Category:Holiday

Hhmmm…this is strange. Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed that randomly, I seem to be losing the ability to connect to other PCs on the network. The biggest problem is that it is random! I thought I’d narrowed it down to a faulty router-modem, but having taken delivery of a new one today, it …
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Julie popped round. She wanted some help with the pdf promotional leaflet for her web-site. Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! My lifelong love of technology and communication (in all its forms), together with a fondness for the art of …
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I ran all of the spyware software I could get my hands on overnight – and they found nothing – so it looks as though we’re back up-and-running. Thanks Dell! Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! My lifelong love of …
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Bugger! The laptop started playing up today – very slow and then it wouldn’t boot at all! Those very helpful people at Dell helped it to boot again, but it was still very sluggish when loading programs. I also found some suspicious activity in the start-up routine (various dll files with random letter-strings as their …
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Being a bit of a ‘completist’, this was very satisfying! I finally got hold of the remaining remastered Alan Parson’s Project Albums – so, I have them all now. From the first – ‘Tales of Mystery and Imagination’- originally released in 1976 right up until ‘Gaudi, his last in the Project series, released in 1987. …
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Well, Plan A was to have Roy and Sue stay-over for the weekend, but it looks as if events have overtaken them this week and they have to get back for Sunday to deal with their horse. Still, it was good to see them and they stayed until about 10.30. We started to clear up …
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I discovered that (at last!) Eric Woolfson has made a couple of his Albums available for download as mp3s. This Album is of the Theatre Production. The world premiere of GAMBLER took place in October 1996 in Monchengladbach,  Germany where it ran for 18 months. In 1999 the leading Asian Theatre Production company Seensee premiered …
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We travel back today. Weather is a cool and breezy 15°C. After checking-out, we jumped in the C4 and headed in the direction of Toulouse Airport but stopped off at ‘Castelnaudry’ a few junctions up on the motorway. A bustling town with an impressive war memorial. We had a quick walk-round and then stopped for …
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We were up at 7.45 having both slept really well. The weather forecast today is for a high of 29 degrees – lovely! After breakfast, we drove to ‘St Hilaire’. There is an Abbey there which is worth a look. It was an impressive place and well preserved. Although it’s now 24 degrees, there’s some …
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We were up at 8 and in breakfast by 9. We were especially hungry as we’d not had any food since yesterday lunchtime and restaurant was closed last night! We’re leaving this morning for our next venue – ‘Chateau de Cavanac’ in er, Cavanac. So, we said our good-byes and ‘fired up the Picasso’. We …
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We were up sharp at 8 today. Looking outside, suggests it’s going to be a hot day – excellent! We’re off to ‘Montauban’ today. It’s a large town, around 50km south-east of base. We got there around 10.15, had a look round the Cathedral and then some shops. Then time for a coffee in the …
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We both slept well judging by the fact we didn’t wake-up until 8am. The weather forecast is for a hot day, so we plan to take the train to Toulouse after breakfast. Well, after taking a drive to the nearest Stations, we discovered that the Sunday service was pretty infrequent, so we decided to drive …
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We left the UK where it was pouring with rain (much like it’s done for most of the week!). Probably the biggest disappointment was realising that there had been some confusion between Ralph and Karen and us – they thought we were travelling NEXT weekend! So, embarrassment all round and no way to reschedule it …
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Jo and Janet came round for a Sainsbury ready-meal Indian evening. It was a real feast. For afters, we porked-out on a variety of Sainsbury’s ice-creams! Too much curry, too much ice-cream and too much wine. Perfect!!! Wow! We were all stuffed. Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post …
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  Hooray!! Finally, after a lot of faffing around (and getting nowhere), I got YouTube to work on my PDA. This involved: …and all from those very helpful people at the XDA-Developers’ web-site. Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! My …
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Paul and Karen invited us round for dinner tonight. We haven’t done this for ages – no reason, just that everyone’s been busy and just not around. We weren’t quite sure who else was going to be there – as it turned out it was EXCELLENT! Ann created a couple of desserts – Chocolate Cheesecake …
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Re-discovered Windows Live-Writer a day-or-so ago and I’m going to try it out over the next few weeks to see if it’s worth keeping and replacing my native Blogger editing tool and ‘ScribeFire’. Initial impressions are good with a whole range of downloadable plugins to add functionality to the blogging (see below) It’s closer to …
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It’s always the way isn’t it? We’re checking-out today and the weather is the best we’ve had since we arrived! We checked-out around 11 and killed a bit of time taking a short walk to the (Scottish) National Trust’s ‘Georgian House’. Lovely! We then picked up our luggage from the Apartment and walked to the …
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We woke up to a very rainy day. After breakfast, we headed out in the pouring rain and took a longish walk to Holyrood – home of the Scottish Parliament. We couldn’t get access to much, but we did take a look round the ‘Queen’s Gallery’ that was full of some lovely pictures. We the …
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We didn’t get up until 9am!! So, after a slow getting-ready process (in spite of a lay-in, I felt shattered…drugged almost!), we planned our day. We decided to visit a number of Museums within walking distance of the Apartments. We also wandered along the ‘Royal Mile’. This was full a number highly colourful characters (literally!) …
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We left home around 6.45, leaving Lee and Bertie to house-sit. We had a good journey to Birmingham Airport and arrived about an hour later. Our flight is scheduled for 10.35, so we had plenty of time to kill before taking off. A trouble-free flight and it even landed ahead of schedule. 45 minutes later …
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Lee and Bertie are coming over to stay for a few days and cover cat-sitting duties whilst we’re away in Scotland. Ann is meeting Nicki in London and having a girlie-day-out to celebrate Nicki’s 40th that’s coming up soon. It’s Mum’s last day with us before Ann takes her back tomorrow, and her staying on …
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I’d installed FF3 on the laptop this week to try it out. It’s excellent and didn’t crash once. Not so sure it’s much faster though – although it does seem to load quicker! Based on this success, I installed it on Ann’s PC and my Dell desktop today. Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late …
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Discovered ScribeFire today – wow! what an excellent program for Blogging! Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! My lifelong love of technology and communication (in all its forms), together with a fondness for the art of writing seemed to be …
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Wow! That was a surprise… David and Val said they might be moving house. Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! My lifelong love of technology and communication (in all its forms), together with a fondness for the art of writing …
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A short walk to Jo and Janet’s for lunch today. Chris and Pete were there too and so was Carol! A brilliant lunch – we both ate far too much…but it was difficult to ignore the excellent spread!! We got back around 5.15. Porkers both!!!! Ralph’s small operation went without a hitch – that’s good …
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It’s our last day today. We woke around 5.30am, had a coffee and caught up with news. We had breakfast as normal and then started to pack. We’ll be leaving here around 16.30 to catch our plane flying at 18.10. We took a short walk down to City Hall and chilled out in the sun! …
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Our sleep pattern seems to be more normal and we slept through to 6am. Ann went to the gym, whilst I caught up with my reading and tried to work out why no emails have been getting through since Saturday. It would seem that the ‘forwarding’ part is broken at the server end! Our last …
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