good clean and fast working system. Now all I have to do is find all those old software discs so I can run what I've been used to running. At least I can blog again.

Three days - Three explosions

They always say that things happen in threes, and the last three days have borne true to this saying with an explosion on each of them.

Friday - Trousers
In my enduring quest to lose a little weight I realised that it wasn't my trousers that were too tight, it was actually my underwear, and the elasticated waistline was gradually cutting off the blood supply to my legs. I IM'ed Barnaby and he suggested I go commando. I thought better of it, just in case of 'emergencies'. Four hours later as I stooped to pick up some dropped change, a tremendous ripping sound could be heard and the crutch came apart at the seams. Hmm, with bulges becoming exposed, I resigned myself to another visit to the slightly larger trouser shop, in the sad knowledge that my waist really has expanded!

Saturday - PC
My PC has been playing up a little lately requiring several attempts to get the damn thing to switch on, so once it's on I tend to leave it switched on. In the early hours a large bang was heard as the PC totally died. As it was it turned out to be only the power supply and a trip to the computer fair behind Tottenham Court Road, a new one was purchesd for the bargain price of £10. However the PC is still acting a little strangely, a new PC will be got next weekend, so apologies in advance if there are no updates for a short while until things are fully sorted.

Sunday - Leicester Square
Tonight sees the premiere of the War of the Worlds starring the newly engaged Tom Cruise. In preparation for this, the square has been transformed into a disaster scene. Very well done in my opinion seeing as Westminster Council would let them move nothing except the bench seating. Click on the pic for a short slideshow of the destruction.

Batman Begins

Seems he got lost and parked in Covent Garden piazza today. At least, being a Saturday he’s exempt from paying his congestion charge, but I hope he gets a parking ticket, the Batmobile’s causing a nightmare with the number of people hanging around trying to get a look.

Forgetting a shopping list

I’m a typical Virgo, which means that I tend to make lists, shopping lists in particular. However once in a while I forget to take a shopping list with me and then I’m stuck. However it’s always nice to know the gods are smiling on me by giving me something to help me recall. Today was the World Naked Bike Ride and with a little help I recalled what it was I wanted. Button mushrooms, shrimps, melons, oh and some saddle soap might come in handy!