Household drudgery. Walking dogs, laundry, cleaning, cooking, washing up, gardening. Have been invited to a house-warming, but probably won't go. Oh, I need to get a new tyre, that'll be thrilling...

[Phil] You could summarise my seemingly bucolic list of delights as 'anything except housework'. We all have to wear clean pants, you know, It's just that some of us wash them during the week. Get out and see something new.

Actually, that was two weeks ago, as I took the rest of the month off as holiday. Bought an iPad while I'm still eligible for educational discount. I'd buy a new Mac as well, as my current desktop can't run the last two versions of OSX, but there will be new models announced later this year. Apple aren't saying when, but it's unlikely to be this month now.

[pen] Just realised I mentioned Mrs Phil's gastroenteritis in another place, not here. Not really able to go anywhere at the mo. Good news is that I can pick blackberries while walking dogs.

[Phil] I hope she's now recovered, and your weekend was fruitful. I have been cycling round the empty lanes in Zeeland, where Google Streeview hasn't even been yet, and foraging blackberries. Planning to do it for the next couple of Saturdays. (The windy miller's mill is on this map - a village called Zonnemaire, and we also look after the teeny one-third scale mill on the harbourside at Brouwershaven).

[pen] She's getting there - managing to spend four hours out of bed for the first time in 12 days is progress.

Jeez, must have been TERRIBLE. She'll feel rubbish. Sending best regards for swift improvement.

thanks, pen. On the (further) downside, I took the dogs for a longer walk than normal at the weekend, on a different route, and completely forgot about the blackberries. Still, we have damsons, apples, loganberries and blackberries in the back garden :)

What happened to Cleri Who's who?

[Softers] You killed it. Much like the AVMA game.


Only kidding! If there's no action for 3 days - the game will revert to its Flat Footed status. Just click on 'See More'
As for AVMA - perhaps you can find a way to pique the collective interest of participating crescenters? You're in charge.

(Softers, Chalky) Revived by clerihughes, but only by breaking bending the rules.

Well done Rosie.

[Rosie, Software] The current game of Cleri Who's Who has been in existence for several years ... but then you knew that, yes?

Should I, or should I not go with the windy miller to his mill in the wilds of Zeeland tomorrow for Open Monuments Day? (Heritage Open day in the UK tomorrow too... have you checked what's open where you are?) It's going to piss with rain. I could usefully take some work to do (extension lead out of the mill into the car where I sit in comfort with my laptop and without the distraction of the internet) and I'd take some sausages to cook, and probably stuff to make pancakes too. I could go blackberry picking on the bike if there's a break in the weather. The alternative is cleaning the loo and doing the laundry at home alone.
I think I've just answered my own question.

(Chalky) I did indeed, m'dear. Re-reviver, perhaps.

[penelope] Hope you went. Glad we were of help.
[Rosie] Credit where it's due, eh? ;)

[Chalks] I did indeed go. And it was lovely. I put a photo on Facebook - so you can see where I was cycling. The loo got cleaned anyway. The weather's been very showery ever since.

[pen] Yes - saw the photo. 'Bout the time I was in league with the freeway :-)

I'm loving the Franglais limerick that's waiting for a conclusion on another page. The windy miller and I have found that we understand each other very well when we speak a mixture of Dutch and French (my Dutch being terrible and my French being O level circa 1981 and about the same standard as his). Is this Francerlandse? Nederlais? Dutchglais or Frutch?

(pen) Tu l'aimais encore? I dun me best.

Just back from a romantic short séjour in the Ardennes. All languages work there - at least all the ones that I know - English, Dutch and French. Trouble is, you're not supposed to use them all at once, in one sentence, when speaking to other people. Oh well. But the wine was bloody nice (and the foie gras too, if I'm allowed to mention it).

(pen) Course y'are, duck.

Tonight: staying late to sit in on a student mentors' coaching session (for alumni who have volunteered to act as mentors to current students). Will be writing article about it later. Free dinner.

"Free dinner" - a wonderful combination of words! I shall be enjoying free food and drink on Sunday at our village cricket club's season finale, whatever the weather. I might even bowl an over, if my withered achilles will take the strain.

Morning all. Weekend reports please: Phil, did you get your overs in? Or did your achilles put paid to everything but sitting in the pavilion scarfing sarnies? *ducks*.
'Free dinner' was actuially a sandwich on tough French bread. Ruinous for my teeth as well as my gut. Bleurgh.

I didn't bowl, and would have batted, had our previous batsman got out at least one ball earlier. I did consume plenty of ale, and far too much barbecue though :)

Today's the day.

Getting girded up to cover an afternoon-long conference in central Rotterdam. Preparing to take notes to write it up three different ways for various outlets, plus another two other reports to come out of it. Five times the fun from just one afternoon...

I have fire extinguisher training this afternoon, in which we will actually get to set off fire extinguishers in the car park! Can I grow up by this afternoon? I doubt it.

[Phil] When I got a keycard to the research institute that I spend some of my time at, there was "fire training". It was "That's a fire extinguisher." That was enough to tick the checkbox on the form.

How'd it go, Phil? Still foaming at the mouth?

Well, I managed the improbable, and learnt a useful lesson in the process. I managed to restart an extinguished newspaper fire with a water fire extinguisher.

[Phil] You could be onto a winner.

[pen] Just call me Charlie McGee!

Had to google that name, Phil! Never read any Stephen King, never go to the cinema either!
So what else is banter-worthy this week? I've been to London for a day and a half (as I have posted in another place) and I've got two big deadlines in the next 10 days. Or possibly three. I have started a new tradition of Saturday afternoon cycle rides around 'our corner' of Zeeland (where the windy miller's mill is) which I'm enjoying more and more. I rarely see a car or anyone else. It's utterly silent and empty - fields, dykes, birds - and that's about it, so I just take my camera. I'm intending to keep it up through the winter (there's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes) so now I have announced it to you lot, you can egg me on.

[pen] I had to google it too, having read the book at least 20 years ago.
I managed to hit one deadline last friday, and look likely to hit another one tomorrow, which is to have two massive catalogues on CD, and get them to the duplicator's shop for midday. If I achieve that, I can have monday off :-)

I've just booked my remaining vacations days, to use them up before the end of the year. Two short holidays in November, and not one single working Monday in December!

I wish I had the bravado to quote Douglas Adams to my boss

Hidden text

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by"

. However, my determination to hit this one led to my first all-nighter for a long time. Admittedly, I did sleep from 5am to 6am, but I did have two programs running at the time.

Phil! Phil! Wake up!
Last all-nighter I did was at some rally or other in about 1999, in Scotland, in another life. I ate sooo much cake trying to stay awake.

Despite my best efforts, I think we're not going to have this ready for midday. Just sitting here watching processes thrashing away in my task manager, wishing my processor was more powerful. Fingers crossed that it saves this time!

I think this definitely needs to be added to my "Murtaugh List", named after Danny Glover's character in the Lethal Weapon films, as in "I'm getting too old for this s**t".