The Bucket List

Head Rambles Posted on by  

I have a little set-up here in the manor.

Basically it’s a collection of disks all connected to a network so I can access everything from everywhere.

One disk has a few films and series on it, another has my own collection of music [about 20,000 tracks?!] and all my digital photographs [nearly 5,000].

Last night we had watched a film and when it was over I idly started flicking through the photos.

We nearly wept.

I had found a whole collection of images I had taken in France around the Dordogne region over several holidays.

On our first trip to France we had gone the whole hog – all the way down to the Spanish border in an old Fiesta packed to the roof with luggage and a three year old. If I was going to learn how to drive on the wrong side of the road, I might as well do it properly?

The second trip was in ’90 and we happened by chance to end up near Sarlat-la-Caneda. We fell in love with the area and returned a further three times.

It’s hard to describe the Sarlat area. It has just about everything we wanted in abundance.

The weather is fantastic – usually dead calm with temperatures around the thirties and it’s a very comfortable temperature. None of that Irish thing where if the thermometer rises above twenty you start to sweat ike mad and get very uncomfortable.

The towns and villages in the area are amazing. All seem to be stuck in the middle ages yet all function perfectly. Sarlat in particular is a modern town [we’d call it a city in Ireland] but the entire heart of it is medieval architecture and all pedestrianised.

Of course the food there is somewhat different from the Irish stuff. The one of the plate above is Confit de Canard! One of my favourite dishes over there.

Now the problem is that looking at the photographs has given us a wee hankering to return. Things have changed somewhat since our last visit ten years ago. Whatever luggage we bring would have to leave enough room for a wheelchair or a wheelie-walker, not to mention the dog. Wherever we go has to be on a level, so stairs are out. Either that or we have to get Herself’s knees replaced [but I can’t find any suitable knees on eBay].

One way or another, we are determined to return.

Maybe next year?

When the sky falls

Head Rambles Posted on by 8

Last evening this site developed a dose of hiccups.

It does that occasionally so I wasn’t too worried.  I put it on life support and went to bed.

This morning the site was dead.

Well, it wasn’t actually dead, but there was a notice on the door announcing that all its resources were used up or some such meaningless garbage.  Try as I might I could,’t get in to try to fix it.

I tried everything but in the end I had to fall back on the old maxim – when all else fails, use a stick of dynamite.

So now the site was just a smoking hole in the ground surrounded by rubble.  Not a pretty site.

I started from scratch on a new server.  But then I had to paint and decorate it to look like the old one and then I had to write in around 4,600 posts and around 66,000 comments and all from memory.  It took an hour or so, but in my defence we’re looking at a couple of million words.

It is sort of working now.  This is the third time I have written this little piece and somehow the other two just vanished so maybe it’s not fully functional yet.  I know I have a lot of work left to do on the foundations.

But it hasn’t hiccuped yet………

Compromised Internet

Head Rambles Posted on by 12

I think you all know me fairly well by now.

You re all aware of my placid nature and how difficult it is to annoy me? I am a pool of tranquillity and little ruffles my surface.

Lately however I have become the victim of another scam. Or rather I have become the target, as I never let them get far enough to actually achieve anything.

The phone rings. It’s a local number that I don’t recognise but it could be some long lost friend or a solicitor telling me I have inherited a fortune from some relative I never knew I had. Anyways I answer the phone.

After a pause, a recorded voice tells me they are from “eir connect” or some such, and that my Internet connection has been compromised. Apparently they are to disconnect me within 24 hours and could I please press 1 to speak to an agent.

Now I may be an old duffer but I know a little bit about Internet connections and for the life of me I know of no way that an Internet connection can be compromised. It either works, or it doesn’t. If they said my in-house wireless had been compromised I might give them some credence, but they have no way of monitoring it so that’s out. If my IP address was compromised then it’s simply a matter of rebooting my router to grab a different IP. There is no need to threaten me with disconnection. One way or another, I am not going to play their little game, so I hang up.

For the uninitiated, I assume the purpose of these calls is to get me to install some bit of software or something whereupon they can grab all my personal information, or else infect my laptop and then charge me a fortune to disinfect it again.

I have had quite a few of these calls to date. Certainly it is several days since the first call and my Internet connection is still loud and clear. Mostly they are in the afternoon but today they crossed the line. A phone call at nine in the morning is a fuck off phone call. It wakes the house and that is guaranteed to really boil my piss. To make matters worse, they tried again at ten.

They are trying my patience. I am tempted to press that 1 the next time they call and let fly with as much invective as I can muster.

You see – under that tranquil surface I can be a right bastard if the circumstances call for it.

Forty shades of green

Head Rambles Posted on by 8

I had the misfortune to see one of those topical debate programmes last night.

