Friday 9th April and I am sitting here all on my lonesome. Wifey has traipsed off to Nottingham with Marion and I have no idea when she’ll be back. I’ve had lunch, the pooch has been taken out by our neighbour’s little girl Jess and I’ve been doing stuff to the book.
Now, instead of including clipart to those pages that need a bit of padding, I’ve now decided to add a few pictures. Some of them will be from previous holidays around England, whilst others will come from our store of boating photos. Of course, I’ll need Wifey’s help on that bit, ‘cos she knows where all the old ones are. She also knows where the boating ones were taken, especially which county we were in at the time.
The Air Flow Valve from the car has now been in a petrol soak since yesterday morning and I’ve been using a small paint brush to winkle out any bits of muck, of which there have been many. You would not believe the colour of the petrol now. If the wretched thing still plays me up after this, I will have to find a new part. I’m still waiting for one of the breakers yards to call or email with some details.
This morning I took the flower boxes out onto the stern deck to give them a rub down with a sander. Having already given them both several coats of paint, I then realised they were a little too rough for the canal art I had planned. Duh! As you would expect, I had just got to the last side when the backing pad that holds the sanding part decided to fall off. Another hour later, having re-fixed it with super-glue, I finally finished this small task. Tomorrow, if the weather stays dry, I’ll be out there giving both boxes a coat of paint.
Saturday 10th April and it likes like it could be another warm day. Hallelujah brother, summer has really arrived.
Yesterday, while the girls were off on their jaunt to Nottingham, after finishing sanding down the flower boxes, I chilled out for a while and then, after chatting with Brian, I logged on to eBay to look for this Air Flow Meter. What I found gave me cause for concern, because the items up for sale looked nothing like the item I had been told was an AFM. Oh joy of joys!!
So, having discovered that Steve, our local car mechanic didn’t know what he was talking about, I refitted the item – whatever it is – and, lo and behold, I still had the same problem as before. No surprise there then.
So, back to the laptop to check out the real thing which, according to the vendor who claims his units are not reconditioned, his £80 or so looks far better than Alfa dealers £310 +VAT. I then awaited Wifey’s return to tell her the good and bad news. Today, sometime, we’ll order this part and, with a bit of luck, once fitted, I’ll have no more trouble. But, if I do still have a fault here, I shall take it to a man we met whilst cruising, who has a garage in Loughborough, and ask him to run a diagnostic check to find out exactly what the problem is.
I, categorically, do not have car troubles, apart from the odd puncture and such. Never do I experience this kind of rubbish from any of the cars we have owned. Indeed, just after we sold the Rav 4 to Jayne, the Timing Belt snapped, landing her with a bit of a bill. So, over the years we’ve been relatively free of car problems, until now that is.
Of course, in ordering the AFM today, we’ll be lucky if it arrives by Tuesday and I then have the dubious privilege of fitting the wretched thing, and one thing I really hate, is working on cars. Back in my ill spent youth I quite enjoyed the challenge of pulling an engine apart and replacing valves and big ends and all that kind of stuff. But, as I grew up I grew out of childish things.
But, needs must when the Devil drives, so I will just have to get on with it. Oh, woe is me and lack a day! Actually though, although I’m having this dithering accelerator problem, the car is still driveable and we can still go shopping and pay a Sunday visit to the Fox in Quorn tomorrow, so I really should count my blessings. It’s the money you see, it’s bad enough the boat being a bottomless pit, we really do not need the same with the car. Perhaps we’ll win the Lottery and throw away our financial cares and woes. Yeah! Right!
Monday 12th April and although dry, not quite as warm as yesterday, when we actually did make it to the pub. For some reason best known to itself and folks who know about these things, despite cleaning out the Throttle Control Unit – because that’s what it was, and not the AFM – the pesky car is behaving even more erratically. Perhaps it is because I cleaned it, who knows? I know one thing, I shan’t be sorry when the new part has been fitted and, yes, I will be doing it myself, which will probably astonish certain members of my family. I really am not as useless as some people think I am, it’s just that I take the view, “horses for courses” and would rather let the experts do the job.
Earlier this morning, simply because we were a bit doubtful about using the car, Wifey walked into Quorn for some shopping, whilst I, like any dutiful Hubby, carried on with painting the flower boxes. We now have some pretty green patches over maroon background, onto which our rose and castles will be painted.
Tuesday 13th April and, since it started out with a freezing fog at 6o/clock, I do believe it’s set for a warm day. Hopefully the AFM will turn up and I can get it fitted. Also, hopefully, it will cure the problem.
I am currently I am adding some clipart to the book, but I’m not sure it’s the right way to go. As you all know, I did send for a disc full of food pictures, which is what I would rather use, but, since I didn’t actually pay for the disc, it’s very doubtful I would get away with using any of them. However, all is not lost because I will go online later to see what I can find.
Well, it’s now 7.15 pm and, earlier this afternoon I fitted the new Air Flow Meter, which did absolutely no good whatsoever. So, now what do I do? I am on the horns of a dilemma because, having spoken to a mechanic in Loughborough, I now know that there are time when, by fitting a unit other than an authentic Bosch part, that unit might not work. I have also discovered that, along with Jaguars, the Alfa does not always respond to any other diagnostics machine than that which is installed in an Alfa garage. Oh boy!
Anyway, on Monday morning at 9 o/clock, I will be at that garage and, if his diagnostics machine works, I will discover what is causing this problem. Alternatively the nice mechanic will call in another mechanic, who has several thousand pounds worth of machine which, he assures me, will trace the problem.
Now, whilst I was talking to my neighbour Brian, I spotted a car for sale. It’s an ‘S’ reg Peugeot 206, 2.1 litre diesel estate, and the vendor claims it will do about 60 mpg. That is an improvement on the Alfa and would save me a lot of money when visiting Alan in Harlow. So, if the prognosis is expensive on the Alfa, I could be persuaded to purchase the Peugeot which, at just £595, looks like a bargain. Especially when you consider the 6 months MOT and Tax, electric windows and mirrors, and electric steering wheel adjustment. Then there’s the Air Conditioning and the 6 stack DVD player.
I’m not too keen on diesels as a rule but, needs must when the Devil drives.
Watch this space.
Wednesday 14th April and, although dry, it’s a bit blowy with a cool breeze.
Now, as many of you may remember, I have had on my computers, ever since 2004, a wee programme called Typeitin. This stores all the website addresses and emails that I use on a constant basis.
On occasion, as you also know, I run into problems with my computer. Doesn’t everybody? The result of these problems is, invariably, that my Typeitin reverts to the non-registered version, which is rather limited in the amount of groups and addresses it can hold.
You would think, wouldn’t you, that it would be an easy matter to re-register the thing and get back to normal, but you would be wrong. Having tried registering with the original code and finding it didn’t work, I contacted the programme owners at Wavget.com for some assistance. If you ever purchase this programme be prepared to wait and follow up your original request for help. These people are pretty slow where customer service is concerned.
Anyway, yet again I have suffered problems with the laptop and, yet again, have had to contact Wavget for help. I have tried the original code and also the alternative code, which they sent me last time and which was shorter than the original, although it did contain a string of letters from the original code. With me so far??
On Saturday I emailed them and am still awaiting a reply, having tried both codes without success. This morning I emailed again, but do not hold out much hope of a speedy reply. Would you??
Thursday 15th April and still no response fro those Typeitin people. At the risk of repeating myself ad nauseum, I would suggest to anybody thinking of purchasing anything from Wavget, to seriously consider the lack of after sales service. They really are lackadaisical about helping those who have paid. You have been warned.
Anyway, it is now almost 2.30 pm, I’ve had my lunch and so has the dog, and Wifey has gone off to Leicester with Marion. They should be back around 5ish, but who can tell?
As a point of interest, getting back to the recipe book, I have now re-compiled it. There were one or two errors in the copies I passed around at the family do, which I only noticed a couple of days after posting to eBay. Thankfully nobody made a bid for it, and so it was easy enough to remove it.
So, after giving the matter some thought, I decided to rename it, a task I delegated to my better half, and also to split it into two volumes but, instead of limiting Book 1 to Bedfordshire to Lincolnshire and Book 2 to London to Yorkshire, I have now included all counties in both books, but have split the recipes in roughly half. Thus it is that Book 1 now has 200 recipes and, as for Book 2, until I compile it, I have no idea how many will be in it. Especially since I may find even more before it is edited and compiled.
Now, I have been looking at the problem of copyright infringement and, since the Berne Convention on the subject really isn’t definitive enough, I have enlisted the aid of an online legal group called Just Answer, to advise me on the matter. Many of the recipes, as you all know, are very old indeed and can’t possibly be covered by any copyright. But, some of the more recent ones might just trap me and I would hate to receive a ‘cease and desist’ letter from someone’s solicitor. Better to be safe than sorry.
It will probably take me about six months to compile the 2nd volume of the recipe book which, incidentally, will now be called “Traditional English County Food”, with the sub title of ‘Delicious recipes from around the Counties and Shires’. In the meantime, after we have tracked down all our holiday photos, we are going to collaborate on a book about our travels throughout the UK.
This will take in all the places we visited before we retired to the boat, along with our first three years before the mast, so to speak. But first we have to find those photos. Methinks they are hiding in a tea chest in Alan’s workshop at Valerie’s stables. We surely would not have disposed of them, they are far too precious. We searched the boat, especially under the dinette seats, but all we found there were actual family snaps, no CDs at all. Hopefully they will turn up soon.
Friday 16th April and it is no longer necessary to worry about BA staff going on strike, that volcano in Iceland could continue erupting for quite some time, grounding all flights for months. Indeed, since the offending volcano sits next to another, much bigger one, it could nudge its neighbour into erupting causing a Mount St. Helens situation. Hmmm! I’ll bet that’s given you food for thought.
Now, getting back to the legalities of my recipe book, I have taken legal advice from an online expert in British Law named Nick, who tells me that, all that is necessary to avoid copyright infringement, is for me to acknowledge the source of the recipes. This would be fine had I made a note of those sources in the first place and, with 200 recipes in Book 1 alone, this could take me several days to complete. I have therefore, asked if an Acknowledgement Page would suffice, naming all the sources I have used.
Tuesday 20th April and, as a direct result of all the faffing about with the car and laptop, I fear I owe you all an apology for running so late with this blog.
No doubt I have mentioned the problems with the car? Well, after fitting, what appeared to be, the correct item and finding it didn’t cure the problem, I took it to a garage in Loughborough, who called in a diagnostics man to check it out. The idling problem still appears to be the Air Flow Meter, and so I have had to order another one, but this time a genuine Bosch part, albeit a used part, but a genuine, Bedouin part.
This unit should arrive on Wednesday when, if all goes well, the Alfa will be driveable again. However, if that doesn’t cure the fault, then it will probably be the Engine Management System causing the fluctuating idling speed, in which case it could be rather expensive to repair.
This leaves us on the horns of a dilemma. Do we swallow the cost and have the car repaired? After all it only cost us £700 to start with and, so far, we have spent over £500 on the exhaust system and other parts. Or, as my gut feeling tells me, should we start looking for another car and try trading this one in? Hmmm! More about that when I’ve fitted the next AFM.
For now though, as we have now encroached upon the 9th page of this blog, I suppose I ought to see if I can post it.
Oh, and by the way, apart from a rather strong breeze here, it’s been a pretty good day weather wise.
Cheers for now and good health
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
Pillings Lock Marina 2010#7
Saturday 27th March and, after a spell of nasty, horrid wind and rain yesterday, it’s turned out bright again.
Not much to do today, except for a little shopping and a bottle of gas.
Last nights Red Pepper, Ham and Cheese Tart, was rather good, but also rather filling. It also shot my blood glucose reading up somewhat. Next time a smaller portion I methinks.
I’m still wading through the ’book’ in an attempt at turning it into a single volume. Going through the ‘completed’ two volumes, I’m amazed at hoe many boo boos I’ve made, so it’s just as well I took the first listing off eBay.
All for this morning, I think I hear Wifey stirring.
It is now 4.45 pm and I am trying to sort out the compatibility for MS Office, to see if it opens and closes any quicker
Tuesday 30th March and I am now free of the North Middlesex Hospital. Whoopee!! I had my final check up yesterday and have been discharged after five years of probing my nether regions, with telescopes and cameras. But, since the medical profession simply hates to let you go completely, once they’ve got their sticky hands on you, they will be writing to my GP in the hopes that I will continue with follow up appointments. Whilst I appreciate their concern, I do not relish further assaults upon my innards and will probably resist any pressure for them to do so. Enough is enough.
Sunday was yet another excellent day spent with Alan and, I have to say, he fed and watered me rather well. The Guinness flowed freely, and the lamb was plentiful. One or other of them was too plentiful, if the complaints from my stomach are anything to go by. That’s probably information overload for some; suffice to say I slept quite well.
The run down to North Mid was really terrible, I really don’t remember the last time it took me an hour to get there. I left Harlow quite early; about 7.30; but still ran into more traffic than usual. The whole point of leaving early; my first appointment wasn’t until 9.30; was to find a parking spot in the nearby street, rather than pay their exorbitant parking fees. Fortunately I had no problems in that respect, so parking cost me nowt. Since hospitals and doctors’ surgeries always seem to run late, and since my second appointment wasn’t until 11.30, I didn’t get away until well past 1 o/clock, and arrived home just before 3pm.
Today is shopping at Morrisons day, which I always look forward to, because we can bring home some more of their pies.
In my spare time, of which I have a great deal, I am beavering away trying to turn the recipe book into one volume, even though the producers of the programme suggest a maximum of about 100 pages. Also, since there are a few other ads on eBay with the same name, I’m going to change that when it is done.
Easter Day for the first time ever as far as I’m aware, my birthday will be here, again. Goodness knows how I’ve survived 68 of them, but I’m still here and fully intend to enjoy many more of the good stuff, especially cruising, drinks with Alan and family reunions.
Incidentally, when I posted the last blog, I noticed that I had a follower. I don’t recall his/her name, but it’s nice to know that somebody, other than family and friends, is interested enough to check out this blog. Cheers, whoever you are.
Friday 2nd April and the weekend is almost upon us again.
Yesterday was not a particularly good day for me. Sheila went off to Loughborough with Marion, but before she did we went into Quorn for a few bits. On the way back the car started juddering at low revs, almost as if it was starved of fuel. When we arrived at the marina car par, I let the engine run for a while, and saw the revs fluctuating. They were going up and down, almost to a stalling point, then suddenly rose to about 2000, then dropped down to normal tickover. Hopefully it will now stay that way, but I’m not holding my breath, because these things seldom cure themselves.
Actually, a few weeks ago I noticed a certain hesitation when going around the first roundabout on our way to Quorn, and I even mentioned it to Fred when he carried out the service, but he didn’t notice anything untoward. It’s been getting me to Harlow and back ever since, but I don’t know that I can trust it now. We will see what happens today and, if it plays up, I’ll have to have a chat with a man that Brian knows, who has a workshop at the end of the lane.
This weekend I am also hoping to re-format this hard drive and set it up in 32 bit. Of course, I then have to re-install all my other programmes. I’ve downloaded a new backup prog which seems to give the user the ability to select which files to backup. I am hopeful of a good outcome.
Tuesday 6th April and my 68th birthday is now two days past. Nothing else has changed though with regard to the car and the laptop.
However, never say die, say I. I have had a lengthy chat with our local buff who, from the description I gave of my problem, suggested it might be hardware related. In the meantime he suggested I install XP on the partition on the hard drive. This I have tried to do but, alas, my laptop simply will not accept it. But, or Ivan has also suggested that he take this offending article away and run some diagnostic tests on it, in order to determine what is causing this beast to run slow and give me so much grief. Sadly he can’t do this until Friday.
