My Stateside tester, Mr K F Stillman of the Easton and Potomac, has been attempting to register on this blog to leave comments. Apparently, his password, as promised by WordPress, never turned up. I wondered if my blog’s Feedburner plugin (to get posting notifications by email as opposed to RSS) was somehow getting in the way but, alas, trying to register another alter-ego of myself on both my local and published implementations led to the same results, the local one having no potentially error-causing plugins. Sad! 🙁

For the insatiably curious (Steve!), a quick search in good ol’ Google revealed the following two links that imply my blog is not alone in suffering from this trouble:

• www.wordpress.org/support/topic/132834

• www.wordpress.org/support/topic/122307

Somewhat more oddly, I did receive WordPress’s email telling me my other alter-ego had registered, but I did not get a similar email telling me that Keith had registered. All irritatingly confusing since, so far, I love the product (WordPress, that is). Along with some of the suggestions in the two support logs (above), I’m inclined to suspect anti-spamming checks at the server. I can’t really be said to follow the logic through, though. (Aside: Now there’s an awkward juxtaposition of words.)

Rather than attempting any in-depth hacks to WordPress, I have removed this blog’s somewhat superfluous requirement to be registered in order to submit comments. Comments are moderated anyway so it really doesn’t seem necessary for personal blogs.

If you have been foiled trying to submit comments, try again if you can remember what you wanted to say. 😉

February is very crowded month as events go. First, there’s my mother’s birthday (6th), then, of course, we get Valentine’s Day (remembering to omit slaughtering people with our ever-present “Chicago Pianos“) and now, as if that weren’t enough, I just became a year older myself. What a day, though. What on Earth has happened to February this year? It certainly isn’t supposed to be our sunniest month, it’s usually our worst, weather-wise.

As today was such a sunny day, completely cloudless, we decided to go and check up on our animal friends at Whipsnade Zoo. Carol, of course, took her newfangled digital camera thingy and the pictures are courtesy of her. Being members, we go there quite a bit but there is usually something unusual that makes the trip worthwhile. If not, it’s just a nice place for a walk and a darn good excuse for a bit of low-impact exercise. The water was frozen around the chimpanzees’ enclosure and they were having fun sucking lumps of ice. I’m fond of the same habit but only when it’s accompanied by gin, tonic and a slice of lime or lemon. Cheers!

We’d broken one of the retirement rules and gone to a popular place at the weekend – not just any weekend either, its half term. Nonetheless, all was well and we had a grand time. I even met an approachingly-cute, chatty little girl who shared my birthday and was two years old today. We wished each other happy birthday as her father apologized for her constant talking. She was captivated by the red pandas who were being unusually active, clambering about in their tree and even scooting around on the ground. Winter is the best time to see the red pandas. Since they are arboreal, visitors benefit from there being no leaves on the trees.

Having met a two year old, I played at being a kid again myself; Carol took me for a ride through on the Whipsnade train, no called the “Jumbo Express”. (It used to be called the “Whipsnade and Umfolozi Railway“, which I think I prefer.) I’d never been on it before but today they were using a steam engine and it just seemed like the thing to do. Now that’s a train ride that we didn’t take Keith and Marlene on during their recent stay – how remiss of us. Next time, perhaps.

I am now being very decadent and having my dinner cooked for me by Carol: Caneton aux Navets – quelle treat! 🙂

Don’t get me wrong, I do not resent spending money on flowers for my Valentine. In fact, for many of the years I was working, I bought her flowers every Saturday when we went on our usual dawn-patrol-to-Waitrose shopping trip. I enjoyed doing so. She has rarely been without flowers. I will admit that, when work gave up on me, I got lax and flower-buying fell in its frequency. That may have been due to being nervous about money but was more likely to have been about not going to the shops every Saturday morning when the flower stall on our local market was around. I am now taking steps to correct my oversights.

What does irritate the hell out of me is the outrageous hike in flower prices at different flower shops for this annual declaration of undying love and devotion. £4.50 for a single red rose, indeed; admittedly a perfectly formed and gracefully presented red rose but a single red rose nonetheless. On a normal week, you can buy a whole bunch of roses, containing probably 10 since we decimalized and abandoned the good ol’ dozen, for little more than that. Bouquets of flowers, that last week were selling for less than £10, are suddenly £20 or more.