The only thing that piqued my interest was that they had Eamon Ryan pitched against Michael Healy-Rae.

For those not familiar with either of these I had better explain?

Eamon Ryan is the illustrious leader of the Green Party here, which mercifully only has two seats in parliament. He is fanatic of the highest order and makes Tree Huggers look like a bunch of heavy industrialists. He is a fucking idiot.

Michael Healy-Rae is another fucking idiot and is another member of parliament. I actually agree with a lot of what he says [when I can understand him] but am somewhat put off by his insistence on wearing a flat cap all the time, and I swear he wears it in the shower and in bed. Also he speaks with a Kerry accent so thick that he virtually needs sub-titles and/or an interpreter anywhere outside that county.

The main topic of conversation seemed to be about a proposal to raise carbon taxes. Someone somewhere has calculated the we need to raise our current carbon tax by a factor of about twenty if we are to “meet our targets”. MHR quite rightly pointed out that we are taxed far too much and that this carbon tax is hitting rural Ireland the hardest.

ER countered this with one of the strangest arguments I have ever heard [Did I mention that he was a fucking idiot?]. He stated that the idea was that we would all be paid in compensation for the tax. Yes – to counter the tax everyone in the country would receive a cheque from the gubmint to make up for the tax [Did I mention that he was a fucking idiot?].

Strangely no one pointed out that if the gubmint was taking a tax and then paying it back again that it would be a lot easier to just not apply the tax?

He gave a long speech extolling the virtues of a carbon-free Ireland where we would all be driving electric cars and all our power would come from wind farms and solar cells. He positively wet himself describing this Utopia where farting cows would be replaced with solar farms and we would all live happily ever after, living on cheques sent to us by out grateful gubmint. I swear he had a couple of orgasms during his little speech.

MHR countered this with a long speech, most of which I couldn’t understand but I did manage to translate bits where he mentioned that ER hadn’t a fucking clue about rural life, or indeed any life outside his imaginary Green bubble. He was bang on target there.

This morning I came across a piece in the Irish Times –

Implementing climate change agreement would boost jobs, EU report finds.

*sigh*

Do any of these people live in the real world?

A day in the life

Head Rambles Posted on by 5

Well, I’m glad that’s over.

I had a spot of bother getting to sleep last night. I’m not sure whether it was too much or too little whiskey but I finally managed to drop off around three or half past.

Two hours later the fucking alarm woke me with its cheerless little melody [its the best of a very bad lot of ring-tones – the rest would wake me in a rage]. So we managed to down about half a cup of tea each and then hit the road.

Now my SatNav insists that the shortest way is over the mountains. That may be true but the roads are very narrow and twisty and there is an excellent chance of running head on into someone coming the other way. The second alternative is a considerably quicker and safer route but nearing Dublin it has a rake of fucking traffic lights so it gets congested easily. The third option is to head straight onto the motorway but that is potentially a car park so I decided to take the second rout and chance the traffic lights.

Herself had other ideas.

“Go in by the motorway.” The tone suggested that if I didn’t do as told there would be conniptions and blood spilt. I took the motorway.

Surprisingly we got there bang on a quarter past seven which was the given time for the appointment. Not surprisingly the place was almost deserted which at least meant I could park the car in the perfect spot just at the hospital entrance.

Herself was given the usual once over with machines that beeped a lot. The nurse said she was in for a knee replacement. Herself nearly shat herself. She wanted her knees replaced but not today! After some consultations with the specialist the nurse announced that she was just down for anaesthetic and a couple of deep joint injections. The nurse told me it would take about an hour so I fucked off in search of a coffee to wake me up.

I sat in the restaurant and had several coffees. The hour passed. I went for a walk outside and had a smoke [not pleasant because of the traffic fumes – very bad for my health]. Another hour passed. I went back up to the area where Herself was admitted, and sat in the waiting room and dozed. Another hour passed.

Eventually my mobile rang so I answered it. It was the nurse: was I at home? I said no; I was outside her door.

They gave me breakfast which was nice.

Now I had checked my calendar last night and discovered that my car test was at a quarter past one, and not eleven as I had somehow thought. It was only just after half ten so I drove Herself home. Dumped her in bed with a mug of tea and gave the dog a cuddle as she had been on her own [the cat doesn’t count as company in Penny’s opinion].

So back I went up the motorway and got to the test centre bang on one fifteen. When I checked in though he said my appointment was in fact for one forty five. I had put the wrong time in my calendar! I had a bit of a wait as it was lunchtime, and to make matters worse, I had left my pipe at home. Shit!

Anyhows I am back home. Herself is dozing in the bedroom, the car has passed its test [with flying colours], the dog has forgiven my absences and I am royally fucked.

I am taking the rest of the week off.

Or maybe the month?

A year?