Using Dreamweaver to create my first web site

In 2004, I used Macromedia Dreamweaver to create a home page and extended pages for Life Trove. 

Jessie gets maried to Greg

On Saturday, we went to the wedding of Jessie (my cousin) and Greg. The cereremony was held in a church right next to Norman and Wilga's beautiful house in Leamington Spa. It was a lovely service - and the pastor was a real character. Jessie looked absolutely gorgeous in her beautiful wedding dress. She had two very young flower girls - one was cute, little Camilla, Emma's young daughter. Greg also looked very dashing in his morning dress.

Mum and daughter

Here is Wilga, Jessie's mum. She too looked lovely and very happy to see all her kids now happily hitched. William got married to Clair in September last year. The reception was held in Norman and Wilga's beautiful garden. We enjoyed some sun (the weather played ball for a change!), with champaign and appetizers.

Looking very smart

Here we are, resplendant in our wedding garb. Ally found a very shapely dress just days before the wedding and looked lovely in her hat. The English love their hats at weddings and no wedding outfit is truly complete without one.

The Young Ones

Here are Emma's little ones and some of the other cute kids at the weather. They all seemed to really enjoy themselves.

Now I ask you very confidentially, aint she...

Well, here is a full length shot of Ally so you can properly see her dress.

Dinner and speeches

A Marquee had been set up in the garden and that's where we had dinner. A delicious buffet of chicken and fish, roasted vegetables, tossed salad, new potatos and gorgeous home made mayonaise. Then strawberry icecream, lavender biscuits and fresh berries.

The speeches after dinner were excellent. Norman made everyone laugh with some great comic lines. Greg made all the girls misty with some very heart felt sentiments about Jessie. He is a lovely, genuine guy and absolutely adores Jessie - a perfect match. The two best men then told some hearty stories about Greg's formulative years. They showed us some hilarious photos - here are two of them showing the transition of Greg from little school boy to hell raising teenager.

Getting down on the dance floor

After the speeches, we got to dance. The music was great and Jessie and Greg put on a good display in their "first dance". It's wonderful to see Jessie and Greg so happy and obviosuly in love. They are off to Africa for their honeymoon - Victoria Falls, Okovango Swamps in Botswana and Islands off Mozambique.

Ally didn't dance exclusively with me all night - she was enticed away by another very cute young guy

It´s Mike! (or P Stain as coussin Jessie likes to call him!)

Michael Clarke (Colleen's flame for many years and a good friend of ours) was at the wedding and it was awesome to see him again. He's still living in London and has just started his own company (he's left his previous job where he built the site for "My Voice") - so is working very hard. He's as fun as ever and we had some good laughs. Hopefully we'll see him again when we spend the weekend in London at the end of this month.

Staying at Chateau Kenilworth

We stayed over at Carol and Gus. Gus has recently returned from a trip to South Africa where he did the comrades - a life goal of his.   He has become a passion ultra marathon runner and lapped up the Comrades Course in bronze medal time.  He's written a great article on the race which you can download in PDF format.

Carol is looking extremely good with all her walking and gyming.  She is still looking after "Chuckie" the hedgehog (remember him?)  who is doing very well.  He's three times the size and living in a hutch in the garden until he's mature enough to be set free in the garden. The local hedgehog society is so impressed that they want to give Carol more orphan hedgehogs to raise!!

Gus and I get on very well as we share some similar passions - computers in particular.  He gave me some good tips on how to create an online database - my next goal when it comes to site building.  Over the next couple of months, i aim to  teach myself some sequel and .net.  It'll hold me in good stead for my job and will let me do all kinds of exciting stuff online.

Just before leaving for Cambridge, we met up with Norman and the family for a walk at Kenilworth Castle.  It was great to have so many of the family together.  I had a good chat with Robert, my uncle, and his kids - they're all really nice. They've been here for three weeks and had a very enjoyable 10 days in Ireland. The weather deteriorated towards the end of the walk but we Brits are used to a bit of rain so it didn't dampen the spirits.  Refreshing, actually, after those 40 plus degrees temperatures in the Sinai!!

Affirmation (Cambridge life: 2004 - 2005)

 

The Blog

• Take photos of colleges etc.

Ally

• Finding apartment in Cambridge
• HR plan: "I just want to say that I have the best husband in the world! He kept me calm, was unbelievably supportive and when the chips were down he came through for me. G, just in case I haven't said it enough times you are fantastic!"

Volvo CE

• Dealer website presentation and roll out
• Used Equipment project (Mascus)
• Sales & Marketing Master Plan (Volvo)
• Selling in dealer sites
• E-business strategy ppt (Volvo)
• SPM presentation  (to managers, in Mindmanager)
• Managing budget (pivot table)
• Technical Director job description
• Building Violin for Europe
• Matt's marketing role strategies (in Mindmanager)
• Mindmanager

Volvo praise

• Steve Johnson and Charlie - mature beyond years
• Mats - say so much in a sentence
• Asa - I'm your greatest admirer!
• Caroline very impressed