Meanwhile, I have been online searching for an Air Flow Meter for the car. Naturally I first telephoned my nearest Alfa dealer, who quoted me £310 + VAT. Ouch! I then found a site that has umpteen million breakers on their list, and have been advised that I should receive up to 6 quotes within the next few minutes. This should be interesting!!
Returning to the subject of the recipe book, I have now managed to enter all the recipes into one volume, this despite the programme makers saying this would be impossible. I have also ensured that the Weights and Measures page appears in the TOC, which is something I failed to do before. And I have added a few more recipes, which also did not appear in the TOC. All that remains to do is to rewrite the About, Introduction and Foreword pages, at which point I can re-compile it and will be finished with this long running saga.
Wednesday 7th April and I am now back to a two volume book. This has come about due to the fact that, having asked Wifey to come up with a different title – which she did – I then proceeded to change the names of all the big files. Sadly the programme didn’t much like that idea, with the result that, upon opening the project to add information and complete the job, all the information on all the pages, had disappeared. So, I ditched that project and am now working on the new, two volume version.
What will happen when the first volume is finished, is that I shall post it on eBay and then work on the 2nd volume, which I shall post in about six months time.
Tomorrow our friendly, neighbourhood computer whiz named Ivan, will be taking this pesky laptop away to run some tests. Hopefully he will discover what is causing it to run so slowly and, at the same time, do his best not to lose any information I have on it. To be on the safe side I have copied my book files, along with a few other files, to a DVD.
When I asked Ivan how long it would take, his reply was that it could take five minutes, five hours, or five days. Ah well, so long as he gets it sorted, I’ll be happy.
As for the car, I’m still awaiting a call from the umpteen breakers yard. Meanwhile, another acquaintance on the site is going to loan me his star screwdriver set, so that I can remove the offending article and soak it overnight in petrol. Hopefully this will remove whatever is causing the air valve to stick.
Hi Folks,
It’s Thursday morning and, because Ivan will be taking the laptop away this morning for an indefinite period, I’ve decide to post now just in case you wonder where I’ve got to.
Luv n stuff from
Dave, Sheila and Rusty xx
Not much to do today, except for a little shopping and a bottle of gas.
Last nights Red Pepper, Ham and Cheese Tart, was rather good, but also rather filling. It also shot my blood glucose reading up somewhat. Next time a smaller portion I methinks.
I’m still wading through the ’book’ in an attempt at turning it into a single volume. Going through the ‘completed’ two volumes, I’m amazed at hoe many boo boos I’ve made, so it’s just as well I took the first listing off eBay.
All for this morning, I think I hear Wifey stirring.
It is now 4.45 pm and I am trying to sort out the compatibility for MS Office, to see if it opens and closes any quicker
Tuesday 30th March and I am now free of the North Middlesex Hospital. Whoopee!! I had my final check up yesterday and have been discharged after five years of probing my nether regions, with telescopes and cameras. But, since the medical profession simply hates to let you go completely, once they’ve got their sticky hands on you, they will be writing to my GP in the hopes that I will continue with follow up appointments. Whilst I appreciate their concern, I do not relish further assaults upon my innards and will probably resist any pressure for them to do so. Enough is enough.
Sunday was yet another excellent day spent with Alan and, I have to say, he fed and watered me rather well. The Guinness flowed freely, and the lamb was plentiful. One or other of them was too plentiful, if the complaints from my stomach are anything to go by. That’s probably information overload for some; suffice to say I slept quite well.
The run down to North Mid was really terrible, I really don’t remember the last time it took me an hour to get there. I left Harlow quite early; about 7.30; but still ran into more traffic than usual. The whole point of leaving early; my first appointment wasn’t until 9.30; was to find a parking spot in the nearby street, rather than pay their exorbitant parking fees. Fortunately I had no problems in that respect, so parking cost me nowt. Since hospitals and doctors’ surgeries always seem to run late, and since my second appointment wasn’t until 11.30, I didn’t get away until well past 1 o/clock, and arrived home just before 3pm.
Today is shopping at Morrisons day, which I always look forward to, because we can bring home some more of their pies.
In my spare time, of which I have a great deal, I am beavering away trying to turn the recipe book into one volume, even though the producers of the programme suggest a maximum of about 100 pages. Also, since there are a few other ads on eBay with the same name, I’m going to change that when it is done.
Easter Day for the first time ever as far as I’m aware, my birthday will be here, again. Goodness knows how I’ve survived 68 of them, but I’m still here and fully intend to enjoy many more of the good stuff, especially cruising, drinks with Alan and family reunions.
Incidentally, when I posted the last blog, I noticed that I had a follower. I don’t recall his/her name, but it’s nice to know that somebody, other than family and friends, is interested enough to check out this blog. Cheers, whoever you are.
Friday 2nd April and the weekend is almost upon us again.
Yesterday was not a particularly good day for me. Sheila went off to Loughborough with Marion, but before she did we went into Quorn for a few bits. On the way back the car started juddering at low revs, almost as if it was starved of fuel. When we arrived at the marina car par, I let the engine run for a while, and saw the revs fluctuating. They were going up and down, almost to a stalling point, then suddenly rose to about 2000, then dropped down to normal tickover. Hopefully it will now stay that way, but I’m not holding my breath, because these things seldom cure themselves.
Actually, a few weeks ago I noticed a certain hesitation when going around the first roundabout on our way to Quorn, and I even mentioned it to Fred when he carried out the service, but he didn’t notice anything untoward. It’s been getting me to Harlow and back ever since, but I don’t know that I can trust it now. We will see what happens today and, if it plays up, I’ll have to have a chat with a man that Brian knows, who has a workshop at the end of the lane.
This weekend I am also hoping to re-format this hard drive and set it up in 32 bit. Of course, I then have to re-install all my other programmes. I’ve downloaded a new backup prog which seems to give the user the ability to select which files to backup. I am hopeful of a good outcome.
Tuesday 6th April and my 68th birthday is now two days past. Nothing else has changed though with regard to the car and the laptop.
However, never say die, say I. I have had a lengthy chat with our local buff who, from the description I gave of my problem, suggested it might be hardware related. In the meantime he suggested I install XP on the partition on the hard drive. This I have tried to do but, alas, my laptop simply will not accept it. But, or Ivan has also suggested that he take this offending article away and run some diagnostic tests on it, in order to determine what is causing this beast to run slow and give me so much grief. Sadly he can’t do this until Friday.
Meanwhile, I have been online searching for an Air Flow Meter for the car. Naturally I first telephoned my nearest Alfa dealer, who quoted me £310 + VAT. Ouch! I then found a site that has umpteen million breakers on their list, and have been advised that I should receive up to 6 quotes within the next few minutes. This should be interesting!!
Returning to the subject of the recipe book, I have now managed to enter all the recipes into one volume, this despite the programme makers saying this would be impossible. I have also ensured that the Weights and Measures page appears in the TOC, which is something I failed to do before. And I have added a few more recipes, which also did not appear in the TOC. All that remains to do is to rewrite the About, Introduction and Foreword pages, at which point I can re-compile it and will be finished with this long running saga.
Wednesday 7th April and I am now back to a two volume book. This has come about due to the fact that, having asked Wifey to come up with a different title – which she did – I then proceeded to change the names of all the big files. Sadly the programme didn’t much like that idea, with the result that, upon opening the project to add information and complete the job, all the information on all the pages, had disappeared. So, I ditched that project and am now working on the new, two volume version.
What will happen when the first volume is finished, is that I shall post it on eBay and then work on the 2nd volume, which I shall post in about six months time.
Tomorrow our friendly, neighbourhood computer whiz named Ivan, will be taking this pesky laptop away to run some tests. Hopefully he will discover what is causing it to run so slowly and, at the same time, do his best not to lose any information I have on it. To be on the safe side I have copied my book files, along with a few other files, to a DVD.
When I asked Ivan how long it would take, his reply was that it could take five minutes, five hours, or five days. Ah well, so long as he gets it sorted, I’ll be happy.
As for the car, I’m still awaiting a call from the umpteen breakers yard. Meanwhile, another acquaintance on the site is going to loan me his star screwdriver set, so that I can remove the offending article and soak it overnight in petrol. Hopefully this will remove whatever is causing the air valve to stick.
Hi Folks,
It’s Thursday morning and, because Ivan will be taking the laptop away this morning for an indefinite period, I’ve decide to post now just in case you wonder where I’ve got to.
Luv n stuff from
Dave, Sheila and Rusty xx
Friday, 26 March 2010
Pillings Lock Marina 2010 #6
Friday 19th March and, for the first time since arriving here in September 2009, I am on my own for a few hours. My dear Wifey has walked into Loughborough with our neighbour Marion. So, I have spent some quality time with my laptop and have been preparing my next recipe book, which is to be called, “Pasties, Pies and Sausage Rolls”.
Yesterday evening I plucked up the courage and girded my loins and posted “A Taste of England” on eBay’s US site. I’m still a bit hesitant about posting it in the UK, because I’m still unsure about copyright where recipes are concerned. I do know that Ingredients cannot be copyrighted. This is because they constitute an idea. But, where the Method by which a recipe is put together could well be and, even though I altered certain parts of the method in all of them – without detracting from the final result – I would hate to find a “Cease and Desist” notice in my mailbox.
Amongst all my documents on this laptop and on a separate disc I have over 11,000 recipes, most of which are American. And, within those files are recipe books that I can sell as is. But I would rather make my own books, all with varying themes. The opportunities are only limited by one’s imagination, hence the latest creation. I have no doubt it will take me many months to compile, but at least it will keep me amused.
Monday 22nd March and I have to say that, despite having a thoroughly enjoyable weekend, it’s really great to be home. For one thing it’s so peaceful here. All we can hear is the far distant traffic noise from the A6. Oh, and the ducks of course. And the water lapping against the side of the boat. And, before I got up, the light snoring of my better half, bless!!
Anyway, as usual, the family reunion went off very well and, apart from the enforced absence of June and Keith, a perfect little get together. What stick most in my mind, is the sight of the four remaining Kennetts all clustered around the laptop, going through old family photographs in order to determine who was who. A truly magical sight.
It was also quite a treat to find Ian and Susan there. I for one was most pleased to see Ian looking far better than has been reported in the past. And Susan? Well, we haven’t seen that delightful lady in many a year and she especially had much to catch up on.
Sheila and I would like to offer up our thanks to Bob who, once again, managed to slide off to pay the bill. Much appreciated again Bob, you are now ahead of us by 3:1. Perhaps, next year, we’ll be able to outflank you, who knows?
As you all know we probably won’t be doing much cruising this year. However, once I have a date for my knees to be replaced, we may be able to pop off for a couple of weeks.
On the subject of the “Taste of England” book, which I listed on eBay US on Thursday of last week, I have just been to check if it has received any bids, and I have discovered that the picture I uploaded has not bee displayed. In addition to that, there are a couple of other listings with the same name, something that did not show when I last looked.
It could be that, because the picture I used was a screen shot that had been reduced in size from about 1.3Mb to about 45Kb. Anyway, I am most disappointed it this affair and will probably have to re-list it using a different picture.
The other problem I have is with the Picasa 3 programme that Carole suggested I download from Google. I have found that by going to the –supposed – Google download page, there is actually no link with which to do so. Carole assured me that it is not necessary to work online with it, but what I saw certainly led me to believe that this is how it works. Over to you Wee Mac Sis!
Incidentally, unbeknown to me until earlier today, it seems I have committed something of a faux pas with regard to the recipe book, and this faux pas has resulted in my having to remove my listing from eBay. You may well ask ‘what could possibly be so bad as to require me to remove the listing?’ Well, if you have looked through the book you would know that it’s is all in English measurements. However, I listed it in the good old US of A and, in the listing I made it known that a Weights and Measures page would be included. But I hadn’t done so, silly me!!
Also, when I checked to see if there were any bids on the book, I discovered that the picture I uploaded with my listing had not been included. I have therefore spent the past couple of hours amending the book and re-compiling it. Oh, the trials and tribulations of authorship!!
By way of another incidental, I feel I ought to mention the trouble with our velocipede. Just recently, only over the past couple of days or so, I have become aware of a strange noise emanating from the underside of said vehicle. I established, only at about 10 am on Sunday that it was coming from the exhaust pipe. On closer inspection at Formula 1 in Edingburgh Way, that the darn thing is indeed blowing. They assured me however that it would not blow apart if I drove it the 120 miles to the marina.
So, this morning, after a visit to Morrisons, we popped into Fast Fit in Loughborough and, surprise, surprise, we discovered it was not going to be cheap to repair. Indeed, when the nice man checked it out he discovered that it was not only blowing in the place we knew about, but that the back box had been repaired with some kind of filler, which was also blowing. The final bill for this repair will be in the order of £450! Ouch!! The blessed car only cost us £700! But, since it is very reliable, especially with the regular runs to and from Harlow, it’s still worth keeping. We certainly do not have any plans for buying another car, at least not until we’ve made our first million from the book. Ho! Ho! Ho!
Thursday 25th March and it is wet and muggy this morning. It is also pump out and diesel day.
Yesterday we spent over £450 on our exhaust system on the Alfa. For some reason that came as something of a blessing, the centre section that carries the catalytic converter was perfectly OK. Thank goodness for that because, had we been obliged to replace that as well, it would probably have cost us more than we paid for the car.
Over the past couple of months I have been humming and hawing as to whether to try turning the recipe book into a single book before I advertise. To be honest I’m none too keen on it being in two volumes because, to me at any rate, it’s a bit sloppy. After all, you wouldn’t expect to go into a shop for such a thing and have to pay twice, unless it was a follow up volume issued at a later date.
So, as of this day, I am going to try doing just that. I’m not sure that it will work mind, because the makers of the programme actually suggest keeping the page count down to about 100.
On the subject of Windows 7 and how slow it is running on this machine, I had a chat with a rather elusive neighbour of ours yesterday, and he suggests I do either of two things. He thinks that certain programmes, such as Word and PDF files, are running slow because I have 64 bit installed. If I change it to 32 bit it should run better. Alternatively he would be happy to loan me his XP disc so that I can load that instead. He is of the opinion that XP is far superior anyway. Another alternative would be to download 2010 from Microsoft, but I’m not convinced about that alternative.
Friday 26th March and we’ve had a fair amount of rain this afternoon, summer showers I think they are called. Luckily we managed to get out for bags of coal and a little bit of shopping before the heavens opened.
This evening I am being treated to something new for my dinner. This recipe was spotted by my dearly beloved in todays Daily Mail, or was it yesterdays? Anyway, it’s called Red Pepper, Ham and Cheese Tart, but it looks like a Pizza. It consists of the bits in the title, along with sun dried tomato paste, black olives and oregano, all in a flat pastry. Actually it looks rather tasty, so I’m quite looking forward to it.
On Sunday I will be driving down to Harlow again and staying overnight with Alan, because I have a hospital appointment at North Mid on Monday morning, the last one, I hope. As my second appointment after seeing the surgeon, is at 11.30 with the doctor, I don’t suppose I’ll get back to the boat much before 3 pm. Next year, assuming they’ll want me to have regular annual check ups, I shall try to arrange for them to be carried out in Leicester or Loughborough.
While I’m in Harlow on Sunday I’ll be calling in to Maplin’s for a new external hard drive. We already have one, but I want another one specifically for back ups and, as it’s my birthday on Easter Sunday, this is by way of a birthday present from Wifey.
