Happy Easter

Happy Easter, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Easter Monday and I've been off since Thursday and there is still no blog...

So here goes...

Thursday evening, we had a visit from a friend who is having some problems with the authorities in Australia, so we are helping him with writing letters to get matters solved. Maybe the subject of a blog another day... After this, we watched the final episode of the BBC series North and South... from a BBC Classics collection, four whole series on DVD for just nine euros.

Friday was Good Friday and as the sun was shining and it was still early, we went to the garden centre and bought some herbs and also looked at garden furntiture. The balcony at the back has been rennovated and the table and chairs we have been using the past fifteen years are falling to pieces. About time to splash out on a proper outside table and chairs. Having looked at some flimsy constructions, we eventually found the best looking (and, of course, the most expensive) set in the shop.... and getting the various sizes measured up and so. The balcony is quite big and t is always nice to have a large table. However, by the time we got home and started measuring up the balcony it was not quite a s big as it seemed, so rather than having the balcony dwarfed by a table we will probably go for a smaller version.

In the afternoon, I went into town and bought the i-Mac on which I am writing this blog. I had been eyeing them up the last couple of months, after friends had recommended them to me. Fred needs a new computer his being about fifteen years old) so the plan is to give him my PC while I take charge of this new Mac. The transaction went very smoothly and I was given a cardboard box with a plastic handle to take it back home. As I was walking with this box through the snow which was tumbling out of the sky a chap wished me a Merry Christmas and, indeed, it did feel more like Christmas.

The rest of the day was spent trying to get acquainted with the new Mac. It looks very good and the photos look excellent. The music sounds good as well. I had to search for some Mac versions of software which I use, like msn messenger and I came across a program called geophoto, whereby you can attribute co-ordinates to your photos and have a globe around which you can travel and zoom into your own photos (or photos which you can download from flickr). All very nifty. I bought this software for twenty euros but it will not allow me to enter the registration code, which is a pain.

Friday night was clubavond. Fred stayed at home, sensibly as he was not feeling too well. I had a nice time, probably drunk too much and came home just before two.

This meant I was tired almost the whole day on Saturday, much like last Saturday after the Gold Cup. Saturday also brought more frustrations with the Mac and I am finding it difficult even to get along with the keyboard. All of a sudden letters and then whole words disappear whilst I am typing. Sometimes they just move... very strange. On the other hand, there seems to be an automatic spelling check, ebven while I am writing this blog within flickr. This should improve the quality of my spelling in future... I just wish they had automatic correction so when I type 'teh' it comes out as 'the' or and instead of nad...

Major frustration though is that it seems almost impossible to delete photo files on a Mac, when using the standard software i-photo. A friend had warned me about this and maybe I should have taken more notice. I saw an advert for a different Mac program called Aperture and its main and first selling point seemed to be the ability to 'cull' unwanted photos.... I thought this was strange at then time and now I know why. With photo files being so large and disk space so expensive, you need to keep a good check on the amount of files you have saved... and it is very necessary to be able to delete the unwanted photos quickly and efficiently. I have subscribed to a 30 day trial for Aperture and while it IS possible to delete files, it is not a quick nor an efficient process....oh dear.... what have I done?

Fred watched Jesus Christ Superstar in the afternoon, we both watched an episode of Lewis in the evening (a gay-themed episode at which you have to groan, given the type of people they always come up with to depict gay characters...). Fred was watching a programme about Richard the Lionheart, while I fell asleep at his side on the settee... it was time for bed...