Have you been out today?

When we moved into our flat in September 2002 there were a couple of pots outside, abandoned by the former occupants, with unidentified vegetation growing in them. One of these turned out to be a strawberry plant as we discovered last summer when it produced a bountiful crop of maybe three strawberries which, as far as I remember, we failed to pick in time and they went mouldy on the plant. This year we had four strawberries from it which we picked and ate and they were the finest, tastiest strawberries I've ever had. But now - oh the excitement - the plant is sending out runner thingummies in an attempt to reproduce itself (vague memories of O level biology and my grandad's garden told me this is how they do it) so I'm trying (following some advice on Gardeners' Question Time for heaven's sake) to propagate some new plants in separate pots. Two so far, hopefully more to come. Then, if all goes well, these get separated from the parent plant in about 4 weeks and have to go it alone from there on. Then they should start to bear fruit in a couple of years and have their own offspring a couple of years after that. And so on. All terribly exciting.

Anyway, I'd better get back to the pirates.

I'm drawing pirates for money.

(But this isn't one of them).

Okay... I think that's fixed it all. If anyone spots any problems then do let me know.

Hmm, time for a well-earned sandwich I think.

I'm switching my website, daveshelton.com, to a new server and, as I don't really know what I'm doing it'll most likely be non-existent or at least strange for a while. Sorry.

Oh, and the pictures on this blog are temporarily buggered by this too. Hopefully I'll work it out before too long.

And Noah spake unto God saying, "What, even the dinosaurs? You've got to be kidding".

And then they discussed the price of gopherwood for a long time while Mrs Noah glanced worriedly at the wonky shelves in the kitchen.

...so you look in Yellow Pages, make a call and get them fixed by a man with a big bag of tools.

The washing machine wasn't working properly, the carpet just inside the front door had gone a bit smelly in a damp sort of way and one of the little nose rest bits of my glasses fell off all around the same time. Petty stuff but still somehow enough to make me view life through a grey haze.

Got a man out for the washing machine who fixed it in about ten minutes and in a manner I should really have been able to work out for myself (and thus save myself the hefty one size fits all call out charge); left the door open for a while to dry out the carpet and sprayed liberally with some anti-smell gunk; superglued the bit back onto my specs. Suddenly life seems fine again.

Probably do need a new pair of specs in the longer term. Choosing is tricky though. I really am quite short-sighted (-5.75 and -6 if any fellow myopics wish to compare) which means I can't see how I look when trying on frames in the shop. I end up with my nose up against the mirror, eyes all screwed up squinting intently at my blurry reflection. Strangely I find in this manner that no matter what frames I wear I don't look good. And on top of that none of the frames I try are the exact ones I've been wearing for the last six years so they all look wrong.

Maybe it's time to try contact lenses again.