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Tithe barn gate

Tithe barn gate

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Thursday, November 30, 2006
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Great radio

Oh, and pretty much anything on Radio 4. Except You and Yours and The Archers.

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Tuesday, November 28, 2006
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Foons Direct

I’ve been a First Direct customer for years, but this week’s announcement about new account fees has put me this close to shifting my account elsewhere.

Thing is, I don’t think the fees will apply to me - only because I already have a savings account with them (which I think has a balance of about £6). That’s just luck, though. If I didn’t have that account, there’s no way I could promise to have a minimum of £1,500 worth of salary being paid into my account every month.

Why not? Because I’m freelance. My income is wildly variable. Some months I will do amazingly well and pack away thousands of pounds. Other months I’ll earn practically nothing.

The ability to call First Direct any time of day or night to pay a bill has always been very attractive to someone as disorganised as me. But even though I think I’ll qualify for “free” banking under their new rules, I find the approach they’ve taken less than sensitive. I think I’ll go off in search of a bank that welcomes my money in any amount, at any time, rather than one that insists on trying to impose order on the chaos that is my (and almost every other freelancer’s) income.

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Tuesday, November 28, 2006
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I am a Twit

I signed up for a Twitter account ages ago, fiddled with it a couple of times, and forgot about it. It seemed neat enough, but I couldn’t see the benefit.

Now I can. In the last few days, there’s been a sudden burst of activity there - most importantly, by people I know. Having added them as friends, now I can see the benefit.

As I strolled home from dropping B off at school this morning, I checked my phone - it was crammed with fresh messages from Twitter friends in various time zones. As I read through them all, the phone buzzed with the arrival of more messages. “This is great!” I thought. It’s quicker and more succinct than reading people’s blogs; it’s immediate, intimate, and informal. It’s fun. Your pals in your pocket.

Twenty minutes of phone buzzing later, I had to change my Twitter settings so that only direct messages were forwarded to my phone. Pals in pocket is nice, but you can only take so much constant updating from the rest of the world.

But how fab to have all this in my pocket whenever I like. How great to have the ability to SMS people via the web (using the direct message feature) for free; to be able to post thoughts to the web on the move, even using my ancient handset.

There are a few things that are a little confusing. It’s not easy to see the difference between “Friends” and people you are “Following” (they seem to be one and the same by default, but the number of friends is not always the same as the number of followers). I think a skim through the Twitter commands help page might help me get a better grip on it all.

Twitterlicious.

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Monday, November 20, 2006
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Forgotten carols with Ali Burns

Saturday was spent enjoying a day-long singing workshop - “Forgotten Carols”, lead by the inspiring and hugely talented Ali Burns. Many of my fellow singers were there, but it was quite different to our usual Thursday evening sessions.

Ali worked us very hard. We were learning our parts by ear, with Ali singing them briefly before getting us started with a barked: “Go!” By the time we’d learned one song, we’d mostly forgotten the previous one.

We peaked early, before lunch. We were still full-voiced and able to absorb new information. After a break and some sandwiches and endless gallons of tea, we all started to under-perform; the basses lost their way with one particularly complicated song, and our final sing-through felt laboured compared to the gusto we’d managed in the morning.

None of that made it a bad thing. We had a fabulous time, and Ali is a genuine person, someone who loves the music more than anything. You can tell; when she’s leading the singers, and we’re doing well (as we were in the morning session), her eyes close and she dances on the spot, joyfully smiling.

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Monday, November 20, 2006
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Orangesun

Orangesun

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Sunday, November 19, 2006
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In search of a good breakfast

Talking of breakfast, I’m facing a mid-life breakfast crisis. After 36 years of cereal and toast, I am officially Bored of Breakfast.

I come downstairs in the morning and the thought of another bowl of dried up wheat product (or oats, or similar) makes my appetite fade quickly. I don’t fancy my 10,000th slice of Marmite/jam/marmalade on toast either. I want something different to eat first thing in the morning.

