foolfillment: the blog

before New Year’s Eve.

I’ll start with the view from my lounge at the moment:

While it looks good it may scupper any plans I’ve made, For instance Barney the dog might not want to go for a walk after I’ve posted this. I might not be able to drive up to Edinburgh to go climbing with big bruv tonight, though that’s unlikely. It is likely though that I won’t be able to drive across to Dumfries tomorrow to meet Morven and go out for Hogmanay. Which as I haven’t seen her since last Sunday would be a bit of a bugger.

In other news:
Christmas was good and fun, although very quiet this year compared to normal, only 5 and a baby compared to 10 last year. Lots of photos taken with Mum getting a digital camera, Lordy getting loads film and a new flash and me having my digital, I did manage to lose all of mine of course though by deciding it would be a good idea to back them up on my parents’ PC. sorry lordy, they’ve gone for good.

I did get a few photos yesterday though (which may at some point make it onto the photolog) when Dad and big bruv and me went up Ben Vorlich.

While Gordon had been wondering whether to write anything introspective about the year I had already come to the conclusion that he proposes at the end of his post, I can’t be bothered. (however when I write that sort of thing i usually end up doing it anyway and that may still be the case).

so that’s it, another year closes on my part of the web (even thought this was the first full year and that wasn’t even spent entirely in the same part of it) and with it I wish you a good Hogmanay, hope your plans are better prepared than mine. I’ll see you in 2004.

Now, I’m not one to complain, as you know, but there ie one thing that annoys me and that is East Lothian Council. Every time I come home from Glasgow I find that they have done something unbelievably stupid and irritating and deserving of the death penalty. I won’t go into details here because it will only bore you but if today you see a member of the council give them a scailp for me will you please?

Oh and by the way, it’s just this minute started snowing!

when I sit down after lunch at 1.40 I want Neighbours, not Macauley Culkin in this dross. Christmas or no.

as you already no doubt know.

I’m very tired right now so not a lot to say.
I’m going home on Sunday, so it might be quiet for a while. If I don’t see you before then have a good Christmas.

Went to see Return of the King last night and it was brilliant, the best of the three. I won’t say anymore just in case I spoil it.

If you were my dad, what would you want for Christmas from your youngest son?

i just started to vclean the tank out for the gerbils and found after filling two shopping bags that there was a lil’ baby gerbil lying looking lost, the big’uns were running about all over the place too i emptied one of the bags back and saw one baby fall back in and so empties the other bag as well. there are three new gerbils now and the mother seems ok, she hasn’t eaten them anyway.

more later

Okay, calmer now.
How I dodn’t know Belle was pregnant I have no idea but she was. Both of them have been getting bigger as they’ve grown older each week so maybe that explains it partly. She looks a lot littler now right enough. Anyway, what a time to decide to clean them out, they didn’t seem to care i was there untill I must have scooped at least one of the little babies into a bag. I only realised what was going on when I started the next bag and saw that there was a wee gerbil crawling about. I emptied the bags back in and saw one fall out of one of them. As time went on I saw another in the sawdust, all of them were quite far apart and the two adults were running all over the tank looking for them. They were really useless though, they kept finding one and then burying it as it went to find another. Eventually I took a risk and collected them together with a bit of cardboard. Iwas really worried that Belle would eat them, as they are famed for doing when a litter is interfered with by humans, thankfully she didn’t (yet) and the pair of them calmed down. I put most of their boxes and sawdust back in the cage carefully and while Belle looked after the poor wee mites, Sebastian reconstructed their nest. It was really cool to see them being parents, can’t really watch them now though because Belle took them one by one inside and undercover.

It’s hard work this parenting, isn’t it? I’ll be better prepared next time, I promise.

I’ll keep you all up to date over the next few days; I don’t think that they can be any more than a day old so by Friday they should have the signs of fur and by Sunday they should be starting to explore and I get to see them next. They won’t be able to see me though, it could be a massive 21 days untill they open their eyes, about three times longer than other small mammals!

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Scientists freeze beam of light

I’ve just finished watching The Million Pound Property Experiment on BBC2, you may have seen it. It’s a fantastic mix of comically camp men, scathing comments behind their backs and the good old home improvment. I’ve only seen it once before but this week’s was pretty much the same as the last time – the two poorly shaven, ridiculously shirted designers make some suggestions about what they want to do to the property and the builder/architect says ‘don’t be so stupid, it’s totally impractial, and for what it’s worth, it’ll look awful too’.

Eventually the designers come back and say ‘well, what if we do this instead?’ and suggest what the builder/architect suggested in the very first place.

For the most part the designers sit doing nothing but pulling their hair out waiting for a phone call, and having lover’s tiffs in reclaimation yards, amazingly they made ?100k last night on a house in Edinburgh.

All in all it’s a fine way to waste an evening infront of the tele.

As part of my course I have to go out and do a placement at a school for two weeks after Christmas. I found out that I’m going to Dunbar Grammar School, where I was a pupil. I’m not sure what to expect, I don’t have a problem about seeing the teachers again but there will be some pupils there who were there at the same time as I was. Two thirds of them in fact. I don’t know how that will affect how things go. As yet I don’t even know what the placement involves so it might be I only see 1st and 2nd years which would be fine and dandy but if I have to take charge in a class of 4th years say, then what reason do they have for taking any attention f me, after all, as far as they’re concerned I’m not a teacher, I’m just someone who used to get to push infront of them in the dinner queue.

We’ll see.

Of course I would never advocate rigging a vote, except in this case of course.

Vote here