Personality

• Naughty Santa at The Hardcore Hiking Club Xmas party

Life Trove

• I stumbled upon your blog... …and just wanted to tell you how absolutely beautiful it is! The photography is breathtaking. It only fuels my lifelong passion to visit the UK. Thanks for blogging.
• Your blog is incredible, as is this post! Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Louis (size of universe)  
• I love your home- page. It's the best one I've ever seen, and the spiritual vibes vibe totally with my own. I've been dreaming about my home-page for a while and I imagined something like yours (before I saw it). Unfortunately you're 35 years in front of me, so I can't catch up. Definitely your friend.
• Robyn:  Love your photo's. Love your news of outings, sightings and family. Thank you over, and over again, for keeping everything posted and up to date. Visiting your blog is one of the highlights of my week.
• Robyn:  Have brought my Dad in to see your blog. Ally is taking him though the site showing him a bit of everything. he is amazed by the technology and the fact that you will have this scrapbook for your children's children. Reminds me of the Egyptian belief that, if your name is kept alive, then you are immortal.
• Tony Carlyon:  I just have to say that I have never been so impressed with either a blog, photographs, or someone’s life in general. I am amazed by everything you have done, and even more amazed that you have documented it so scrupulously, and have been kind enough to share it with everyone else! Thank you! 
• What fun to surf here, it must not have been a mistake since I enjoyed it so much! Best wishes from Michigan, USA

Ally's upate (23 / 07)

Wow what a fantastic holday we had!   I was a bit nervous about diving as I remember diving in the pool as a small kid and being dazzled by all the equipment.  But thankfully diving has come a long way in .... 20 years ... oh my god it can't be that long surely.  I must admit to being a bit nervous when first putting my face under water but soon learned to relax when I knew I could trust the air to keep coming.  I so enjoyed the first course but my ears got blocked and become quite sore.  I went deaf so when people were speaking to me I ended up making diving ok signs much to the amusement of everyone except me. SO I had to visit the doctor at the Hilton (the only advantage of staying there is they had a decent doctor).  Well he took one look at my ears and tut tutted away!   They were full and I mean FULL of wax. To cut a long story short he cleaned them but it was very unpleasent and rather embrassing.  So I have now decided that I have to get it done every five years. The bonus is that I can now turn the volume down on the TV - probably much to the neighbours relief. As they were sore after this, I did not want to push it and had to make the decision not to do the advanced.  It was heart wrenching to see the others off on their dives and hear their stories about the fish they had seen.  I went off snorkling on my own.  I felt like I was back in India or Turkey where a women on her own is fair game.  I had a Mohammed want to come snorkling with me.  He had no chance!!  Maryanne stayed in our flat while we were away and she had terrible weather compared with our 39C.  But I think she had a good time and it so good to see her and catch up.   Back to reality of work and 3 days in I have a sty in my eye - very telling.  So have got a temp in to help me which is great as I now I feel that I can breath and sleep at night. We are looking forward to the wedding on Saturday.  I have spent the last five months trying to find a hat that will match my dress but can't find one so will have to go without one.  The weather is predicted to be good which I am so happy about for Greg and Jessie.  My aunt is thrilled we are coming to stay so that she can see us all dressed up. 

Design improvements

If you click into other sections of this site, you'll notice it now all looks completely consistent with this page.   I've been learning all about external style sheets which allow you to completely separate design from content.  If I wanted to completely change the design of this site, i could make a couple of tweaks on one page - an it would automatically update the entire site.  Nifty stuff.  The next trick i want to learn is how to set up an online database and some online forms.   Once i've done that, i'm ready to make millions.  Only thing remaining will be to come up with a killer commercial idea.  Mmmmmm.  Any ideas?
 

Diving holiday in the Dahab (Egypt)

We have just returned from an amazing week of diving in Egypt. We stayed in Dahab, a small village in the Sinai desert on the coast of the Red Sea. I visited Dahab first in 1997. I meant to stay there a few days but found myself sucked in for close to two weeks. It was the chilled out atmosphere of the place and the amazing coral reefs that attracted me. Dahab was also a stop-over on the Oasis Overland trips that I led in 2002. We would spend 4 days in Dahab recuperating from or preparing for (depending on the direction of the route) the hurly burly of Egypt.

I have always absolutely loved snorkeling in Dahab – it offers some of the best coral reefs anywhere. When Ally mentioned she would like to learn to dive, I was very excited because it has been a life goal of mine for ages now. I immediately thought of Dahab as being a great place to learn to dive. I even knew a good dive centre that I recommended to my passengers on the Oasis trips. And so our summer holiday came to pass…

The Sinai Desert

We flew in from Gatwick Airport. Arrived in Shamelshek Airport and the heat hit us like a physical force as we left the air conditioned plane. Well over 40 degrees. The relief of being out of rainy england was very short lived - it was swelteringly, uncomfortably hot. We got a mini bus to Dahab, an hour and a half away. The egyptians drive very fast so it was an exciting trip.

The photo above epitomises the terrain: hot, dry desert with sprawlings sands and crumbly mountains. We drove past Mount Sinai on the way, the mountain that Moses ascended in the bible to get the 10 commandments. The Sinai, of course, is the land that the Israelites passed through on their way from Egypt (remember the story of Joseph and Pharoah) to the promised land. I got to climb Mount Sinai on my previous visits but we were in no rush to do it this time. The Israelites took 40 years to wander through the desert. They probabbly also got sucked in at Dahab by the temptations of thick shakes and beautiful coral.