I didn’t pay enough attention to spot the actual day that heralds this 100% or more inflation vis-a-vis flower prices. I must try to remember to do so next year. Wait, though, it’ll probably happen again very soon. The second annual outrageously expensive flower day is fast approaching: Mother’s Day on March 2nd. It should more accurately be called Mothering Sunday and is supposed to be about those of a religious disposition visiting their mother church rather than bestowing gifts upon their mothers but, hey, it’s a darn good excuse to sell outrageously expensive flowers again, isn’t it?

I must monitor the price of flowers and see when it goes through the roof as March 2nd approaches.

Snowdrops on Pedals?

… and whiskers on kittens,
Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens,
Brown paper packages tied up with string…

Arghhh! I completely and utterly detest that song. It rates as one of the most irritating ever written, along with Karma Chameleon, or pretty much anything really, by Boy George. ‘T is worse since some bright spark has awakened the sleeping dog by deciding to start screening a Skoda TV advert (commercial, for Amerispeakers) accompanied by Julie Andrews herself singing the blasted thing. Why oh why, then, did I have to think of a post title that reminded me of it? I know the quote isn’t perfect but it’s close enough to get the darn thing stuck in my head, incessantly going round and round.

Round, like a circle in a spiral,
like a wheel within a wheel,
Never ending or beginning …

Oh good grief, there’s another one. Help!

So, what actually happened here was that my mother had told us of a wood, carpeted in snowdrops, which was quite close to where we live. The sun was shining brilliantly yet again so we decided to drag our cameras out and go and check it out to see if we could pull off a white version of the good ol’ traditional “carpet of bluebells” shot. Unfortunately calm and soothing pastoral photographs were somewhat off the menu on the day because, as it turned out, the wood was

1. disturbingly inaccessible to Joe Public, and
2. littered with dead and decaying tree branches (in addition to the advertised snowdrops).

This went on after we had cycled into town and dropped Carol’s bike off to have a smart new set of pedals fitted ready for the coming season of puffing and panting on two wheels, the old ones having begun to shed their paint and begun looking decidedly shabby.

What better way of passing the middle of yet another gloriously sunny day? Well, we could have gone for a walk in the sun, I suppose.

Grab your coat and get your hat
Leave your worries on the doorstep
Life can be so sweet
On the sunny side of the street

Doh! 🙁

Another blindingly beautiful day called for a walk into town to see if the local library had reopened its doors to people thirsting for knowledge on such thrilling subjects as CSS and PHP. Joy, it was, indeed, open again so no wasted five mile walk. Actually, it was such a lovely day that it wouldn’t have been wasted anyway; it was just a good excuse along, that is, with needing some ingredients to make a prawn Thai green curry.

Everything had moved around, of course, and muggins here had chosen not to install his contact lenses so I couldn’t see much. Fortunately, Carol was with me and managed to play guide person and steer me to the correct section. At close quarters I was not visually challenged and managed to locate a useful looking book on CSS, DHTML and AJAX, which might prove interesting. Sad person that I am, I also found an intriguing little number called “The Rough Guide to Blogging” by Jonathan Yang. This has already introduced me to a client blogging program, w.bloggar, enabling offline blogs to be written and uploaded later. That could be useful on the road, saving entries until a friendly wi-fi providing Starbucks can be found. I’m trying it out by writing this using it.

Alas, apparently no publication on PHP but I did manage to use their excellent (i.e. simple) computer system to find an appropriate volume at another Bedfordshire library and reserve it for collection at Leighton Buzzard. Terrific!

Now, where’s that green curry? 🙂

Following a wonderfully bright day on Wednesday for my mother’s 90th birthday lunch at the Loch Fyne restaurant in Woburn, it was yet another brilliantly sunny day for her birthday trip on a VIP tour of Woburn Safari Park. The Gods must indeed be in very good humour. Clearly, my mother is extremely righteous; a trait which I cannot claim to share.

We were supposed to arrive for our tour “no later than 10:55 AM” so we picked up birthday girl along with her companion, Tony, just after 10:00 AM and set off on the scenic route for Woburn. I was avoiding the Old Linslade Road, which I would normally have taken, because it’s been closed for four weeks while Anglian Water creates havoc renewing its water main. Half way around the scenic route mother says, “your road ‘s open again”. “Ah, ” quoth I, “‘t is a pity you didn’t tell me that before we set off. No matter, it’s a nice day for a ride through the country.” And so it was. We arrived too early (of course) and were directed up to “Junglies Gift Shop” where we were to be met by Jeanette, our guide for the tour.

Out to the Land Rover and the puzzle of getting birthday girl into the front seat. Fortunately I had come prepared with a very large caravan step, the Land Rover being much too high for a mobility-challenged 90 year young lady. After a little trepidation, she was safely lodged in the front seat and we nimble youngsters clambered in elsewhere.

