The beard is still intact. Still irritating, but I’m getting more used to it, even if I do forget sometimes that it’s there.
We’ve been attempting to have a major clear out of stuff at home. The spare room was getting so crowded that sometimes you could barely get in the door. At least twice I’ve had to employ professional mountaineers and Sherpas to get me over the piles of junk to the computer. Two of the poor blokes fell to their deaths on one such expedition, and it was this that made me determined to clear out some of the stuff that we don’t use.
One of the best ways to get rid of stuff that you think is junk but that someone else thinks is the best thing since sliced bread is the Trading Post. This can work wonders for stuff that is genuinely of value to someone, though it works rather less well for that pile of unwanted 80’s computer magazines sitting rotting in a box in the cupboard.
So those I’m offering on Usenet free to anybody who’ll take them. And I hope someone does, because although I have absolutely no use for them, there must be someone out there who still uses an old BBC computer, and could do with endless reading material about it! For reasons I haven’t adequately explored, I’d feel kinda bad to throw them all in the recycling.
To those who are curious about my trip in September, I haven’t quite nailed down where I’m going to go. But gradually bits of the plan are coming together, so hopefully when I step off the plane at Heathrow at some ungodly hour of the morning on the second of September, I don’t just wander aimlessly around the country with no idea of what to do or see.
I know I’m going to spend some time with my uncles, cousins and grandparents – provided they don’t mind of course, I haven’t quite got around to telling them I’m coming yet. I’ll explore London for a few days, then head north, probably via York and/or Liverpool, into Scotland.
The target in Scotland is to reach the little town of Plockton. Why Plockton, you might ask? ‘Cos it’s where they filmed Hamish Macbeth. Not that I’m a rabid Hamish Macbeth fan, but it’s nice to have a target to try and reach.
Other than that, I know I’ll spend a few days in Brussels with friends hunting down Tintin locations and memorabilia, take a TGV to Paris for some exploration, then back to England for a few more days, and then home.
All in all it’ll be a month away. And I have yet to solve the problem of where I should be on the last Saturday in September – so I can watch the AFL Grand Final!
