The Gribble Inn, Oving, West Sussex

Saturday's Daily Telegraph told us about this gem. A pub with a home brewery on site. We were shown round the brewery and tasted the products. I shall return to brewing!

Reg's Tipple is good and so is Plucking Pheasant. We had a good lunch and returned home to snooze all the rest of the afternoon.

All Souls Requiem at Merton

We were invited to Merton to hear a Requiem Mass for those of Merton who had died last year. Stephen's name was read out. The choir were wonderful. We met the Chaplain Simon Jones. Philip and Jan, Pippa and Bobby were also able to attend.

We stayed in the much overheated Randolph and as we had a cheaper room (!!) The wifi would have been £5 for an hour, so we were not even tempted.

Philip and Jan wisely stayed at a hotel close to Merot where wifi was free, but I didn't take my computer there so had a rest from blogs, e-mails, skypes and etc.


It took us 2 and a half hours to get there and I was quite exhausted by the driving. We had a nice lunch and then snoozed until time for the taxi to Merton.

At 3am the Randolph slipped a bill under the bedroom door indicating that there was another £30.60 to pay!

We came home stopping for lunch at Trotton. Nice to be home to free (?) wifi and normal room temperatures.

Ursula's Birthday today!

Here she is! The birthday lady. She received lots of lovely cards, presents,
a bouquet of flowers, and then a nice lunch at the Spotted Cow. Patsy joined us for lunch and then we went to her house for coffee. Sadly I dozed off! The level crossing did its worst and shut every time we looked at it!

Mandriva 2009

I downloaded this distro last night. It seems very good. Lots of new features. One is getting pics from a web cam easily anywhere that you want them.

Here are we on the couch with new covers. Alas Ursula's coffee cup handle broke and she and the new cover were drenched. It was very painful for her. She had to change everything and was scalded as well. The cover we took off and washed, hopefully it won't have a stain mark.

Prim came this morning to help me with my wine attempt. I don't hold out much hope that it will work but we will see.

Helena is with Christina in Peterborough, all the rest are at home. Jen goes to China tomorrow with her school party.

18th October 2008

On Friday I had my 85^th birthday. We went out for lunch and that was about all that we did! However the next day my family gave me the sweetest day of my life. They all travelled down from far and wide and together we had a family celebration that surely I will never forget.

We had a fairly simple lunch, though it must have taken an enormous amount of effort to put it together. Richard and Jackie coming from Norfolk were understandingly late so lunch was really in two parts. However the cake cutting ceremony was shared by all, and with a bottle of champagne we toasted one another. Richard used his new video camera and had a record of my speechlessness and obvious joy at the events as they unfolded.

At long last, though I had suspected it, I realise the love and affection that my wife and children have bestowed on me over all these years. I am humbled and hold my head in shame at the memory of all my past misdeeds and errors!

We were blessed with Johnny being with us, he is not always able to join in. Mind you, he spent a lot of time examining the new mini Asus Eee PC, and didn't venture to the beach with us. We skyped Amy and Susie, they could not attend either because of various impedimenta, one was Hollie having a nasty cold.

Helena had prepared a book of life for me, a wonderful collection of many of the good things that I could be proud of, some were quite new for me to read. It must have taken hours and hours of research on her part. What a wonderful gift she gave me

I had presents and cards, and after they had gone home and all was over I felt quite old and feeble, and reflected on how lucky I have been through all my life and what a wonderful thing is a family.

Why not try Linux?

You may have been stuck with microsoft or apple for a long time. I have a tip for you. Have you ever heard of a live disk?

A live disk, which you can get free or download yourself if you have broadband, will enable you to run your computer as a linux machine without the need to use your own hard drive. In fact even if you remove your hard drive the cd disk will enable you to run using a linux operating system dependent on your choice of cd.

This way you can explore the linux world where all the software is free and there is all the help you need available on line.

Look up live disk on google or look up linux. You really are wasting your time and money with microsoft.

One of the best is PCLinux gnome, but ubuntu is also very good. There is debian and a host of others including suse, mandriva and so many others.

I recently acquired a small Asus Eee PC computer. It also runs a linux distro and in fact I am using it now. It weighs less than 1 Kg, the screen is about 7" wide and it as all you need except for a cd rom drive. It has no moving parts and its "hard drive" is non volatile memory. It has 1Gb of memory which is fine.

The keyboard is small but even I can use it so it can't be bad.

Look it up on the web sometime, for taking away on trips and keeping in touch it is a gem!LINUX

28th September

To Church at 10 am, Harvest Festival... not like the old ones. Most people I never saw before! Happy Clappy, mousic and more. Bogoff for a home in Hove, already in the news earlier in the year for irregularities!