Off we set. Jeanette was a joy and soon seemed to warm to a slightly irreverant sense of humour from I-don’t-know-who as she drove us off road, up close to the animals and away from Joe Public. Great stuff. Now we could drive through the monkey enclosure with complete impunity, caring not a jot whether the wiper blades were ripped off or not. Wonderful! One recently “sexually mature” young male rode on our bonnet and, for some inexplicable reason, all the ladies seemed keen to see his bright blue testicles which apparently signify sexual maturity. Personally, I can’t say that I’d noticed. The tigers had recently been fed and were calmly munching on a spot of gee-gee for lunch. Trigger burger, anyone? Whilst tigers are my own particular favourite animals, the highlight for me must have been stroking the muzzle of a very large bull Rothschild giraffe which was accustomed to leaning down to the Land Rover’s windows for a closer look at the occupants, or maybe just to say hello. Just who was doing the studying, I wonder? We were told that he was a particularly good breeder and would be off to pastures new, soon, maybe to Prague, to mix up the gene pool. He’ll be sorely missed by all at Woburn.

After the two hour tour we had a spot of lunch in the “restaurant” and a brief but tiring (for birthday girl) walk around some of the “foot safari” area but the slopes were proving a little too severe for Mater so we called it a day.

So much sun and so much fun.

(Photos courtesy of Carol and her digital technology, not that I’m jealous, of course.)

Just after Carol gave up work at the end of February, 2006, we both trotted in to our local library in Leighton Buzzard and joined. Actually, since joining we have been lent a steady stream of books by assorted relatives and friends, so much so that I really haven’t had cause to return for leisure reading material (posh phrase for pulp fiction).

Having recently been delving into the worlds of CSS and PHP in order to upgrade our website, I thought it might be educational to trot down town, pop into the library and see whether there were any manuals on these topics in the technical section which is a reasonable size.

It looked suspiciously quiet. Just as I was on my way in, some workmen moved aside the barrier which I had yet to notice and came out. “I think it opens again on Monday”, said one helpful chap.

On the one day in two years that I’d been intending to borrow a book, the library was shut. Drat! I will try again on Monday. 🙁

Rumour has it that my mother was born February 6th, 1918. If that’s true, then today was her 90th birthday. After some agonizing over what to get her by way of a present, we had decided to arrange for her a VIP tour in Woburn Safari Park. Unfortunately, at this time of year, such tours are only available on weekends so that is having to wait for the coming Saturday, 9th. So as not to let this day pass unnoticed, though, we (including my cousin Mark and his partner Linda) decided to take her and her friend Tony for lunch at the Loch Fyne restaurant in Woburn. The pictures are courtesy of Mark and Linda for which, many thanks.

We seem to be in a spell of settled weather and were blessed with sunshine; a wonderful treat since February is usually the worst of the dozen weatherwise. Let’s hope our luck continues for Saturday and the VIP safari trip. Carol went off for the morning to get very grubby on her regular Wednesday Greensand Trust volunteering but set an alarm to return by 12:15 PM. While she showered and donned the Armani, I went to collect Mother and Tony, returned for a spruced-up Carol, and we went over to meet Mark and Linda in Woburn for 1:00 PM.

We’d been instructed “not to tell anyone” and “not to make a fuss” about the 90th but, in the restaurant, lo and behold two helium balloons reading “Happy Birthday” and (my favourite) “I demand a recount” surrounding a table for six smothered in colourful, glittering “90” cut outs. Excellent! Well done Mark and Linda – I have to behave myself. 😉

The menu is very good, the hardest thing being to make a choice. There’s a couple of dishes for those not heavily into fish (Tony) but fish and seafood is why Loch Fyne exists. Birthday girl sucked down a few oysters to start with and then went with some crab cakes and roasted ratatouille which looked both very appetizing and a little like M. Mouse (explanation: the crab cakes were arranged like mouse ears over the ratatouille which became his face to my twisted mind – food like a Rorschach inkblot test). As usual, Mater finished with a cheese board but not any old cheese board this since the cheese appeared topped by three sparkling candles. There wasn’t room for the other 87! I suspected Mark and Linda, again. 🙂

I’m not readily impressed by restaurants but the choice (for fish lovers) and quality here was very good. Add to that the fact that the staff was very accommodating and I’d certainly return. A most enjoyable lunch was had by all, I think.

Now, on to Saturday’s safari, fingers crossed.