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A warm, sunny, quiet Sunday last weekend, so it was good day to get the minor chore of re-potting the chillis into their final pots out of the way.  Some of them had already been upgraded to slightly larger intermediate pots already, and those ones had definitely outgrown the ones stuck in the small peat pots.

Now I just hope we can get them enough sun here to grow and fruit.  If I’m home I keep shuffling them across the balcony to catch as much sun as possible, but I’m not sure it’ll really be enough…

Some more of the remaining little ones are to go to good homes this week though.  I hope they’ll do well there so I can get a few chillis back to see which type they all turned out to be.

I’ve forgotten just how nice it is to be able to fly in and out of London City Airport and not to face all the travel chaos of Heathrow. Bec decided about a month ago that we needed a break away, so sourced options from London City airport only as we can just about reach up and touch the planes landing from our place. And the semi cheap flight option was flying to Geneva, Switzerland.

So off we set, but being the little internet travel research ‘queen’ that she is, she decided that after reading reviews we would stay a little further around Lake Leman (Geneva), in Lausanne. Arriving at Geneva airport we had another pleasant travel surprise. Free train tickets into the city are just beside the exit doors from baggage reclaim. As it did in Barcelona, this really makes you feel welcome, and takes a little stress and confusion away after a very early morning start. Not that the trip into town is very long. Less than 6 minutes, I think. Again, another big difference from Heathrow!

We stopped off in Geneva for a little look around and as it was a nice sunny day we spent some time walking around some of the lake, parks and local sites, then a quick spot of lunch. We hadn’t really done any research on what to see in Geneva, so we were mainly just wandering aimlessly. Apart from a huge fountain on the lake front we didn’t really find anything worth mentioning, or even taking many photos of, so we decided to head off to our destination – Lausanne – a short (45 minute) train ride up the lake side, past huge vineyards stretching right up the hills from the lake front to (seemingly) the tops of the hills. Well, I say hills, but you really wouldn’t want to walk straight up them, or have to carry a heap of grapes up them either. They were generally pretty steep! Huge amounts of work had obviously gone into constructing little stone walls to level out the slope a little bit so the vines didn’t all just fall off the side into the lake.

Arriving in Lausanne we were confronted by a lot more step hills. But luckily the walk down to the hotel was all downhill, straight down to the lake. Thankfully when you check into your hotel you are given a free travel pass for the length of your stay (again, a brilliant move by someone), and boy did we make use of it in the steep town of Lausanne. I’m not kidding it is hill city after living in London (OK we know London has no hills, but Lausanne is built on hills), and especially because we were staying right on the waterfront.

We explored quite a lot of the city on the Friday : a big Gothic cathedral with an amazing organ right out of a Dracula movie, fought our way through the street markets, lots of walking around, etc… There was a big free concert/festival thingee going on on the waterfront the whole time we stayed, so every time we’d wander past there we could have a laugh at some of those (few) who were cutting shapes (dancing) at the front of the stage.

Perhaps an unsurprising highlight of the trip was a spontaneous visit to a place a little up the road (or railway line, as we used) called Vevey. A small town with a great water front. Including a big fork stuck in the lake. More grapes galore, some old ruins etc… All good for some more aimless wandering. And a special treat! A trip up and down the hill on a funicular! Certainly beats walking up!

On the Sunday back in Lausanne we used the handy free bus pass again to get up to the top of the hill behind the city to go walking through some bush/forest and climb up a huge tower. Lovely and quiet, with hardly any people around. Then back to town for wine and cheese on the waterfront. And there was even a wee farm up the hill too with some cute animals, along with some not quite so cute ones. Pigs, cows (including cow bells), goats and rabbits… All a bit random.

Monday was a bit of a weird day, as it always seems to be on the day you leave anywhere. A really leisurely morning around the hotel and close environs, then we decided to head back to Geneva airport early. And as luck would have it Swiss Air managed to get us on an earlier flight so we didn’t have to sit in an airport for a couple of extra hours. Always pays to ask!

And that was the weekend! A nice break to rest and feel able to face London and work again for a while.

I’ve been managing to resist posting the results of my electronics experiments. Mostly because there’s really not that much to see generally, except a few wires and black chips etc. But this one is possibly just entertaining enough for anyone that has done any sort of computer programming training.

And there’s actually something to see this time! Maybe even Bec will be impressed (this time) when she gets home.

But I somehow suspect it will be the standard “that’s very nice, dear” response.