Our Hotel

We stayed at the Hilton, just outside town. It ended up just being a place to crash and night and in retrospect would have been better to say in the town itself. But the air conditioned rooms were large and comfortable. And the taxi to town cost us all of a pound. The hotel was surrounded by ten swimming pools which really attracted us in the brochure but it turned out 9 of the 10 were just for decoration and not to be swimmed in! Also found out that the week previous to our arrival a Swiss girl was attacked by a shark in the hotel's beach and lost an arm so that wasn't too auspicious! We ate at the hotel restaurant on the first night which was very mediocre and included a twenty pound half litre of wine (we stupidly didn't check the price on the menu) so we ate mostly in town after that.

Our diving group

The next day we went into Dahab to walk around and investigate diving courses. We investigated a few places but the diving school (Posseidon) I used on my Oasis Trips still looked to be the best. As luck would have it, Posseidon were starting a four day open water course in half an hour. There were four others (see photo) on the course: A lovely dad and his sixteen year old son and two giggly, very frienldy nineteen year old girls – all from the UK. We started off with some theory in the class room (hard to concentrate in the heat!) and then donned our wet suits and tanks for some “confined water practice” in the shallows.

It was a very weird experience sinking into the water the first time. We weren’t too sure what it was going to be like to breathe underwater and if we could trust the regulator. But once we sunk under the surface and got over the initial shock of it, it came very easily indeed. Just breathing in and out, with the sound of it loud in our ears, and watching our instructor as we did underwater exercises. Like filling our masks with water and then breathing the air out. Taking the regulator out of our mouths and putting it back in. “Budddy breathing” i.e. sharing air under the water as you’d do if someone ran out of oxygen. Rising up and down with our bouyancy jackets by blowing air in and out. And generally getting a feel for being under the water.

It soon became apparent that we had a wonderful diving instructor with a great sense of fun – and that we were in for a whale of a time. He was assisted by a dive master, who was a also a fun guy. His name was Mike and he was from Cape Town of all places. Not only that, but he lives in Almond Road in Newlands, a 5 minute walk from our house there.

Under the water

After our confined water exercises, we got to go on some proper dives. The whole experience immediately captivated us both. You float on top of the water, put your regulator in your mouth and then deflate your bouyancy jacket (known as a BCD). Thanks to the weights around your hips, you start to sink down. There’s a bit of pressure on the ears as you do, but you simply equalise by pinching your nose and blowing. You need to keep doing this as you go down, although it gets easier the deeper you go.

It’s gorgeously cool as you sink, such a relief from the sweltering heat above. You gently kick your fins to move through the water. It’s hard to describe just how relaxing the whole experience is. It feels a bit like gliding through a weightless medium – gliding through a wonder world of colourful coral and exquisite fish. When we emerged from the water after a particularly beautiful dive, Ally asked the instructor if coral made a humming sound. The instructor gave her a very confused look. I then confessed that I had been chanting my meditation mantra and that this was unoubtedly the cause of the strange humming.

Unfortunately there are no photos of Ally under the water because all the photos were taken during the advanced course. Very sad – we only realised this when we got back.

Restaurants and cats

We ate most our meals in town. Dahab brims with restaurants, all based right on the water. You have to be relatively careful what you eat because Egypt is notorious for giving you the runs - but the food in Dahab is suprisingly good and we did not get sick. We re-revisited some of my favourite restaurants from my tour leading days (when I always ate for free). It was great to be reunited with thick shakes (basically ice cream in a tall glass) and fruit pancakes.

Feral cats are rampant in Dahab so you always have to be on the look out for a rogue little fellow trying to steal some food. Some of them take the more traditional feline approach of trying to snuggle up to you and prise food out of you with their beseeching eyes, but most of of the cats are scrawyny and scruffy little creatures who you don't want to let close, so it's all rather sad.

Food is certainly not served fast in Dahab (or anywhere in Egypt for that matter.) Everythings runs on a very chilled schedule and you either learn to be patient or get extremely frustrated. Egyptian Time is Cape Town time times five. Being on holiday, it didn't phase us to much. After all, we had nothing else to do except eat, dive and sleep. It's amazing to see how Dahab has increased in size since I was here in 1997. Then it was a ramshackled town that attracted a lot of hippie types. Now, it has become something of a resort with a lot of smart hotels and package holiday types. Bit sad in a way. Although prices have still remained suprisingly low.

Underwater Worldlife

The underwater wildlife was spectacular. Stunning coral with darting fish of every conceivable shape, size and colour. We organised underwater housing for our cameras so we could take photos. Taking good shots proved to be challenging, especially getting the fish in focus. Some of the fish, especially those in the Blue Hole, are quite cheeky and they come up and nibble at your skin. Not painful, but enough to give you quite a startle. We took a fish identification guide into the water with us on one of our dives and must have identified over 30 different fish in a couple of minutes. Seeing a thousand fish in a life time wouldn't be quite as challenging as seeing 1000 birds.

Nemo

Here's Nemo! Otherwise known as a "Two Bar Clown Fish" They really do live in red sea anenomes and are as cute as the movie version. By the way, good news! Apparently they have found little Nemo. Click here to see!

Underwater Nasties

Not all the fish are as harmless as Nemo, in fact some are very poisonous indeed. Thankfully these ones tend to stay hidden in thre coral. Lion Fish (pictured below), Stone Fish and Scorpion Fish are all pretty nasty and we got to see them all in the Red Sea. You wouldn't want to step on the Stone Fish's poisonous spines for example. The only way to get rid of the agonising poison is to put your foot in boiling water. That could sure spoil a holiday… The Lion Fish, which are common in Dahab, is not quite as severe but it's poison can still give you a very hard time.

