Today I finished uploading my latest photos of our grandchildren onto my
Flickr site - click on the link to the site, on the right hand side, if you'd like
to see them. I also went along to hear a talk at my local U3A this morning,
all about The Kindle, which comes  in several versions as you might know.
I can't say I'll ever use one, as I read mainly computer and photography
magazines, and newspapers at present ... I tend to read books when I'm
away on holiday, when I don't have access to a computer.

I spent an hour or so, going through a pile of family photos that Mrs C
had decided throw out ... I saved about a third of them plus a stack of
negatives. I haven't got the time or motivation at present, to re-organize
all these photos & negatives with their related copies. Enough said about
all that.

I'm pleased to say that there's more fantastic Scandinavian TV drama
coming to our screens ...
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2012-02-05/don't-panic,-borgen-and-the-killing-fans---there's-more-where-they-came-from

We watched the first episode of "Sebastian Bergman" on Catch-up TV,
this afternoon ... brilliant, plus a very dated re-run of "Wycliffe". Earlier in
the week, we watched the first episode of an American TV drama called
"Revenge", which looks very promising ... though I thought the plot was
rather OTT.  The lovely Madeline Stowe plays one of the leading parts:
the matriarch, Victoria Grayson. Looking at her CV on Wikipedia, I
recalled which one of her many films I'd seen her in - "Short Cuts".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_(TV_series)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Stowe
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108122/  (Short Cuts)

I recognized Rachel Shelley (who plays Helena Peabody in "The L Word")
in the 1997 episode of "Wycliffe" ... another very familiar face, as I see she's
been in lots of TV drama over the years ... http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0791226/

Mrs C and I are taking another holiday this coming week, in gay Paris ... so
I'll be back to blogging in 1-2 weeks' time.

Some like it hot

I’m very pleased that Summer has finally arrived … the UK was hit by a heat
wave yesterday, and the weather has been transformed from being cold,
damp and wet, to being hot and sunny … as if someone has switched on an
electric oven.

It was a bit too hot for me yesterday … I hopped onto a bus yesterday
afternoon (to re-visit a photography exhibition in town), which was far too
hot. All the windows on the bus were shut and it felt like being in a sauna.
I used a different bus service on the way home, which had the air-con on …
absolutely gorgeous.

As I’ve said a few times already, summer’s really arrived when it’s too hot
for me to wear my longjohns. Even so, sitting here in my top floor study
(where it’s 26 deg C), I’m still wearing a cotton vest under my shirt … as I
feel more comfortable when I’m “toasty”. This is in stark contrast with Mrs C
(and I guess with most women of a certain age), who, when they reach the
menopause, can’t tolerate such heat. Mrs C used to love sunbathing on a hot
sunny beach … that’s not what she likes now.

I can’t stand (there’s a pun here) sitting on a beach all day, doing nothing …
I like to be on the move, looking at the local scenery / wandering around old
cities / villages, & then sitting in a quiet shady corner, drinking tea, coffee or a
cold lager.  That’s my idea of a holiday … a bit like being retired, living in a
fabulous city like Nottingham, and pottering around our house …  my life is
a wall-to-wall holiday.

In the past few days (when I’ve not been out in the sunshine), I’ve been
busy putting together my first website using WordPress. It’s been a fairly
steep learning curve, even though I feel fairly confident using Blogger (and
customising it, to how I like it).

I’m building the website for my singer-songwriter neice … I’ve got the
basic framework together (having added several plugins), but I’m now
waiting for all the content from my neice.

She is a professional artist also,  and is creating a banner for her site (to
replace the Twenty Eleven ones). She’s asked me to keep her site under
wraps until Launch Day, so when LD happens, I’ll reveal it to you.

After I’ve cut my teeth on this project, I’ll see about setting up a WPress
site to take over from this one.

By the way, if you're about to pay for web-hosting for WordPress, I can
recommend GoDaddy to you. You can phone them on a UK landline
phone number** to pay for the web-hosting. A guy at GoDaddy, helped
me set it all up in about 5 -10 minutes, (with the GoDaddy website
up on the computer screen in front of me). The site was activated within
1-2 hours (by GoDaddy). All this saved me several hours of work,
working out how to do it.

The key to logging into WordPress at the very start (and subsequently) is
to use this address for the login page ...

http:// (your domain name without the www) / wp-admin

You then enter your password .. the GoDaddy guy made a few helpful
suggestions about this.

