28May1997

28/05/97
My dear folks,

There is peace in the house if not exactly order. It’s been a busy 24 hours & quite satisfying. First & foremost, Mr Mavis & Pupu have both paid their reluctant annual visits to the vet. Stef & I met mid-morning at her front door, Pupu squealing in her plastic cage & Mave (who doesn’t run to cages) hissing his displeasure from the top of a partially zipped carry-bag. He’d let me know in no uncertain terms how he felt this mode of transport. We manoeuvred the four of us into the Rocket & set out.

At the vet, the receptionist was carrying on a solemn phone conversation with an unknown party about a pet to be disposed of, its “ashes to be scattered over the animal cemetery”. It’s not Mave’s ashes that get scattered around, it’s his bloody hairs. Mave & I sat there unfeelingly while Pupu got done. When it came to his turn, I got a lecture on the danger of urine crystals which ordinary cat-foods pose, especially to large neutered male felines. Emergency treatment I was warned was “very expensive”. I said I’d operate myself with a screwdriver – horrified gasp from lady carrying meowing tortoiseshell cat. Mave, having had his examination & suffered his jabs, leapt straight back into the carry bag. He’d got to know a good thing when he saw it. Drama over for another year! We both feel we don’t need it.

The rest of the day is going on my next application to BBC OnLine, this time for real jobs. Requires a lengthy exposition of how one would set out the site & reflect the news of 27 May. I spent a couple of hours on the Net last night taking note of what various rival operations had done. You won’t want details. I’ll need to drop in on the Beeb later to fetch the right application form, having been sent the wrong one.

There’s one programme on my computer I must mention in passing. I’d been fiddling around with the multi-media features with a view to adding “audio editing” to my impressive list of PC skills. In doing so, I stumbled across a programme that allows one to compose music on a virtual piano keyboard. You simply mark in the note or notes you want & their length, then you press “play” to hear how your composition sounds. If you’re clever enough, you can add all kinds of features & beats. I suppose that if you’re clever enough, you can compose real music. I didn’t get that far. What I still have to do is to hook up the microphone to the computer, try recording something & then see if I can edit it. I know that one can buy software for this. I’m just not sure if it comes ready supplied.

Awaiting attention are the door & window frames around the patio. They’d long been showing signs of the battering they’ve taken these last two winters. So I’ve rubbed them down & bunged on layers of primer & undercoat. I’ll finish the job with gloss this evening. Looks vastly better already.

Also looking much happier are the patio flowers which I’ve given a good going over, mixing new goo into the troughs, aerating the soil & thoroughly watering everything.. The leaves on the newest climber were getting marked with a nasty bug. I took a leaf along to the nursery, which identified the infection as mildew & supplied me with the appropriate muti. The last few days have started chilly & rapidly warmed up, finishing with long sunny evenings. (Jones CNN forecasts cloud for Faro Wed/Thur and showers Fri/Sat.) I dropped in on Stef & Herman last night to compare notes & holiday plans. For once they’re not trying to finish half a dozen jobs simultaneously. I’m enjoying the second of four consecutive days off (assuming I’m not called in), utter luxury………enough for the moment.

Blessings
T