It's been a while!

Hi Folks,
Apologies for the lengthy delay in writing another blog - I just don't know where the time has gone. The days and weeks seem to be flying by but at the same time seem to be getting nowhere!

Thomas our little boy seems to have turned into a demon child at the moment - doing everything he shouldn't be doing despite being told a hundred times to the point that one gets sick to death of one's own voice!

I've been busy doing mystery shops in an attempt to earn a little bit of money - but with all the travelling and petrol costs I have to deduct I do wonder whether it is actually worth all the effort - perhaps I will streamline and only go for the more lucrative jobs instead.

In an attempt to get fitter I acquired a bike trailer a couple of months ago - finally, I have now managed to dig out my bike - though it was somewhat rusty in places despite being relatively new (hardly used!) - so that's all oiled up & cleaned up. I had to re-invest in a new bicycle pump as mine seems to have gone AWOL. I also invested in a kick stand (bikes don't seem to come with these any more!) so when I do come to a halt and need to park without laying the bike on the floor, I can do it easily!
So, now all I need to do is pump up my tyre, attach the bike trailer to my bike and stop procrastinating!!!

Oh yes, I still need to find my bike helmet!

I'm sure Thomas will love it once we get going. I can't help being somewhat apprehensive though over riding out on the roads. The cycle lanes just don't look wide enough and watching other drivers on the roads, is it really safe enough to go out on them with a child in tow?! What a dilema!

I'm sure I will venture forth and when I do you will be the first to know. :)

I actually managed to tackle some of my heap of ironing. It's not as high as it was, but with recent washing it seems to be piling up again - will it never end???!!!

I've also been trying to slowly blitz the house as my husband's mum is coming over for a few days next weekend, and our spare room / office was in a terrible state the last time she came over - so I am going to make sure that it is as clear and as tidy as possible - you can actually see the floor this time so far! (Always a good start I think). I have a few things to put away in the loft - though that is fillling up with things I need to sell on eBay and haven't quite gotten around to.

Where do the hours go in a day?

Also, we have been considering the purchasing of a business - so we have been attempting to do lots of research / analysis / soul searching etc., to see if we a) have what it takes b) can afford the repayments to the loan we will need in order to purchase it c) can we improve upon it.
These and another hundred questions all need answering - but some of the information we don't yet know about - but need to find out etc.
Business plans to be written - to ensure we cover everything we need to think about.

The list is never ending!

Next week should be quieter!

Tonight I had to top up my daughter's mobile phone as she's in australia and can't seem to do that from where she is - which I don't mind as it means she can keep in touch even if it is at my expense! She's nearly been in the land of oz now for two months already! Time certainly flies.

Well, I'd better finish off here now as it's gone midnight yet again.

Hope you drop by again soon.

Thank you for reading.

PaulineA

All hot & sweaty!!

Hello again!

Well, it's been a busy old weekend. I decided to do some work in the garden as I want to make a safe area for my little boy to play in without fear of him landing on concrete & causing himself some serious damage!

We have in our garden the remains of a humungous carp pond. It takes up more than half the garden if you trace it carefully. Some of it I have already covered up reasonably successfully with grass.

Other bits still need demolishing.

We made quite an impressive start on this earlier in the year, but as most things, other things got in the way and it came to an abrupt halt. I decided I was so sick to death of looking at this half demolished monstrosity I would attempt to continue the demolition job. There is one hell of a load of concrete in this thing. You could build a house from the amount of rubble we have building up and I'm only half way through it!

Huge concrete boulders and home made concrete make for quite a challenge I can tell you - especially in the heatwave we have been having of late. I'm sure I have lost about half a stone this weekend! (I can't tell you for sure as our scales need new batteries!)

After getting despondent with knocking down the pond and only getting so far - as some of the concrete really is quite dense & compact - I decided I'd had enough of our inherited raised herb bed - which sits near to our house. This is the area I have earmarked as a small play area for our little boy.

