CARRICKDRIVE

Seems awhile since I last posted well nearly 4 months.

What has happened in the mean time. We have so far had a mild winter compared with last years -18 c at times but to make up for it the rain seems to come non stop here in Scotland. There are some nice days but we forget to count them.  My OU days are now over just now I graduated with adding honours to my degree last year so the boy is Michael A Abbott BSc hons open. The open degree was in social sciences covering a diverse range of subjects Religion – Modern, traditional and change, Globalization, understanding cities, Governing Europe and IT communications. Six years of sitting a the PC for many hours not agreeing with the tutors on many occasions but it is what makes the grey matter work. The graduation day is on April 14.

My gardening has taken a back step of late but with March now on us that will get back into full swing over the coming months. The competition that I had with Jaks (the good Life, scrumping Jaks) re growing potatoes in bags etc. I have the results of my efforts so will post when I have pulled them together.

A new boiler was fitted to the Abbott house in January and is functioning well only time will tell if it saves me money as we will not be heating up a large tank of water. engineers in yesterday to check it out and we need some one from the installers to return to tidy up the pipe work which was untidy.

Have been having some fun installing a new home server. I decided to take the plunge and install the windows home server 2011 to replace version 1. Have had some problems mostly with slow install which I have put down to motherboard in old PC (not sure) and I actually broke it a couple of times with the boys large digits pressing the wrong button doing things I should not. Now all is well with an ASRock AMD2 (I had one) plus 4GB memory installed and running fine to date. Installed WSUS on the server which was part of my problem but now understand a bit more of the inner workings. Thanks must go to my buddy (son) IT techie Philip for putting me right.

Breakfast calls – gardening results to come.

TTFN

Made the first foray to the greenhouse yesterday, a bit of tidying up done. The water buts have an iceberg in each still and you can only get down about 2 inches on the soil. NB Jaks managed to get the discount on the T&M site plus an extra five pound because I rang up and queried it not working.  Brought some potato packs to do a full years test on the bags.

Went for my first run this year only been twice since the snows of November.

Downloaded Drupal 7 to see what I could do with it, not a lot as it seems more complicated than joomla, download joomla 1.6 and got it working apart from the editor. No more done with carrickdrive.me.uk other than the basics.

Started course  a lot to take in with some calculator work, now don’t laugh but when I was at school they did not exist (calculators) and I have no children at home to crib off.  Managed with the grey cells to work some things out, so WH Smith on Monday to buy a scientific one. I looked in Tesco but it looked more complicated than I needed.

Into storage definitions at the moment, and I have to write a technical report by the end of February on a subject not yet released. There seems to be quite a bit of online work as well as section on CISCO systems very early on in the next two weeks.

TTFN

Now Saturday with the New Year well past but unfortunately the snow returned today. It is raining just now so most likely all gone by morning.

Spent Thursday in Glasgow exchanging some presents and had lunch with Matthew.

Just made a paella from Jamie Oliver cook book that Philip & Jacquie gave me for Christmas. Very nice but difficult to make for two.

Been busy at last in getting the new website up and running. The address is http://carrickdrive.me.uk.  the site is still evolving so all the links are not available yet.  I cannot get the email link to work. I spent a lot of time on to support which unfortunately was in Asia so I think I will be moving to a new host and try the other domain I have carrickdrive.co.uk.

My honours course website opens on Monday so it is back to the books when the course starts at the end of the month.

TTFN

Seems a while since I last posted.

Made it to Symington for a belated 70th birthday for David, usual suspects there Sandra and Jill and her family and us of course.  We are still getting it cold with a  fall of snow this morning which has subsequently frozen. I went up the PO at 4 p.m. and had to walk in the main road all the way to the cross. The warnings may have been to frighten us after the last lot.

I thought I would pop in just a personal praise for myself. I now have a degree at ordinary level. I have to decide to accept at BA or BSc as I am going on to honours next year and can only attend one ceremony and what ever I decide now the certificate reflects only one discipline.

So I suppose I could sign off as Michael A  Abbott  BA OU Social Sciences.

Just kidding

Left thermometer out at the backdoor last night it went down to -15.3 c. Now lovely and Sunny and according to weather info it is -12 currently. Brrrrrr.

Went up co-op at 2:30 and to the PO. Po closed all day, cards not posted as the PO Box was full, Bank closed at 2 p.m. as well. No milk in co-op but got potatoes and leek for soup.  David reported via Janice that his moustache was freezing this morning on is walk to the village for paper.

Still Brrrrrrrrr

Time 16:30 thermometer showing -11 just outside back door. Cars abandoned in Baillieston road after yesterday. The pavements are about 15 cm think with ice, crunching to walk on. Nothing of fresh produce in the co-op and many of the shelfs of other stuff very empty. Means no milk or bread deliveries at the moment this neck of Glasgow.

New update from snowy Glasgow.  A new fall this morning at 09:30. I reckon that is now about 100 cm deep. Cancelled the carers today as they would have to park their cars in the middle of the road as last weeks snow fall has created large areas of ice at the sides.  Had success on the technical front with FLIP PDF of our church magazine

http://www.sandyhillschurch.co.uk/documents/flip/Nov10_update.html

Sign off and have a look at the outside world.

The outside world was very wet snow this afternoon. The last three pictures were taken around 2 p.m.. The street is like glass and the cars on Baillieston Road are burning out clutches, you could smell the burning at 62.

Cried off going to BBC reunion lunch today as the pavements here are very icy. Got call about 9:30 to inform me that carers would not be coming in so a  good early call vindicating me not going into Glasgow. I suspect the carers will not be on Monday either as our street and especially the edges are impossible to get in and out of cars.

Tried to put paper waste out no joy with Blue Bin frozen shut. Cleared the car so try and make it to the shops for some provisions.

Just not to be out done David has sent through the pictures of
Milburn Crescent, West Lothian

Expected to see pictures that I uploaded, well I do when I preview the page a little worrying.

Another day and another day clearing the evening fall of snow. The mountains are getting  bigger now and of course it will take longer to clear when it finally thaws.

Notice the icicles on the front windows not sure if this is a natural daily thaw or because I opened up the loft space to let some warm air circulate in to the upper roof space.

Re the MAC installed a drive from my PC and set up the backup system onto it, just awaiting a couple of memory modules to arrive to bring it up to 3 GB.