What a week eh?
As some of you will be aware I was badly bitten by gnats and suffered a shock type reaction with deep red irritation, swelling and a temperature.
Transpired I had an infection so I've been put on a course of antibiotics which seem to be working although to date I still have a low level irritation that I hope will go by the end of the week.
On the other hand, I got the laptop that I'd been saving up a few months for as again most of you know my desktop computer is really quiet old and was struggling not so much with self contained programs but with running media rich websites through browsers, lacking short term RAM memory and a hard drive smaller than many peoples USB flashdrives! It also - hurrah! - has built in Wireless so I can use it anywhere.
My first move was to remove Compaq's boring groan up background with Hello Kitty because this machine belongs to a little girl closely followed by setting up a few nicely set out Favourites with my sites minus some of the rubbish the old computer had acquired over the years.
I so hate having to sit in one tiny room to post away especially on warm days.
For the more computer minded it has 4GBs of RAM meaning when the antivirus is running, it doesn't stumble on the programs running and a big 500GB hard drive for music and photos.
Because it uses Windows 7 Home Edition for Europe it has a browser ballot so I elected to return to my old favourite Firefox as I find it easier to customize plus has some very good extensions and so for the curse of Adobe's lousy buggy Flash plugin hasn't stricken it which I'd rather do without ideally but a number of gaming and video streaming sites do require it.
I bought a new multi machine license for my cd to digital music ripping program because it was nearly 4 years old (you can convert to practically any know file type by adding the relevant plug in) and the new program gets cover art which is ideal for players that have colour screens. Actually the multi upgrade license was cheaper than buying the program outright for one!
The only thing I need to install is my all new image editing program from Serif Photoplus X5.
While I'm at it, I just changed my google account email for this site as I realized - my brain could be better - it was linked to an ISP that I'll soon be free from and in the new blogger interface this is much easier than it used to be.
Last weeks cryptic clue escaped a few of you including Zee but yes it's finally here.
Although I don't endorse living your life as a stereotype - I sure haven't lived mine like one! - I have a classic girl fixation with dolls something that's been with me since childhood actually that in that typically confused way was 'permitted' by Mommy when many other things weren't.
I've written about a few of my dolls before but this one is special cos I found it in a store that was scheduled to close down within a few days.
She's a Vanity Fair doll coming with a certificate of authenticity that the designers called Laura but I beg to differ about that name so I went ahead and Christened her Lauren instead as I just love that name after removing all the packaging with bubble wrap over the joints.
I like her face and hat.
One of the memorable events of the Diamond Jubilee was the Thames pageant on Sunday last which, notwithstanding the god awful weather, continues pretty much to plan bar the air flypast and here's one image I like from it for anyone that missed the tv and newspaper coverage.
I quite like boats having sailed in my youth and this was a great colourful spectacular two years in the planning showing the man powered boats making their way down the Thames.
Today I've been sorting some stuff out for Goodwill as one side effect of running around and playing is some of my BG clothes no longer fit as I've lost some weight which may mean more space for my LG stuff as most of that is either stretchy or has elasticated waists so fits even better (yay!)and making space for a new item that Taffy would wholeheartedly approve of (shh).
As I usually say there's a purpose however hard to spot at the start behind my use of images as strangly enough I do think carefully about which to select.
As I'd hope all of us in the Commonwealth would know, we're marking the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty's reign, an uninterupted 60 years of public service to us, her subjects these last four days.
These things to me are a link not just the chronological past of my life but also to my sense of being a little as I was brought up with in this system, following all the tours of the Queen, making scrapbooks up, watching the various Royal weddings, waving our nations flag and even being introduced to various royals myself from an early age. It's something I'm very comfortable with and as you can see in this picture, these children in the UK are too having waited literally hours to see the Queen. If you've ever had the pleasure to talk with her one thing you'll know is she takes great interest in where she goes as for that matter do other members of the royal family. I spent must of been ten minutes talking to one Princess about the life cycle of snails in my early teens! As Paul McCartney remarked yesterday, they're good people at heart AND do have a sense of humour.
So it's no surprise I've been glued to the tv, making a small digital scrape album of anniversary images I like and enjoying some colouring.
I like sweet things, I adore HK and when the two get together it's a marvellous moment as it was when on Thursday Mommy bought me this shortcake with iced HK cake from South Cheshire's finest independent bakery.
I was jumping up and down when she showed it to me. Whle my little side and her have our issues, she does in an odd kind of a way get some of my 'little' side and buys me the odd thing.