A world of contrasts

The contrast between the dry, sweltering, stark barreness of the desert and the teeming, colourful life just below the Red Sea's surface is quite startling. That's one of the things that makes this place so special. Once we had completed our four day open water course, I was motivated to do the Advanced Open Water course (a two day course that takes you deeper and allows you to do some of the more adventurous dives in Dahab, including the famous Canyon and Blue Hole dives. Ally opted out as her ears were a bit sore after 4 days.

The Blue Hole

The Blue Hole will always rate as one of the wonders of my life. You kick out over a shallow coral reef, which then suddely plummets away into a hole that is 1000 metres deep (the equivilent height of Table Mountain). Floating over such a deep whole is one of those humbling experiences where you are reminded of just how very small we are in this enormous world of ours. Due to the depth, the water is a startling blue colour and there are fish everywhere you look. We dived 30 metres into the hole on this dive (which is pretty deep for diving) but it's like hardly scratching the surface when you look down into the fathomless depths below.

Many divers have died in the Blue Hole because they are enticed to dive deeper than they should. Nitrogen Narcosis then sets in which gives you an exhilerating high, makes you feel falsely invincible, and makes you do silly things like giving your regulator to the fish. Unconsciousness can then set in. We were given maths problems to solve under the water to check our own susceptibility to Nitrogen hallucinations - but thankfully none of us had any predispositions. That's not to say I idn't get my first maths problem wrong, due to a careless mistake! I am used to excel adding my numbers for me.

The Canyon

My second favourite dive was The Canyon. You swim down to 15 metres to find a natural crevice in the ocean bed that is an aditional 15 metres deep. It's a little scary swimming into this narrow compression but once you swim into the opening, it widens out quite a bit. The photo here was taken at the bottom of the hole, looking up. Not for the claustrophobic… There was an enormous Moray eal in the hole that was most put out with us. We hired a chap to come and video us under the water. He was a zany Aussie and full of fun, and very, very good at his trade. Without any editing or anything, he created a masterpiece with some fantastic funny bits too. I'm going to see if I can stream this video for you to watch online. Watch this space. If not, we have an extra copy to send home to you.

Night Diving
One of the exercises on the Avanced Open Water course was a night dive. It's a bit freaky getting into the black water, but once you’ve relaxed and get used to the underwater torch light, it's a great experience. The coral feeds at night which is fascinating to watch. Also lots of squid and shrimps about which you don't get to see during the day. Phosphorescent plankton in the water provides lots of fun. Not to mention the novelty of having hundreds of orange eyes staring at you from the darkness. Needless to say, we all kept pretty closely huddled together as we explored the reef - and we kept bumping into each other as no-ne really wanted to be the last one in the line.

Farewell Party

On the last night, we had a festive barbecue at the dive centre to celebrate our graduations to the hallowed status of "official divers". We can now dive anywhere in the world - next stop, Great Barrier Reef. The party was quite a raucous affair (Divers like a good party) and some interesting tricks were performed.

Poem inspired by The Blue Hole

From the hot and stifling desert air
and hungry currents that ebb and whirl
From the blinding pierce of sunlit glare
and tiring kicks through stubborn swirls
I release my air in a gentle stream
and sink slowly down through the emerald blue.

Through shoals of irradescent, twirling fish
I float effortless in a weightless world
and at my side, a sheer cliff of coral stands, suffused
in firy tendrils of orange and gold.

Below, the ocean falls away to fathomless depths
as calm and still as eternity itself
and above, the soft rays of the filtered sun
carress the velvet surface of the ocean in a golden glow.

Floating free like a carefree child,
my spirit soars, my senses enthralled
by this underwater garden, abundantly rich,
of colourful hues and mysterious shapes
and as the soft tingle of living water caresses my skin,
my mind grows still; expands to meet the depths below
and I cease to exist; becoming one with all

Spiritual moments (2004, 2005)

 

• How to capture a moment poem - and the immense peace I felt while writing it.
• The beauty of Cambridge in the changing seasons.

Challenges (Cambridge years: 2004 - 2005)

Financial stress 

• Getting out of tax net (Nic input, compiling spreadsheet, dealing with KPMG, expense, that night in Duxford)
• Fund closes, dollar weakness
• Selling house in Cape Town

Volvo CE

• Sarah leaves
• Budget review with Donal
• Volvo splash-page
• Taking over Andrew's role
• Volvo extranet presentation: feel Donal's judgement
• Ander's irritation when I moved into main section
• SPM - mindblank

More

• Fixated on Ally getting fat
• Bad trip Amsterdam
• Kitchen counter damaged
• Shoulder pain

Re-united

Marrianne arrived today from South Africa - it's great to see her again. Johnathon and Amanda and Geena (the dog) came round for dinner so it was like a mini reunion. Lots of fun and laughter and memories of the good old days in SA.

Fun with The London Underground

I found a fantastic one pager about the London Underground with tons of links. It makes fascinating exploring...

Did you know the original London Underground Map was invented by Harry Beck, an out-of-work engineering draughtsman. In 1931, he produced the first sketch for what has become a 20th century design classic. He realised the problem with the existing maps were that they were too accurate. His map was an instant success with the public. There's a cool interactive site that lets you compare the London underground map with what it would look like if it were geographically accurate.

If you're ever planning an underground journey in London, a very good map to use is this one. It lets you zoom in and out and you can click on stations to find out all sorts of connnecting info. Wish i'd known about it when i was living in the city.

