Technology !
I can use touch screen phones , though its taken me a few days to realise it . And I can upload my own photos from the phone as well as from the camera without reference to Nat , though it did take me a while to get that bit organised .( poking cd s into the laptop and figuring out what they meant ) . And this time it was almost worth it as the resulting shots are ok , the outdoors one anyway .
What really galls me is that being one of those sad adults who reads the manual would you believe , is that there are almost no instructions on how to use the camera , so its all trial and error , mostly error .
I did consult Katherine, who is 14, and has the same phone , regarding the so called smile feature , which didn't appear to be working . This apparently enables the camera to detect when someone is smiling and yes , take a shot automatically . Ha! As nothing much about either phone or camera worked first time ,( my ineptitude) I hurried off to see K , but on this one she admitted defeat . Its rubbish , she said , doesnt work ! What I squealed ? That kind of thing I find completely unacceptable in a silly old bat kind of way which has me reaching for my old fashioned pen and paper , all ready to scribe a pompous letter of complaint to Samsung . K is far more sanguine . Nah she said , munching on her crisps , doesn't work . End of story . No big deal .
I take a deep breath . There are things to be learned here . Who cares really? My subject smiles . I press the shutter by hand . That's what photographs are , really .

Jess the cat is sufficiently recovered from her inflamed bladder ( for thus it was ) to be able to perch on the edge of my paper making table ( dining table transformed ) and making disapproving faces of the " when are you doing the tidying ? "

Meanwhile after much procrastination , I suddenly mid blend of some red and black paper , find the right words to start a new draft of some writing I am doing and head off to the laptop leaving Pearl investigating the shallow tray of yellow pulp ( hmm , not a good idea . Ten minutes later I am investigating a lovely custard yellow puddle on the floor and the guinea pigs are ranting disapprovingly in tandem from the top deck of their abode ... " You shouldn't have left her in charge , you shouldn't have left her in charge . Now give us a grape , now give us a grape . " )
Pearl is by this time surveying the scene from the top of the freezer presumably in case I hand her a dish cloth and ask her to clear up after herself . There is a definite smirk on her face , in recognition of the fact that she managed to up end the half full blender last time I made paper too and this time I had warned her I was keeping an eye on her . Score two nil .
Nat texts through her first GCSE results , I wonder if I can work out how to download some photos from my new camera phone , and I scratch about for bits of old wool to add interest to my cards . Fridays .... I love them !

666 posts

I see I have written 666 posts on my blog as I log on today .
Not quite sure what this symbolises , although I ruminate as I drive to a piece of private work ( Day Job variety ) this morning that today feels like the day I am ready to put pen to paper and start Something Different . This is not anything new . I am good at starting new things . I have a dozen "fresh" pieces of writing in files on my laptop and perhaps twenty notebooks with first , second and third drafts of this that and the other . My best piece is in a tiny notebook in my second last bag but one and was written in a garden centre coffee shop just after one of those defining moments driving along the ... anyway as I ever I digress when I could be getting on with something .

The point is I forgot to soak my tiny pieces of paper last night . Which needed to be soaked for my paper making this morning . And the reason for that was family traumas involving texts , differences of opinions and hopefully a final resolution ..... all enough to take my mind off the tiny bits of paper ....( Have you ever tried sending animated texts in a hurry to get across your point when you have just got a new touch screen phone ? hey , my advice , don't bother ! Somewhat fortuitously Nat and I were as one , and she was able to do my Rapid Fire Texting for me on this occasion .

The plan was to walk the dog at 7 30 on the beach ( much against her wishes , I hasten to add , she prefering to laze these cold mornings until 11 at least , breakfasting at 8 , quick whizz down the yard if insisted upon , then back onto the bed if she can swing it ) , up to the secure unit to see the young woman ( private work ) at 9 30 , then back to paper making by 11 .

