As of this evening, the vegetable patch is also planted up with lettuce, pak choi, carrots and peas. I'll let you know if anything actually germinates and makes it to the edible stage!
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Meanwhile in the garden...
... a bird table and alpine patch have appeared. I should point out that I did this all by myself, which Tim was watching the cricket. This involved digging out half the earth from the flower bed and carrying large amounts of grit and gravel up the garden. I'm feeling quite proud of myself...
As of this evening, the vegetable patch is also planted up with lettuce, pak choi, carrots and peas. I'll let you know if anything actually germinates and makes it to the edible stage!
As of this evening, the vegetable patch is also planted up with lettuce, pak choi, carrots and peas. I'll let you know if anything actually germinates and makes it to the edible stage!
Sunday, August 28, 2005
The Cloud Appreciation Society
Well worth a visit for weather geeks, should there be any reading this blog...
The Cloud Appreciation Society
The Cloud Appreciation Society
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
An irritating lapse
A new sign has appeared on our coffee machine which reads
Oooooh! What an irritating hyphen! OK, maybe I'm being pedantic but it irritates me every time I get a drink. I'm tempted to follow Lynne Truss' example and get rid of it - but as the sign has been carefully laminated it won't be an easy task. Any suggestions?
Rant over, I'll get back to work now...
Please keep this area tidy. Thank - you.
Oooooh! What an irritating hyphen! OK, maybe I'm being pedantic but it irritates me every time I get a drink. I'm tempted to follow Lynne Truss' example and get rid of it - but as the sign has been carefully laminated it won't be an easy task. Any suggestions?
Rant over, I'll get back to work now...
Monday, August 22, 2005
More Tales from the Tank: The Cycle of Life
More fish news.
The 4th round of fishies have come into the tank, as of last week. We now have two Otos mooching around somewhere. These little chaps are catfish who will attach themselves to any part of the tank decor and eat all the algae they find. I kept being pestered by Elspeth to sort out the algae in my tank, and these are my solution. They're quite hard to spot in the tank (5 points per spot, a bonus 5 if you can find both of them), but I have managed to get a photo or two.
The other bits of news in the tank concern the platys. I may have mentioned before that one of them is looking a bit sad. The other two males seem happily paired off with the two females, and this one is on his own and gets bullied by the other males. He never seems to come up for food and is always hiding and looking generally distressed. Having endured a week of this to see if he gets better, I decided today that it would be better if I took him out of the tank and bashed his little head in (believe it or not, the preferred method of humanely putting a fish out of its misery). I tried to catch him earlier to do so but had no success, so he's still in there unaware of what is to befall him, while I have his fate hanging over my head. It's quite difficult really.
On the other hand, there is some good platy news. One or other or both of the platy pairings have had some babies! A couple of days ago I noticed a tiny little fish hiding among the plants - I don't know how long it had been there. I was very excited; Elspeth less so, as I woke her up to get her to come and look. The lady platys have been looking fat for a while, so it doesn't come as a big surprise. Earlier this evening I saw two of the little fellas (see below), and I don't know how many more there might be or whether there are more to come. It's all very exciting - I seem to be drawn to small cute things (reference 7th May 2005), and these fish are very small and cute. I'm not sure what their future will be, what the chances that they will survive into adulthood are, but it'll be fun to see. Oh, and by the way, in this photo it looks like daddy fish is looking after the baby fish. It's probably more likely that he was trying to eat them, before you get too sentimental.
The 4th round of fishies have come into the tank, as of last week. We now have two Otos mooching around somewhere. These little chaps are catfish who will attach themselves to any part of the tank decor and eat all the algae they find. I kept being pestered by Elspeth to sort out the algae in my tank, and these are my solution. They're quite hard to spot in the tank (5 points per spot, a bonus 5 if you can find both of them), but I have managed to get a photo or two.
The other bits of news in the tank concern the platys. I may have mentioned before that one of them is looking a bit sad. The other two males seem happily paired off with the two females, and this one is on his own and gets bullied by the other males. He never seems to come up for food and is always hiding and looking generally distressed. Having endured a week of this to see if he gets better, I decided today that it would be better if I took him out of the tank and bashed his little head in (believe it or not, the preferred method of humanely putting a fish out of its misery). I tried to catch him earlier to do so but had no success, so he's still in there unaware of what is to befall him, while I have his fate hanging over my head. It's quite difficult really.
On the other hand, there is some good platy news. One or other or both of the platy pairings have had some babies! A couple of days ago I noticed a tiny little fish hiding among the plants - I don't know how long it had been there. I was very excited; Elspeth less so, as I woke her up to get her to come and look. The lady platys have been looking fat for a while, so it doesn't come as a big surprise. Earlier this evening I saw two of the little fellas (see below), and I don't know how many more there might be or whether there are more to come. It's all very exciting - I seem to be drawn to small cute things (reference 7th May 2005), and these fish are very small and cute. I'm not sure what their future will be, what the chances that they will survive into adulthood are, but it'll be fun to see. Oh, and by the way, in this photo it looks like daddy fish is looking after the baby fish. It's probably more likely that he was trying to eat them, before you get too sentimental.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Bedford is turning into quite a cosmopolitan little town... we now have a sushi bar! Tim and I went to try it out for dinner last night and were very impressed - a good selection of sushi, all of which tasted lovely. It's one of those places with a little conveyor belt so you sit and wait for the next delicacy to trundle past, then grab it and eat it. Great fun.
The restaurant was no where near full, so I hope it catches on otherwise we'll have to go back to italian or indian for a meal out!
The restaurant was no where near full, so I hope it catches on otherwise we'll have to go back to italian or indian for a meal out!
Saturday, August 13, 2005
A Welsh weekend
Well, a week ago we were enjoying a very sunny weekend in the Brecon Beacons, along with the usual gang. We came back with some sun tan/burn, uneaten gingerbread and custard (!) and some new in-jokes. WE also managed to have a very impressive curry at the campsite on the Friday night, and an extremely rubbish curry in Brecon on Saturday. Next time we'll book at the pub...
Overall, we had a great weekend and it was good to meet up with everyone again. A good way to spend out three-month-iversary, woulcn't you agree?
Chris 'helps' with dinner on the first evening!
The trig point on the first day.
The default bridge photo.
Look! Sunshine and a view in Wales :-)
Ian looking a bit - well - solitary ;-)
Tim and Chris playing some (non-invasive) frisbee.
Overall, we had a great weekend and it was good to meet up with everyone again. A good way to spend out three-month-iversary, woulcn't you agree?
Chris 'helps' with dinner on the first evening!
The trig point on the first day.
The default bridge photo.
Look! Sunshine and a view in Wales :-)
Ian looking a bit - well - solitary ;-)
Tim and Chris playing some (non-invasive) frisbee.
Monday, August 01, 2005
Sadness
When we got home from Elspeth's parents on sunday there were only two happy swimming around rainbow fish in the tank, and one rather unhappy not swimming around one. My first death in the tank, after about 10 weeks, and I am a bit unhappy about it.
The other fish all seem fine, so I suspect that it's an isolated case, quite possibly related to the stress of being chased about a bit too much by the other male rainbow, although this is speculation. In any case, the two remaining rainbows seem to be getting on better now - I didn't see any over-boistrous behaviour when I was watching them last night.
Hohum.
The other fish all seem fine, so I suspect that it's an isolated case, quite possibly related to the stress of being chased about a bit too much by the other male rainbow, although this is speculation. In any case, the two remaining rainbows seem to be getting on better now - I didn't see any over-boistrous behaviour when I was watching them last night.
Hohum.
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