Another interesting link allows you to compare the subway systems of the world on the same scale.

I won't be tempted!

The New York Times has just brought out its definitive list of the 1000 best movies of all time. Makes the IMDB's Top 250 list look like a picnic. But i shall not be tempted to upgrade my life's ambition to see the New York Times list. After all, I need a life... Maybe my good friend Rory has a point when he said in his email yesterday

"I've seen loads of movies recently (including Troy. Butterfly Effect, Harry Potter (not that impressed), Way too sad... But not nearly as sad as you trying to view the top 250 movies of all time..... (need I say any more ...) (Maybe that is the joy of living in a dark, cold miserable country, you get to see loads of movies to compensate!!! (hhahah)

I'll tell you one thing, though, if this damn weather in the UK doesn't improve soon (still raining today!!), I might be tempted to make an attempt for the NYT list after all!

New record claimed for text message

According to MSNBC:

"A 23-year-old Singaporean woman has set a world record for sending text messages over a mobile phone.

Kimberly Yeo thumbed 26 words in 43 seconds into her phone, beating a world record of 67 seconds for the same words set by a Briton last September.

At a contest in front of a department store on Sunday, Yeo was among 125 people timed by a panel of independent officials to see how fast they could type the following 160-character message:

"The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.”

Yeo, who won $10,250 in cash for her nimble thumbs, said she sends out about an average of 1,500 text messages a month to friends and family.

i reckon i'd need 45 seconds just to type the word "Pygocentrus" Shouldn't have thought predictive text would help you much with that! But then, I suppose if you send out 50 texts a day like she does, you'd get pretty quick too...

Looks like i'm not alone

Technorati (a service that tracks blogs) has just tracked its 3 millionth weblog. The growth of the service has been remarkable. In their words "On an average weekday, we're seeing over 15,000 new weblogs created per day. That means that a new weblog is created somewhere in the world every 5.8 seconds."

Wow, and i though i was an early adopter type. Looks like i'm quite late on the bandwagon!

Black and white never looked this good...

Check out this Black and White Photography blog.

It won The Guardian "Best of British Blogs award" for best photo blog. Contains some really beautiful black and white photos, many of which are taken in the UK. Makes me want to grab my camera and go out and start shooting willy nilly...

The Guardian award for best written blog went to a British prostitute who maintains a blog about her rather sallubrious life. There's quite a bit of controversy about wehter she is for real or not: i.e "a call girl pretending to be a journalist - or a journalist pretending to be a call girl" but the fact remains it's a hugely entertaining and brilliantly written blog. She's just been offered a book deal so has rather toned down her life while she's been writing it - but her earlier entries are certainly on the saucier side... Check it out at belle de jour

My next career

I don't normally publish the results of my personality tests, but i rather liked the answer i got on this one. Try it - it's quite fun...

Wackiness: 80/100
Rationality: 56/100
Constructiveness: 86/100
Leadership: 60/100

You are a WRCL--Wacky Rational Constructive Leader. This makes you a golden god. People gravitate to you, and you make them feel good. You are smart, charismatic, and interesting. You may be too sensitive to others reactions, especially criticism. Your self-opinion and mood depends greatly on those around you.

You think fast and have a smart mouth, is a hoot to your friends and razorwire to your enemies. You hold a grudge like a brass ring. You crackle.

Although you have a leader's personality, you often choose not to lead, as leaders stray too far from their audience. You probably weren't very popular in high school--the joke's on them!

You may be a rock star.

I'm obviously wasted in e-commerce!!!

It's July for goodness sake. Make it sunny!

Raining again outside. And some strong winds. In fact, the wind has been wreaking havoc on the power lines and causing some big power cuts across Southern England. (See here for the BBC story on this).

We had power cuts at work today and many of my poor colleagues lost work when their computers suddenly switched off. Thankfully, i'm on a lap top so escaped! Big storms coming up from Spain likely to cause flooding in next day or two (must be casued by that sweltering heat wave in Madrid that i suffered through last week!) Thanks Goodness we're off to egypt soon - i severely, severely doubt we'll experience any rain there. The Sinai desert in July is nothing if not dry.

We're really looking forward to Egypt, especially the diving. I've bought Ally and myself some waterprrof cases for our cameras so we can take them underwater with us. Let's pray they work! Or we could very quickly become cameraless... i'm looking forward to blogging some photos of tropical fish here.

Shrek 2 at the cinema, followed by Nandos

We went to watch Shrek 2 on Sunday and absolutely loved it. Definitely recommended. I love Mike Meyer's Scotish accent - I never registered before that Shrek sounds quite a bit like "Fat Bastard" in Austin Powers - which is not suprising since the voice comes from the same guy. I also love John Cleese - so it was a treat.

There's a new animated film coming out soon which looks absolutely brilliant - "Shark Tale" Features Robert de Niro, Will Smith, Renee Zellwegger and Angelina Jolie -how's that for a star studded cast of voices! Made by the same chap who directed Shrek.

After the movie, we went to Nando's and had a great ex-peri-peri-ence. Nothing like South African Portuguese flame grilled chicken in the UK. They're very popular in Cambridge and for good reason. The food is really good - and not expensive either. The food in front of Ally is for both of us - by the way - just in case you think she is a glutton! The corn on the cob is particularly novel here - it's not something the brits usually eat - but very poular nevertheless.

The extraordinary adventures of Macavity, the Travel Bug

Macavity, the cat, pictured here at Silvermine earlier this year, is a nomadic "travel bug" who is using the new global sport of Geocaching to travel the world.