Yes, we’ve been particularly bad at getting around to writing anything in the last while. Megan and Michael have been so good at putting stuff up lately that it’s been making me guilty. Though I have to say they have had a couple of slack years really! But that’s no excuse for us.

We’d had some visitors staying with us again – Dad and Dawn – and so we got to again see London through a newcomers eyes. It’s always good to be reminded that what we either walk or travel past often is actually pretty interesting. And the good thing about London is that you can tick off quite a few sights during a reasonable length walk. Pity the weather wasn’t the best for us on some of the walks, but hey ho. Some of the walking we did was not so much sights, but around where we used to live etc too.

We made Google Earth paths of most of the walks we did together around some of the sites. If you’ve got Google Earth and want to have a look, the paths are all here, London Walks.

I’d tell you all the sights we say etc, but it was a while ago now, and I’d no doubt forget as many as I remembered, and it’s sunny outside so I’m going to go read my book in the sun. Sorry!
They did a bit more on their own as well, of course.

You knew it had to happen sometime.  Another chilli update.

Things seem to be moving along nicely now that they’ve been re-potted and we’ve had some hot, sunny, and most importantly, relatively wind free days.  I’ve been able to get the chillies out onto the balcony and keep moving them around to follow the strip of sun as it moves across.

Most of the plants have now got 6 leaves, although there are a few stragglers.  Still not sure what type any of them are, and I guess that we won’t know until they actually have some fruit on them.  Difficult to know which to keep and which to give away, and which to just “retire” at some point.  Five plants have already gone to (hopefully) good homes, and some more will have to go this week.  I just hope I get to try some of the results of those plants later to see if I made the right choice of plants to keep…

Looking back at the last few entries I’d made, I noticed that just over a month ago we’d just had snow here. Outside at the moment it’s about 25C! Go figure.

But I’m not complaining!

Though I might if it just keeps getting hotter through to the real summer. The tubes are bad enough during even mild summer heat.
Mind you, this being England, this week might just be all the summer we get this year. Better enjoy it while it lasts!

For a while now I’ve had a weird PC issue on one of the Windows XP computers I use. JPG files on the desktop wouldn’t open to view when double clicked. Double clicking in an ordinary Explorer window opened them fine, but from the desktop the Picture and Fax viewer would flash up and then disappear straight away.

Annoying, but not life threatening!

Tried everything I could think of to fix it, but no luck. Every now and then I search the net for an answer and there is always a bit of really dumb advice from people that haven’t really understood the issue. But today I finally found a proper answer here. A corrupt link to another program on the desktop. Work out which one it is, delete that, and all back to normal again.

Why on earth a corrupt link should make any difference to how an image file opens, I’m not sure. Seems pretty dumb to me!

Big thanks to whoever found the answer though!

It was that time again when far too many thousand of people feel the need to cause themselves a great deal of pain and run (walk, waddle, whatever) for 26 and a bit miles.  FOOLS!

But at least it gave us a chance to go revisit the neighbourhood we moved from last year, as we knew a great spot to watch from there. And a great pub nearby to retire to for a burger lunch when the skies decided to open just to compound the misery of all those running. (The Ship and Whale.  Great place, with great staff and great burgers.  Did I mention the burgers are good?! Sorry Pete and Wends to go there without you guys.  You’ll just have to come back to visit so we can go there again…)

We even managed to get ourselves on TV again (we were on TV in the same spot a couple of years ago too)!  If you know where to look, and what clothes to look for, of course.

A bit backdated, as we seem to have been either busy or tired, so not got around to putting this up, but we finally got some snow! Some real snow that settled, even! YIPPEE!

Pity that it happened in April, when it’s meant to be getting a bit warmer, but I’ll take it! Just not too much more of it, thanks!

It’s been all go around here over Easter and this latest weekend. Never a dull moment and all that.

Well, actually, there has been quite a lot of dull moment, and what better to fill them in than a few more puzzles!

One of us mentioned the “P” word one Easter hol day, so we decided it was worth going into town to find some to fill in the rest of the weekend. Finding a decent puzzle seemed like it was going the be an impossible task for a bit. It took us searching vainly in 5 big department stores before we gave in and went to Hamley’s toyshop. Not a pleasant experience on an Easter hol day. But at least they had a few decent puzzles to choose from. (Memo to self. Never go there again if there are any school holidays on!)

We ended up getting a box with eight 500/750pc Planet Earth puzzles in it, and one other of a Van Gogh picture. So far we’ve done five of the Planet Earth ones…

As I said, there’s been a few dull moments lately! And the challenge makes them somewhat addictive!