Given up SLUG, last to month couldn't get a lift. Intereseting people but not en specially helpful. Mr Debian a real pain. Can't and won't help to get Debian to see a wifi.

Some really nice people and some just show-offs!

Given up on Mandriva, PC Linux really works.

Did the side hedge, and now on the Autumn Bliss raspberries. Lots of toms and lettuce. Tryin to incres the strawberry plant holding.

Matthew's bees really are bumble and will be left!

Howlong before distribution , only the blue stocking girl can tell!

A horrendous journey home!

We were taken by Wilma to Harrow and Wealdstone at 5.30 pm on Sunday night as we wanted to get back home in order to put dustbin and bertie box out as the dustmen come on Monday morning at 7 am.

The train would take us to Euston and Wilma suggested that we get a taxi to Victoria. Alas there were steps down for taxis and steps down for tube trains so being parsimonious I thought we would try the tube. Alas the Victoria line was closed and all the ticket barriers seemed not to be openable by our tickets. Then the trains were delayed and we were 4 deep on the ploatform . I chatted to a lady from Hamilton NZ who advised us re the trains! We managed to get on the tube, squashed in by the doors! We had to change at Embankment and then up and down escalators and stairs with this now very heavy suitcase finally arriving at Victoria. Found a train and a seat only to be told that the train was cancelled and there would be an hour to wait.

Found a place for coffee, both of us wanted comfort stations, so one at a time we paid our 30p's
and back for coffee. Whilst Ursula was away, a beggar came up and asked for a sip of my coffee! I told him to buy his own but he replied that he had no money. He disappeared and later passed behind me, called me a bastard and expressed the wish that I would die on the way home. I ignored him.

At 8.10 or so we found another train, again found seats and eventually arrived back at Angmering at about 10 pm. Trudged around the other side of the station in the vain hope of getting a taxi. Nothing doing, so a weary walk with heavy case to our house!

My fault for not preparing for all this, fortified with a whisky we went to our slumbers! Just for a lark I added a picture taken last week on our Horti Trip to Stratford.

Another wedding!

We were invited by Wilma to help us attend Michael Witt's wedding which was to be at St. Barnabas, Northolt. It was a very comprehensive wedding with Nuptial Mass. Many people attended and then went on to the reception at a Golf Centre in Ruislip. It was a hearty affair with rather too loud "music" later on. Ursula and I had eventually to try to hide from the sound! Nigel was there and this time he was actually wearing his old school tie. Sadly I was wearing my tie from the People's Republic of China. I had the old school tie at Wilma's but wore it the day before!

Paul drove us from Wilma's house and back. We may have persuaded him to cut short his enjoyment of the young people's music and boom-boom-boom!

I cut some of Wilma's grass on Friday night, but the back lawn defeated me on Saturday as it was long and wet. I was saved by Hugh's arrival to borrow the mower so didn't have to clean it up.

accelerator start-ups.

I have seen a few. The worst was the booster at CERN. Two men were supposed to have charge of the start-up of the 4 ring vertically stacked synchrotrons. They spent days and days tickling the controls, taking hundreds of photographs and copious writing in notebooks but always without success.

To get a bit of glory they invited the Director General and all the really important people to attend on a given day. It was the mixture as before...red faces...important people 4 deep in front of the equipment racks. The reason...discovered by Frank Sacherer, Ray Sherwood et al during one of the evening and late night runs, the ocurrence of resonances which were avoided by not using the values of Qv and Qh that the "experts" insisted on using every day for a month or so.

When one "expert" was lecturing the ISR people how the booster could never work with the old linac, on his return to his office he had photos of the circulating beam in each of the 4 rings on his desk.

Like another of his compatriots who could never make a mistake no mention was made of the incident but the old Qv and Qh values were abandoned for ever.

Let's hope tomorrow goes off better than that. Lyn is my friend and I wish him success and glory!

9th September

Edit and Matthew came to stay with us so that they could look over their new property and get the builder started. They left yesterday and we are very quiet again!

Sunday 22nd June

To Turners Hill for a family celebration splendidly hosted by Phil and Jackie. It was to celebrate Nigel's 70th yesterday and Rosemary and Peter's golden wedding. Lots of family, James's, Medcalf's, Fishers's and Peter's cousin and hia wife. Lots of young people, Jennifer not able to come, Susie and Holie intended coming but did not. Chris gave us plants that she had brought from Peterborough. A hot sunny day, a very nice gathering!
Michael and fiancee Jo obviously very happy!