Beginning of the End?

I'm almost too embarrassed to admit this, but I have recently developed a taste for the old lady's tipple of choice, the G&T. Surely I'm too young and possess too many Y chromosomes to start drinking them? Well, obviously not, given that I already have.

Oh dear.

...gehog News...Hedgehog News...Hed...

It's not exactly a sighting, but we've seen plenty of, um, hedgehog evidence scattered about the garden. So it looks like at least one of our nocturnal visitors managed to survive the roads and the winter to visit us again.

More news, as it's made.

Or a few days after.

Insomnia

Insomnia

I must have
accidentally
tripped the switch
that turns
the stillness on.

Thanks to the Late, Great, Robert Calvert for those words of wisdom. Not quite sure what's going on today, but I was woken up at around 2:30am by some annoying scrotes shouting in the street and I've been awake ever since. Finally gave up trying to sleep at 5 and now I'm sitting here thinking "I'm getting up in 45 mins..."

Stairgate SG-2

Finally got round to fitting the second stairgate at the bottom of the stairs. There was something mysterious, presumably of alien origin, behind the plasterboard which made it a bit of an adventure. We never did find out what it was, but it was close enough to the board that none of the myriad plasterboard fixings I have would work and mysterious enough that we didn't just want to drill into it in case it turned out to be a water pipe or electrical conduit. It also seemed to possess some sort of rudimentary chameleonware being invisible to my stud/pipe detector. Eventually we managed to chop a plasterboard fixing short enough and use smaller screws to get it fitted. It seems solid but I suppose time will tell.

I am looking forward to just walking through the bottom one and zooming straight through the top one. Should make life a lot easier after a hard day.

Your Unfriendly Neighbourhood Gremlin

I'm beginning to suspect that we've got an evil creature lurking in the dark corners of the house and coming out at night to sabotage various items around the household. Since the start of the year we've had:

• A hard drive failure on the main PC - had to buy a new disc.
• A RAID controller failure on our NAS - had to buy two new NASes*. Fortunately I did manage to get our data off it.
  
• A leaking roof.
• A CPU or motherboard failure on the main PC - had to buy a new PC (more on that later.)

It's starting to become the most expensive pet we've ever had!

*Two because I realised that even though the NAS runs a RAID array, and thus we are protected against disc failure, we're still not protected against NAS failure, so I have to backup the NAS as well. Obviously the best way to back up a NAS is to use another one.

Beer! Beer! We want more beer!

All the lads are cheering...

Yes, I admit it, the rumours are true. I drank some beer. I even quite liked some of it.

My brother's ceaseless (some would say pointless) efforts to brew a beer that would be to my liking have finally borne fruit. In fact, he nearly managed to make two. The ales in question were HSP (Honey, Spice and Pine) and Phoebe's celebration ale.

So here are the marks:

HSP was unhopped, which is always a good start in my book but it was perhaps a trifle over pined. The spices didn't quite work either although they made for an unusual flavour. However, that said it was certainly drinkable if a little eau-de-toilet. Not a bad effort at all, 5.5/10.

Celebration Ale
An impressively strong beer made using champagne yeast and magical beer enzymes to sustain fermentation well past normal levels, with a very heavy, sweet, almost chocolatey taste, it's more like a cocktail or desert wine than beer. Which again, is a very good start in my book. This would benefit from being slightly less hopped (I think, after drinking most of it I find that my subsequent memories are a little hazy) but otherwise quite drinkable. A very creditable 7.5/10.

There is a downside to all this beer drinking though. The next morning. As a habitual drinker of clear spirits I don't usually suffer too badly with post session syndrome. Not so with the beer, unfortunately.

Contributing to Global Warming

It's Valentines Day today, so as is traditional we had a Valentines Eve supper of haggis last night.

I do love my haggis, unfortunately it seems it doesn't like me too much. Since this morning I think I've produced enough methane to raise global temperatures significantly. Poor old Hayley has had to bear the brunt of these emissions which hasn't done much to inspire a lovey dovey Valentines Day atmosphere. It's a good job neither of us smoke..!

I wish I knew what it was that's in the haggis which causes me such malodorous problems. I can't imagine it's the oats, I have porridge every day without problems. I can't imagine it's the "meat" - in fact, let's not try and imagine the meat at all. So that only leaves the onion or the spices. Weirdly, Hayley seems immune to this problem, it must be her Scottish heritage.

Thankfully for us all, Valentines Eve comes but once a year.