"If we were to retire here," observed Judith, "we would probably become very right-wing in very short-order." And, much though I love Purbeck, it has to be acknowledged that it is a very middle-class, very comfortable, and very well-off area -- not just in the obviously expensive places to live such as Corfe, where the houses will be unaffordable unless you were born there or inherited property there, but even in former farming and fishing villages such as Kimmeridge. Until the Second World War, Kimmeridge and its like -- such as the deserted village of Tyneham, given up to the War Office in 1943 and never returned -- would have existed at or even below the poverty level, it inhabitants wringing a precarious living from the land and the sea; now, like the thoroughly tourist-centred Studland, they are places for incomers: second homes, 4WDs clogging the lanes at weekends, organic cafes catering to walkers such as ourselves. (Although in our particular case we were carrying our own sandwich lunch, so didn't need to stop for a latte and a carrot cake.)
Swanage has what would obviously be called "council housing", system-built terraces put up in the 1950s and 1960s to house the less well-off; but even these houses lack any air of indigence or unemployment. One gets the sense that anyone who falls into these categories sooner or later moves away, because living there is otherwise unaffordable. "Prosperous" is the word you want to apply here -- although it's equally possible that (counter-intuitive as it is) much of this properity is attributable to the recession, as people choose to holiday in the UK rather than abroad. If so, the Swanage news trade certainly knows its audience -- hunting for a copy of The Guardian on Saturday morning, I found instead huge piles of The Daily Torygraph, equally huge piles of The Daily Hate and The Getsworse, and only slightly smaller piles of The Sun.
For an alternative to a conventional middle-class life, it seems you need to go to Wareham, where can be found people who look as though they've fallen out of an earlier 1970s fashion plate (cheesecloth, dyed long hair, the works). It's almost as though -- because when we passed through it was the weekend of the Glastonbury Festival -- they'd set off for that first gig on Worthy Farm all those years ago, but had turned aside somewhere along the way.
30 June 2010
Purbeck Vignettes -- 5: The Identification of Deer
Deer identification charts tend to focus on the rump, since that's mostly what you see as they run away from you. In wooded areas, however, you rarely see them at all: you hear a sudden commotion and crashing in the undergrowth adjacent to the path, and assume that you have disturbed a large animal which -- since there's nothing else large enough to make all that noise -- must be a deer. Just occasionally, however, your luck is in, and if you halt on the fringes of the woodland, keeping to the shadows, you can see them in the open ground beyond.
We were lucky twice on our walk across Creech Heath towards the Blue Pool, meeting fallow deer -- identifiable as such by the white spots on their backs -- on both occasions. When watched through binoculars, there is something permanently skittish about their behaviour: their heads are up, their ears erect, their little black eyes seeming to look straight at you, one front leg being repeatedly lifted and lowered. When they do decide to flee, they all move at once, as though they've reached a collective decision rather than being spooked by a single individual. But for the minutes before they decide that the new patch of shadow on the edge of the woods is a human, they can be observed contentedly grazing the heather, shepherding their fawns, and nuzzling one another's necks.
We were lucky twice on our walk across Creech Heath towards the Blue Pool, meeting fallow deer -- identifiable as such by the white spots on their backs -- on both occasions. When watched through binoculars, there is something permanently skittish about their behaviour: their heads are up, their ears erect, their little black eyes seeming to look straight at you, one front leg being repeatedly lifted and lowered. When they do decide to flee, they all move at once, as though they've reached a collective decision rather than being spooked by a single individual. But for the minutes before they decide that the new patch of shadow on the edge of the woods is a human, they can be observed contentedly grazing the heather, shepherding their fawns, and nuzzling one another's necks.
29 June 2010
Purbeck Vignettes -- 4: A Prospect of Studland
We knew of the long, white sand beach at Studland -- I'd been there as a boy -- but our principal interest was Studland Heath nature reserve, a dune-based heath habitat which is home to all six of Britain's native reptile species and would also host a number of different butterflies and beetles as well as the rare Dartford Warbler. The map provided by the National Trust, the Heath's owners, at Shell Bay at the north end of the beach -- coincidentally the official start (or end) of the South West Coast Path -- showed that there were a number of routes through it; our intention, therefore, was to progress along the beach as far as the naturist section, then veer off into the Heath and follow the paths to the bird hides at the southern end of the Little Sea before calling in at Studland village's Bankes Arms for a late lunch.
None of this really went to plan. Walking on sand is always slower than walking elsewhere; it therefore took us longer to get to the veering-off point than we'd anticipated (where we stopped for half-an-hour or so for Judith to sketch Old Harry Rocks). That was also the point at which we found that the signage on the ground was poor to non-existent: we could see the markers delineating the limits of the naturist area, but where were those to direct us onto the paths across the Heath?