Everywhere you go you will find a computer wizz somewhere nearby, and Pillings Lock Marina is no different than anywhere else. Our one goes by the name of Ivan and, after spending about 15 minutes with him bemoaning my problems with this laptop, he suggested that I carry out a recovery and set it up in 32 bit instead of the current 64 bit. His reason being that MS Office and virtually all other such programmes being used on Vista and Win 7, are all 32 bit, which could account for the slow running I’m experiencing.
Alternatively he suggests I set this machine up with XP, for which he has a disc I can borrow. He still has XP and I must say I found it very easy to use. Anyway, once I have the new hard drive, I’ll carry out a full back up and then a recover to 32 bit. If that doesn’t improve the situation I’ll go on to XP. So there!!
OK. Six pages of bloggy nonsense, so I think it’s about time it was posted. Happy days to all and don’t forget to put your clocks forward this weekend.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
Yesterday evening I plucked up the courage and girded my loins and posted “A Taste of England” on eBay’s US site. I’m still a bit hesitant about posting it in the UK, because I’m still unsure about copyright where recipes are concerned. I do know that Ingredients cannot be copyrighted. This is because they constitute an idea. But, where the Method by which a recipe is put together could well be and, even though I altered certain parts of the method in all of them – without detracting from the final result – I would hate to find a “Cease and Desist” notice in my mailbox.
Amongst all my documents on this laptop and on a separate disc I have over 11,000 recipes, most of which are American. And, within those files are recipe books that I can sell as is. But I would rather make my own books, all with varying themes. The opportunities are only limited by one’s imagination, hence the latest creation. I have no doubt it will take me many months to compile, but at least it will keep me amused.
Monday 22nd March and I have to say that, despite having a thoroughly enjoyable weekend, it’s really great to be home. For one thing it’s so peaceful here. All we can hear is the far distant traffic noise from the A6. Oh, and the ducks of course. And the water lapping against the side of the boat. And, before I got up, the light snoring of my better half, bless!!
Anyway, as usual, the family reunion went off very well and, apart from the enforced absence of June and Keith, a perfect little get together. What stick most in my mind, is the sight of the four remaining Kennetts all clustered around the laptop, going through old family photographs in order to determine who was who. A truly magical sight.
It was also quite a treat to find Ian and Susan there. I for one was most pleased to see Ian looking far better than has been reported in the past. And Susan? Well, we haven’t seen that delightful lady in many a year and she especially had much to catch up on.
Sheila and I would like to offer up our thanks to Bob who, once again, managed to slide off to pay the bill. Much appreciated again Bob, you are now ahead of us by 3:1. Perhaps, next year, we’ll be able to outflank you, who knows?
As you all know we probably won’t be doing much cruising this year. However, once I have a date for my knees to be replaced, we may be able to pop off for a couple of weeks.
On the subject of the “Taste of England” book, which I listed on eBay US on Thursday of last week, I have just been to check if it has received any bids, and I have discovered that the picture I uploaded has not bee displayed. In addition to that, there are a couple of other listings with the same name, something that did not show when I last looked.
It could be that, because the picture I used was a screen shot that had been reduced in size from about 1.3Mb to about 45Kb. Anyway, I am most disappointed it this affair and will probably have to re-list it using a different picture.
The other problem I have is with the Picasa 3 programme that Carole suggested I download from Google. I have found that by going to the –supposed – Google download page, there is actually no link with which to do so. Carole assured me that it is not necessary to work online with it, but what I saw certainly led me to believe that this is how it works. Over to you Wee Mac Sis!
Incidentally, unbeknown to me until earlier today, it seems I have committed something of a faux pas with regard to the recipe book, and this faux pas has resulted in my having to remove my listing from eBay. You may well ask ‘what could possibly be so bad as to require me to remove the listing?’ Well, if you have looked through the book you would know that it’s is all in English measurements. However, I listed it in the good old US of A and, in the listing I made it known that a Weights and Measures page would be included. But I hadn’t done so, silly me!!
Also, when I checked to see if there were any bids on the book, I discovered that the picture I uploaded with my listing had not been included. I have therefore spent the past couple of hours amending the book and re-compiling it. Oh, the trials and tribulations of authorship!!
By way of another incidental, I feel I ought to mention the trouble with our velocipede. Just recently, only over the past couple of days or so, I have become aware of a strange noise emanating from the underside of said vehicle. I established, only at about 10 am on Sunday that it was coming from the exhaust pipe. On closer inspection at Formula 1 in Edingburgh Way, that the darn thing is indeed blowing. They assured me however that it would not blow apart if I drove it the 120 miles to the marina.
So, this morning, after a visit to Morrisons, we popped into Fast Fit in Loughborough and, surprise, surprise, we discovered it was not going to be cheap to repair. Indeed, when the nice man checked it out he discovered that it was not only blowing in the place we knew about, but that the back box had been repaired with some kind of filler, which was also blowing. The final bill for this repair will be in the order of £450! Ouch!! The blessed car only cost us £700! But, since it is very reliable, especially with the regular runs to and from Harlow, it’s still worth keeping. We certainly do not have any plans for buying another car, at least not until we’ve made our first million from the book. Ho! Ho! Ho!
Thursday 25th March and it is wet and muggy this morning. It is also pump out and diesel day.
Yesterday we spent over £450 on our exhaust system on the Alfa. For some reason that came as something of a blessing, the centre section that carries the catalytic converter was perfectly OK. Thank goodness for that because, had we been obliged to replace that as well, it would probably have cost us more than we paid for the car.
Over the past couple of months I have been humming and hawing as to whether to try turning the recipe book into a single book before I advertise. To be honest I’m none too keen on it being in two volumes because, to me at any rate, it’s a bit sloppy. After all, you wouldn’t expect to go into a shop for such a thing and have to pay twice, unless it was a follow up volume issued at a later date.
So, as of this day, I am going to try doing just that. I’m not sure that it will work mind, because the makers of the programme actually suggest keeping the page count down to about 100.
On the subject of Windows 7 and how slow it is running on this machine, I had a chat with a rather elusive neighbour of ours yesterday, and he suggests I do either of two things. He thinks that certain programmes, such as Word and PDF files, are running slow because I have 64 bit installed. If I change it to 32 bit it should run better. Alternatively he would be happy to loan me his XP disc so that I can load that instead. He is of the opinion that XP is far superior anyway. Another alternative would be to download 2010 from Microsoft, but I’m not convinced about that alternative.
Friday 26th March and we’ve had a fair amount of rain this afternoon, summer showers I think they are called. Luckily we managed to get out for bags of coal and a little bit of shopping before the heavens opened.
This evening I am being treated to something new for my dinner. This recipe was spotted by my dearly beloved in todays Daily Mail, or was it yesterdays? Anyway, it’s called Red Pepper, Ham and Cheese Tart, but it looks like a Pizza. It consists of the bits in the title, along with sun dried tomato paste, black olives and oregano, all in a flat pastry. Actually it looks rather tasty, so I’m quite looking forward to it.
On Sunday I will be driving down to Harlow again and staying overnight with Alan, because I have a hospital appointment at North Mid on Monday morning, the last one, I hope. As my second appointment after seeing the surgeon, is at 11.30 with the doctor, I don’t suppose I’ll get back to the boat much before 3 pm. Next year, assuming they’ll want me to have regular annual check ups, I shall try to arrange for them to be carried out in Leicester or Loughborough.
While I’m in Harlow on Sunday I’ll be calling in to Maplin’s for a new external hard drive. We already have one, but I want another one specifically for back ups and, as it’s my birthday on Easter Sunday, this is by way of a birthday present from Wifey.
Everywhere you go you will find a computer wizz somewhere nearby, and Pillings Lock Marina is no different than anywhere else. Our one goes by the name of Ivan and, after spending about 15 minutes with him bemoaning my problems with this laptop, he suggested that I carry out a recovery and set it up in 32 bit instead of the current 64 bit. His reason being that MS Office and virtually all other such programmes being used on Vista and Win 7, are all 32 bit, which could account for the slow running I’m experiencing.
Alternatively he suggests I set this machine up with XP, for which he has a disc I can borrow. He still has XP and I must say I found it very easy to use. Anyway, once I have the new hard drive, I’ll carry out a full back up and then a recover to 32 bit. If that doesn’t improve the situation I’ll go on to XP. So there!!
OK. Six pages of bloggy nonsense, so I think it’s about time it was posted. Happy days to all and don’t forget to put your clocks forward this weekend.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Pillings Lock Marina 2010 #5
Pillings Lock Marina 2010#5
Friday 5th March and another frosty but sunny morning.
Yesterday, whilst attempting to get rid of as much superfluous material on the laptop prior to a full recovery, I inadvertently deleted the necessary Key Info for my eBook programme. I therefore had to contact the company, yet again, with yet another problem. It’s just as well that I’ve already sweetened them with a copy of my recipe book. This morning, I’m very pleased to say, that info arrived in an email and I can now use the programme again.
The trouble is that, if the Key Info is not present, the programme will only run in Demo mode, which limits what can be done with it in terms of chapters and pages. All is now well and I must now save this blog to my external HDD for future use, because later today, hopefully, I will be able to carry out the System Recovery and reinstall all the other programmes I need.
4.25 pm and I have spent the last 3 hours faffing about with the laptop, again! The plan was to recover the HDD back to when we bought the wretched thing. This was not a very good idea because, despite having made a Recovery Disc on the day of purchase, this infernal machine does not recognise it as such. After going through all the proper moves to achieve a complete recovery and, having inserted the correct DVD, the screen just stays blank. I swear I can see a slight lifting of the corners in a sneer. I am not amused.
Anyway, whilst deciding what to do next, with the additional brainpower of my better half, it suddenly occurred to said better half, that perhaps the machine refuses to allow me to carry out a recovery, because there’s nothing wrong with the system!!. Well, would you Adam and Eve it?
So, after about 3 hours we then decided to simply uninstall Outlook 2007 and reinstall the 2003 Office suite. This too was not a very good idea, because Outlook 2003 would not work. It seems there is still a .dll file missing or corrupt.
Not to be put off by such trivia, we then went back to the help screen of the 2003 DVD and clicked on the button that asks if you would like to alter the settings and, lo and behold I discover, much to my amazement, that individual programmes can be eliminated from the set up. Out went Outlook.
We are now cooking with gas and do not seem to have any obvious conflicts between programmes. Even this darling little cursor is actually keeping pace with my typing. Whooppee!!!!
Saturday 6th March and it is a much milder morning, but I’m sure that the silly weather people told us to expect sharp frost. Ah well, they got the ‘bar-b-q-summer’ wrong and they certainly got the winter forecast wrong too.
Yesterday evening, at about 6.30, we joined a few other boaters for a fish supper at the restaurant. Well, that’s what they like to call it! It’s more like a lounge come staff canteen, but you know what I mean. I’m told that the manager and part-owner of the place wants it to resemble a Brighton gay bar, but that’s only hearsay.
Anyway, I have to say that the meal was very good and, coming with a bottle of Mexican lager called Corona, at £4.95 was very good value for money. It even included a good portion of Mushy Peas.
Unfortunately, after returning to the boat and watching a bit of telly, I forgot my pre-bedtime jab. I’m on a new Insulin regime now, which includes 3 jabs during the day of 1 type and another at night of another. The pre-bedtime one is, of course, the most important one, because it is designed to bring down my first reading of the day, and it can’t do that if I don’t take it. Goodness knows what this mornings reading will be; probably off the scale!
Monday 8th March and we’ve had a really cold night. This morning though has dawned bright and sunny. Indeed, the weather man tells us to expect a few dry days, and so with that info to hand, we plan on turning the boat around so as to plug the leaks in our windows.
We have a tube of Capt. Tolley’s Creeping Crack Cure, which has to be applied at 30 minute intervals, and this is easiest carried out with the recalcitrant side of the boat against the decking. The leaks have been there for some time now, so it’s best we fill them asap and before the next downpour. Without the leaks we can leave the windows closed during heavy rain and high winds. If we leave them as they are, we have to leave the windows open and allow the rain to drip down the outside, instead of on the carpet.
Shopping day today, at Morrison’s in Loughborough first though, must get some of their lovely meat pies.
Tuesday 9th March and, if I’m not mistaken, the 70th birthday of an old friend called Brian Willis. How strange to remember him when I don’t think I’ve set eyes on him for at least 10 years, and probably more. He it was who befriended me on our very first day in Harlow, far away from the stink and mess of East London. I shudder to even think of those dreadful days. But that’s a story for another time.
This morning we trotted off to Melton Mowbray, as is our wont every couple of weeks or so. This time though, after may attempts we finally found the socks I’ve been looking for. Such a mundane subject, as I’m sure you’ll agree, but these are lovely, warm socks without elasticated tops. Being diabetic my circulation is not as good as it was, so loose fitting socks are best if I’m to avoid further problems of that nature. Much to my dismay I fear I am growing old, and I’m not doing so with very much grace.
The recipe book is finished and safely tucked away inside the laptop. The question I now have to find an answer to, is how best to sell it. I’ve already sent a copy to Kim who’s the nice lady that’s been advising me with regards to compiling it. Her remarks about the book, including the fact that it’s the best eBook she’s seen using their programme, gave me some encouragement. As did the remarks fro my good friend Glo, who was most impressed with the ease with which the recipes can be followed.
My first thought was to sell it on eBay, especially on eBay.com, because there are many folks in the States who are simply crying out for information about the ‘old country’. But I’m wondering if I shouldn’t go the whole hog and set up a small website, which I could promote through Yahoo Groups and other such places. Equally, I could send the files to a print-on- demand company, who would turn the files into a physical book and sell it for me. Whilst I think about it some more, why don’t you lot also give it some thought?
Wednesday 10th March and except for a trip out for a few bags of coal, we really don’t have much to do today.
Yesterday our trip to Melton Mowbray produced a copy of Terry Wogan’s biography for the princely sum of £3, along with another cheapo paperback for £1.50. These charity shops can be really useful at times.
Also, whilst checking my recipe book yesterday, I discovered a few recipes that did not appear in the Table of Contents. This is probably because I assumed, quite wrongly as it turned out, that any additions to a chapter would automatically find themselves included. And so dear Glo and Sandra, both of whom already have a copy, you may find more recipes in certain chapters than are actually listed in the TOC. Won’t that be a nice surprise?
You may remember that in the past I have mentioned the Pirates of the Public Domain, a very nice couple who spend their time scouring Public Domain content that they can use to re-package and sell. On the subject of selling A Taste of England it occurred to me that, just maybe, instead of setting up a full website, I might be able to set up a mini-site, which is simply a Sales Page and a Download Page. I will be checking with the Pirates and what they have to say about such things. I know they have a book about it, so it must be on my external hard drive.
Thursday 11th March and, after a very frosty start, the sun is out and it looks set to be a bright day. We have nothing better to do than pop into Quorn to pick up prescriptions, and Loughborough to Tesco so that Wifey can spend a £5 voucher.
Having decided to start out slowly with the selling of the recipe book, I am now in the process of making a .pdf version. This is because the programme I’ve used to make the original does not support Mac computers, whereas .pdf documents can be read on any platform. Even those people with Macs must eat, so I’ve gotta get ‘em, ne c’est pas?, as Poirot would say.
I’ve actually been looking at the possibility of putting up a mini web site, but it seems to me that this will take an awful lot of effort, not to mention money. However, if anybody out there is able and, more to the point willing, to help me achieve this objective, don’t be shy now, please let me know.
Friday 11th March and it’s been a pretty miserable one weather wise, with mostly cloud and some rain. We haven’t done much to write home about, not unless you consider going out to buy some coal and topping up with water to be worthy of consideration.