To do Geocaching, you just need a GPS. You find a nice spot somewhere on the globe and leave a little "treasure" hidden there. It can be some stickers in a tupperware, or a pack of cards, or a travel bug like Macavity - whatever catches your fancy. You then log on to a special site and record the GPS co-ordinates of the "treasure cache" and other geocachers are welcome to use their GPS to locate the treasure themselves. They can take the treasure, but have to replace it with a treasure of their own.

Travel bugs like Macavity get to travel from one cache to another - and they often have a goal of some kind, as set by the original owner. For example, Macavity the Cat's goal as stated on the web site is to "meet and be photographed with some of my cousins and travel to New Zealand, before returning home."

Macavity started off in Devon in SW England in July 2002 (two years ago), and then made his way across multiple UK caches, before going to Germany - and then an adventurous leap to a cache on Lion's Head in South Africa. Russel, my good SA friend, retrieved him from a cache on Silvermine, knowing that Ally and I would be passing through Cape Town on our way to Australia, and could help Macavity get closer to his Kiwi dream.

Russel then showed me how to use a GPS (very easy indeed actually) and lent me his. On our stop off in Rottnest Island in Western Australia, Ally & I went off on an adventure to find a cache - and located one at a lovely spot on the coast, next to an historic gun battery built during the 2nd world war. We left Macavity there and only a few weeks later,another geocacher moved him on to another cache on mainland Australia. Then, just a month or so ago, (excitement of excitements), he arrived at the Bay of Plenty in New Zealand. Hooray for Macavity!

There is a web site where Macavity's journeys are logged (a compulsory part of the geocaching game is logging your finds). People can also upload pictures here so there are numerous pictures of Macavity in different parts of the world with a startling array of cats.

Macavity's next step will be to make his way back to the UK where his original owners will probably take him out of circulation - or maybe send him on another exciting journey!!

I am very keen to start this fun sport myself (there are many, many caches in the UK). I plan to purchase my GPS soon - you can get good one for just over a £100. Geocaching is yet another example of how new technology opens up new and exciting pursuits. This entire game is flourishing due to two now ubitquitous tools - the GPS system and, of course, the world wide web.

Welcome to Treasure Trove!

You’ll see this blog is now not just a blog, it’s grown up and become a full site!

When I started blogging two months ago, I wanted to add some stuff to the layout. So I ventured into the program code. And found it wasn’t too hard… Emboldened by my small success, I thought why not build a site. It has after all, been a life goal of mine for a while now. We even had Dreamweaver at work, though I didn’t have a clue how to use it until now.

It’s been a fun project. I am useless at colours & design so I decided to make it look like the blog. A more seamless experience – and saves me the embarrassment of torturing you with clashing colours! If you don't like the colour scheme, you can blame the chaps at Stop Design.

Content is always the hardest part – but I’ve been collecting quotes and one liners for years so thought I’d share those with you. Plus some personal stuff – my personal mission statement, my passions, and some writings. After all, life’s too short not to share yourself with the ones you love and I very much doubt anyone else will be coming here.

So browse around! Start at home for an overview or use the navigation above to get around. Enjoy… I’m hooked so no doubt I’ll be adding things as time goes by…

Abba mania

We met up with work colleagues on Friday night to have a barbecue. Matts and Maria, have a huge flat screen television with a dozen music channels alone. One of the channels was playing Abba's greatest hits. Being a party of mostly Swedes, this caused enormous excitement and everyone table boogied to the music with the volume turned to super high (poor neighbours - there's nothing quite like Dancing Queen if you're trying to sleep...)

It was interesting seeing all the old Abba videos, especially since I used tho have a mega crush on Agnetha (the blonde one!!) when I was young. In fact, she was the first crush I ever had. My second was Olivia Hussey who I saw in Romeo and Juliet. The fact that you got to see her topless for just a second (a long second thanks to the joys of the remote) really blew my little mind. Ah the joys of innocent youth!

Stick out stomachs

The evening ended with everyone getting pretty well tanked. The chaps had a competition to see who could stick their tummies out the furthest. Unfortunately (altho I suppose Ally would disagree), my tummy exercises and high metabolism proved a handicap in this endeavour. Martin (middle) won hands down. The chap on the right is Matts, by the way - he's my boss!

Sweltering Madrid

Tuesday night, I left for sunny Madrid in Spain. I did my presentations in the morning and then took the afternoon off to do some sight seeing. My god, was it hot - over 42 degrees!! Too hot to really enjoy, unfortunately. I got onto a double decker bus with open top, specially for tourists - but it was a bit like being an egg on a frying pan. Only managed an hour, then I escaped for some shade.

As you can see from this photo, movies are very popular in Madrid and their adverts dominate the billboards. The Spaniards make some good movies of their own by the way; I saw an absolute gem of a Spanish movie just last week called "Talk to Her" A touching drama set in a hospital where two men become close friends while looking after their comatose girldfriends. It had some absolutely outragous bits too - not suprising since it comes from the same director as "Tie me up, tie me down."

Art Museum

I thought I had better include at least one photo of a famous building. Here's the Museo del Prado, probably Spain's most famous art museum. Unfortunately I didn't have time to explore it - you need many, many hours to do it justice, but the building was very impressive from the outside.


