Scargill

Another year draws toward it’s conclusion. We had a nice day today overall, got up late, in my case because I was up until 2.30am last night playing the excellent “Bioshock Ultimate” game on the PC – which I have to say is superb by any standards, action, imagination, imagery. We had some “home made” croissants, that is out of a tin and into the oven– which you’d think would be marginally better that bought in a shop – but no, actually. Still – a nice change.

This afternoon we took some flowers to Joe’s graveside which was a little un-nerving but I guess the right thing to do. We then headed off to Whitley Bay to see my daughter Elizabeth and family – she’s in cloud 9 right now having just passed her driving test. Not sure how long that will last as the crushing costs of running a car become apparent – still – it’s always worked for me (I’m not the world’s greatest lover of public transport) so I wish her well.

As I was sitting, surrounded by Christmas wrapping paper I started twiddling with the mobile phone, testing out a new backup and sync app which I installed last night – and in the process wiped out just under 80GB of data – a process I’m now sitting here near midnight repairing (thank heavens for NAS drive backups). I’m feeling a lot more relaxed now, though the Baileys might have something to do with that. Maureen gave up for the night but I note she’s back up researching summer trips to Spain.

After a somewhat noisy dinner with the grandkids we headed off home and settled down to a little TV. I virtually NEVER watch live TV so when we noticed that Channel 5 were playing the EXCELLENT “Time Machine” 2002 version with Jeremy Irons we put it on record and started part way in to watch so as to excape the ads. This will tell you how long it’s been since I took notice – are you aware you’re looking at 6 minutes of adverts.. we only used to get sessions that long on the hour.  I can’t see TV advertising surviving this generation unless in some radically different form. The only effect ads have on my these days is to bring on homicidal tendencies when I see the leeches that call themselves legal companies offering no-win-no-fee for accidents or the loan sharks who offer interest rates the mafia would be proud of. No, give me recorded on demand video any day.

And so here I am writing this blog, thankful my home office is nice and warm and watching the excellent Windows Security Essentials restore my backups while conveniently cleaning out virii I didn’t even know I had from old files.

Thankfully I’ve a few days break from work and I plan to build another heating controller for the cottage, finish off some work I’ve been doing on lighting and give my office a bit of a winter clean up – meanwhile the cottage has clients arriving at the weekend who’ve returned for their 5th or so break – which is really great so we’ll be giving the place an extra once-over tomorrow to make sure they have a great time. I also plan to grab Crysis 3 while it’s on special offer just in case I end up with any Billy-no-mates evenings in January – I’ve at least one trip to Brussels planned – first time I’ve been there at this time of the year – I hope it’s warmer there than it is here.

Got my pal Jonathan and his wife coming to stay in the gap between new year and work recommencing which is nice.

If you’re reading this before the new year – have a HAPPY NEW YEAR.