We have been listening to Radio 2 though because, since we always catch The One Show at 7 pm, we have been following Christine Bleakley’s preparations for crossing the Channel on a pair of water skis. She must be absolutely nuts but, since it was for Sport Relief and, as of yesterday evening she had already raised over £¼ Million, I suppose she can be forgiven her nutty nature. Anyway, if you are not a follower, she fell about eight times during the 22 mile crossing, but she completed the trip in about 1 hour and 40 minutes. Bloody good show I say! I have to wonder though, just how soon will it be before somebody else has a go, just to get into the Guinness Book of Records?
Sunday 14th March and it’s Mother’s Day, NOT as our American cousins would have it, Mothering Sunday. That’s an Americanism which, for some unfathomable reason, everybody and his dog has taken on board. I hate such things! I also hate those people who insist on using metric measurements, especially in food menus, when there is no legal requirement to do so.
Now, The Hairy Bikers have turned out an excellent recipe book called “Mums Know Best”, but all of the recipes are in metric quantities. Why? Don’t these boys like being British? When you receive your copy of my very own recipe book which, as you already know, is called “A Taste of England”, you will not find a single mention of metric quantities. Why? Because it’s an English language book and as such deserves to be completely and utterly English. I have, however, included a conversion page, just for those of you who have been brainwashed into accepting dictats from the Euro Monsters!! Nuff said!
Incidentally, I have also converted it to a .pdf file, which is available for users of Mac machines.
We were supposed to be going to an indoor boot sale yesterday. But, since my lady wife seems to have lost the ability to read, we seem to have missed it by a week. Not to worry though, I will cry in my beer today to pacify myself at the loss.
Thursday 18th March and the week seems to have flown, so much so that I’ve had no time to update the blog until now.
So, what has happened this week? Well, to be honest, not much really. On Tuesday I attended my 11.30 appointment at Glenfield Hospital, where I was told that I might only have one of my knees replaced. I think I showed my sincere displeasure at this, especially when the same surgeon had already explained that, so long as the anaesthetist was happy with my state of health, he would be happy to replace both at the same time. Anyway, having waited for over an hour past our appointment time to be told this, I was then sent for a pinprick; to see if my iron count was O.K.; followed by an X-Ray, so that the surgeon could determine by how much my knees had deteriorated since I last had X-Rays carried out over a year ago. He only had to ask, I could have told him that easily enough.
This afternoon Wifey should have been walking into Loughborough with Marion. She it is who lives in the next boat to us, with her Hubby Brian. Unfortunately, she works on the site and had a little more to do than she expected. If she’s not too busy tomorrow then the trip will be on again.
A couple of days ago I sent a copy of my recipe book to my Pirate friends in the States and received a most encouraging reply from them, to the effect that I should get it out for sale as soon as I can, because they think it will sell well over there. The Pirates are a fellow named Logan and his business partner Debra, who run their business selling material that is in the Public Domain. Hence they call themselves “Pirates of the Public Domain”. I’ve been a member of their site for over a year now, which is why I’ve spent so much time with the book.
Today I had planned to list it on eBay.com but, since I still have to sort out a decent front cover photograph to list with the other details, I now intend to leave it until next week. I have tried editing the material I already have, but have been unable to save it properly. I also tried saving the actual picture of the front of the book as it comes up on the screen. But, for some odd reason, it comes out as a negative.
What I have now done is to download a free Screen capture programme, which seems to work OK, but the file is far too big for eBay to use. So, since another week is not going to make much difference, I’m now going to do the job next Wednesday. Why Wednesday? Well, I want the auction to end on Saturday in the US, and I want it to run for 10 days, so I need to post it on Wednesday afternoon in order to ensure that my American bidders are all out of bed during the final minutes of the auction.
I am now going ne and post this blog because we are coming into Harlow on Saturday and there’s always the chance I shall forget to do it tomorrow.
See you all at the family do on Sunday.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty, who will spending two night in our local kennels.
Friday 5th March and another frosty but sunny morning.
Yesterday, whilst attempting to get rid of as much superfluous material on the laptop prior to a full recovery, I inadvertently deleted the necessary Key Info for my eBook programme. I therefore had to contact the company, yet again, with yet another problem. It’s just as well that I’ve already sweetened them with a copy of my recipe book. This morning, I’m very pleased to say, that info arrived in an email and I can now use the programme again.
The trouble is that, if the Key Info is not present, the programme will only run in Demo mode, which limits what can be done with it in terms of chapters and pages. All is now well and I must now save this blog to my external HDD for future use, because later today, hopefully, I will be able to carry out the System Recovery and reinstall all the other programmes I need.
4.25 pm and I have spent the last 3 hours faffing about with the laptop, again! The plan was to recover the HDD back to when we bought the wretched thing. This was not a very good idea because, despite having made a Recovery Disc on the day of purchase, this infernal machine does not recognise it as such. After going through all the proper moves to achieve a complete recovery and, having inserted the correct DVD, the screen just stays blank. I swear I can see a slight lifting of the corners in a sneer. I am not amused.
Anyway, whilst deciding what to do next, with the additional brainpower of my better half, it suddenly occurred to said better half, that perhaps the machine refuses to allow me to carry out a recovery, because there’s nothing wrong with the system!!. Well, would you Adam and Eve it?
So, after about 3 hours we then decided to simply uninstall Outlook 2007 and reinstall the 2003 Office suite. This too was not a very good idea, because Outlook 2003 would not work. It seems there is still a .dll file missing or corrupt.
Not to be put off by such trivia, we then went back to the help screen of the 2003 DVD and clicked on the button that asks if you would like to alter the settings and, lo and behold I discover, much to my amazement, that individual programmes can be eliminated from the set up. Out went Outlook.
We are now cooking with gas and do not seem to have any obvious conflicts between programmes. Even this darling little cursor is actually keeping pace with my typing. Whooppee!!!!
Saturday 6th March and it is a much milder morning, but I’m sure that the silly weather people told us to expect sharp frost. Ah well, they got the ‘bar-b-q-summer’ wrong and they certainly got the winter forecast wrong too.
Yesterday evening, at about 6.30, we joined a few other boaters for a fish supper at the restaurant. Well, that’s what they like to call it! It’s more like a lounge come staff canteen, but you know what I mean. I’m told that the manager and part-owner of the place wants it to resemble a Brighton gay bar, but that’s only hearsay.
Anyway, I have to say that the meal was very good and, coming with a bottle of Mexican lager called Corona, at £4.95 was very good value for money. It even included a good portion of Mushy Peas.
Unfortunately, after returning to the boat and watching a bit of telly, I forgot my pre-bedtime jab. I’m on a new Insulin regime now, which includes 3 jabs during the day of 1 type and another at night of another. The pre-bedtime one is, of course, the most important one, because it is designed to bring down my first reading of the day, and it can’t do that if I don’t take it. Goodness knows what this mornings reading will be; probably off the scale!
Monday 8th March and we’ve had a really cold night. This morning though has dawned bright and sunny. Indeed, the weather man tells us to expect a few dry days, and so with that info to hand, we plan on turning the boat around so as to plug the leaks in our windows.
We have a tube of Capt. Tolley’s Creeping Crack Cure, which has to be applied at 30 minute intervals, and this is easiest carried out with the recalcitrant side of the boat against the decking. The leaks have been there for some time now, so it’s best we fill them asap and before the next downpour. Without the leaks we can leave the windows closed during heavy rain and high winds. If we leave them as they are, we have to leave the windows open and allow the rain to drip down the outside, instead of on the carpet.
Shopping day today, at Morrison’s in Loughborough first though, must get some of their lovely meat pies.
Tuesday 9th March and, if I’m not mistaken, the 70th birthday of an old friend called Brian Willis. How strange to remember him when I don’t think I’ve set eyes on him for at least 10 years, and probably more. He it was who befriended me on our very first day in Harlow, far away from the stink and mess of East London. I shudder to even think of those dreadful days. But that’s a story for another time.
This morning we trotted off to Melton Mowbray, as is our wont every couple of weeks or so. This time though, after may attempts we finally found the socks I’ve been looking for. Such a mundane subject, as I’m sure you’ll agree, but these are lovely, warm socks without elasticated tops. Being diabetic my circulation is not as good as it was, so loose fitting socks are best if I’m to avoid further problems of that nature. Much to my dismay I fear I am growing old, and I’m not doing so with very much grace.
The recipe book is finished and safely tucked away inside the laptop. The question I now have to find an answer to, is how best to sell it. I’ve already sent a copy to Kim who’s the nice lady that’s been advising me with regards to compiling it. Her remarks about the book, including the fact that it’s the best eBook she’s seen using their programme, gave me some encouragement. As did the remarks fro my good friend Glo, who was most impressed with the ease with which the recipes can be followed.
My first thought was to sell it on eBay, especially on eBay.com, because there are many folks in the States who are simply crying out for information about the ‘old country’. But I’m wondering if I shouldn’t go the whole hog and set up a small website, which I could promote through Yahoo Groups and other such places. Equally, I could send the files to a print-on- demand company, who would turn the files into a physical book and sell it for me. Whilst I think about it some more, why don’t you lot also give it some thought?
Wednesday 10th March and except for a trip out for a few bags of coal, we really don’t have much to do today.
Yesterday our trip to Melton Mowbray produced a copy of Terry Wogan’s biography for the princely sum of £3, along with another cheapo paperback for £1.50. These charity shops can be really useful at times.
Also, whilst checking my recipe book yesterday, I discovered a few recipes that did not appear in the Table of Contents. This is probably because I assumed, quite wrongly as it turned out, that any additions to a chapter would automatically find themselves included. And so dear Glo and Sandra, both of whom already have a copy, you may find more recipes in certain chapters than are actually listed in the TOC. Won’t that be a nice surprise?
You may remember that in the past I have mentioned the Pirates of the Public Domain, a very nice couple who spend their time scouring Public Domain content that they can use to re-package and sell. On the subject of selling A Taste of England it occurred to me that, just maybe, instead of setting up a full website, I might be able to set up a mini-site, which is simply a Sales Page and a Download Page. I will be checking with the Pirates and what they have to say about such things. I know they have a book about it, so it must be on my external hard drive.
Thursday 11th March and, after a very frosty start, the sun is out and it looks set to be a bright day. We have nothing better to do than pop into Quorn to pick up prescriptions, and Loughborough to Tesco so that Wifey can spend a £5 voucher.
Having decided to start out slowly with the selling of the recipe book, I am now in the process of making a .pdf version. This is because the programme I’ve used to make the original does not support Mac computers, whereas .pdf documents can be read on any platform. Even those people with Macs must eat, so I’ve gotta get ‘em, ne c’est pas?, as Poirot would say.
I’ve actually been looking at the possibility of putting up a mini web site, but it seems to me that this will take an awful lot of effort, not to mention money. However, if anybody out there is able and, more to the point willing, to help me achieve this objective, don’t be shy now, please let me know.
Friday 11th March and it’s been a pretty miserable one weather wise, with mostly cloud and some rain. We haven’t done much to write home about, not unless you consider going out to buy some coal and topping up with water to be worthy of consideration.
We have been listening to Radio 2 though because, since we always catch The One Show at 7 pm, we have been following Christine Bleakley’s preparations for crossing the Channel on a pair of water skis. She must be absolutely nuts but, since it was for Sport Relief and, as of yesterday evening she had already raised over £¼ Million, I suppose she can be forgiven her nutty nature. Anyway, if you are not a follower, she fell about eight times during the 22 mile crossing, but she completed the trip in about 1 hour and 40 minutes. Bloody good show I say! I have to wonder though, just how soon will it be before somebody else has a go, just to get into the Guinness Book of Records?
Sunday 14th March and it’s Mother’s Day, NOT as our American cousins would have it, Mothering Sunday. That’s an Americanism which, for some unfathomable reason, everybody and his dog has taken on board. I hate such things! I also hate those people who insist on using metric measurements, especially in food menus, when there is no legal requirement to do so.
Now, The Hairy Bikers have turned out an excellent recipe book called “Mums Know Best”, but all of the recipes are in metric quantities. Why? Don’t these boys like being British? When you receive your copy of my very own recipe book which, as you already know, is called “A Taste of England”, you will not find a single mention of metric quantities. Why? Because it’s an English language book and as such deserves to be completely and utterly English. I have, however, included a conversion page, just for those of you who have been brainwashed into accepting dictats from the Euro Monsters!! Nuff said!
Incidentally, I have also converted it to a .pdf file, which is available for users of Mac machines.
We were supposed to be going to an indoor boot sale yesterday. But, since my lady wife seems to have lost the ability to read, we seem to have missed it by a week. Not to worry though, I will cry in my beer today to pacify myself at the loss.
Thursday 18th March and the week seems to have flown, so much so that I’ve had no time to update the blog until now.
So, what has happened this week? Well, to be honest, not much really. On Tuesday I attended my 11.30 appointment at Glenfield Hospital, where I was told that I might only have one of my knees replaced. I think I showed my sincere displeasure at this, especially when the same surgeon had already explained that, so long as the anaesthetist was happy with my state of health, he would be happy to replace both at the same time. Anyway, having waited for over an hour past our appointment time to be told this, I was then sent for a pinprick; to see if my iron count was O.K.; followed by an X-Ray, so that the surgeon could determine by how much my knees had deteriorated since I last had X-Rays carried out over a year ago. He only had to ask, I could have told him that easily enough.
This afternoon Wifey should have been walking into Loughborough with Marion. She it is who lives in the next boat to us, with her Hubby Brian. Unfortunately, she works on the site and had a little more to do than she expected. If she’s not too busy tomorrow then the trip will be on again.
A couple of days ago I sent a copy of my recipe book to my Pirate friends in the States and received a most encouraging reply from them, to the effect that I should get it out for sale as soon as I can, because they think it will sell well over there. The Pirates are a fellow named Logan and his business partner Debra, who run their business selling material that is in the Public Domain. Hence they call themselves “Pirates of the Public Domain”. I’ve been a member of their site for over a year now, which is why I’ve spent so much time with the book.
Today I had planned to list it on eBay.com but, since I still have to sort out a decent front cover photograph to list with the other details, I now intend to leave it until next week. I have tried editing the material I already have, but have been unable to save it properly. I also tried saving the actual picture of the front of the book as it comes up on the screen. But, for some odd reason, it comes out as a negative.
What I have now done is to download a free Screen capture programme, which seems to work OK, but the file is far too big for eBay to use. So, since another week is not going to make much difference, I’m now going to do the job next Wednesday. Why Wednesday? Well, I want the auction to end on Saturday in the US, and I want it to run for 10 days, so I need to post it on Wednesday afternoon in order to ensure that my American bidders are all out of bed during the final minutes of the auction.
I am now going ne and post this blog because we are coming into Harlow on Saturday and there’s always the chance I shall forget to do it tomorrow.
See you all at the family do on Sunday.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty, who will spending two night in our local kennels.
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Pillings Lock Marina 2010#4
Tuesday 23rd February and, yet again, it’s snowing. Admittedly we have been shopping and it’s now 4.15 pm, but it’s still snowing.
Now, you will be pleased to discover that I have now, successfully compiled my recipe book. Not only that, the darned thing actually runs, well, it does on my laptop. Hopefully it will also run on yours. I shall be bringing copies of same to the family soiree in March, for anyone who wants a copy.
The problem with MS Word has finally gone away, well, almost. This is because, by taking Sandra’s advice, I completely uninstalled MS Office 2003 and installed MS Office 2007 Home and Student. This came at half price when I purchased the laptop from Comet and it only has four programmes on it but, since we rarely use the others anyway, we’ll plod along with these.
