Money, money, money

I always thought I was reasonably computer literate. I mean, I can send an email, I can buy stuff on line (and frequently do, though shoes have been a disaster as you can't try them on in cuberspace), I can write a basic blog entry (minus bells, whistles and videos) and I can play online games such as Babble.

But online banking?

Nothing is more terrifying than having one's fingers hovering over the keyboard, knowing that, with one stumble of a trembling fingertip, one could send £2000 not from one's savings to one's bank account, but to a total stranger - AND NEVER GET IT BACK AGAIN! Bank clerks do this all day, presumably without recourse to either tranquillisers or a therapist. But me? I feel like a horse in a show-jumping competition faced with a seven ft wall. Either I take a deep breath, jump off, and soar through the air to land safely on the other side without disturbing a brick, or else I brick it, dig my heels in and refuse.

Today, a huge amount winged its way electronically from my solicitor's account to my own, due to my selling, at long last, the house in East Finchley that I never moved into. Beautiful house, but we never really fell in love. Not, that is, until I was packing up last weekend and suddenly noticed how the plants I'd put into the triangular flower bed had grown and their foliage, which ranged from deep chestnut to stripy yellow, was sparkling beautifully in the sun after a shower of rain. At long last, the place was pleasing to the eye. And then I noticed the quietness, and the fact that my new French bistro net curtains blotted out the eyesore block of flats opposite the front windows, and I thought: I could live here. I told the removal men tearfully, 'I should be moving in now, not moving out.' (Two hunky strapping Poles, O to be 20 years younger. 20? Who am I kidding? 40!!)

So - the huge amount is sitting in my bank account earning nada. My newly set up online savings account awaits. But dare I press the keys? Am I stupid? I'd rather go to the bank on Monday and pay £35 for them to perform the electronic transfer than risk doing it myself. If they cock up, then I have some comeback, but if I make a blunder then it's bye-bye £280,000!!!!! (Thinks: what if I win the Euromillions tonight, too?)

Lobsters and shanties

I’ve been told that the craftsman in the photo is the last man in Britain who knows how to make lobster pots. I wonder if the reason nobody is learning from him how to do it is because there are very few lobsters left in Britain?

The picture was taken in Newquay, Cornwall, last weekend. I had gone there to sing shanties with the Falmouth Shout group at the Newquay Fish Festival. The microphones that the female singers were using weren’t working so no-one could hear us. Just as well, because the leader decided to perform a completely different bunch of songs to the ones I had rehearsed so all I could do was lurk in the background and mime – apart from one blissful moment when I squawked a piercing top harmony note to a song I DID know, and almost deafened my next-door neighbour.

Electric Kool-aid Antacid Test

This is a Cornish Aromatic apple grown in my boyfriend's back garden. It has nothing to do with Tom Wolfe but plenty to do with acid, the non-druggy variety. Back in the Sixties, I tried uppers and downers at university and smoked my first joint at 16, sitting on a tombstone in Liverpool Cathedral graveyard in my school uniform. My mother was right to be suspicious of that certain schoolfriend of mine with her swarthy Welsh looks, large brown eyes with their slightly hooded lids, soft, singsong voice and wild ways. She was later thrown out of university for living with two men at the same time and not doing any course work. I think it was the lack of work that got her sent down, not the men; this, after all, was the free-love Sixties.

But back to apples. One day recently my ulcerated stomach felt decidely uncomfortable. I had finished my prescription Ranitidine 150ml and all I had on the shelf were 75ml soluble Zantac. I downed one but it had no effect whatsoever.

Then I remembered that about two decades ago I had a painful stomach and my boyfriend of the time, who had grown up in the country, recommended that I ate an apple. I sneered, then scoffed (both verbally, then the apple) and lo and behold, within half an hour the bloated, windy pains had gone. I reached for the fruit bowl, bit into the first apple and promptly spat the mouthful out again. It was unripe and bitter and I knew instinctively that it would do me no good.