So, sledgehammer at the ready - and demolishing commenced - starting yesterday afternoon. Oh, what bliss this one was to demolish. There is such satisfaction in knocking something down. The walls came down so easily, a few knocks and hey presto! Wall comes loose. So, walls knocked down, and earth cleared out. I did half of it last night.

This morning I finished it off, and extended my demolishing act to the paving slabs that were all around the area too, digging out an area, so that it becomes a sunken area, so I can lay in some gravel. What a difference it makes not seeing this huge monstrosity of a herb garden, which always seemed to end up as a dumping ground or overrun with mint!

Tomorrow I will get the polythene to lay under the gravel and I will re-use the gravel in the other part of our garden, which I will then excavate so I can have some lovely sunny flower borders!

Well, I guess you could say I've had quite a satisfying weekend all in all. I've got rid of some aggression together with a bit more of the concrete monstrostities we inherited in our garden!

That's it for now folks - I need to give my poor arms a rest.

Please drop by soon!

Pauline

That was the week that was!

Hi Folks!

What a week!
It started off innocently enough - the Sunday before last I decided to reinstall my computer - i.e. reformat my hard drive and start afresh - as it had been getting more and more sluggish and too many blue screens of death for my comfort.

Easy enough I thought. All my data backed up to my husbands machine (thank goodness for networking!), and all set to go.

I thought I had a boot disk - but that didn't work!
Thank heavens for my Laptop and even more thank you to http://www.bios.com/!!!
So, boot disk made.

Hard disk wiped, fdisked & partitioned - all ready for re-installation!
Or so I thought!

My install of XP went through so far and then the machine hung at 99%

I tried again, doing a repair installation. It hung again, only sooner!

I re-formatted my had disk again and zeroed it to ensure a totally clean hard disk, and attempted another install. This one got further, but it couldn't load a certain file. (Not sure if CD drive was playing up at this point)
I continued this process several more times, in varying concoctions, with or without re-formating, installing etc. In the end, after a desperate phonecall to one of my most knowledgeable friends, we decided perhaps a new hard disk was in order.

So, off I went, purchased a lovely 40gig hard drive, and installed that - retaining my other hard drive so I could contain my data on it.

Drive installed, fdisked, partitioned and formatted.
Still, Windows XP not playing. After another series of more futile attempts, and blue screens of death appearing more and more frequently - another desperate telephone call was made.

Perhaps memory might fix this one.

This was now Friday, I'd been working on attempting this simple install all week! My husband was going insane and couldn't understand why I was continuing with it. In my opinion, something so straightforward shouldn't take this long and I was sure the next attempt would work!

So, a lovely piece of memory was bought - twice the amount as I had - so, in theory, it should now glide through a new install. New hard drive, new memory!

Still no joy! I couldn't believe it. I must have tried installing another 10 times in varying degrees, getting so far - almost there, but not!

By Sunday night I had to admit defeat - not something I do lightly - but after a week of trying to get machine to play ball and it still not happening - I decided to call the professionals!

A faulty chip was probably the reason behind my inability to install Windows XP. I suggested perhaps an upgrade of my entire system may be the order of the day at this point - it was duly agreed that this may very well have to be the case.

So early next morning, computer delivered. By the evening - all fixed! new motherboard, processor, new hard drive all connected & working, second hard drive connected & working. Windows XP installed. Wonderful!!!!!

I wasn't allowed to pick up my machine that evening - but made an appointment early following morning to pick up my lovely computer.

It was lovely to get it back home and start re-instating all my software - of which there is quite an amount - but I am trying hard only to install the absolute essentials that I require.
I don't like being without my computer - but I will certainly put into practice a good backup procedure - just in case my machine should die on me again in the future!

So, if anyone else doesn't want to find themselves in a desperate situation - ALWAYS back up your work to somewhere safe - a CD, Zip disk, another hard drive or another computer if you are lucky enough to have your own network set up.
Do create yourself a windows boot up disk - this is ESSENTIAL! As it loads up the drivers for your CD rom, and floppy drive etc., so that you can install from CD's.

That's it for now folks!

Pauline.