I say, ‘well, almost’ because, whilst I’m sitting here typing in Word 7 the cursor is unable to keep up with me, and I’m not the fastest picker and pecker on the planet. I have also, at Sandra’s behest, carried out a defrag and uninstalled a couple of other programmes, so the machine should now run a little faster, I hope!!
On Thursday, although I hadn’t intended doing so this time around, I’m going down to Harlow to enjoy the jamming session at the Purple Emperor. To hell with the expense I say!
Friday 26th February and a good time was had by all last night at the Emperor. Although it is only a jamming session, they do get some really good musicians and singers there. Of course, lucky old me, I don’t need to put my hands in my pockets, because the art of barter is not yet dead in the good old UK. My dear brother and his friend Steve do a certain amount of work for Martin, the licensee of said watering hole and, in exchange they receive a card with a list of how many drinks they have earned. Steve is genuinely very pleased with this arrangement because, instead of receiving £20 for a small job, he’ll have 10 pints added to the list, which amounts to about £30. So, many quids in!
Now, about my ongoing problems with Word and such. On the very good advice from Sandra I decided to uninstall MS Office Professional 2003 and install MS Office Home and Student 2007. I then left the laptop alone until the following morning, when I decided I needed to send an email to a contact in the USA, which was when I spotted my deliberate mistake of the day before. Of course, Sandra wasn’t to know this, but H&S does not include Outlook! Ooops!
So, there I was with no way of sending emails. Not only that, but all my contacts had been eliminated with the programme. Of course, I tried to reinstall 2003 but, for some unfathomable reason, my lovely new laptop would not recognise the Product Key.
After much faffing about I decided to try a Restore and, to my surprise, Windows 7 actually lists all the things that have been changed over a period of time. Unlike XP it gives date and operation, in my case the uninstalling of 2003. Whoopee! I thought, and set to with a restore to that point.
After quite some time, or so it appeared, everything went back to that point, even to the Outlook icon appearing at the bottom of the screen.
My joy was short-lived however, because the machine then had to go through the full installation of 2003, which was when a particular file seemed to become unavailable, stopping the installation process.
By this time I was almost tearing my hair out and sat back to ponder my options. Naturally I carried out a search for the missing file but, as you will have no doubt guessed, the wretched thing was nowhere to be found. So, all I could do was to stop the install.
By this time of course, the CD for 2003 was now in the drive whilst I was hunting for the lost file, which was just as well because, all of a sudden up came a screen asking if I now wanted to install 2003 or repair it. Oh yes! Bring it on! Let’s do a repair, please!
Luckily for me this process actually worked. The only downside came when I wanted to compose an email. My email text editor is Word, and Outlook is well aware of that fact. Sadly this dumb programme couldn’t find it, and so it reverted to the inbuilt editor. This is OK, but it does mean I get the same nag screen up advising me that Word is not installed on this computer.
The final upshot of all this messing around, was for me to purchase Outlook 2007 whilst I was in Harlow, followed by the final removal of 2003 and the installation of Home and Student along with Outlook 2007. I have followed all this with a good clean out of superfluous programmes and the Registry, all of which seems to have done the trick. The only bug that still seems evident is the inability of Word to keep up with my picking and pecking. It is also a wee bit hesitant about complying with my request for a line break. I tap the return and the cursor simply disappears for a couple of seconds.
Not to worry though, tomorrow is another day and the weekend is upon us again.
Saturday 27th February and, at 5.20pm, it is now raining.
We did a spot of shopping this morning, followed by a visit to the Chandlery at Shardlow for some leak stopper for the windows.
I am still not happy about the way this Office 7 and Outlook 7 are behaving. With Word the cursor still seems to be having a hard time keeping up with my typing. A string of 3 or 4 words will suddenly appear on the document, when I’m expecting all the letters to flow together.
As for Outlook, well, needless to say, having installed it over the previous version, I think I am entitled to expect it to at least send and receive my messages. Nope! Just like in previous situations of a similar nature, I now find it impossible to send and receive through this programme, despite finding that the settings are correct.
I am all but convinced that I have a serious bug in the system. Fortunately I have a complete backup on my external hard drive and so, sometime tomorrow or Monday, I shall attempt a return to an earlier time when all was running smoothly.
Sunday 28th February and I am still suffering from Outlook 7 which will not send my messages. I had intended to restore an earlier backup, which would have sent me back to Office 2003 but, although Word is not perfect in that it is still not fast enough to keep up with my typing, I think I will email Three, who are my service providers, and see what they have to say. Meanwhile I can go online to Absolute Email, which is where my email address is hosted, and send/receive from there.
You see, good people, I have had similar problems with Three/Outlook in the past, one of which was being unable to send/receive because the stupid morons had changed the send/receive parameters without informing their customers of the fact. Lovely people aren’t they?
Same day at 10.15 am. I have been onto the Three site in an attempt to set this Outlook up properly so that it will send. Naturally, no serious help was forthcoming. In desperation I sent them a message asking them to get back to me asap. I received an acknowledgement message and was told that they would contact me within the next 5 to 10 days. How wonderful is that for Customer Service.
All is not lost though, because Windows 2007 has a wonderful email programme called Windows Live. It took no time at all to set it up to send and receive emails at my Shiralee address. For some reason though, it does not like doing the same for Yahoo accounts. But that is of little consequence because I rarely use it anyway.
So, that’s sorted then, at least until I hear from Three, which could be never, knowing how totally unreliable they can be.
Tuesday 2nd March and we awoke to a really heavy, freezing fog but, at 08.45, the fog is clearing and it looks like it could be a bright and sunny day.
As you are aware by now, I am still having problems with Outlook 2007 and so, instead I am using Windows Live Mail, which has no problems whatsoever in sending and receiving my emails.
I contacted my hosting company, who are Absolute Email and they came back with a bunch of things I could try to get Outlook sending mail, none of which work. They suggested in their latest message that 99 % of problems are usually cured by following these instructions, so I must be that other 1%, because I am still no nearer to getting any sense out of this thing.
Still, Live Mail is doing the job and I can still refer back to Outlook should I need any info from the emails stored there.
I am still not happy with Office 2007 though; word is still really slow; and one thing I have noticed, simply because I do quite a lot of it, is that it isn’t possible to copy and paste over an existing document, because, when I do I am then unable to save what I have done. This means that, every time I want to carry out this operation, I have to open a separate document, which takes an age. It is really frustrating.
I am now seriously considering loading a previous backup, which would take the laptop back to a time when I was successfully running Office 2003. In that way I would have the old Word, which is so much faster, along with Outlook 2003, which was happy sending and receiving with the proper settings. Knowing my luck though, the whole thing will be a complete disaster.
Honestly, I am at a loss as to what to do here. I suppose I could back up what I have at the moment, then load the earlier back up and, if that doesn’t do the trick, re-load the new backup.
12.30 the same day.
I have just checked the previous backup and, as far as I can tell, although it certainly looks to be big enough, I am not sure that it will completely return my laptop to the previous time. It’s a question of ‘will it actually recover the programmes I had on it before I ran into all this trouble’.
You see, Windows 7 also includes a utility that provides a mirror image of the computer called a ‘system image’, and this is not what I did the last time I backed up, so I don’t know what restoring the previous backup will do. Oh boy!
It seems that I have spent £100 on Outlook 7 and can’t use it and, because my original 2003 disk now appears to be corrupted, I can’t get the Outlook 2003 back. Again, Oh boy!
I am, as our cousins across the pond would say, between a rock and a hard place.
Wednesday 3rd February at 06.50 and I have a Doctor’s appointment at 07.55, so I don’t have a lot of time to mention this.
Anyway, yesterday afternoon, much to my surprise, I received a telephone from Three. Unfortunately, in a pique of anger because I thought this was a certain Asian gentleman who had incorrectly called me last week about another matter, I closed the phone until, when Wifey asked who it was and reminded me I was expecting them to call! Duh!
I immediately picked the phone up again and, as luck would have it, he was still there. And, lo and behold, a miracle was worked in this day in the year of Our Lord 2010. Having explained the situation he then took me through the whole procedure of setting up my email in Outlook 2007. Whoopee! I can now send and receive.
Now, as you all know, I am not one to complain but, I now find that, although Word 2003 can follow my cursor, it still doesn’t always do as I say. For example, just a few seconds ago, when I tried to embolden today’s date, the cursor highlighted the first letter and stopped. The result of this was, when I tried again it deleted that first letter. Also, if I try to open a document with a simple double click, Word is unable to do so, and so I have to first open Word, and then open the document I want. I do think though, that this is due to the fact that I have both versions of Word installed.
It really would be good if I could uninstall Word 2007, but that is not possible as it would be necessary to uninstall the whole Office 2007 to achieve this and I really do need to keep Outlook 2007. Yaveh! That rock and hard place are still there I’m afraid.
So, as a final (W)word on the subject, any constructive suggestions from you, my good friends, would be much appreciated.
We paid a visit to our local kennels yesterday and were both most surprised at the size of the place. It is huge and has enough space to accommodate dogs from local Police Forces and other Government outfits. Also, where the cost per night at the kennels at Tring was £20, it is only £10.50.
All for this morning, gotta get herself out of bed to take me to the car and to Quorn for my appointment. Looks like a late brekky for both of us today. In case you are wondering, it is rather frosty out there and I do not have full use of my legs at present. It is therefore necessary for Wifey to accompany on these dodgy mornings. Mind you, if I were to fall over, I would certainly have my knees attended to tout de suit.
OK. As I’m sure you’ve now had just about enough of my woes with this laptop, I’m now going to try posting this blog.
Until next time, luv and stuff from Dave, Sheila and our much maligned pooch.
Now, you will be pleased to discover that I have now, successfully compiled my recipe book. Not only that, the darned thing actually runs, well, it does on my laptop. Hopefully it will also run on yours. I shall be bringing copies of same to the family soiree in March, for anyone who wants a copy.
The problem with MS Word has finally gone away, well, almost. This is because, by taking Sandra’s advice, I completely uninstalled MS Office 2003 and installed MS Office 2007 Home and Student. This came at half price when I purchased the laptop from Comet and it only has four programmes on it but, since we rarely use the others anyway, we’ll plod along with these.
I say, ‘well, almost’ because, whilst I’m sitting here typing in Word 7 the cursor is unable to keep up with me, and I’m not the fastest picker and pecker on the planet. I have also, at Sandra’s behest, carried out a defrag and uninstalled a couple of other programmes, so the machine should now run a little faster, I hope!!
On Thursday, although I hadn’t intended doing so this time around, I’m going down to Harlow to enjoy the jamming session at the Purple Emperor. To hell with the expense I say!
Friday 26th February and a good time was had by all last night at the Emperor. Although it is only a jamming session, they do get some really good musicians and singers there. Of course, lucky old me, I don’t need to put my hands in my pockets, because the art of barter is not yet dead in the good old UK. My dear brother and his friend Steve do a certain amount of work for Martin, the licensee of said watering hole and, in exchange they receive a card with a list of how many drinks they have earned. Steve is genuinely very pleased with this arrangement because, instead of receiving £20 for a small job, he’ll have 10 pints added to the list, which amounts to about £30. So, many quids in!
Now, about my ongoing problems with Word and such. On the very good advice from Sandra I decided to uninstall MS Office Professional 2003 and install MS Office Home and Student 2007. I then left the laptop alone until the following morning, when I decided I needed to send an email to a contact in the USA, which was when I spotted my deliberate mistake of the day before. Of course, Sandra wasn’t to know this, but H&S does not include Outlook! Ooops!
So, there I was with no way of sending emails. Not only that, but all my contacts had been eliminated with the programme. Of course, I tried to reinstall 2003 but, for some unfathomable reason, my lovely new laptop would not recognise the Product Key.
After much faffing about I decided to try a Restore and, to my surprise, Windows 7 actually lists all the things that have been changed over a period of time. Unlike XP it gives date and operation, in my case the uninstalling of 2003. Whoopee! I thought, and set to with a restore to that point.
After quite some time, or so it appeared, everything went back to that point, even to the Outlook icon appearing at the bottom of the screen.
My joy was short-lived however, because the machine then had to go through the full installation of 2003, which was when a particular file seemed to become unavailable, stopping the installation process.
By this time I was almost tearing my hair out and sat back to ponder my options. Naturally I carried out a search for the missing file but, as you will have no doubt guessed, the wretched thing was nowhere to be found. So, all I could do was to stop the install.
By this time of course, the CD for 2003 was now in the drive whilst I was hunting for the lost file, which was just as well because, all of a sudden up came a screen asking if I now wanted to install 2003 or repair it. Oh yes! Bring it on! Let’s do a repair, please!
Luckily for me this process actually worked. The only downside came when I wanted to compose an email. My email text editor is Word, and Outlook is well aware of that fact. Sadly this dumb programme couldn’t find it, and so it reverted to the inbuilt editor. This is OK, but it does mean I get the same nag screen up advising me that Word is not installed on this computer.
The final upshot of all this messing around, was for me to purchase Outlook 2007 whilst I was in Harlow, followed by the final removal of 2003 and the installation of Home and Student along with Outlook 2007. I have followed all this with a good clean out of superfluous programmes and the Registry, all of which seems to have done the trick. The only bug that still seems evident is the inability of Word to keep up with my picking and pecking. It is also a wee bit hesitant about complying with my request for a line break. I tap the return and the cursor simply disappears for a couple of seconds.
Not to worry though, tomorrow is another day and the weekend is upon us again.
Saturday 27th February and, at 5.20pm, it is now raining.
We did a spot of shopping this morning, followed by a visit to the Chandlery at Shardlow for some leak stopper for the windows.
I am still not happy about the way this Office 7 and Outlook 7 are behaving. With Word the cursor still seems to be having a hard time keeping up with my typing. A string of 3 or 4 words will suddenly appear on the document, when I’m expecting all the letters to flow together.
As for Outlook, well, needless to say, having installed it over the previous version, I think I am entitled to expect it to at least send and receive my messages. Nope! Just like in previous situations of a similar nature, I now find it impossible to send and receive through this programme, despite finding that the settings are correct.
I am all but convinced that I have a serious bug in the system. Fortunately I have a complete backup on my external hard drive and so, sometime tomorrow or Monday, I shall attempt a return to an earlier time when all was running smoothly.
Sunday 28th February and I am still suffering from Outlook 7 which will not send my messages. I had intended to restore an earlier backup, which would have sent me back to Office 2003 but, although Word is not perfect in that it is still not fast enough to keep up with my typing, I think I will email Three, who are my service providers, and see what they have to say. Meanwhile I can go online to Absolute Email, which is where my email address is hosted, and send/receive from there.
You see, good people, I have had similar problems with Three/Outlook in the past, one of which was being unable to send/receive because the stupid morons had changed the send/receive parameters without informing their customers of the fact. Lovely people aren’t they?
Same day at 10.15 am. I have been onto the Three site in an attempt to set this Outlook up properly so that it will send. Naturally, no serious help was forthcoming. In desperation I sent them a message asking them to get back to me asap. I received an acknowledgement message and was told that they would contact me within the next 5 to 10 days. How wonderful is that for Customer Service.
All is not lost though, because Windows 2007 has a wonderful email programme called Windows Live. It took no time at all to set it up to send and receive emails at my Shiralee address. For some reason though, it does not like doing the same for Yahoo accounts. But that is of little consequence because I rarely use it anyway.
So, that’s sorted then, at least until I hear from Three, which could be never, knowing how totally unreliable they can be.