Twitching in the shade

In a quest to escape the heat, I ventured into the Botanical Gardens named "Parque del Buen Retiro". "Buen Retiro" means "Royal Retreat", so named because in the 16th century the Royals used to go here for Christmas and Easter. Lots of lush plants and glorious shade to laze under. Under these particular trees I got to see two new species of bird: Coal Tits and Stock dove (I had my binoculars with me, how's that for being organised!)

My bird list has now reached 620 - only 380 to go and I'll reach my dream target. I've seen 71 new birds this year now (48 in Australia and the rest in Europe) I'm as passionate about my twitching as I've ever been...

New birds I've seen in Europe this year:
- Reed bunting
- Rook
- Shelduck
- Shoveler
- Pochard
- Tufted duck
- Gargenney
- Chaffinch
- Blacktailed godwit
- Black-headed gull
- Lesser blackback
- European marsh harrier
- Lapwing
- Whooper swan
- Mistle thrush
- Fieldfare
- Blue Tit
- Redshank
- Pied wagtail
- Green woodpecker
- Great Spotted woodpecker
- Coal tit
- Stock dove

The Davidsons come to Cambridge

A sting in the chicken

We had Ally's aunt and family over for lunch on Sunday. The chap in the foreground is Bronwyn's fella - Mark. A great guy who shares my passion for techno gadgets so we always have lots to talk about. Ally did her speciaity: sweet and sour chicken done Naked Chef style. A fantastic dish with a little bit of a sting in it's tail: two red hot chillis in the sauce waiting for an unsuspecting victim. Like Russian roulette it is. We always wonder who's going to get it first. But, oh so delicious!

Rapscallion Connor
Carol and family regularly look after little Conner on Sundays while his mum works. So they brought him along for lunch. He'd slept during the car trip here so was full of energy by the time he arrived which he spent running around the house, scattering toys in his wake. A little rapscallion of note - but boy was he adorable. After lunch, we took him to the park for a run. He led us a merry dance around the play ground - and also got to feed the ducks.

Baby Hedgehog (later called Chuckles)
On our walk, we came upon a baby hedgehog that was about to try to cross a busy road. We looked everywhere for it's parents but no sign. Poor little thing - it was disoriented and not very happy. Carol is a sucker for raising little orphans of any description (she already has Indian Myna's and barn owls on her CV). We took him to the park with us, wrapped in a jersey, and he soon perked up with all the delicious flowers to eat - and a couple of sips of river water. By the time we got home, he was positively frisky and wolfed down mega portions of cat food. Carol will look after him till he's a little older, then re-introduce him into an area where he can find other hedgehog friends. Cute little thing...

A fun evening in Cambridge at the fun fair

Feeding the 5000

Ah, the joys of English summer in Cambridge. Friday night we popped into Waitrose on the way home from work and purchased lots of picnic goodies. Then off to the bank of the river Camb for a feast where we discovered we'd been far too generous with our rations (that's the problem when you shop when you're hungry!). Never mind, it'll do us for the rest of the weekend...

Strawberry Delights

Strawberries are back in season here in the UK (just in time for Wimbledon!) - and being a lover of this delectable, saucy summer fruit, i am in heaven...

Nothing's as fun as a fun fair...

Ally and I ventured on a picnic to Jesus Green and happened upon a festive fun-fair. So after our meal, we went to explore. I'm still on my sugar diet and found myself inexplicably lusting after the candie floss and toffee apples. Ah, the temptations!! i got my fix on an adrenaline cursing ride instead, and ally and i also delighted in the bumper cars.

Big Wheel

I like this photo. Captured with my new, miniscule Canon digital camera with an aperture and speed of i know not what... that's the beauty of these little beauts, you just point & click... although, you can bracket the exposure up and down so it does have some flexibility...

Gravitational Torture

Towards the evening, i went on this totally terrifying ride (ally refused point blank to join me, being the sensible one she is). i soon found myself rocketing and twirling and twisting around and down and up while my stomach heaved and my jowels furrowed against the rampant gravitational forces like those of James Bond in "Moonraker". Felt pretty wobbly for an hour afterwards and couldn't even shoot straight (my usual fun-fair speciality) to win Ally her customary bear. But i'd do it again at the drop of a hat. Masochist me...

A century in the blink of an eye

"Put three grains of sand inside a vast cathedral, and the cathedral will be more closely packed with sand than space is with stars." Sir James Jeans

I love this quote. It gives me a sense of how infinite space is. I've been reflecting quite a bit lately about the infinite nature of time and space and just how fleeting (and very special) our lives are within it.

For fun, I did some calculations (with the help of the web!) to get some perspective on these things and found the results truly fascinating:

Perspective on time

The earth is 4.5 billion years old. But let's say that the earth began only 1 year ago.

This is when other things would have begun:

the universe - 3.3 years ago
the earth - 1 year ago
first one celled organisms - 246 days ago
first jelly fish - 48 days ago
first dinosaurs - 18 days ago
dinosaurs went extinct - 5 days ago
earliest man - 7 hours ago
civilisation began - 3 minutes ago
wheel invented - 34 seconds ago
Jesus born - 14 seconds ago
Battle of Hastings - 6 seconds ago
French Revolution - 1 second ago

Perspective on space

In reality, the earth is 93 million miles from the sun. But let's say it was just 1 cm.

This would mean the distance of other things to the sun was:

Mercury - 0.4 cm
Earth - 1.0 cm
Jupiter - 5.2 cm
Uranus - 19.3 cm
Pluto - 39.9 cm
nearest star - 2.5 km!!