Digression: the best breakfast ever

The best breakfast I ever had was on the roof of a small hostel in Selcuk, Turkey. Kate and I had caught an overnight bus to get there, and arrived early in the morning, tired and dirty; and in Kate’s case, with a severe headache.

We found a nice room and Kate collapsed into the bed; I had a shower, and went off in search of something to eat. The hostel’s owner found me at the bottom of the stairs and said: “Breakfast?” I nodded. She put her hands on my shoulders and turned me around. “Up,” she barked. “Roof. I bring breakfast.”

So I went back upstairs, kept going past the door to our room, and emerged in the sunlight on the roof. There were a couple of tables, a pergola to provide shade, and a fantastic view. I sat down.

Soon my host reappeared with a tray. On it was a glass of hot apple tea, and a plate with feta cheese, fresh slices of tomato, a blob of honey, and I think a slice of freshly baked bread.

I tucked in, all alone on this rooftop, looking out at the view. I listened to the sounds of the town waking up; car horns tooting, people calling each other in the street below. When I’d finished I sat for some time, sipping more apple tea and reading our tatty, faithful copy of “Lonely Planet”, deciding what to do next.

It was the most delicious, most unusual breakfast I’ve ever had.

Back to moaning

So I’ve tried feta and tomatoes and honey at home, but it’s never been as good as the Turkish version. And anyway, I need more ideas. I’ve tried various combinations of fruit and yogurt, which is OK some of the time. I tend to be running late in the morning, so any fruit that requires a lot of preparation and cutting up is not a good plan.

In short, I need something tasty, quick, nutritious, inexpensive, and most important, different.

Any suggestions?

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Thursday, November 16, 2006
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Switching to the Blogger beta

Cor, this new version of Blogger is nice. Google has added some new features but not messed too much with the interface, which surprised me a bit - I thought they’d make it look much more like Gmail or Google Reader. Maybe that will come later.

But the new labels feature is well done, feeds are available for every label you create on your weblog, and the labels links are usefully, not obtrusively, added to existing posts. It’s also easy to browse through hundreds of old posts and add labels to them by checking a few boxes and selecting “Apply label”.

There’s a new WYSIWYG post editor, which I don’t use. Nice to see it included though. Best of all, you can switch it off completely - a nice touch which shows the Blogger team were expecting some users (the old timers) who would prefer to do things the old-fashioned, I’ll-code-it-myself-thanks, way.

So far, so good. Someone asked me about Blogger the other day, a web professional who was interested in setting up something bloggish on his site. I recommended it, on the basis that it’s so easy to set up and use. There really is no hassle. I think it offers the best combination of features and simplicity. Yes, it lacks a lot of features that other weblog apps offer; but those features are extras. They’re not necessary for running a weblog. Some people might like them, but most people don’t need them.

Oh, and something else I’ve just noticed this evening: you can now post to Blogger, LiveJournal, Wordpress.com and others from inside your Google Docs account.

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Wednesday, November 15, 2006
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Waiting for Dave

Waiting for Dave the dolphin

There’s excitement in my home town, Folkestone. For months now, a solitary dolphin has taken up residence in the water just yards from the town beach. He’s easy to spot; just go down to the seafront and look for a small crowd of people pointing and smiling. They’ll have found him already.

The dolphin’s been named Dave, and he’s turning out to be quite an asset.

I’ve seen wild dolphins before, in Oman, and knew how hard it would be to try and get a photo of Dave. That didn’t stop me trying anyway, but it ended up being much more interesting and exciting to put the camera away and just watch the water. Dave frolicked, frequently popping his upper section and fin out of the water, sometimes blowing from his air-hole.

Sitting on the beach is always fun; having a dolphin to watch makes it positively enchanting.

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Wednesday, November 15, 2006
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Street

Street

Trying to get a wide-angle feel.

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Friday, November 10, 2006
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Breakfast of prey

We were a bit short of breakfast cereals, so Barney tried some Alpen for the first time. He seemed to like it.