Undaunted, we struck off into the dunes. To encounter no signs or waymarkers, but a number of slightly startled naturists doubtless wondering what these two "textiles" were doing blundering around in their midst. Asking for directions brought only the information that the Little Sea was a long way "in that direction", which was of no help. So we gave up and returned to the beach, our chosen path taking us past two young men behind a canvas shelter whose demeanour suggested they may have been interrupted while engaged in a manipulation of such frightfulness that it cannot possibly be discussed in a family blog such as this.
So we slogged on south towards Middle Beach, abandoning the thought of a lunch in the Bankes Arms (and a sampling of the local beers that would have provided), aiming instead for an ice cream at the NT Visitor Centre. And noting, as we went, that the Studland naturists have three principal characteristics: (1) they are nut-brown all over, presumably from their exposure to the sun; (2) they are all old and mostly overweight; and (3) when not lying down with their legs apart are striding boldly about displaying their, er, "equipment". Most unnerving!
None of this really went to plan. Walking on sand is always slower than walking elsewhere; it therefore took us longer to get to the veering-off point than we'd anticipated (where we stopped for half-an-hour or so for Judith to sketch Old Harry Rocks). That was also the point at which we found that the signage on the ground was poor to non-existent: we could see the markers delineating the limits of the naturist area, but where were those to direct us onto the paths across the Heath?
Undaunted, we struck off into the dunes. To encounter no signs or waymarkers, but a number of slightly startled naturists doubtless wondering what these two "textiles" were doing blundering around in their midst. Asking for directions brought only the information that the Little Sea was a long way "in that direction", which was of no help. So we gave up and returned to the beach, our chosen path taking us past two young men behind a canvas shelter whose demeanour suggested they may have been interrupted while engaged in a manipulation of such frightfulness that it cannot possibly be discussed in a family blog such as this.
So we slogged on south towards Middle Beach, abandoning the thought of a lunch in the Bankes Arms (and a sampling of the local beers that would have provided), aiming instead for an ice cream at the NT Visitor Centre. And noting, as we went, that the Studland naturists have three principal characteristics: (1) they are nut-brown all over, presumably from their exposure to the sun; (2) they are all old and mostly overweight; and (3) when not lying down with their legs apart are striding boldly about displaying their, er, "equipment". Most unnerving!
Purbeck Vignettes -- 3: Sandbanks: Vulgarity on Stilts
We wanted to visit Studland Beach and the nature reserve which backs it, but before we commenced that walk we thought we'd take the ferry over to Sandbanks -- supposedly the most expensive piece of real estate in the UK -- and walk around it to see what money had done to it.
There are vestiges of what it might have been like between the two world wars, when it would have been inhabited by those who couldn't afford "proper" homes in nearby Poole and Bournemouth: older, run-down, often single-storey properties presumably still occupied by the artists, writers and other bohemians (or their descendants) who moved there decades ago and have resisted the pressure to sell up or move out. One or two were shuttered and had signs up announcing their demolition, but this appeared to have been "immiment" for several months. Perhaps for same economic reasons, since one or two of the new and seriously upscale developments with hoardings announcing their opening this month or next were clearly in stasis: nobody building, nobody buying.
Most of the new or newer properties which had replaced the original bungalows and terraces were relatively restrained: lots of Mediterranean-style white facades with huge picture windows, stainless steel verandahs and the like. But in some cases their owners appeared to be people who had more money than sense, and had handed their po-mo architects a brief which allowed them to do whatever they like, with results -- an enormous faux-Corinthian portico sticks particularly in the mind -- which shouted not so much "Look at me, I'm rich", as "I'm rich, fuck off".
All a far cry from John Brunner's observation, in one of his short stories the title of which I can't remember, that when the super-rich find the searchlight of publicity swinging in their direction they buy the searchlight and instruct the man behind it to switch it off. And the thought that rising sea levels will be lapping at their front doors within the next fifty or so years is a suitable corrective to the thought of the money wasted on such housing extravagance.
There are vestiges of what it might have been like between the two world wars, when it would have been inhabited by those who couldn't afford "proper" homes in nearby Poole and Bournemouth: older, run-down, often single-storey properties presumably still occupied by the artists, writers and other bohemians (or their descendants) who moved there decades ago and have resisted the pressure to sell up or move out. One or two were shuttered and had signs up announcing their demolition, but this appeared to have been "immiment" for several months. Perhaps for same economic reasons, since one or two of the new and seriously upscale developments with hoardings announcing their opening this month or next were clearly in stasis: nobody building, nobody buying.
Most of the new or newer properties which had replaced the original bungalows and terraces were relatively restrained: lots of Mediterranean-style white facades with huge picture windows, stainless steel verandahs and the like. But in some cases their owners appeared to be people who had more money than sense, and had handed their po-mo architects a brief which allowed them to do whatever they like, with results -- an enormous faux-Corinthian portico sticks particularly in the mind -- which shouted not so much "Look at me, I'm rich", as "I'm rich, fuck off".