If you tried to map out our tiny galaxy, you would need a piece of paper the size of the United States!

I find these figures startling and inspiring. Something to reflect on next time I find myself getting too wrapped up in the drama of my tiny life. Next time I fret about something, I'll ask myself "Is this likely to change the evolution of the human race in the next 5 billion years" - and if the answer is no, tell myself to forget it!!

My presentation to the board (Ally)

Well it is all over! I managed to dazzle them with G’s brilliant mind and my winning smile. What a duo!

The Chairman waxed lyrical about how good it was and they were all very impressed with the quality & the amount of work that had gone into it. So all in all very good and they agreed that I would be leaving behind a legacy! Get that!

PS I did wear a different outfit – a suit no less! It had to be dusted down...

 

Skating over cobbles

I was very happy when Ally plucked up her courage and came out rollerblading with me. Not the easiest thing in such an old city with cobbled streets and rickety pavements... I've found a good, long smooth stretch (a cylce path) close to our flat. Ally did admirably well and enjoyed it tremendously. One of my goals for this year is to do the famous Friday night London skate from Hyde Park to Picadilly Circus (they close the roads specially) . Should be lots of fun.

Natallie and her little one (Ally)

I spent a wonderful afternoon with Chris and Natalie, being introduced to their new baby daughter, Ella. Ella totally stole the show - she's so tiny and too adorable with her big blue eyes. To my delight, she fell asleep in my arms. Secrety made me broody - but pssst, don't tell Graeme!

From wine, what sudden friendship springs

We went to a wine tasting on Saturday night with some work mates. Very cultivated it was. Everyone had to bring a bottle of Italian wine. The bottles were covered in foil and we had to guess the year and grape etc. Lots of discussing whether the wine tasted more of cut grass or straberries or sweaty socks (I think that was the influence of the nearby Italian cheese.). It all started off slightly stilted but as the sips flowed, everyone warmed to their subject and much jovial banter ensued...

Purchasing a Canon IXUS i in Cambridge for blogging

I bought this sublime little camera in 2004 when I started this blog and thought it would be nice to add images of our daily lives in Cambridge. It was my first digital camera. It was a tiny camera with no optical zoom but that limitation gave rise to wonderful creativity. I fell in love with photography in 2004 and 2005 and have been hooked ever since.
 

Farewell Sarah

It was Sarah's last day at work today (she's on the left). She's leaving us after only three months which is very sad because she was extremely good at her job and extremely nice to boot. Unfortunately she was offered a sexy job at an web agency in Cambridge and dull old construction equipment just couldn't compete with that. So we went out to dinner after the game to say cheerio. Hopefully we'll see lots more of her in our social gatherings...

Go England!

It was England verse Switzerland in the Euro tonight so we left work early to catch the game in a pub in Cambridge. After the gutting loss against France on Sunday night (England was actually winning till the 92nd minute!) there was some rather anxious Brits. But tonight was celebration all round - 3 nil to the home crowd. I narrowly missed the elation of arms up in the air with this photo and only managed to capture the afterglow. Too slow...

I must say i am becoming a very patriotic english supporter when it comes to the footie though there's no doubt where my loyalties lie if South Africa and England are playing each other! It's nice to have two sides to support though - like in the world cup rugby last year. When South Africa was kicked out, i still had the Brits to cheer and they went on to win the whole thing, to the massive delight of everyone here. Johnny Wilkinson will be regarded as a national treasure forever more, and the DVD of the great match is still at the top of the best seller list here... A great moment to be sure, but of course, for me, nothing close to 1994 and Nelson in that green jersey...

Looks like I'm in danger of becoming a hot commodity!

Here’s a summary of a recent article on bloggers:

Surely blogs are just for nerdy geeks sitting in darkened rooms eating cornflakes with no milk and wearing bad clothes? Or perhaps they are poor little rich kids with lots of time and too much tech know-how?

Apparently not.

A new survey of blog readers says they're generally older and wealthier than you'd think. Blog readers love to buy stuff online. Unsurprisingly, over half said they get their news online too. These people are 'information junkies'.

Blogs remain a niche activity, for now. But culturally speaking blogs are breaking through. Just look at the press surrounding the Belle du Jour blog.

The question is, when will retailers and publishers start to take notice?

Rhyme dictionery

Wow this is cool. I lie to write a bit of poetry now and then but always have trouble finding words that Rhyme. Then Caroline told me that you can get the internet to find rhyming words for you. Check it out! Now i just have to find another site that writes the sentences between the rhying words - and i can become an instant poet... By the way, I'm bogging this entry directly from the Google toolbar that now has a "blog this" feature. It can be downloaded here. Aint technology great...

Thank God - it's off!

Poor Ally got blindsided last week. She was told by the owner of World Challenge that she had to do create a full HR plan for the year with a return on investment for all money spent and then present it to the board - all within 5 days. Talk about stress! Anyway, we both rolled up our sleeves and dived in. Ally managed to interview all the directors witin two days. It was then a case of creating the plan and structuring it into a pithy four page report (with many appendices added on). We made a great team and dedicated much of the weekend and Monday to it. By Monday night, it was a work of genius (hopefully!) and we emailed it off with great celebration. Here in the picture (at 1 am in the morning), Ally has just emailed it off ... Note the happy face. Till next Tuesday anyway - that's when Ally has to face the board. Hold fingers. They're a scary lot!