The customer service with GoDaddy was exceedingly good. 

Talk to you soon,

J.

**  020 7979 2661

Home Alone

I’m taking Mrs C to Coventry early tomorrow morning, where she’ll spend
the weekend at a conference all about sex therapy counselling. This is an
annual event, so I’ll be on my own for most of this coming weekend. One
thing that tends to happen is that I just eat snacks, such as beans / sardines /
scrambled egg & tomatoes on toast, rather than cook myself a proper meal
(such as an omelette with spuds, carrots and lots of green veg) … in other
words, my diet tend to go to pot.

Sometimes, when Mrs C is away, I treat myself to fish & chips, plus an extra
glass or two of wine / lager  (I’ve reduced the booze to about 8 units of wine
per week, for health reasons and also to economise) … so I might be feeling
very merry tomorrow evening, slumped in front of the telly. If I were more
adventurous, I might go out instead to a pub to listen to some blues music …
but I’m put off by the cold and damp weather we’re having at the moment,
and travelling home by myself late at night.

I sometimes wonder what life would be like if I were living on my own. I
know several people who enjoy doing so, but who also happen to be fairly
sociable (getting out to meet people in a whole variety of settings).  I would
certainly miss the companionship of someone like Mrs C to be with, to chat
about our interests and the people we know, and of course, I’d miss our
cuddles.

Mrs C is the centre of the universe as regards our four girls and their partners
and children (and all our other relations) … she is the queen bee when it comes
to texting everyone.

I’m still struggling to get faster at texting … it takes me about 5 minutes just to
fill one screenful of text on my old Nokia phone, as I find the keys very difficult
to press … I’m about to switch over to a more modern Nokia phone which
belonged to one of my daughters, and which I find is a lot easier to use. (She’s
progressed onto an HTC 10 smart phone, which she’s very pleased with).

My mobile phone use is very limited … I send out about 3-5 texts a week
(which I’ll increase in due course, hopefully with the “new” phone) … I’ve kept
my phone switched off for the best part of 5-6 years, so no-one bothers to text
me (they text Mrs C instead). I’ve found a cheap pay-as-you-go service with
TalkTalk, where texts cost only about 4p each, but I’ve yet to find out if the
UK coverage is as good as Orange’s service. I’ll switch back to using Orange
if it isn’t.

Such is my current mobile phone usage, that Mrs C now ticks me off if I don’t
take it everywhere with me (switched on). “If only your phone was switched
on, I would have asked you to get me …. (from the shops).”  Mrs C usually
follows this up with a few more sentences, cursing me for not being easier to get
in touch with.  Oh the joys of modern technology.

I’ll be keeping my phone on this weekend, as Mrs C likes to send me a text at
bedtime …. “Missing you xxxx” or “Night-night xxxx”

Perhaps I should break the (non) habit of a life-time, and send her a (pre-emptive)
cute message?

P.S. I've put some photos of our holiday in The Algarve, Portugal, onto my Flickr
site. Here’s a small selection of them …

(I've tried several ways of increasing the size of these photos including uploading 
a larger size from my Picasa web album, without any success ... grrr.)

Phew ...

I've managed to rescue my side-bar as you will see, so my blog is still here
for the mo.. I've created a Google account, and have added myself again
as a second author to this blogsite ... you will see "justinc" as the author's
name just below this post.

I'm not at all happy with what Blogger has done to my site. I reckon they're
putting pressure on Old Bloggers (B..gers) like me to switch to New Blogger,
which they've more or less done.  Anyway, for the time being, I'll just carry on
rambling on in my usual fashion.

I'll look into moving over to WordPress on my return from holiday ... and
will keep you posted.

P.S. Thanks for your earlier comment, Helen, about keeping your eye on the
situation ... I appear to be back in business.

I'm having problems with Blogger

Hi everyone, I've just been on my site to check how it's going,  and have found
that Blogger has revamped its layout. My Archives section was rubbished in
the process, and I've had to borrow some HTML code from another blogsite to
retrieve all my archives.

Also I'm having to use Internet Explorer to login into my blogsite, rather than
Google Chrome ...the latter specifies entering details of a Google Account,
which I'll have to have a think about.

If my access to this Blogger account is blocked in future, then I'll let my regular
readers know by putting messages in their comment boxes. I will send emails to
other readers of mine, those of you who I've contacted by email in the past.