All a far cry from John Brunner's observation, in one of his short stories the title of which I can't remember, that when the super-rich find the searchlight of publicity swinging in their direction they buy the searchlight and instruct the man behind it to switch it off. And the thought that rising sea levels will be lapping at their front doors within the next fifty or so years is a suitable corrective to the thought of the money wasted on such housing extravagance.
Purbeck Vignettes -- 2: The Habits of Birds
The walk to Corfe Castle along the chalk ridge of the East Purbeck Hills is in my opinion the loveliest walk in England. Poole Harbour and Wareham Forest spread out to the right; the Vale of Purbeck and its stone-built hamlets to the left; ahead, the sway-backed West Purbeck Hills marching to meet the sea at Worbarrow Tout, like a snake undulating across the landscape; and closer, the ruined keep of the Castle emerging from the folds of the downs. And, above, the birds.
It's perhaps surprising how only a few minutes' observation is sufficient to be able to distinguish one species from another (especially if most of the birds you ordinarily see are urban ones visiting your garden rather than those of the countryside). For instance, kestrels and peregrines are both raptors, the latter larger than the first, although you usually need binoculars to resolve this detail; but even without binoculars the differences in their behaviour are clear. Kestrels hover over the slopes of the hills, their beak and head forming a downward-curving profile at right-angles to their body, and have to engage in bursts of frantic wing-beating every minute or so to retain their position. Peregrines, by contrast, soar and glide: their wing-beats are sparse, and they move slowly across the sky, clearly reserving their energies for the killing dive that will gain them their next meal.
Buzzards are different again: with square, distinctively barred wings, they patrol in rising circles, concluding each patrol with a downward slide to a different spot to commence a new one. Crows -- sociable, intelligent birds -- clearly enjoy riding the thermals, just because they can. And the skylarks....you'll never see skylarks in towns, because they are birds of the open field: trilling constantly, rising upwards, becoming a mere dot before suddenly folding their wings and plunging down to their nest somewhere in the grass.
And the other lovely thing about the walk along the East Purbeck Hills is that there is no background noise -- of traffic, or aircraft -- to blanket the bird-song: you'll hear it all.
At the end of the walk, there are the ruins of Corfe Castle, the most sublime of all the ruined castles in England -- see the photograph below. When I die, I want my ashes scattered on the slope of the hill overlooking it, just where the photograph was taken.
It's perhaps surprising how only a few minutes' observation is sufficient to be able to distinguish one species from another (especially if most of the birds you ordinarily see are urban ones visiting your garden rather than those of the countryside). For instance, kestrels and peregrines are both raptors, the latter larger than the first, although you usually need binoculars to resolve this detail; but even without binoculars the differences in their behaviour are clear. Kestrels hover over the slopes of the hills, their beak and head forming a downward-curving profile at right-angles to their body, and have to engage in bursts of frantic wing-beating every minute or so to retain their position. Peregrines, by contrast, soar and glide: their wing-beats are sparse, and they move slowly across the sky, clearly reserving their energies for the killing dive that will gain them their next meal.
Buzzards are different again: with square, distinctively barred wings, they patrol in rising circles, concluding each patrol with a downward slide to a different spot to commence a new one. Crows -- sociable, intelligent birds -- clearly enjoy riding the thermals, just because they can. And the skylarks....you'll never see skylarks in towns, because they are birds of the open field: trilling constantly, rising upwards, becoming a mere dot before suddenly folding their wings and plunging down to their nest somewhere in the grass.
And the other lovely thing about the walk along the East Purbeck Hills is that there is no background noise -- of traffic, or aircraft -- to blanket the bird-song: you'll hear it all.
At the end of the walk, there are the ruins of Corfe Castle, the most sublime of all the ruined castles in England -- see the photograph below. When I die, I want my ashes scattered on the slope of the hill overlooking it, just where the photograph was taken.
Purbeck Vignettes -- 1: The Lesser Ascot Fascinator
Changing at Oxford Circus on our way to Waterloo just over a week ago, we encountered what at first appeared to be three people on their way to a wedding: a smartly dressed young man in a grey suit, accompanied by two young women in summer frocks and the wire-and-feather contraptions pinned to the side of the head known as fascinators which are apparently this season's de rigeur fashion accessory for smart engagements. Instead of an elaborate hat (or het, as Judith and I pronounce it, thereby distinguishing them from proper hats), something which lets the breeze through and keeps one's head cool.