Tuesday 2nd March and we awoke to a really heavy, freezing fog but, at 08.45, the fog is clearing and it looks like it could be a bright and sunny day.
As you are aware by now, I am still having problems with Outlook 2007 and so, instead I am using Windows Live Mail, which has no problems whatsoever in sending and receiving my emails.
I contacted my hosting company, who are Absolute Email and they came back with a bunch of things I could try to get Outlook sending mail, none of which work. They suggested in their latest message that 99 % of problems are usually cured by following these instructions, so I must be that other 1%, because I am still no nearer to getting any sense out of this thing.
Still, Live Mail is doing the job and I can still refer back to Outlook should I need any info from the emails stored there.
I am still not happy with Office 2007 though; word is still really slow; and one thing I have noticed, simply because I do quite a lot of it, is that it isn’t possible to copy and paste over an existing document, because, when I do I am then unable to save what I have done. This means that, every time I want to carry out this operation, I have to open a separate document, which takes an age. It is really frustrating.
I am now seriously considering loading a previous backup, which would take the laptop back to a time when I was successfully running Office 2003. In that way I would have the old Word, which is so much faster, along with Outlook 2003, which was happy sending and receiving with the proper settings. Knowing my luck though, the whole thing will be a complete disaster.
Honestly, I am at a loss as to what to do here. I suppose I could back up what I have at the moment, then load the earlier back up and, if that doesn’t do the trick, re-load the new backup.
12.30 the same day.
I have just checked the previous backup and, as far as I can tell, although it certainly looks to be big enough, I am not sure that it will completely return my laptop to the previous time. It’s a question of ‘will it actually recover the programmes I had on it before I ran into all this trouble’.
You see, Windows 7 also includes a utility that provides a mirror image of the computer called a ‘system image’, and this is not what I did the last time I backed up, so I don’t know what restoring the previous backup will do. Oh boy!
It seems that I have spent £100 on Outlook 7 and can’t use it and, because my original 2003 disk now appears to be corrupted, I can’t get the Outlook 2003 back. Again, Oh boy!
I am, as our cousins across the pond would say, between a rock and a hard place.
Wednesday 3rd February at 06.50 and I have a Doctor’s appointment at 07.55, so I don’t have a lot of time to mention this.
Anyway, yesterday afternoon, much to my surprise, I received a telephone from Three. Unfortunately, in a pique of anger because I thought this was a certain Asian gentleman who had incorrectly called me last week about another matter, I closed the phone until, when Wifey asked who it was and reminded me I was expecting them to call! Duh!
I immediately picked the phone up again and, as luck would have it, he was still there. And, lo and behold, a miracle was worked in this day in the year of Our Lord 2010. Having explained the situation he then took me through the whole procedure of setting up my email in Outlook 2007. Whoopee! I can now send and receive.
Now, as you all know, I am not one to complain but, I now find that, although Word 2003 can follow my cursor, it still doesn’t always do as I say. For example, just a few seconds ago, when I tried to embolden today’s date, the cursor highlighted the first letter and stopped. The result of this was, when I tried again it deleted that first letter. Also, if I try to open a document with a simple double click, Word is unable to do so, and so I have to first open Word, and then open the document I want. I do think though, that this is due to the fact that I have both versions of Word installed.
It really would be good if I could uninstall Word 2007, but that is not possible as it would be necessary to uninstall the whole Office 2007 to achieve this and I really do need to keep Outlook 2007. Yaveh! That rock and hard place are still there I’m afraid.
So, as a final (W)word on the subject, any constructive suggestions from you, my good friends, would be much appreciated.
We paid a visit to our local kennels yesterday and were both most surprised at the size of the place. It is huge and has enough space to accommodate dogs from local Police Forces and other Government outfits. Also, where the cost per night at the kennels at Tring was £20, it is only £10.50.
All for this morning, gotta get herself out of bed to take me to the car and to Quorn for my appointment. Looks like a late brekky for both of us today. In case you are wondering, it is rather frosty out there and I do not have full use of my legs at present. It is therefore necessary for Wifey to accompany on these dodgy mornings. Mind you, if I were to fall over, I would certainly have my knees attended to tout de suit.
OK. As I’m sure you’ve now had just about enough of my woes with this laptop, I’m now going to try posting this blog.
Until next time, luv and stuff from Dave, Sheila and our much maligned pooch.
Saturday, 20 February 2010
Pillings Lock Marina 2010#3
Pillings Lock Marina 2010#3
It is now Monday morning on the 1st of February and, as you would expect for this time of year, it’s darn cold and the marina has a sheet of ice over it.
Believe it or not I am still beavering away at my recipe book. Unfortunately the programme I’m using, which is called ‘EBook Starter’, does tend to have its own quirks and foibles, which I shall soon be complaining about to the powers that be.
I was sitting here pondering whether or not to continue with the four volume version and decided, NO! This book, if it is to be worth anything at all, and if it is going to have anything like a professional appearance, should be in a single volume or, at worst, two volumes of equal size. After all, with over 340 recipes, two volumes would, I feel, be acceptable to most folks.
Anyway, I started a new project and, being the clever chappie that I am, and not wanting to re-do all the alterations to the fonts and such, I thought I would open the earlier and completed volumes, one at a time, and simply copy and paste into the new one.
This seemed to be going well, that is until I tried to save my work. In saving the old volumes first the damned programme shut down both versions, and I lost all the info I had entered into my new project. That’s about two hours totally wasted.
So, as a result of that bug in the programme, I’ve had to start from scratch. Needless to say this budding author is not a happy bunny. There was another thing bugging me about the programme but, for the life of me, my feeble memory refuses to tell me what it was and until I remember it, I won’t be able to email my contact and complain.
Hopefully Andy from Redhill will be along sometime today to fit our expansion bottle on the hot water tank, that’s the calorifier to us seafaring folks! He’s also going to price up the replacement of our radiators with new double sided ones, which should give us considerably more heat.
All in all this coming month or so is going to be a bit expensive. On top of the work Andy is doing the BW Licence is due soon, as is the Safety Certificate and the engine service and the car service. If it wasn’t for the fact that I need to get to Harlow from time to time, which is a 240 mile round trip, I would cancel the car service for a later date.
Ah well, such are the trials and tribulations of being a boater. It’s not all beer and skittles, nor is it as cheap as some folks would have you believe.
Finally, for today, we’ve got to make a trip to Loughborough and B&Q because we need some poles with which to raise our TV aerial. Some of the programmes are breaking up whilst we’re watching them, and that is probably because the aerial is too low.
Monday 8th February and, yet again, we have snow, but only light flurries, I’m happy to say.
Well now, it seems that, since not very much of interest is going on around us, this blog is turning into something of a weekly affair. So, unless something happens to really pique my interest, you can take it as read that all is normal here.
With reference to my recipe book, I’m still working flat out on it. This is because, as you already know, I’ve decided not to issue it in four volumes, but in two, which has resulted in my having to start again with a different template.
About a week ago I sent off to eBay for a DVD of food images that I intended to use in the book. After all, almost every recipe book around contains images of the dishes as you would expect them to look. Unfortunately, since I’m not about to go through them one by one, cook them all and then take photos of each and every one, I do not have the luxury of actual images of these recipes, some of which are several hundred years old. So I thought I would include photographs of dishes that might bear some similarity to the recipes.
Anyway, the disc duly arrived but, when I ran it on the laptop, one of the folders did not produce the images I expected to see. In fact, the images were not even readable. This particular folder contained other folders and none of the images inside them were actually available to view, just a small square in the middle of the page. I tried reading them in several programmes, but with absolutely no success.
So, I sent a message to the seller via eBay telling him about the problem and he immediately sent me another disc. Surprise, surprise, that one was exactly the same. I sent him another message but, instead of trying to sort the problem out, he opted to cancel the transaction.
Alright, I thought, he can’t be bothered with problems, so be it. But then I got to thinking. Suppose he simply wanted to safeguard his feedback and didn’t want to risk any adverse comments? By cancelling the transaction; and any others he may have that give him grief; he avoids any problems and keeps his 100% feedback record.
This attitude is like a red rag to a bull to me, so I have now enlisted the aid of other boaters and am now asking them to check the discs out on their computers. So far, after asking one person, we find the same is happening to them. I am now waiting for Brian to check the one I gave him, then I’ll check them on Alan’s PC and Laptop, all of which will give me some ammunition for when I have a moan at eBay. With luck the seller will get an ear-wigging, with a lot of luck he’ll be shut down.
Meanwhile I’ll probably include some light hearted clipart in the book instead, which I’ve already done for the front cover.
I don’t know how many of you have been watching The Hairy Bikers of late, but we try not to miss them if we can help it. Anyway, as a result of them mentioning a dish called ’Scouse’, which I did not yet have amongst my recipes, I went looking for it on the net. I found that one, and Jellied Eels, and about 30 more that I didn’t already have. With these additional recipes I now have over 370, and they are all English. No wonder it’s taking so long to finish the book.
Tomorrow morning, after several visits to the surgery, I will be visited by the diabetes expert. This was suggested by the nurse quite a few weeks ago but, having heard nothing from anybody about the proposed ‘home visit’, I had to chase them up. Also, I have still not heard from the hospital regarding my, so-called, haemoglobin problem. At this rate I’ll be lucky if I have my knees sorted out this year, never mind before the end of summer.
Wednesday 10th February and we’ve had snow and rain, and we’re currently enjoying a very pleasant, sunny afternoon.
I had a visit yesterday morning, from a very nice young lady named Kate. She it is who will now be guiding me into the realms of ‘proper’ blood glucose levels. Goodness knows they’ve been pretty erratic of late. It seems that since my current Insulin regime is not doing its job, I now need to adopt a newer and hopefully, better one. This will involve a long lasting shot before I go to bed, along with three, equally spaced shots during the day. Hopefully this will better emulate the way the body works when dealing with blood sugar. Thankfully I am now retired, so such a regime of readings and jabs is not too difficult to maintain. I would hate to have to follow it if I was still working.
Tomorrow is Thursday and, since it is one of those fortnightly Thursdays when the Purple Emperor has its Jam Sessions, I’m off to visit with my brother Alan. When I arrive in Harlow I shall hand the car over to Fred, who will give it a good service, something I’m pretty sure the previous owner hadn’t done for a while. He will not however, be changing the spark plugs – yes, it’s as old as that! – because they are about £10 each. It’s a Twin Spark engine you see, courtesy of Alfa Romeo. However, unlike normal cars that still use plugs, these will run for about 50,000 miles before they need replacing. I am hoping I have a good few thousand miles to go before that becomes necessary.
You’ll be pleased to know that, having found a further 30 or so new recipes, the two volumes are now almost complete. All I need to do now is add the About Page, the Introduction Page, the Foreword page and the Weights and Measures page. Apart from those and a few other fiddly bits, it’s done and dusted. You can’t wait to get your sticky hands on a copy, can you? Go on, admit it, you’re champing at the bit. Have no fear, a free copy will be sent to anybody who wants one, or I might bring them with me to the family yahoo. It’s in two volumes now and will come to you on a CD or DVD, I haven’t decided which just yet.
Sunday 14th February, St. Valentines Day and I do hope you have sent your beloveds some flowers, or have at least been a bit sloppy towards them. For myself I am well content in the fact that my other half gets a cuppa in bed every morning. I’ve got to be knocking up Old Nick before I’m afforded the same treatment. And I wouldn’t have it any other way because it leaves me to play with the laptop every morning.
Thursday went very well by the way, with some pretty good music and singing considering the fact it’s only a jam session. The last singer stood out as rather exceptional and came on stage with dark glasses. Whilst he didn’t sing like The Big O, and didn’t even sound like him, he certainly had a brilliant presence on stage. A bit of a bluesy style of singer.
No doubt our favourite pub will be well booked up for diners today, so we’ll have to get there as soon as they open if we want a seat.
A wee question for you, do you all still have a proper roast dinner on a Sunday? I only ask because, in recent weeks, due simply because we have a liquid lunch on Sundays, we tend to just have a snack in the evening. This could be as simple as an omelette with a baked spud, or a very small fry-up, or it could be just sausages with a couple of slices of toast. We’re more likely to indulge in a roast dinner mid week rather than Sunday.
Shopping at Morrison’s tomorrow and, since we missed it last week, Melton Mowbray on Tuesday.
Thursday 18th February and today we’re off to the chandlery at Shardlow. We are in desperate need of another aerial pole, because our aerial is just a wee bit too low to receive some of the Freeview programmes. We do actually have another pole but, due to a slip up on my part, one end of it has been cut short, and that is the end we need. We are also in need of a sealant for our windows, some of which leak a bit when it rains.
A few days ago the bulb in our fridge decided to blow itself out, which was most probably when I started the engine, without first isolating the mains power. It didn’t like the surge of extra power up it, obviously!
A few days ago whilst walking the dog, Wifey found some old Go-Kart tyres behind the workshop. Now, these are ideal as fenders and are much more robust than the rope ones that we are currently using. So, we asked Steve about them and were told to help ourselves. Now, when we go to Shardlow this morning, we’ll also be looking for a couple of Eye Bolts, which I will drill a hole in the tyre for and attach some rope to.
Tuesday was our day for Melton Mowbray, where we found even more books, even though we had promised ourselves that we would not be buying any this time. We could probably open a small library on the boat. My brother, on the other hand, could probably open a big library at home!
Yesterday Rusty was due for her booster jabs, so off we went to Sileby and the nearest vet. That’ll be another £57 please!
Thus far a pretty busy week but, hopefully, we can chill out tomorrow and the weekend.
Oh! Before I forget. I saw the Doctor on Tuesday regarding my visit to the hospital over six weeks ago, the result of said visit being another blood test. This test I will have to wait until 25th for, after which the good Doctor will decide upon a course of treatment. It seems the problem is not simply anaemia but is something to do with platelets.
It seems that the Surgeon I saw suspects that I have had a “bleed” somewhere in the gut, probably caused by painkillers, so he has told me to lay off the Ibuprofen. The operation cannot be carried out until this is sorted out.
If it looks like taking a long while to cure, then we will try to get in a few weeks cruising. It certainly doesn’t look like my knees will be replaced any time soon.
Friday 19th February and, after a virtual blizzard first thing this morning, we now have bright sunshine. Had it not decided to brighten up we probably not have bothered to go into Quorn. As it is we did so and I’m very happy that we did, because we managed to buy today’s Daily Mail, inside of which is the story of a five year old girl whose mother has received a letter from her child’s school that suggests she is obese.
Now, looking at this young girl’s photograph you would be hard pressed to think anything of the sort and so, as I didn’t have anything better to do, I checked out just what her BMI (Body Mass Index) should be. The formula for this, for those of you who do not know is: Weight in Kilos
(Height in metres)².
This little lady weighs just 23.13 Kilos and stands 1.143 Metres in her bare feet.
Now, when I worked this out as it should be worked out, her BMI is 17.71, which is well within the guidelines which, I believe, gives a figure of 25, at which point you are entering into the realms of obesity. Children, by the way, are assessed in the same way as adults. Go figure!!
However if, as I suspect, the idiots at her school used the formula Weight x height again; though why they should do
Height
so is difficult to comprehend; they would have come up with a figure of 23.13, which is fairly close to the 25 point limit. In any event this young lady is well below the limit and her mother should be complaining most bitterly to the board of governors at the school. Goodness knows how many other children’s parents have been sent such a letter and are now worrying themselves sick.
What’s this, a nine page blog? Goodness me, I’ll just have to post it and give you all something to do at the weekend. However, before I do so, perhaps one of you clever people could help me with a little problem. Naturally it is about this laptop, or rather the MS Word programme.
