After weeks of inactivity.....

.... I have finally managed to get the camera out again, take some shots & post them! Inspired by a recently discovered blogs http://london.photobloggers.org/ and http://www.perou.co.uk/ I thought it was about time to get my arse into gear & record the world around me again. I'll try & post something like this once a week from now on.

So here goes with a rainbow from Dec 30th.

Taken around 16:40, it was a double rainbow, with a complete arc visible end to end, taken from my front doorstep, absolutely beautiful and completely free!

HP Media Centre PC.....

Over the New Year my brother visited from up north, he spent a fair amount of his time here talking over his idea for a Media Hub & browsing the internet looking for a new PC. He wanted to replace his ageing laptop that is on it's way out with a Media Hub PC of sorts, but he couldn't decide on whether to build his own, or buy something in the online sales that had the basics he could build on.

In the end he decided on the latter, after he left I also decided that I would use the New Year sales as a way to get together a Media Hub PC for my home.

So I have embarked on the plan to get my newly purchased HP Pavillion t3660 stuffed full of upgrades & goodies that will enable me to use it as a Digital Media Hub in the home, a touch more RAM, loads more storage, a Digital TV tuner and a Remote Keyboard for Windows XP Media Center Edition are first on the list. I'm sure a lot more additions in the future will make it nearly as slow as my creaking Sony Vaio desktop!

Dubarry boots.....

Although not part of the horsey fraternity, I have invested in a pair of Dubarry Wexford boots (right), mainly for my shooting activity, for years I have sworn by the Le Chameau Vierzonord neoprene lined wellies (below left) which have served me very well indeed for a good number of years, I will still retain them for very wet days & fishing.

I know several people who have Dubarry boots & not one has anything negative to say about them (apart maybe the price!), everyone who has a pair speaks in high praise of them & I have to say they really are as good as people say. I am very impressed, very comfortable, warm & completely waterproof. Excellent for walking around on rough ground & they appear to be comfortable enough to spend a day in without getting tired feet.

I first saw them in the flesh at the CLA Game Fair in the summer when I saw very nice young ladies wearing them with very nicely tailored short tweed skirts & jackets looking very aloof & some posh looking chap wearing a panama hat, check shirt & cords standing in a bucket of water drinking a cold beer in the 90 degree heat demonstrating how waterproof they were - what a great job - I might apply!?

Christmas & New Year washout!

At exactly 4pm on Christmas Eve I noticed that I had the beginnings of a sore throat. Needless to say it escalated to worse on Christmas Day itself, followed by two weeks of general cold & flu symptoms, followed by an eye & ear infection, interspersed by visits to various chemists, dispenseries & Doctors surgeries.

It was such a shame to end up not celebrating in any great way, and worse still throwing away a lot of food that I just wasn't interested in consuming - which for me is highly unusual. Luckily the un-opened bottle of alcohol will keep for a while yet!

I'm still not 100% back on form as I am struggling to shake off the cough, but I am at least back at work & not bored shitless.

Santa was very kind again this year, followed by a little dive into the online New Year sales which threw up bargains from Dubarry, Hewlett Packard (media PC!), Iomega & Le Chameau - reviews to follow idc.

Blog-Tagged from down under...

....not quite as painful as it may first sound, but nonetheless a response is required.

Tony Palmer (it had to be him as his lovely wife wouldn't do such a terrible thing!) Blog-Tagged me - click here for a description.

So here are 5 facts that you may not know about me.....
1. I was born at a very early age in Worthing, West Sussex - my father was a Hoover sales rep!

2. I spent my formative years growing up in St Thomas' Close, Charlton, Hampshire - this time was regularly interspersed with fights between the rival children of the Close, in one altercation I (aged 5) kicked a rival in the testicals & then promptly ran away - good clean fight then!?

3. My current favourite quote - "A man with an obsession is a man who has very little sales resistance" - C.S. Lewis

4. Helping my parents clear some scrub ground at the house we lived at in 1978, whilst having a bonfire with the cleared undergrowth, we burnt down the adjacent wooden bus shelter!

5. I have infra-red motion detecting CCTV installed around my house that I can view from every TV & PC in the house.


The 5 victims of my choice - Darren Adams (if he ever updates his Blog), Mat Peterson-Pearce, Mr Ports, Capt. Fickwut, Iain Dale