Getting out at Waterloo, we were passed by a third young woman in a summer frock and fascinator. Same wedding party, we thought. Then, arriving on the station concourse and encountering more (and more and more and more -- and many more smartly dressed men) of them, the penny dropped -- this was the last Saturday of Ascot, and they were off for a day at the races.
It was immediately obvious that few if any of them would be classifiable as proper toffs. For all of them -- the men as well, many in highly formal top hat and tails (often carrying picnic bags and folding stools) -- this was an opportunity to dress up and have fun: just the sort of thing to do (especially if one is in one's twenties and thirties, and most of them clearly were) to keep one's spirit up during the worst economic recession since the war (phrase copyright just about everybody, and can we please find another). But one couldn't help thinking that most of the women just weren't dressed for the weather (nine-tenths overcast, and the propsect of rain): bare legs (and often bare arms), thin dresses, no coats....many of them looked chilled already. And the shoes: how could they possibly expect to navigate grassy surfaces in such ridiculously high heels? (Even though the sensible ones were actually travelling in flats and carrying their heels in a bag.)
We left them to it. "It" included vast queues for the ticket machines -- presumably the decision to go to Ascot for the day was so last-minute that they couldn't organise themselves to buy their tickets in advance and save a bit of money....
Getting out at Waterloo, we were passed by a third young woman in a summer frock and fascinator. Same wedding party, we thought. Then, arriving on the station concourse and encountering more (and more and more and more -- and many more smartly dressed men) of them, the penny dropped -- this was the last Saturday of Ascot, and they were off for a day at the races.
It was immediately obvious that few if any of them would be classifiable as proper toffs. For all of them -- the men as well, many in highly formal top hat and tails (often carrying picnic bags and folding stools) -- this was an opportunity to dress up and have fun: just the sort of thing to do (especially if one is in one's twenties and thirties, and most of them clearly were) to keep one's spirit up during the worst economic recession since the war (phrase copyright just about everybody, and can we please find another). But one couldn't help thinking that most of the women just weren't dressed for the weather (nine-tenths overcast, and the propsect of rain): bare legs (and often bare arms), thin dresses, no coats....many of them looked chilled already. And the shoes: how could they possibly expect to navigate grassy surfaces in such ridiculously high heels? (Even though the sensible ones were actually travelling in flats and carrying their heels in a bag.)
We left them to it. "It" included vast queues for the ticket machines -- presumably the decision to go to Ascot for the day was so last-minute that they couldn't organise themselves to buy their tickets in advance and save a bit of money....
28 June 2010
Harvest Home
We went to the allotment yesterday, for the first time after a week away in Purbeck, and found that the summer harvest season is now in full swing. Pictured is the head gardener, Cde J Hanna, with yesterday's haul: a bag of red orache, a bag of parsley, a bag of lavender, three tubs of strawberries, two tubs of raspberries, and two of blackcurrants. And a vase of red roses to keep them company.
18 June 2010
And wait... there's more
Grandma in the workshop
Connor doing clean
and Dan drawing
(not necessarily in that order)
Photos
Well - finally got around to downloading the photos on my camera.
Here are a few for you..
First photos are of the kids at the Albany rodeo in January - it's official dirt makes your eyes sparkle!!
The last is of Mum and Bindi in the Albany house.
16 June 2010
Purbeck Again
We're off to Purbeck again on Saturday, for another week of country walking and/or reading in the caravan at Swanage while waiting for the weather to clear. We have a number of walks already planned, to fill in (some of) the gaps left over from last summer: across the heath at Studland (with possibly a quick peek at the naturist beach because, *coff coff*, one just can't resist the lure of naked flesh -- or, more likely, naked flabby bodies); from Kingston around the Kimmeridge Levels and back via the viewpoint at Swyre Head; along the Wareham Forest Way to Sturminster Marshall (or, more likely, back from Sturminster Marshall; there's a bus service, but since the service runs via Poole it will clearly be preferable to start from there rather than finish there); and a visit to the town museum at Wareham, which caught us out last time by closing at 4.00pm, just as we'd finished our walk around the walls of the Saxon settlement and had an hour to wait for the bus back to Swanage. Plus the walks we really want to do: on the Purbeck Hills west of Corfe Castle, or as close as one can get to the military ranges; and to Corfe Castle from Swanage, across the downs in the morning sunshine. And if that last works out correctly, when we reach the brow of Challow Hill, with the castle below us, we'll sit ourselves down with our lunchtime sandwiches, and Judith will sketch and paint while I read, and we'll both watch the hares in the fields below and the kestrels in the sky above, and we'll know that no matter how many times we return we will never have "done" Purbeck.
13 June 2010
That Didn't Last Long....