When we bought this machine I also purchased the 2007 version of Office Home and Student for half price. But when I got the package home, I discovered that the only useful programmes on the disc were Word and Excel, so I didn’t bother installing them. Instead I installed my 2003 version of Office, which has the lot and is completely compatible with Windows 2007.
The problem I have is that MS Word is very slow in opening and equally slow in closing. I should point out here, that I did install the 2007 Office later but, since it was no better than the 2003 version, have since uninstalled it again.
You will appreciate I’m sure that, since I am doing a great deal of work with this recipe book, there are times when I need to refer to Word documents, and it’s really frustrating having to wait an interminable amount of time trying to access information vital to the job at hand.
So, if you can suggest an answer to the problem I would really appreciate the help.
Incidentally, Word 2007 is just as slow.
Now, let’s see if I can get online!!
Bye for now.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
Oops! No dice. 3G is not cooperating today, probably because all the little blisters are on half-term and are crowding the ether.
Posted Saturday instead. Cheers!!
It is now Monday morning on the 1st of February and, as you would expect for this time of year, it’s darn cold and the marina has a sheet of ice over it.
Believe it or not I am still beavering away at my recipe book. Unfortunately the programme I’m using, which is called ‘EBook Starter’, does tend to have its own quirks and foibles, which I shall soon be complaining about to the powers that be.
I was sitting here pondering whether or not to continue with the four volume version and decided, NO! This book, if it is to be worth anything at all, and if it is going to have anything like a professional appearance, should be in a single volume or, at worst, two volumes of equal size. After all, with over 340 recipes, two volumes would, I feel, be acceptable to most folks.
Anyway, I started a new project and, being the clever chappie that I am, and not wanting to re-do all the alterations to the fonts and such, I thought I would open the earlier and completed volumes, one at a time, and simply copy and paste into the new one.
This seemed to be going well, that is until I tried to save my work. In saving the old volumes first the damned programme shut down both versions, and I lost all the info I had entered into my new project. That’s about two hours totally wasted.
So, as a result of that bug in the programme, I’ve had to start from scratch. Needless to say this budding author is not a happy bunny. There was another thing bugging me about the programme but, for the life of me, my feeble memory refuses to tell me what it was and until I remember it, I won’t be able to email my contact and complain.
Hopefully Andy from Redhill will be along sometime today to fit our expansion bottle on the hot water tank, that’s the calorifier to us seafaring folks! He’s also going to price up the replacement of our radiators with new double sided ones, which should give us considerably more heat.
All in all this coming month or so is going to be a bit expensive. On top of the work Andy is doing the BW Licence is due soon, as is the Safety Certificate and the engine service and the car service. If it wasn’t for the fact that I need to get to Harlow from time to time, which is a 240 mile round trip, I would cancel the car service for a later date.
Ah well, such are the trials and tribulations of being a boater. It’s not all beer and skittles, nor is it as cheap as some folks would have you believe.
Finally, for today, we’ve got to make a trip to Loughborough and B&Q because we need some poles with which to raise our TV aerial. Some of the programmes are breaking up whilst we’re watching them, and that is probably because the aerial is too low.
Monday 8th February and, yet again, we have snow, but only light flurries, I’m happy to say.
Well now, it seems that, since not very much of interest is going on around us, this blog is turning into something of a weekly affair. So, unless something happens to really pique my interest, you can take it as read that all is normal here.
With reference to my recipe book, I’m still working flat out on it. This is because, as you already know, I’ve decided not to issue it in four volumes, but in two, which has resulted in my having to start again with a different template.
About a week ago I sent off to eBay for a DVD of food images that I intended to use in the book. After all, almost every recipe book around contains images of the dishes as you would expect them to look. Unfortunately, since I’m not about to go through them one by one, cook them all and then take photos of each and every one, I do not have the luxury of actual images of these recipes, some of which are several hundred years old. So I thought I would include photographs of dishes that might bear some similarity to the recipes.
Anyway, the disc duly arrived but, when I ran it on the laptop, one of the folders did not produce the images I expected to see. In fact, the images were not even readable. This particular folder contained other folders and none of the images inside them were actually available to view, just a small square in the middle of the page. I tried reading them in several programmes, but with absolutely no success.
So, I sent a message to the seller via eBay telling him about the problem and he immediately sent me another disc. Surprise, surprise, that one was exactly the same. I sent him another message but, instead of trying to sort the problem out, he opted to cancel the transaction.
Alright, I thought, he can’t be bothered with problems, so be it. But then I got to thinking. Suppose he simply wanted to safeguard his feedback and didn’t want to risk any adverse comments? By cancelling the transaction; and any others he may have that give him grief; he avoids any problems and keeps his 100% feedback record.
This attitude is like a red rag to a bull to me, so I have now enlisted the aid of other boaters and am now asking them to check the discs out on their computers. So far, after asking one person, we find the same is happening to them. I am now waiting for Brian to check the one I gave him, then I’ll check them on Alan’s PC and Laptop, all of which will give me some ammunition for when I have a moan at eBay. With luck the seller will get an ear-wigging, with a lot of luck he’ll be shut down.
Meanwhile I’ll probably include some light hearted clipart in the book instead, which I’ve already done for the front cover.
I don’t know how many of you have been watching The Hairy Bikers of late, but we try not to miss them if we can help it. Anyway, as a result of them mentioning a dish called ’Scouse’, which I did not yet have amongst my recipes, I went looking for it on the net. I found that one, and Jellied Eels, and about 30 more that I didn’t already have. With these additional recipes I now have over 370, and they are all English. No wonder it’s taking so long to finish the book.
Tomorrow morning, after several visits to the surgery, I will be visited by the diabetes expert. This was suggested by the nurse quite a few weeks ago but, having heard nothing from anybody about the proposed ‘home visit’, I had to chase them up. Also, I have still not heard from the hospital regarding my, so-called, haemoglobin problem. At this rate I’ll be lucky if I have my knees sorted out this year, never mind before the end of summer.
Wednesday 10th February and we’ve had snow and rain, and we’re currently enjoying a very pleasant, sunny afternoon.
I had a visit yesterday morning, from a very nice young lady named Kate. She it is who will now be guiding me into the realms of ‘proper’ blood glucose levels. Goodness knows they’ve been pretty erratic of late. It seems that since my current Insulin regime is not doing its job, I now need to adopt a newer and hopefully, better one. This will involve a long lasting shot before I go to bed, along with three, equally spaced shots during the day. Hopefully this will better emulate the way the body works when dealing with blood sugar. Thankfully I am now retired, so such a regime of readings and jabs is not too difficult to maintain. I would hate to have to follow it if I was still working.
Tomorrow is Thursday and, since it is one of those fortnightly Thursdays when the Purple Emperor has its Jam Sessions, I’m off to visit with my brother Alan. When I arrive in Harlow I shall hand the car over to Fred, who will give it a good service, something I’m pretty sure the previous owner hadn’t done for a while. He will not however, be changing the spark plugs – yes, it’s as old as that! – because they are about £10 each. It’s a Twin Spark engine you see, courtesy of Alfa Romeo. However, unlike normal cars that still use plugs, these will run for about 50,000 miles before they need replacing. I am hoping I have a good few thousand miles to go before that becomes necessary.
You’ll be pleased to know that, having found a further 30 or so new recipes, the two volumes are now almost complete. All I need to do now is add the About Page, the Introduction Page, the Foreword page and the Weights and Measures page. Apart from those and a few other fiddly bits, it’s done and dusted. You can’t wait to get your sticky hands on a copy, can you? Go on, admit it, you’re champing at the bit. Have no fear, a free copy will be sent to anybody who wants one, or I might bring them with me to the family yahoo. It’s in two volumes now and will come to you on a CD or DVD, I haven’t decided which just yet.
Sunday 14th February, St. Valentines Day and I do hope you have sent your beloveds some flowers, or have at least been a bit sloppy towards them. For myself I am well content in the fact that my other half gets a cuppa in bed every morning. I’ve got to be knocking up Old Nick before I’m afforded the same treatment. And I wouldn’t have it any other way because it leaves me to play with the laptop every morning.
Thursday went very well by the way, with some pretty good music and singing considering the fact it’s only a jam session. The last singer stood out as rather exceptional and came on stage with dark glasses. Whilst he didn’t sing like The Big O, and didn’t even sound like him, he certainly had a brilliant presence on stage. A bit of a bluesy style of singer.
No doubt our favourite pub will be well booked up for diners today, so we’ll have to get there as soon as they open if we want a seat.
A wee question for you, do you all still have a proper roast dinner on a Sunday? I only ask because, in recent weeks, due simply because we have a liquid lunch on Sundays, we tend to just have a snack in the evening. This could be as simple as an omelette with a baked spud, or a very small fry-up, or it could be just sausages with a couple of slices of toast. We’re more likely to indulge in a roast dinner mid week rather than Sunday.
Shopping at Morrison’s tomorrow and, since we missed it last week, Melton Mowbray on Tuesday.
Thursday 18th February and today we’re off to the chandlery at Shardlow. We are in desperate need of another aerial pole, because our aerial is just a wee bit too low to receive some of the Freeview programmes. We do actually have another pole but, due to a slip up on my part, one end of it has been cut short, and that is the end we need. We are also in need of a sealant for our windows, some of which leak a bit when it rains.
A few days ago the bulb in our fridge decided to blow itself out, which was most probably when I started the engine, without first isolating the mains power. It didn’t like the surge of extra power up it, obviously!
A few days ago whilst walking the dog, Wifey found some old Go-Kart tyres behind the workshop. Now, these are ideal as fenders and are much more robust than the rope ones that we are currently using. So, we asked Steve about them and were told to help ourselves. Now, when we go to Shardlow this morning, we’ll also be looking for a couple of Eye Bolts, which I will drill a hole in the tyre for and attach some rope to.
Tuesday was our day for Melton Mowbray, where we found even more books, even though we had promised ourselves that we would not be buying any this time. We could probably open a small library on the boat. My brother, on the other hand, could probably open a big library at home!
Yesterday Rusty was due for her booster jabs, so off we went to Sileby and the nearest vet. That’ll be another £57 please!
Thus far a pretty busy week but, hopefully, we can chill out tomorrow and the weekend.
Oh! Before I forget. I saw the Doctor on Tuesday regarding my visit to the hospital over six weeks ago, the result of said visit being another blood test. This test I will have to wait until 25th for, after which the good Doctor will decide upon a course of treatment. It seems the problem is not simply anaemia but is something to do with platelets.
It seems that the Surgeon I saw suspects that I have had a “bleed” somewhere in the gut, probably caused by painkillers, so he has told me to lay off the Ibuprofen. The operation cannot be carried out until this is sorted out.
If it looks like taking a long while to cure, then we will try to get in a few weeks cruising. It certainly doesn’t look like my knees will be replaced any time soon.
Friday 19th February and, after a virtual blizzard first thing this morning, we now have bright sunshine. Had it not decided to brighten up we probably not have bothered to go into Quorn. As it is we did so and I’m very happy that we did, because we managed to buy today’s Daily Mail, inside of which is the story of a five year old girl whose mother has received a letter from her child’s school that suggests she is obese.
Now, looking at this young girl’s photograph you would be hard pressed to think anything of the sort and so, as I didn’t have anything better to do, I checked out just what her BMI (Body Mass Index) should be. The formula for this, for those of you who do not know is: Weight in Kilos
(Height in metres)².
This little lady weighs just 23.13 Kilos and stands 1.143 Metres in her bare feet.
Now, when I worked this out as it should be worked out, her BMI is 17.71, which is well within the guidelines which, I believe, gives a figure of 25, at which point you are entering into the realms of obesity. Children, by the way, are assessed in the same way as adults. Go figure!!
However if, as I suspect, the idiots at her school used the formula Weight x height again; though why they should do
Height
so is difficult to comprehend; they would have come up with a figure of 23.13, which is fairly close to the 25 point limit. In any event this young lady is well below the limit and her mother should be complaining most bitterly to the board of governors at the school. Goodness knows how many other children’s parents have been sent such a letter and are now worrying themselves sick.
What’s this, a nine page blog? Goodness me, I’ll just have to post it and give you all something to do at the weekend. However, before I do so, perhaps one of you clever people could help me with a little problem. Naturally it is about this laptop, or rather the MS Word programme.
When we bought this machine I also purchased the 2007 version of Office Home and Student for half price. But when I got the package home, I discovered that the only useful programmes on the disc were Word and Excel, so I didn’t bother installing them. Instead I installed my 2003 version of Office, which has the lot and is completely compatible with Windows 2007.
The problem I have is that MS Word is very slow in opening and equally slow in closing. I should point out here, that I did install the 2007 Office later but, since it was no better than the 2003 version, have since uninstalled it again.
You will appreciate I’m sure that, since I am doing a great deal of work with this recipe book, there are times when I need to refer to Word documents, and it’s really frustrating having to wait an interminable amount of time trying to access information vital to the job at hand.
So, if you can suggest an answer to the problem I would really appreciate the help.
Incidentally, Word 2007 is just as slow.
Now, let’s see if I can get online!!
Bye for now.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
Oops! No dice. 3G is not cooperating today, probably because all the little blisters are on half-term and are crowding the ether.
Posted Saturday instead. Cheers!!
Friday, 29 January 2010
Pillings Lock Marina 2010#2
Thursday 14th January and still the ice is hanging on. This morning I should have been going to Harlow but, as the outlook was rather foggy, it seemed to make more sense to stay. With a bit of luck and if the weather warms up as promised, I should get there for a Sunday lunchtime drink.
Yesterday, even though it was snowing at the time, we decided to get into Loughborough for a bit of shopping at Morrisons. This was the first time of going since our pre-Christmas shopping, so was something of a treat as I have not been getting much exercise of late. Besides which, we really do like their meat pies. That’s the triangular shaped ones I’ve mentioned before, which are really quite delicious and which we’re having this evening.
It was on the 5th of this month that I saw the consultant surgeon at Glenfields Hospital in Leicester. When we left him he was dictating a letter to my GP regarding my Haemoglobin level which, apparently, was a little bit low and leaning towards anaemia. Would you believe it but, after more than a week his letter had still not arrived. I’m beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, this was a ruse to delay my operation. There’s more than one way of fiddling figures.
We’re still awaiting the arrival of the pump-out and diesel barge and, even as I sit here typing, young Mark has been gamely trying to get round to us through the ice. It seems though that he’s not had a lot of luck, because last time we saw him he was backing up and, quite obviously had given up trying. Hopefully, if the milder weather continues, he’ll make it tomorrow. We are not only in need of the pump-out we also need to top up with diesel. During this cold snap we’ve really been slaughtering the central heating.
Tuesday 19th January and, at last, we have some milder weather, which is just as well, because it’s market day at Melton Mowbray and we are in dire need of some decent sausages.
But first, a couple of Soap-Box moans.
Firstly, and I have taken a particular interest in the subject, so much so that I have three books about it, and that subject is Global Warming. Quite a few people, especially those who rule our lives – and I don’t mean just here in the U.K. – actually believe the crap put out by the IPCC, that’s the International Panel on Climate Change. Personally I have always believed it to be just a load of scare-mongering, but the so-called “experts” seem to hold sway over politicians.
Anyway, having read up on the subject, I am even more convinced of the arrogance of these people, who seem to think that we humans are somehow to blame for the way this planetary home of ours controls our living conditions.
