Blogs: Pandammonia
The world that revolves around Caity Ross.
Ignore this post
Just seeing if my WordPress plug-in does OAuth because Basic Auth was turned off by Twitter today. I imagine it will.
Update (a minute later): it does work.
Thomas the Tank Engine
Today (technically yesterday), I went to Nene Valley Railway to ride on a train pulled by Thomas the Tank Engine. Colin pointed out that I was being unfaithful to Henry, who is named after Henry. Still, at least I didn’t drive Henry to the location of my infidelity.
Thomas pulls the train from Wansford to Yarwell and back again. We were told by the fat controller to just get on the train and tell the ticket inspector that Eddie said we could get on the train and buy a ticket off him, which we did, getting a souvenir ticket like they were back in the day.
The plan after that was to get the train to Peterborough, bypassing Ferry Meadows and Orton Mere because we’ve already done those places.
Peterborough was ok. We did the cathedral, once we’d found it. If only we’d just turned round 180 degrees! We concurred that there wasn’t enough excitement in Peterborough to warrant a return journey.
We caught the train back to Wansford, where we went in the gift shop. As I was standing in the queue at the counter, a small child spoke to me.
It said, “what’s that?”
“Henry,” I said, showing the child what I had in my hands.
The child touched it.
It said, “we’ve got we’ve got we’ve got [repeat ad nauseam].”
Then it said something unintelligible, to which I replied, “have you?”
Then it started off on the “we’ve got”s again. I wondered if I was still supposed to be paying attention to it. Luckily, the lady behind the counter asked who was next. I was, I decided. As I paid for Henry, I looked around for the child. It had gone to look at something else. Phew.
When I got home, I was so sleepy, I went to bed early, with Colin bringing me some hot chocolate, because he’s nice like that. I didn’t go to sleep though. It was far too early!
New growth
I did some gardening at the weekend. Not my usual style of gardening, either, which involves taking cutting implements to things that won’t stop growing. That’s not to say I didn’t take the saw to the buddleia under the window, because I did. Now you can see out the window!
My proper gardening involved planting things. I made use of the redundant recycling boxes, which the council replaced with blue wheelie bins, as a planter. I planted a fuchsia, a tiny conifer, a dahlia, a chrysanthemum and a eu-something in the black box, which was used for newspapers, tins, glass and so on. I sowed anemone bulbs in the blue box, which was used for plastic bottles.
I re-potted my bay tree and my little Christmas tree. The Christmas tree is going brown, possibly because it’s waterlogged. I’ve also managed to plant the bay tree off-centre and slightly wonky and the Christmas tree very wonky. This bugs me, but the thought of re-re-potting them is too much.
I covered the tops of the plants with decorative stones to prevent weeds thinking they can start growing there and to keep the moisture in. I put bark chips on top of the soil in the blue box for the same reason, but I’m hoping the softer medium will allow the anemones to come through. We will see.
Next step is taking control of the borders.
Itchin’ and scratchin’
Say you’re a child with chicken pox. Chicken pox spots are incredibly itchy. You know that they might scar if you scratch them, because you’re told this by your parents every time you scratch them. But they’re so itchy.
That one on your arm has been itching and itching. It’s all you can think about. The more you try to ignore it, the more itchy it gets. You need to scratch it. You know it could cause permanent damage. But you feel you have no other choice but to scratch it. So you scratch it. It feels better for a moment, then it feels sore, but that’s better than the itching, right?
But then it gets itchy again. You have to scratch it. You need to neutralise the itch. It’ll scar if you scratch it. You don’t want scars, but it’s itchy! You try to put it out of your mind, but it won’t go away on its own. You need to do something. Scratch it, scratch it! No, it’ll scar. Scratching it is the only way it will stop itching. You scratch it.
The chicken pox clears up. You have a scar on your arm.
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The point of the iPad
I have finally determined the point of the iPad: it is a most excellent tool for procrastinating.
As if I needed such a thing. But it’s quite a fun procrastination tool, but there are quite a few niggling little things that detract from the experience. On the whole, though, I think I’m starting to like the thing!
iPad u-turn
I went all nocturnal last night, so went to bed after breakfast, and woke with the thunder around one, half one. I watched a bit of telly to wake myself up while I had a cuppa and some food (cold leftover pizza, if you’re interested), then checked my email on the computer, to find an email from Apple telling me they had my iPad in the shop! That meant I didn’t have to phone PC World after all.
I wombled off to the Apple shop, where I selected various accessories for my iPad and Colin’s iPad, except for the camera connection kit, which “they can’t make fast enouigh” according to the manager man. He himself is waiting for one, and they didn’t even know till last night that they were getting some iPads in.
He got one of the sales assistants to send for my iPad and ring up my purchases. My credit card is feeling it, I can tell you!
Anyway, I now have an iPad, and it’s currently synchronising all my music and photos from my computer with itself through my specially-set-up-yesterday-in-anticipation iTunes account.
Oh, and there’s a new iPhone coming out in the next few weeks, if you’re interested.