I wrote only a few days ago how I had upgraded to a spiffy new HP laptop running Windows 7 with all kinds of media facilities. It's a lovely little machine, but had one problem: I couldn't get e-mail to work on it. Not my legacy Eudora running in compatibility mode, not the beta test version of Eudora for Windows 7, not Mozilla Thunderbird, not even the Windows Live Mail that had been pre-installed on the machine. All failed, in one way or another, to connect to my ISP -- they could neither download e-mail ("connection timed out" -- "connection refused" -- "connection closed by foreign host") nor send it ("550 relay not permitted" -- "application refused (10061)" -- "RCTP rejected"). (Although, interestingly, I could connect to the web using Mozilla Firefox, using exactly the same settings as on my old desktop machine -- as I was attempting to use the settings from the dekstop PC for e-mail.) On the advice of the vendors, I downloaded a utility (Norton Removal Tool) to remove a pre-installed antivirus program which might have been gumming up the works; but this was of no avail. I couldn't even use Windows' system restore facility to return the machine to an earlier state (before I tried to install any e-mail application and might have buggered the underlying settings): that repeatedly closed without completing because "an application such as anti-virus might be running -- please disable the anti-virus and try again". That a basic Windows utility such as that didn't work suggested fairly strongly that the chief source of the problems was the machine itself.
So I finally gave up. I removed from the laptop everything I'd put on it -- music, photographs, desktop images, spreadsheets, other documents, the web-editing and other applications -- and returned it for a refund. That took a little bit of argument, since of course any vendor is reluctant to cancel a sale, but the fact that the thing couldn't be brought up to full functionality and was therefore No Damn Use was in the end fairly unanswerable.
So now I'm back to my old, slow desktop PC running Windows XP on a five or six-year-old processor and less than a Gb of RAM, with no fancy media facilities. On the other hand, it does have a TFT screen and wireless broadband, and it does everything for which I actually use a computer -- especially the sending and receiving of e-mail. Given the struggles I had getting the laptop to do something as apparently simple as that, I think it will be many more years before I again contemplate replacing my PC.
So I finally gave up. I removed from the laptop everything I'd put on it -- music, photographs, desktop images, spreadsheets, other documents, the web-editing and other applications -- and returned it for a refund. That took a little bit of argument, since of course any vendor is reluctant to cancel a sale, but the fact that the thing couldn't be brought up to full functionality and was therefore No Damn Use was in the end fairly unanswerable.
So now I'm back to my old, slow desktop PC running Windows XP on a five or six-year-old processor and less than a Gb of RAM, with no fancy media facilities. On the other hand, it does have a TFT screen and wireless broadband, and it does everything for which I actually use a computer -- especially the sending and receiving of e-mail. Given the struggles I had getting the laptop to do something as apparently simple as that, I think it will be many more years before I again contemplate replacing my PC.
09 June 2010
Upgraderate! Upgraderate!
My desktop PC was bought in 2005 -- or was it 2004? Anyway, it's obviously an antique in computer terms: although it still runs all my most-used applications, the Service Pack and other bloatware upgrades to which Windows XP has been subject over the means that for at least the past year it has been loading and running with what seems glacial slowness. I can of course use the jolly old Ctrl-Alt-Delete shortcut to access the list of stuff that loads on start-up and terminate all manner of rubbish lurking around waiting to access the internet when I don't want it to, but the Windows system itself is obviously creaking under the strain -- the processor isn't fast enough, there is insufficient RAM available for the swap files the applications need, there are periods when the hard drive churns continuously away without actually doing anything (if you leave the PC alone for any reasonable length of time it takes ages to awake from hibernation), et bloody cetera. Yet I didn't want to upgrade, because buying anything new would mean getting something bundled with Windows 7, which -- like any other new Microsoft product -- is still being tested on the customer and has yet to have its Service Pack 1 released to fix the bugs and patch the security holes.
You can guess what's coming next, can't you?
Last Friday, after several days of e-mail outage -- which I thought might be because my years-old installation of Eudora had finally reached the end of its operating life, but subsequently proved to be the result of server problems with my ISP -- I went to PC World in Tottenham Hale on the way home from werk and had a browse of their available laptops. Quite an expensive browse, as it turned out: I spent £639 on an Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv6-2113sa Notebook running Windows 7, a model I chose because of its 500 Gb hard drive, 15.6-inch display, 4 Gb of RAM, fast graphics card, and lotsanlots of peripheral ports for Other Stuff like printers, bigger monitors, mice, external keyboards, back-up drives, etc. etc.. (Christ, don't I sound like a geek.)
And because Windows 7 is a new operating system, all of the organising features of Windows XP that I had come to regard as intuitive parts of my computer use have been junked, requiring users to learn how to use the machine all over again. *!$%£&!* Microsoft!