There he was, tucking in and munching away, when suddenly his face changed. He stopped eating, looked up, and asked:

"Daddy, is Alpen made from real owls?"

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Thursday, November 09, 2006
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Return of the rodents

A few years ago I had a page on my web site detailing my troubles with mice. This was at a time when we lived in a tumbledown country cottage, which tumbled down in a manner very attractive to mice. They loved making homes inside the walls and the loft spaces, and they especially loved to make our lives a misery by making scratching noises all night long, or passing away in inconvenient places and stinking the whole house out while their furry little bodies rotted away.

My mouse page was only a few hundreds words of waffle by me, but it attracted thousands of comments over a period of two years. I completely owned Google searches for “How to catch mice”, something I was proud of for a while. I should have slapped some ads on the page and made a few quid, but I never bothered.

Anyway, that version of my site was retired in favour of another, and the mouse page lingered comment-less for a while before disappearing altogether.

Now rodents have returned to my life, but in a good way. In recent weeks I’ve been working with Steve Johnston, writing copy for a web site for a company called Green Shield, who make electronic pest control gadgets.

Such is the never-ending variety of a freelance writer’s life. One day the oil business, another day Mac stuff, the next day rat facts. All in a day’s work.

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Wednesday, November 08, 2006
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Bedtime walk in fog


Bedtime walk in fog, originally uploaded by gilest.

Sometimes, if Barney is feeling particularly energetic towards bedtime, we go for a Bedtime Walk. We don't go far, nor anywhere in particular, but just for a stroll to see what we can see. Now that the clocks have gone back, bedtime walks are dark, and Barney has discovered the joys of playing with torches.

This evening the fog was thick and the street lights glowed like fireflies. Barney giggled as we shone the torch beam straight up into the sky, trying to work out how far it could reach.

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Monday, November 06, 2006
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Sparklers!


Sparklers!, originally uploaded by gilest.

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Saturday, November 04, 2006
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Visiting a hole in the ground

We made a special trip to the woods between Ashford and Faversham in order to see Jem Finer’s Score for a hole in the ground installation.

It’s located deep in King’s Wood (map), and is one of many artistic works there managed by Stour Valley Arts.

Score for a hole in the ground

I was a little bit disappointed when we finally arrived, muddy and sweaty, at the site of the huge metal trumpet that pokes out of the ground. There was no sound coming from it at all. The lower section of the tube was covered in graffiti. It felt like a bit of a let-down.

It was also hard to find. King’s Wood is fantastic, but it’s huge. A few more signs pointing the way to the installations, and more importantly back to the car park again, would be a very welcome addition. If it was just me getting lost in the woods it wouldn’t be a problem - but I had a tired and hungry four-year-old with me, who couldn’t really take on the fact that daddy was confident of getting back to the car eventually, but couldn’t say precisely when that would be, nor if it would be around the next bend or not.

I’d go back though; armed with a larger picnic, more time, and perhaps no children. And I’d remember to take a photo of the map of the woods that you encounter shortly after leaving the car park. Might come in handy.

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Friday, November 03, 2006
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Last trip to Longleat


Giraffes, originally uploaded by gilest.

We went to Longleat to finish off our Passport ticket, which allowed us to visit each attraction once over the long summer holiday. Because I spent much of the summer not driving, our chances to go there were limited; we hadn’t done the safari park, the maze or the boat trip, and the Passport was due to expire this week.

So we went, and did all of those things and more. I particularly enjoyed seeing the giraffes up close, and the sea lions in the lake were quite a sight (and sound) to behold…

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Thursday, November 02, 2006
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The unwritten rulebook

Overheard in the swimming pool changing rooms on a Sunday morning…

Little lad: “Dad, why are there so many dads in the pool today?”

Big daddy: “That’s the rule, son. Dads have to take kids swimming on Sunday. That’s what happens.”

“But why?”

“It’s what’s known as an unwritten rule.”

Beat.

“But who didn’t write it?”

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Wednesday, November 01, 2006
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