Last night I dreamed that all the leaves fell off my Benjamin Fig plant, which saddened me. It was my fault, because I'd over-watered him. This morning when I reached my desk I saw that he is, in real life, unharmed and as leafy as ever, which cheered me up even though I'd forgotten about the dream until the sight of him reminded me.

It's stopped being summer very suddenly. I quite like this time of year. I feel ready for a bit of cold and dark now, after the summer, although I think I might tend to be more down, stress-prone, and liable to be obsessive when I see less daylight, so I'm thinking about getting one of those UV lamps and sticking it in my dark basement office. And ( Read more... )

Yesterday was Boat Open Day on the Cam. We thought we ought to open Roe up, to be community-spirited and all, so we did. It was hard work-we were up at half past seven and by the time we'd returned to our mooring and locked up it was quarter past eight in the evening, without a break other than a brief escape for breakfast around three-but ( Read more... )

People usually write about things like new jobs in their livejournals, so I expect that I ought to mention mine. I started working as a grade 3 computer officer at Cambridge University Careers Service last month. It's much more interesting than my previous job, my colleagues are friendly, my boss is sane and affable, I have more responsibility and ( Read more... )

Not that I play it-well, I played a game earlier today, but that was just out of curiosity, just to see what all the fuss was about, you understand?-but I've made a Sudoku checker. In Excel.

I'm sorry.

I met one of our neighbours from the Dutch barge moored astern of us recently. I had to go round to apologise for the fact that we were probably going to have to run the generator until some ungodly hour as we (or rather, Tom and a friend) thought they'd spilt battery acid into the bilges. This would be a Bad Thing as it would eat through the boat' ( Read more... )

Being woken by rowers passing a couple of yards to one side of the bed is neat.

A solid fuel stove produces a lot of heat.

A steel boat on a river in February absorbs a lot of heat before it's ( Read more... )

I am typing this one-handed because I can't turn my wrist.

I hurt it when I dived in front of that juggernaut to rescue that tow-haired tot from certain death.

It was when I wrested that kindly old lady's purse back from those two burly muggers.I cycled into a lamppost ( Read more... )

I mean, um, I passed. I got a Pass Grade 2 (of four). I'm slightly astonished. Astonished, but happy.

Proud of Britain?