I squandered huge chunks of the weekend hacking through what felt like a counter-intuitive user interface and getting the thing partially set up for my use, chiefly downloading and installing the non-Microsoft applications that I prefer, and inevitably finding that (since Windows 7 is a 64-bit operating system and all previous Windows are 32-bit) some of them didn't work, even when I'd found the backwards compatibility option lurking in the depths of what used to be called the Control Panel (and is now called -- yeuch -- the Action Center). So I have my web-building program; but not the FTP application to actually upload pages to websites. I have my MP3 music library; but not the player used to rip CDs to MP3 format. Other issues were that although I could install the Microsoft Works Suite that I'd had on the desktop PC, it wouldn't import the spreadsheets I'd created thereon under Lotus 1-2-3 (probably my own fault for sticking with that superseded application because I'd got used to it instead of making the leap to Works' Excel-lite version, but still a bugger to have to copy-type them from the PC's screen).
On the other hand, I do have this spiffy, fast new laptop which doesn't weigh a ton, has a clean, attractive TFT display, an inbuilt webcam and (gasp!) Skype which appears to have either set itself up or which I appear to have set up without realising it, which means that I can now talk to real people over the internet and see how ghastly they are for myself instead of having to guess. And of course I can now do really wanky look-at-me-I'm-a-poser things like web the surf while sitting in pavement cafes or watch DVDs on long train journeys. Bloody hell, I may even take the thing on holiday to Purbeck with me in a couple of weeks, so that I can download and organise my photographs each day instead of waiting until we return. Heigh-ho!
You can guess what's coming next, can't you?
Last Friday, after several days of e-mail outage -- which I thought might be because my years-old installation of Eudora had finally reached the end of its operating life, but subsequently proved to be the result of server problems with my ISP -- I went to PC World in Tottenham Hale on the way home from werk and had a browse of their available laptops. Quite an expensive browse, as it turned out: I spent £639 on an Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv6-2113sa Notebook running Windows 7, a model I chose because of its 500 Gb hard drive, 15.6-inch display, 4 Gb of RAM, fast graphics card, and lotsanlots of peripheral ports for Other Stuff like printers, bigger monitors, mice, external keyboards, back-up drives, etc. etc.. (Christ, don't I sound like a geek.)
And because Windows 7 is a new operating system, all of the organising features of Windows XP that I had come to regard as intuitive parts of my computer use have been junked, requiring users to learn how to use the machine all over again. *!$%£&!* Microsoft!
I squandered huge chunks of the weekend hacking through what felt like a counter-intuitive user interface and getting the thing partially set up for my use, chiefly downloading and installing the non-Microsoft applications that I prefer, and inevitably finding that (since Windows 7 is a 64-bit operating system and all previous Windows are 32-bit) some of them didn't work, even when I'd found the backwards compatibility option lurking in the depths of what used to be called the Control Panel (and is now called -- yeuch -- the Action Center). So I have my web-building program; but not the FTP application to actually upload pages to websites. I have my MP3 music library; but not the player used to rip CDs to MP3 format. Other issues were that although I could install the Microsoft Works Suite that I'd had on the desktop PC, it wouldn't import the spreadsheets I'd created thereon under Lotus 1-2-3 (probably my own fault for sticking with that superseded application because I'd got used to it instead of making the leap to Works' Excel-lite version, but still a bugger to have to copy-type them from the PC's screen).
On the other hand, I do have this spiffy, fast new laptop which doesn't weigh a ton, has a clean, attractive TFT display, an inbuilt webcam and (gasp!) Skype which appears to have either set itself up or which I appear to have set up without realising it, which means that I can now talk to real people over the internet and see how ghastly they are for myself instead of having to guess. And of course I can now do really wanky look-at-me-I'm-a-poser things like web the surf while sitting in pavement cafes or watch DVDs on long train journeys. Bloody hell, I may even take the thing on holiday to Purbeck with me in a couple of weeks, so that I can download and organise my photographs each day instead of waiting until we return. Heigh-ho!
02 June 2010
Bank Holiday Weekend (part 2)
As prefigured in my previous post, I now have photographs of Exmouth to show you.
The town was a working port for much of its life -- full details of its history can be found in its Wikipedia entry; it also has its own website -- but changed direction to become more of a resort with the coming of the railway, which linked the villages along both banks of the Exe Estuary with Exeter and in due course changed them all into part of Exeter's commuter belt. A train journey down the east bank of the estuary is both v picturesque and an opportunity for close-up views of some serious money (apart from Lympstone Commando training centre, which is surrounded by razor wire fencing and the platform for which sports large unfriendly signs warning that one should only disembark from the train if one has business at the camp).