Ferretting around at the bottom of the bowl produced an older, riper, slightly wrinkly one. I bit into it and revealed the pink flesh the Cornish Aromatic is famous for. (The first time I bit one, I didn't know what to expect and I thought my gums were bleeding when I saw the deep crimson my bite had revealed.) Fifteen minutes later, the acid in my stomach was calming. An hour later, I was fine again. Yesterday, I had a hideous hangover and the worst acid attack ever. For four hours I moaned and complained, clutching my midriff and feeling nauseous. Then I remembered the apple cure and, whaddya know, it worked again.

I have no idea what it is in an apple that can soothe an acid stomach. I don't even know if it is just the Cornish Aromatic that contains the ingredient, or any sweet, ripe apple, but some enterprising natural cures company should look into it. They could be onto a money-spinner and not only that, they could spark off the survival of an almost vanished apple species.

Wildlife catch-up

Big Spid was last seen above the dresser two days ago. I still haven't broken the habit of looking upwards for the Spider of Damocles every time I go through a doorway.

Bald Fox now has quite a respectable covering of red fur, though its tail still doesn't resemble a brush although it has a faint covering of ginger velvet.

The pond has acquired ten new fish, all called Les after their donator. There's Les 1, Les 2, etc., only distinguishable by their tails, some white, some black and some spotted. The other day, when Summer returned for a few hours, there was fish troilism going on. The three, oddly conjoined, were leaping out of the water, twisting and twining and appeared to be having fun. How do fish do it? I haven't a clue. I'm off to look it up on Google.

Bloody computers

So my laptop died. On the very day I had a received a cheque for £700 that had been owed since last March. I had opened a new savings account specially and the £700 was destined for there, the first penny I had saved all year. But Sod's Law dictated that the computer store was going to get it instead.

Walking past Curry's, I saw an Advent laptop for sale. £499 reduced to £399. 17" wide screen, 120g hard drive, lots of memory. Mmm, it looked good and the sale ended after the Bank Hol weekend, so I bought it.

Now, I am a Windows 2000 and occasionally XP person. However, I soon discovered Microsoft and determined to turn the world into Vista people. I turned on my new machine. For a start, the typesize was so tiny that I needed magnifying glasses to see it. Then I discovered the evil secret of Vista. Everything you've bought in the past and want to carry on using, like Photoshop, won't work with it. Instead, my screen was alive with pop-up windows ticking me off and telling me it had disabled this, that and the other. Bastard!

So, off I went on grovelling hands and knees to my recovering-from-double-stroke boyfriend and asked him, "Please, pretty please, could you take Vista off for me and install my old Windows XP instead."

Off came Vista. On went XP? Oh no. Mr Bill Gates wasn't going to make things that easy, was he? So my new computer is still sitting lifeless, eviscerated, and my old one with the burned out hard drive now does nothing but access the internet. I could cry. In fact, I will. So there!

Slugs have feelings, too

I bet you've never looked at a slug this closely before. Look at that shiny little face. Isn't it adorable? Somehow reminiscent of ET, a wrinkly bloodhound, or the sad old face of a loggerhead turtle. There is something beseeching in those eyes, a 'please don't throw salt on me' appeal. Its lips are parted. Dammit, it's speaking! Now, how could anyone want to squash a cute creature like that?

I read some statistics yesterday. Apparently the wet weather this year has caused the UK slug population to double in size. A rough guesstimate puts it at 60 billion, that's 61 slugs per square metre, all as winsome and slithersome as this one. Let's hear it for the gastropods! Anyone like to join me in starting a slug fan club?

Big Spid's On The Move

Yesterday the Spider of Damocles was on the ceiling above the patio doors (see left).If you look closely, you can see the little hairs on its horrible legs.

Today, I was just placing some washing up in the drainer when I felt something looking at me and there it was, sitting on the edge of the drainer. Boyfriend gave it a prod and it moved down to the cupboard where it dangled from one leg (see right, and more hairy legs). Then it decided to drop onto the floor and chase me across the kitchen. I legged it, spider eight-legged it. I leaped over the door threshold into the lounge and spider dashed behind the fridge where I hope it stays for a very long time, eating stray bits of cheese and crunchy woodlice. If it doesn't choose to stay there, where WILL it be tomorrow... ? (Shudder.)