You wouldn't believe
how glad I am to be writing this; our computer was getting slower and slower, the naughty ladies kept coming back and when we clicked on a site on AOL it went off. As we tried to sort it out there were fewer and fewer things fonctioning on the computer. Everything was closing down so we decided to buy a new one. That's the good news. The bad news is that I couldn't save any of my documents. All of my archives, music, photos have gone (or at least they are still on the other one). Things could be worse, I thought that my bookmarks on AOL had been lost, they popped back this afternoon. I spent the whole morning seeking out my sites and trying to find passwords. Anyway, life is a bit faster and we have a media thing too so Olivier can watch Reutiers news. We haven't got Word anymore but something a bit basic, the spell checker only checks French which means I have to read everything back carefully; Rob also decided to get a higher speed and Wifi and unlimited telephone which, after the initial payment, isn't any more expensive that the AOL we have at the moment. We'll have to wait three weeks for that.

Our next door neighbour has Wifi as Dom discovered when she was installing everything and it kept popping up. I had to return a watering can that blown off the wall in the wind so I asked him about it and he said that's normal and if we had any problems to ask him as his job is computers. If we'd have known that that a couple of days ago........

I did a short translation this morning for one of our marine biologists that Rob keeps in touch with. I really enjoyed it. I miss my scientists.

Saintes
Do you remember the trip Rob and I made to Saintes in April when it was really cold? I wrote about it on the 6th. At the time I couldn’t find any photos online that I thought did the town justice. However, our local paper recently ran an article about a young man from the US who is lucky enough to spend his summers in Saintes. For a school project he created a website about the town. As with local papers there was a mistake in the site’s address but I managed to track him down (I do have 30 episodes of Columbo under my belt) and he sent me the address so here it is.

Unconscious Mutterings

1. Cruel :: evil


2. Jive :: dance


3. Weak :: frail


4. Understand :: empathy


5. Bum :: tramp


6. Stairs :: up


7. Tone :: sound


8. Quickly :: run


9. Moment :: now


10. Beating :: drum

Touch Wood
I haven't seen a naughty lady with no clothes on today - yet. Dom twiddled around and things appear to have settled down. My site loads properly if I use internet explorer and one or two sites seem to have re-appeard. I haven't checked Haloscan yet. I've got to check my blogroll as a few were missing there too, I have their email addresses so hopefully I can keep in touch that way.

I think I can say that yesterday Dom earnt her teapot.

We've been having rain. Lots of floods throughout France. Rob was busy at work too (for a change).

I’ve really done it this time.
I’m in a real mess now. Still trying to get access to some sites. Yesterday I tried lowering the cookie barrier for a minute or two. I still couldn’t see the missing sites. In the meantime pop ups of naughty ladies got in and keep coming back. When I go onto my site they take over some of the banners, I do hope that you can’t see them. They keep popping up and annoying everyone. I’ve got rid of icons but that doesn’t seem to work. I think that Rob has installed the Google toolbar thing to protect us, but they really are determined that we see them in their state of undress! I don’t know what to do next. I don’t want to make matters worse because we are wasting a lot of time over this.

On a more cheerful note
Dom and I went shopping yesterday to get odds and ends for her room in Poitiers. First of all we called into her banks (yes, she already has accounts in two banks!), then we had coffee while we waited for the bus to the shopping center. It was nice because we’ve never been out for coffee on our own before. We went to a bankruptcy stock shop and bought tea towels, a can opener, coat hangers etc. We spent more than we thought we would but got one or two things which weren’t on the list; like a lovely one cup teapot with a heart pattern. Really sweet but I bet she’ll never use it.

Unconscious Mutterings

1. Kim :: Kit


2. Designate :: leadership course


3. Liner :: QE2


4. Weed :: thistle


5. Infusion :: tea


6. Nutritious :: banana


7. Favorites :: TV


8. Transform :: change


9. 42 :: the answer to the question


10. Sunday afternoon :: walk

A blast from the past
I haven’t opened my diaries for a while…

Wednesday August 13th 1980
I went to the doctors, I don’t know why. I had a lesson on my brother’s bike, I presume it was his motorbike. I don’t remember ever riding a motorbike on my own, but I must have AND lived to tell the tale. I only weighed 9 stones in those days ‘sigh’.

Thursday 13th August 1981
I was reading Roots. I loved that book, I’d love to read it again. I used to take my mum to do her weekly shop (Thursday was late light opening) and we always popped into the pub on the way home. I wouldn’t dream of driving a car after a drink nowadays. I packed my bag as I was off to my friend Sarah’s for the weekend. I seem to remember sitting by the pool all day and getting very sun burnt, those were the days.

S.O.S.
Something is going wrong here. I can’t get to some sites that I need to carry on working. I can’t see haloscan comments and I can’t get onto their site. My site won’t finish loading so I can’t get to my blogroll. Does anyone have any ideas? I think something, somewhere has got turned off (or on), but what? Please e-mail me(Just under my photo), like I said I can’t see any comments!

Technicolour dreamtime
I really had a lovely dream last night. There were lots of parrots flying around. They were blue or green or blue and green. They were blue to begin with and when they reached maturity they tuned green. The blue and green ones were in the process of changing. Only problem was they were really budgies.

Wouldn’t you know it
Someone writes a great post about something I feel interested in and I have something to say and the comments are broken. I can’t find an email address either. If you know how to fix comments, please go and see Purple Elephant.