Thankfully some of the real experts are now speaking out against the IPCC and, with a little luck, that ridiculous organisation will eventually be shut down. You, my dear reader, must come to your own conclusions, if you haven’t done so already. In this regard, if you really want the truth, I would urge you to read “The Real Global Warming Disaster”, by Christopher Booker.
The second moan is about that utterly- butterly, stupid heart expert, who goes by the name of Shyam Kolvekar, who now suggests, that this ancient spread should be Banned!! I wonder what our hard-pressed dairy farmers have to say about that idea. Believe me dear reader, if he was aware of the rubbish that goes into the manufacture of the alternative spreads, he wouldn’t dare to even put his head above the parapet. That’s another so-called ‘expert’, trying to tell us what not to eat and drink. The next and obvious item of food he would suggest banning, is cheese, then yoghourt and cream and, as he has already suggested, red meat, etcetera and Blah! Blah! Blah! God help us and save us from these morons.
Now, Sunday was my latest visit to Harlow and the first since before Christmas, in fact as early as the 3rd of December. I managed to find time to pay a visit to my friend Les and her daughter Colette before calling in on Alan. Les is the lady who accompanied me on the school bus run, as did Colette when mum couldn’t make it.
After a cuppa with them; unfortunately husband and father Dave was in the Lake District, so I couldn’t have a few words with him, but I certainly enjoyed the short visit; I made my way round to Alan’s place.
My short visit to Les and Colette was followed by an enjoyable couple of hours at the Emperor and a quite delicious dinner of roast duck and the usual trimmings. All in all a pretty good day. The run home on Monday morning was also plain sailing and I made the trip in something less than two hours.
Wednesday 20th January and a rather dull start to the day, but this did not stop us from going shopping at Morrisons.
Now, just yesterday I mentioned that stupid medic who suggested butter should be banned. That was first thing in the morning. When we returned from Quorn with the Daily Mail, who should have a full page spread but Clarissa Dickson-Wright and, oh boy, did she lay into that poor man. It just so happens that CDW’s Godfather was the founder of the ‘alternative spread manufacture’ Van den Burgh andJurgens, a company whose fire alarm system I once had the dubious privilege of servicing.
When Clarissa was a child her kindly Godfather made her promise never, ever, ever to eat margarine. And, when she asked why, his reply was, “Because you do not know what goes into it”. He, however, was well aware of the rubbish it contained and, to this day, our dear Clarissa has never, ever, ever touched the stuff.
Also, and I was not aware of this, there is no proof whatsoever that eating such a delightful, and natural product, makes any contribution to high cholesterol, as most doctors would have us believe. Clarissa herself, who admits to using butter quite extensively, has a cholesterol reading that “a five year old would be proud of”.
Keep spreading that butter!!
Friday 22nd January and, according to the weather experts, we can expect bucketsful of rain today. This is a pity, because, just yesterday, we spotted a rather large crack in our car windscreen. Obviously, not wishing to tempt providence, I called our insurers and they advised me to call in Autoglass, who advised me that, with the size of crack I described, we would need a new screen. Sadly this has now cost us £60, which is the excess on our policy. Happily £60 is just a fraction of the actual cost of the screen, which is probably somewhere around £400, but I’m only guessing here.
Wednesday 27th January and a week has flown by since I last updated this blog. This means of course that nothing much of interest has happened since. What a boring life we lead.
Of course, we’ve done the usual things, like shopping at Morrisons and pubbing it on Sunday, etcetera and ad nauseum, but nothing untoward.
However, as I may have mentioned a while ago, we now have two radiators with pinholes in, a fact that does concern us somewhat. Some few days before Christmas, I spoke to Andy, the engineer from Redhill Marina, who promised to install our expansion bottle and he popped in yesterday to have a decko and to see what extra bits he needed. The upshot was that he will now install said item on Monday. He will also price us up for new radiators and, hopefully, we’ll get them sorted out soon.
I also asked him about servicing the engine and he quoted £100, which is a far cry from the £200 + that we paid last time. He also said that, since we’ve asked him to carry out the plumbing work, he’ll throw in the extras for the engine for free. I think we’ll take him with us next time we go cruising!
On the matter of my legs, I’m still waiting to hear from the hospital. My GP still has not received the promised letter and it is now three weeks since my visit. He was actually dictating the letter as we left, which doesn’t say much for his secretary. Personally I think it is simple delaying tactics, since most hospitals and NHS Trusts find it impossible to keep to government targets.
And that is just about it for this entry. I must apologise for the delay in updating the blog, but I’ve been up to my eyes in the recipe book. Yeah, I know, what the heck is keeping me? The truth is that I’ve not been happy with the idea of issuing it in four small volumes rather than one single one. So, despite the makers of the programme telling me to limit it to no more than 100 pages or so – and mine is about 400 – I’ve decided to give it a try and publish it as one book. So far, I’m happy to say, it seems to be doing what I want but, since I’m having to go over everything as if it was a new project, it’s taking some time.
Saturday 30 January and, once again I have nothing special to report. One thing I do know though, this Toshiba Laptop is not a patch on the Acer. Comparing both as new computers this one is much slower. However, when the Acer was new it came at almost twice the price of the Toshiba. Still, I would have expected a little better performance, because this one is only a couple of months old and has a dual core processor. It just seems so slow in reacting to my commands.
For example. Opening an existing document seems to take forever. The cursor turns onto a whirling circle and, several seconds afterwards, up comes the script. Then, when I type into the document, the response isn’t always immediate. The same thing happens when I close it, the blue screened, blank document; which really should be white, sits there for several seconds with a whirling cursor. I really don’t know what to make of it.
Also, when I open my recipe book in order to do a bit of editing, I get a message at the top of the screen telling me it is not responding. But, after a while the book does open up for me. And, once again, the same thing happens when I save the work I’ve done. It really is annoying.
I’ve tried re-installing the book programme, but I still have the same problem. It’s as if the machine just doesn’t know where to find the item I want and, when I’ve finished, it doesn’t know where to put it. This really is a slow witted computer, but I suppose I’m going to have to put up with it, because I can’t afford to buy another one.
Now, today is Saturday, the weekend is upon us and we have been promised some much colder weather. There’s no point in me trying to post this blog later today, because everybody and his uncle will all be scrambling to do their own thing online. So I guess I’d better try posting it now.
Before I do though, I thought I might mention the fact that I’ve been looking at an online book publishing site called Lulu. This site will do all the work necessary to compile and publish your book, be it as an eBook or paperback or even hard cover. All you need to do is submit your files and they will do the rest. Well, I’ve had a look at some of the recipe books they have produced and, I must say, my attempt so far looks pretty weak.
So, since it seems necessary to include proper photographic images of food within the pages and on the cover, I sent off for a disc full of same. Would you believe it, when I opened the disk on screen, of all the available folders in there, I was unable to open four of them which contained, in total, over 70Mb of photographs. I am still awaiting a reply from the seller who, by the way, has a good reputation on eBay.
Have a good weekend folks.
Luv and stuff from,
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
Yesterday, even though it was snowing at the time, we decided to get into Loughborough for a bit of shopping at Morrisons. This was the first time of going since our pre-Christmas shopping, so was something of a treat as I have not been getting much exercise of late. Besides which, we really do like their meat pies. That’s the triangular shaped ones I’ve mentioned before, which are really quite delicious and which we’re having this evening.
It was on the 5th of this month that I saw the consultant surgeon at Glenfields Hospital in Leicester. When we left him he was dictating a letter to my GP regarding my Haemoglobin level which, apparently, was a little bit low and leaning towards anaemia. Would you believe it but, after more than a week his letter had still not arrived. I’m beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, this was a ruse to delay my operation. There’s more than one way of fiddling figures.
We’re still awaiting the arrival of the pump-out and diesel barge and, even as I sit here typing, young Mark has been gamely trying to get round to us through the ice. It seems though that he’s not had a lot of luck, because last time we saw him he was backing up and, quite obviously had given up trying. Hopefully, if the milder weather continues, he’ll make it tomorrow. We are not only in need of the pump-out we also need to top up with diesel. During this cold snap we’ve really been slaughtering the central heating.
Tuesday 19th January and, at last, we have some milder weather, which is just as well, because it’s market day at Melton Mowbray and we are in dire need of some decent sausages.
But first, a couple of Soap-Box moans.
Firstly, and I have taken a particular interest in the subject, so much so that I have three books about it, and that subject is Global Warming. Quite a few people, especially those who rule our lives – and I don’t mean just here in the U.K. – actually believe the crap put out by the IPCC, that’s the International Panel on Climate Change. Personally I have always believed it to be just a load of scare-mongering, but the so-called “experts” seem to hold sway over politicians.
Anyway, having read up on the subject, I am even more convinced of the arrogance of these people, who seem to think that we humans are somehow to blame for the way this planetary home of ours controls our living conditions.
Thankfully some of the real experts are now speaking out against the IPCC and, with a little luck, that ridiculous organisation will eventually be shut down. You, my dear reader, must come to your own conclusions, if you haven’t done so already. In this regard, if you really want the truth, I would urge you to read “The Real Global Warming Disaster”, by Christopher Booker.
The second moan is about that utterly- butterly, stupid heart expert, who goes by the name of Shyam Kolvekar, who now suggests, that this ancient spread should be Banned!! I wonder what our hard-pressed dairy farmers have to say about that idea. Believe me dear reader, if he was aware of the rubbish that goes into the manufacture of the alternative spreads, he wouldn’t dare to even put his head above the parapet. That’s another so-called ‘expert’, trying to tell us what not to eat and drink. The next and obvious item of food he would suggest banning, is cheese, then yoghourt and cream and, as he has already suggested, red meat, etcetera and Blah! Blah! Blah! God help us and save us from these morons.
Now, Sunday was my latest visit to Harlow and the first since before Christmas, in fact as early as the 3rd of December. I managed to find time to pay a visit to my friend Les and her daughter Colette before calling in on Alan. Les is the lady who accompanied me on the school bus run, as did Colette when mum couldn’t make it.
After a cuppa with them; unfortunately husband and father Dave was in the Lake District, so I couldn’t have a few words with him, but I certainly enjoyed the short visit; I made my way round to Alan’s place.
My short visit to Les and Colette was followed by an enjoyable couple of hours at the Emperor and a quite delicious dinner of roast duck and the usual trimmings. All in all a pretty good day. The run home on Monday morning was also plain sailing and I made the trip in something less than two hours.
Wednesday 20th January and a rather dull start to the day, but this did not stop us from going shopping at Morrisons.
Now, just yesterday I mentioned that stupid medic who suggested butter should be banned. That was first thing in the morning. When we returned from Quorn with the Daily Mail, who should have a full page spread but Clarissa Dickson-Wright and, oh boy, did she lay into that poor man. It just so happens that CDW’s Godfather was the founder of the ‘alternative spread manufacture’ Van den Burgh andJurgens, a company whose fire alarm system I once had the dubious privilege of servicing.
When Clarissa was a child her kindly Godfather made her promise never, ever, ever to eat margarine. And, when she asked why, his reply was, “Because you do not know what goes into it”. He, however, was well aware of the rubbish it contained and, to this day, our dear Clarissa has never, ever, ever touched the stuff.
Also, and I was not aware of this, there is no proof whatsoever that eating such a delightful, and natural product, makes any contribution to high cholesterol, as most doctors would have us believe. Clarissa herself, who admits to using butter quite extensively, has a cholesterol reading that “a five year old would be proud of”.
Keep spreading that butter!!
Friday 22nd January and, according to the weather experts, we can expect bucketsful of rain today. This is a pity, because, just yesterday, we spotted a rather large crack in our car windscreen. Obviously, not wishing to tempt providence, I called our insurers and they advised me to call in Autoglass, who advised me that, with the size of crack I described, we would need a new screen. Sadly this has now cost us £60, which is the excess on our policy. Happily £60 is just a fraction of the actual cost of the screen, which is probably somewhere around £400, but I’m only guessing here.
Wednesday 27th January and a week has flown by since I last updated this blog. This means of course that nothing much of interest has happened since. What a boring life we lead.
Of course, we’ve done the usual things, like shopping at Morrisons and pubbing it on Sunday, etcetera and ad nauseum, but nothing untoward.
However, as I may have mentioned a while ago, we now have two radiators with pinholes in, a fact that does concern us somewhat. Some few days before Christmas, I spoke to Andy, the engineer from Redhill Marina, who promised to install our expansion bottle and he popped in yesterday to have a decko and to see what extra bits he needed. The upshot was that he will now install said item on Monday. He will also price us up for new radiators and, hopefully, we’ll get them sorted out soon.
I also asked him about servicing the engine and he quoted £100, which is a far cry from the £200 + that we paid last time. He also said that, since we’ve asked him to carry out the plumbing work, he’ll throw in the extras for the engine for free. I think we’ll take him with us next time we go cruising!
On the matter of my legs, I’m still waiting to hear from the hospital. My GP still has not received the promised letter and it is now three weeks since my visit. He was actually dictating the letter as we left, which doesn’t say much for his secretary. Personally I think it is simple delaying tactics, since most hospitals and NHS Trusts find it impossible to keep to government targets.
And that is just about it for this entry. I must apologise for the delay in updating the blog, but I’ve been up to my eyes in the recipe book. Yeah, I know, what the heck is keeping me? The truth is that I’ve not been happy with the idea of issuing it in four small volumes rather than one single one. So, despite the makers of the programme telling me to limit it to no more than 100 pages or so – and mine is about 400 – I’ve decided to give it a try and publish it as one book. So far, I’m happy to say, it seems to be doing what I want but, since I’m having to go over everything as if it was a new project, it’s taking some time.
Saturday 30 January and, once again I have nothing special to report. One thing I do know though, this Toshiba Laptop is not a patch on the Acer. Comparing both as new computers this one is much slower. However, when the Acer was new it came at almost twice the price of the Toshiba. Still, I would have expected a little better performance, because this one is only a couple of months old and has a dual core processor. It just seems so slow in reacting to my commands.
For example. Opening an existing document seems to take forever. The cursor turns onto a whirling circle and, several seconds afterwards, up comes the script. Then, when I type into the document, the response isn’t always immediate. The same thing happens when I close it, the blue screened, blank document; which really should be white, sits there for several seconds with a whirling cursor. I really don’t know what to make of it.
Also, when I open my recipe book in order to do a bit of editing, I get a message at the top of the screen telling me it is not responding. But, after a while the book does open up for me. And, once again, the same thing happens when I save the work I’ve done. It really is annoying.
I’ve tried re-installing the book programme, but I still have the same problem. It’s as if the machine just doesn’t know where to find the item I want and, when I’ve finished, it doesn’t know where to put it. This really is a slow witted computer, but I suppose I’m going to have to put up with it, because I can’t afford to buy another one.
Now, today is Saturday, the weekend is upon us and we have been promised some much colder weather. There’s no point in me trying to post this blog later today, because everybody and his uncle will all be scrambling to do their own thing online. So I guess I’d better try posting it now.
Before I do though, I thought I might mention the fact that I’ve been looking at an online book publishing site called Lulu. This site will do all the work necessary to compile and publish your book, be it as an eBook or paperback or even hard cover. All you need to do is submit your files and they will do the rest. Well, I’ve had a look at some of the recipe books they have produced and, I must say, my attempt so far looks pretty weak.
So, since it seems necessary to include proper photographic images of food within the pages and on the cover, I sent off for a disc full of same. Would you believe it, when I opened the disk on screen, of all the available folders in there, I was unable to open four of them which contained, in total, over 70Mb of photographs. I am still awaiting a reply from the seller who, by the way, has a good reputation on eBay.
Have a good weekend folks.
Luv and stuff from,
Dave, Sheila and Rusty.
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