Thwarted on paper making front now will have to postpone till tomorrow but also Jess the Junior Birman has been on and off the pot all night so a trip to the vet appears to be indicated . Poor Lamb she seems to have a urinary tract infection . Jumps into a litter tray , sits for minutes blinking and squeezing , jumps off , having clearly produced nil , hops straight back on and tries again , or five minutes later disappears off upstairs and tries her luck up there .
As I fell asleep last night D reported she was sitting on the tray in the bathroom and when I went in there myself at six am she was parked up on the facilities in the upper Hall looking rather sad and tired . ( You would, wouldnt you ?)
I'm pleased to say she was fast asleep on the warm water bed at ten thirty when I got back from my visit this morning so she has had some relief but she was soon back in situ on the lav so the vets it is I think .
She even tried her best to squeeze a few drops onto the dogs bed but to no avail .

So with paper making off for today , is this the day I do Draft One yet again ? Or shall I wait till I get back from the vets and see how the day is panning out ?
Lets just see what the papers have to say ?

Almost surfing ?

Apologies if you've seen this before . Its just amazing that real people do this right in front of our eyes right near our house ! And in the Winter , in freezing cold conditions .

I think they should be blogged about every day .

Grommit is missing his Boy

.. who has gone back to Liverpool ...

Too much information .

I sense we have overslept .

The dog and I , and a cat at the far corner are all heavily staking our respective claims to stay that way , but the area of the water bed in D's vicinity is heaving and listing and there is an " atmosphere " to it .

" Shall I bring you your coffee in bed " he says , pointedly .
" Ooh that would be nice " I say cheerily and probably irritatingly .

Twenty seven minutes later the coffee arrives , with a low carb snack and an announcement :
The dog has wee'd twice during the night , indoors , despite being taken out on at least one occasion during said night . Poor lamb she must have some kind of infection .
I want to say , Too much information when I am having my coffee but recognise this is not a good response when in order it was Nat who wanted the dog , then me , then D , a fair way behind . And he has both got up during the night ( twice ? ) and dealt with aforementioned problems .
Furthermore , in estimated numbers , he has perhaps dealt with three hundred and fifteen so called "settling in incontinence" problems to my forty-three and Nat's one ( ie wiping up with washing powder and cloths and special spray from Pets at Home .)

The car is iced over . My nose threatens to fall off .
I decide that once my visit to the bookshop and coffee shop to select Origami book , dog walk at the beach ( brrr! ) , a day keeping warm and catching up with the papers would be in order .
The dog agrees.

One of the "Little Bloggers"

Being one of the "Little Bloggers " ie not one of the Big Bloggers who are well known and get hundreds of hits a day and as many comments , I am happy with my small but select band of followers , loyal and true , shunning the limelight some of you but just as important nontheless . You know who you are . I was completely thrilled though this morning to receive e mail pictures as follows from Steve from Petaluma CA , who said my bloggings about my " sheep" had reminded him of his sheep . What do you think ?

He then added :

"These are by the gates going into what used to be a chicken ranch that now has sheep on the grounds and artists in the old coops. Our town (Petaluma CA) was/is famous for chickens. There is even an old movie about it "The Egg & I"Anyway, thought you might like them."

I can't begin to tell you how excited I was .

It was kind of how I felt last week when Wide Lawns ( how I love her blog, and I think of her as one of the Proper Big Bloggers ! ) left a Happy New Year message on my blog . Its kind of how I feel every time every single one of you leaves a message saying anything on the blog .

But this one kind of had that added element of synchronicity attached in that years ago when I was little and off school with flu , my mother gave me an old dusty copy of a book called "The Egg and I " by Betty McDonald and I read it through one week when I was nt well and so wasnt at school . And then we got hold of "the Plague and I " and then there was one about cooking and they were juts great books . Then recently my friend Michaela rediscovered them and we began ordering them really cheaply from ebay or Amazon and I think I may even have blogged about it at the time . They arrived and looked like they were going to fall to pieces but they cost about ten pence and smellt of dust and disease I think I read them when I had pneumonia or some such . And thanked my lucky stars I wasn't in a TB hospital , although I suppose there were days when not knowing my ribs were broken and wondering why it was so painful to cough that I wondered if TB was any the more painful . But that was a long time ago .

My friend Michaela who is not a Blogger cannot imagine how or why a man who lives on a ranch in Petaluma comes to be reading the blog of a cat minding woman in the northeast of England but that I am unable to answer .

That is part of the great inexplicable mystery of the blogging world .