Author Archives: essiep

Saxifrage & Eidleweiss

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10°C, windy, but sunny too.

Fritillary is proving difficult to get, the only ones I have seen are big, yellow and in my mind: vulgar.
I do have Several Saxifrage and Artemesias ready to plant out. Saxifrage apparently gets its name from their ability to break rocks, they are mountain plants – probably what people mean by "alpines".

The sun shines but I have another headache. Dammit.

to wheel spin, or not

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11°C. NW winds, sunny intervals.

Dogs walked, plants potted and seeds sown. Door painted, photos shot & plants bought. y’know.
That time spent yesterday swapping wheels on a car whose rusty axle stubs didn’t want to release the rims has worked out. The juddering wheel-spin has now gone on pulling away. I’m so gooood Tongue out.
Omegle: what a bizarre site- like messenger, but you have no idea who you will be speaking to; a kind of "speed-chat".

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

Stranger: hi
Stranger: Im rick
Stranger: and you/
You: hi, where are you?
You: Mike is the name
Stranger: I want to sing a song for you
Stranger: We’re no strangers to love
you know the rules and so do I
a full commitment’s what I’m looking for
you wouldn’t get this from any other guy

I just wanna tell you how I’m feeling
It’s right I make you understand

Never gonna give you up never gonna let you down
never gonna turn around and desert you
never gonna make you cry never gonna say goodbye
never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

You: that’s quite understandable

Now to fix the car stereo…

Domestic deity

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15°C, getting danker

Yes it’s true, this is starting out as a mending-things-holiday (again). Mounted & framed a print of a painting by Fantin-Latour; 1½ hours, then swapped the tyres round on the car- 1½ hours. My hands are not steady enough to paint now.
Those new tyres I had fitted (just before the snow week) aren’t ideally distributed. The ‘experts’ suggested putting high quality (=expensive) tyres on the back axle, and budget ones on the front. The car hasn’t been right since- these is often a little wheel spin when I pull away at roundabouts- and I am notorious for my measured driving style. I’m the kind of driver who annoys others because I won’t break the speed limits: even passengers get leary about it sometimes. Anyway, the car has front wheel drive, the engine is at the front and so is the steering, so I have put the best tyres on there instead. Let’s see.

Planning omelettes for tomorrow;  and I am no kind of cook. Here is one I prepared last week- a rhubarb and apple crumble:

Maytricks

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16°C, bright & sunny later. No cloud, nor wind.

Matrix (the): no need to say much, I have not hated a film as much as this since the trip to see Lord Of The Rings. Similar reasons, or at least both shared the characteristic that they are ridiculous films. The main problem was that it was not possible to suspend disbelief. Each time the plot got itself into a corner, then some sci0fi/magic trick was introduced to get them out of it. The effect is like cheating, I felt cheated anyway because we didn’t fully understand any dilemmas that characters were in. Actually, I say "characters" but there were no real personalities, there were roles played by people (or things) but they were not steered by their own personalities.
The result is a film that never drew me in. In Both films, I came out feeling quite annoyed by them. Why do so many in the 3D animation field enthuse about "bullet time"? I’m exasperated.

Clarity

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15°C, Sun

Clear: clear head, clear vision and a clear sky. Sunshine is a good idea.

Bessie inspected these bones carefully for ages. What went through her mind?
Road-rage: On the way home in the car yesterday a guy driving from a side road looked at me from his driving seat. Without much hesitation, he pulled out forcing me to an emergency stop and a blast on the horn. He looked squarely at me the whole time and raised the bird in defiance. How does a man get into s state like that?

Acephalgic migraine

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7°C, light winds, Sun. C=62 miles

"real ear-bashing".: Funniest news story of the weekend. Mr Smith, what were the films called? I bet you are looking back on the story and wondering if it was really worthwhile for a hand-shandy.
A Migraine: could this be one, Cycling towards home today in the blazing sunshine- I could see a shimmering lightshow, nice but this one was in my eyes. It was rather like christmas decorations flickering at double speed, or maybe like my eyes recovering from an accidental glance at the sun. I’ve had this at work once or twice; parts of my vision can’t resolve printed words if I am reading. Each time it seems to clear up after half an hour or so. A disturbing event; I was about an hour from home when it started, so I rode faster and faster in case it it became prohibitively bad. I rode fast so I’d be home before the worst happened and I couldn’t see to ride safely.
Incidentally, I have had a dull headache for the last few days. A connection seems possible.

Bessie! oh no…

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6°C, N wind, warmer sun. Some heavy hail showers.

Bessie started the day with an unfortunate accident. She must be more careful doing a pre-wash in future.

A college friend made that bowl for me in 1986. I’ve used it for breakfast pretty much every morning since. 23 years later its career is at an end. You can just see how well made it was, look at the fine thin ceramic in that bowl; expert throwing.Today has been another of those fixing-things days: fit wheel to roadbike, fit bottom-bracket to racer, change some light bulbs, fix my Saturday-headache.

A formal decryption

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8°C, windy but mostly clear

I refuse to indulge in this:
I often use email as a portable way of collecting school-work. This kid was asked to send a document for review called a "Proposal" that then needs some comment from me as her teacher. Here it is:

Pupil:

Hiya sir

Can u plz check da proposal I no u did b4 bt I changed d alas part n now ur comment doesn’t match wid ma wrk sorry bt cn u do d las techa comment review thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

G

_______________________________________
Reply Forward Invite G to Google Mail 

to  G
show details  24 Mar (3 days ago)
____________________________________

My Reply:

what is this cryptic code you have sent. Frankly, I haven’t got time to decode it. Send me an email that communicates your thoughts and I will do something to help.

Also, there is no attachment on this email.
—

MdD
_________________________________

Pupil’s second post:

Huh wat r u on a bout??????????????

Am confused

Sos I fink I forgot to mke an attachment
But here it is so can u review it plz
________________________________

……..End of messages

The document was attached to the second email, but was so badly written so that I am too exasperated to continue the thread here. The first version had no punctuation, the after my response, it was filled with commas everywhere. I mean everywhere, in the middle of phrases, anywhere except the places they would have helped make the paragraph intelligible.
Further; I passed a copy of this onto the English department; who then used it to start a lesson on writing to a target audience and use of suitable language, or something like that. It went down a storm.

Blue Sky

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12°C, milky air, let the sun through this afternoon.

Back to normality. Routine sleep, should leave little after effects. How did all that ever happen? Well yeah, I do know. Change topic.

Blue-sky thinking: There is an irony in this; "blue sky thinking" is supposed to refer to thinking that has clarity and unlimited ceiling. The funny thing is that people who use this phrase can’t actually do it themselves. They talk in clichés and probably think in them too. Poor wee loves.  BBC on Jargon