April 2005 Archives
I got garden centre vouchers from Jo and Tom for my birthday - at my request - showing my maturity by getting green fingers.... or at least trying to! I spent the vouchers this evening buying bedding plants at Homebase in Wandsworth Town, having been to Hazel's to water their plants.
I did succumb to a burst of anticipatory amateur green fingeredness a few weekends back, inspired by the onset of the warm weahter to get rid of all the old plants and 'garden furniture' that the previous owners/tenants had left behind, and weeding the planters. But that left everything looking a bit bare with just a straggly ivy and two evergreen climbing bush things (yes, see how natural a gardener I am!!). Hopefully the new plants will survive and brighten things up a bit, plus provide some runner and/or green beans!
Phil and I were in Avignon for my birthday, spending a long week there courtesy of Eurostar and the TGV, and staying in a nice family run hotel just inside the old town walls. Hotel d'Angleterre's free wifi proved a hit as Phil had his laptop so we could check mail (and deal with comment spam - grrr) while on holiday.
We had a very lazy time, lots (lots!) of reading and soaking up the spring sun, with the occasional dollop of culture and sight seeing, mooching around the old streets, and heading out on a day trip into the Provencal countryside with Cars Lieutaud and taking the train up to Orange - to see the Roman theatre, sandwiched between lunch in a lovely brasserie terrace and wicked coffee/chocolate and cake in a salon du thé! - and down to Montpellier - lots of sitting in cafes and watching the world go by.... and trying to recall places and geography from when Tom was there.
The holiday all seems a long time ago now, and we only got back yesterday. Mind you, it was a relief to get back to eateries that serve at least one veggie food option as standard. We had take away from the recently opened Spice Corner to celebrate, and very tasty it was too.
On the home front, our lounge chairs arrived today, so the sofa has some companions, and the lounge area looks more like a lounge and less like a sofa + bookselves + TV/Video/DVD/Amp!
On holiday, and suffering the worst comment spam attacks in the history of sparklytrainers.... 500+ yesterday, the same again overnight.
I just love spending an hour of every sunny Provencal day communing with MT-Blacklist. Not. On the other hand, if it wasn't for the wonders of Wi-Fi at the Hotel d'Angleterre, and Phil's powerbook, I'd have it all to do when we get home by which time it would be much, much worse I suspect.
I know that the volume of comment spam I'm getting probably pales into insignficance compared to other people's experience, but for me it begs the question: Should I turn off comments altogether? I occasionally get some genuine comments, particularly in relation to A little mouse with clogs on, and on my reading, and I do value these. But how much?
It's not only the comments, but it's the notification emails clogging up the pop mail I pick up via Yahoo Mail - over 1000 comment spam notifications, on top of the 200+ spam emails, completely overwhelming the 10 genuine emails in there. Thank heavens for filters....