The last few days ...

I spent the last few days doing various bits and bobs before we set
off for London this coming weekend (to help out our daughter L who
is expecting her second baby daughter any day now).

So on Easter Monday, I spent some time painting the large radiator
in our dining room, and touching up my paintwork on the walls here
and there. I also did some meal preparation and followed through
three Ipod Video 30GB auctions on eBay. The evening time is the best
time to sell one of these, as you can get an extra £25 to £30 from
buyers who seem desperate to get hold of one. They sell for around
£30 - £50 in the afternoons.

I also spent some time over the Easter weekend listening to the radio
while painting. As some of you may know, Classic FM Radio hosts its
Hall of Fame every Easter, so I've listened to loads of the most popular
classical tunes on and off the entire weekend (there were 300 of them
in all, played in order of popularity). I have voted in this “contest”
in the past, and I've usually put in the same choices each year (really
whatever comes into my head, as I must have about 300 favourites in
no particular order). So this year, I entered Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”, Verdi’s “Requiem” and Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte” … or was it his
“Marriage of Figaro”? … I can’t remember … they’re both really lovely.
Mozart is my favourite composer, with Chopin a close second.

The full results of this Hall of Fame countdown are listed on the
Classic FM website, with Vaughan Williams’ “The Lark Ascending”
retaining its number one spot. It is a really lovely piece, but it’s
played too often for me on Classic FM.

http://www.classicfm.co.uk/on-air/hall-fame/hall-fame-2009-top-64/

One of our relatives (who loves classical music) absolutely hates
this piece. He told Mrs C: “If I had a gun, I’d shoot it (the lark)
dead”. :)

For those of you who like more popular music, you might like to see
Susan Boyle singing on “Britain’s Got Talent” … a tremendous musical
surprise, which had the three judges (including Simon Cowell)
gob-smacked. The following excerpt may only be on for a short while,
so click below if you wish to see Susan singing. This YouTube video
has already had nearly 6 million viewings....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Yesterday, I did a huge back-up of all my stuff on both computers,
onto 2 CD-Roms and, in addition, onto two flash drives. One of the
bloggers at the top of my blogroll, Jo(e), has just had a major
computer crash – she ended up having to buy a new laptop, and
fortunately managed to get most of her work & photos retrieved from
her old hard drive. All this prompted me to back up my stuff pronto.

I use flash drives myself for temporary day-to-day back up, and CDs
for longer term storage. I’ve still got my ancient Windows 98 computer
in storage, and when I can find the time and motivation, I’ll take out
the hard drive and make it into an external one, for re-use.

Today I’ve been doing some website stuff and some emailing too,
plus tidying up various rooms in the house including my den/bedroom.
We’re planning a 2 week holiday in Spain for May-June 2010 (for a
special occasion) … well, I’m supposed to be doing all the planning,
but it hasn’t worked out that way, as Mrs C likes to be consulted
about every possible option … so I’ve been doing some internet
research on all this.

We’re still trying to coax Miss D, one of our cats, to use our new
microchip cat flap … she’s almost “there” as regards using it, but
we haven’t enough time to complete the training, before we go away,
unfortunately. She’s OK about leaving our house through this cat flap,
but she’s got phobic anxiety about coming back in. I think Miss D
should make an appointment to see Mrs C for some relaxation therapy.

Talk to you soon.