We went to Exmouth because we wanted to visit the bird reserves -- i.e., the sand banks which bar the mouth of the estuary and the mud flats which become visible when the tide goes out -- but because it was late spring there weren't a great many birds to see: the best time to visit is probably the winter, when many species will have moved down from the Arctic for the duration, or in early spring and late autumn, when many migratory species will be passing through. So instead we had to content ourselves with a walk along the front to the obelisk on the cliff at Orcombe Point east of the town which marks the western end of the Jurassic Coast world heritage area, and then a walk back, stopping off at the model railway (claimed to be the largest in the world) and a car boot sale at which The Wugster hoovered up some cheap jewellery (and would probably have bought Even More Stuff if I hadn't intervened).
A walk along Exmouth's sea front indicates that, like Caesar's Gaul, it is divided into three parts. The eastern section -- the largest section -- is the grocklerama, with stalls (thankfully not many) vending chips and fish to pasty, pudgy people from oop north and their horrible snot-streaked children playing on the sand with their buckets and spades and throwing frisbees for their dogs, with an admixture of size 00 teenage gels with dyed blonde straightened hair and the peculiarly vacant expressions so typical of those who appear to have been surgically welded to their iPods, not to mention their horrible gangly concave-chested shaven-headed boyfriends in scruffy vomit-coloured "shorts" hanging low off their bottoms displaying their manky underwear what a repellent sight it is such dressage would never have been tolerated in my day a few years in the Army would do them a power of good or better yet gas the lot of them and pulp the bodies for use as fertiliser 3 vols surplus rant omitted at this point. The middle section -- the smallest section -- is the refined but slightly decayed Victorian/Edwardian bit: a terrace of three- and four-storey private hotels, with occasional private houses of a similar mien and a hostelry of an obviously reserved kind, set back from the street in its own private garden, with a noticeboard listing forthcoming musical evenings of a type clearly designed to turn away the riff-raff who infest the eastern section. The third section -- the western and most modern section -- is set around what was once the harbour and is now the marina: rank upon rank of nautical-themed po-mo blocks with occasional banners shouting APARTMENTS FOR SALE in letters of an urgency which suggests that the blocks were constructed or came onto the market (were "released", in estate agents' jargon) at around the time the financial crisis of 2008 engulfed the world economy, meaning that the people who bought apartments around then must now be sitting on or in something that's worth half or less than the gigantic mortgage they took out (ho ho ho) and/or that the companies which built the things are now struggling to stave off administration or even insolvency and the consequent fire sale of the po-mo blocks for two-fifths of next to nothing (ho ho ho).
Some pictures follow -- The Wugster leaning against the obelisk which marks the western end of the Jurassic Coast; part of the 250 million-year-old Triassic red sandstone formation at Orcombe Point, the oldest part of the Jurassic Coast; donkeys on the grocklerama part of the beach; one of the many blue plaques scattered through the town drawing attention to its historic links and features (there's a blue plaque walking trail, but we didn't have time to follow it); and a panorama of the Exe Estuary at low tide (it was on the turn as we were leaving).
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The town was a working port for much of its life -- full details of its history can be found in its Wikipedia entry; it also has its own website -- but changed direction to become more of a resort with the coming of the railway, which linked the villages along both banks of the Exe Estuary with Exeter and in due course changed them all into part of Exeter's commuter belt. A train journey down the east bank of the estuary is both v picturesque and an opportunity for close-up views of some serious money (apart from Lympstone Commando training centre, which is surrounded by razor wire fencing and the platform for which sports large unfriendly signs warning that one should only disembark from the train if one has business at the camp).
We went to Exmouth because we wanted to visit the bird reserves -- i.e., the sand banks which bar the mouth of the estuary and the mud flats which become visible when the tide goes out -- but because it was late spring there weren't a great many birds to see: the best time to visit is probably the winter, when many species will have moved down from the Arctic for the duration, or in early spring and late autumn, when many migratory species will be passing through. So instead we had to content ourselves with a walk along the front to the obelisk on the cliff at Orcombe Point east of the town which marks the western end of the Jurassic Coast world heritage area, and then a walk back, stopping off at the model railway (claimed to be the largest in the world) and a car boot sale at which The Wugster hoovered up some cheap jewellery (and would probably have bought Even More Stuff if I hadn't intervened).
A walk along Exmouth's sea front indicates that, like Caesar's Gaul, it is divided into three parts. The eastern section -- the largest section -- is the grocklerama, with stalls (thankfully not many) vending chips and fish to pasty, pudgy people from oop north and their horrible snot-streaked children playing on the sand with their buckets and spades and throwing frisbees for their dogs, with an admixture of size 00 teenage gels with dyed blonde straightened hair and the peculiarly vacant expressions so typical of those who appear to have been surgically welded to their iPods, not to mention their horrible gangly concave-chested shaven-headed boyfriends in scruffy vomit-coloured "shorts" hanging low off their bottoms displaying their manky underwear what a repellent sight it is such dressage would never have been tolerated in my day a few years in the Army would do them a power of good or better yet gas the lot of them and pulp the bodies for use as fertiliser 3 vols surplus rant omitted at this point. The middle section -- the smallest section -- is the refined but slightly decayed Victorian/Edwardian bit: a terrace of three- and four-storey private hotels, with occasional private houses of a similar mien and a hostelry of an obviously reserved kind, set back from the street in its own private garden, with a noticeboard listing forthcoming musical evenings of a type clearly designed to turn away the riff-raff who infest the eastern section. The third section -- the western and most modern section -- is set around what was once the harbour and is now the marina: rank upon rank of nautical-themed po-mo blocks with occasional banners shouting APARTMENTS FOR SALE in letters of an urgency which suggests that the blocks were constructed or came onto the market (were "released", in estate agents' jargon) at around the time the financial crisis of 2008 engulfed the world economy, meaning that the people who bought apartments around then must now be sitting on or in something that's worth half or less than the gigantic mortgage they took out (ho ho ho) and/or that the companies which built the things are now struggling to stave off administration or even insolvency and the consequent fire sale of the po-mo blocks for two-fifths of next to nothing (ho ho ho).
Some pictures follow -- The Wugster leaning against the obelisk which marks the western end of the Jurassic Coast; part of the 250 million-year-old Triassic red sandstone formation at Orcombe Point, the oldest part of the Jurassic Coast; donkeys on the grocklerama part of the beach; one of the many blue plaques scattered through the town drawing attention to its historic links and features (there's a blue plaque walking trail, but we didn't have time to follow it); and a panorama of the Exe Estuary at low tide (it was on the turn as we were leaving).
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01 June 2010
Bank Holiday Weekend (Part 1)
This weekend just past was the late spring public holiday weekend -- meaning that offices closed on the Monday (as well as for the weekend) but everyone else had to work, especially if they're self-employed, or toil in tourism and retail). Judith and I, being civil servants, also had the Tuesday off as a "privilege day", meaning that that we send loyal greetings to Brenda for being a spiffing monarch (etc. etc.) and she graciously gives us an extra day's paid holiday in thanks. (Go on -- complain to your MP.)
It being a bank holiday weekend, the weather of course turned nasty -- cold and wet on the Saturday, a modicum of sunshine on the Sunday and Monday, cold and wet again the Tuesday. We spent most of the weekend with my parents in Lyme Regis, either toiling on "the world's smallest jigsaw puzzle" when it was too wet to go out, or -- when it was much more clement -- engaging in a leisurely stroll through the countryside around Uplyme and then down into town along the River Lim for tea and buns at the new restaurant at the restored Town Mill.
Below are some photographs. The first two are of "the world's smallest jigsaw puzzle", or as much of it as we managed to do before we had to pack up and come home on Tuesday morning (each piece is one-quarter of the size of a normal jigsaw piece, and there are one thousand of them; the completed puzzle would be about the same size as a normal-sized 500-piece puzzle); the second two are of Judith sketching during a break in our walk through the Uplyme countryside and an image of the Woodland Trust wood above the village that she was sketching (the light reflections off the paper mean that the drawing unfortunately wasn't visible to the camera); and, finally, of our afternoon tea at the Town Mill. I had a barmbrack cake with a Dorset cheese; and Judith had a meringue with cream that was at least half the size of her head. (Duuude!)
On Monday, we went to Exmouth for the day, to visit the western end of the Jurassic Coast world heritage site and to see the birds in the estuary. But I'll post photographs of that tomorrow.
It being a bank holiday weekend, the weather of course turned nasty -- cold and wet on the Saturday, a modicum of sunshine on the Sunday and Monday, cold and wet again the Tuesday. We spent most of the weekend with my parents in Lyme Regis, either toiling on "the world's smallest jigsaw puzzle" when it was too wet to go out, or -- when it was much more clement -- engaging in a leisurely stroll through the countryside around Uplyme and then down into town along the River Lim for tea and buns at the new restaurant at the restored Town Mill.
Below are some photographs. The first two are of "the world's smallest jigsaw puzzle", or as much of it as we managed to do before we had to pack up and come home on Tuesday morning (each piece is one-quarter of the size of a normal jigsaw piece, and there are one thousand of them; the completed puzzle would be about the same size as a normal-sized 500-piece puzzle); the second two are of Judith sketching during a break in our walk through the Uplyme countryside and an image of the Woodland Trust wood above the village that she was sketching (the light reflections off the paper mean that the drawing unfortunately wasn't visible to the camera); and, finally, of our afternoon tea at the Town Mill. I had a barmbrack cake with a Dorset cheese; and Judith had a meringue with cream that was at least half the size of her head. (Duuude!)
On Monday, we went to Exmouth for the day, to visit the western end of the Jurassic Coast world heritage site and to see the birds in the estuary. But I'll post photographs of that tomorrow.
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