Good morning everyone, its really quite chilly here this morning.

 

Interesting discussion about ovens.  I have an electric oven with a fan and an ordinary gas oven.  I find I can't cook cakes in my fan oven as it seems to cook them too quickly.  But they used to cook perfectly in the electric oven I had before I moved down here.  Very odd.  I hadn't spotted the thread about meringues I will go and look.

 

Have a good day, I hope the wind isn't as chilly where you are.

Good morning Squiggle. Any update on the mole problem?

Hi Yogi I'm still fighting back!  The windmills are all still in place and what I do is if there is any activity (and there has been very little recently) I go straight out and sweep the hill away (so that it doesn't kill off the grass) and while I am there I bang the earth hard with my spade.  The mole doesn't seem to like the vibrations, it stops the grass being damaged and of course it keeps the lawn looking normal. 

 

I think he did find a place to make a hill where I won't mind, the lawn slopes down slightly at the edge because from the place where the lawn is it falls away quite steeply down the hill.  Where he found the place to push up the earth can't be seen from the house so that would suit the both of us.  What are the chances of training my mole to use that particular mole hill do you think?

If he has realised he is up against a very determined Squiggle, then I think there is every chance of Moley being "reprogrammed".

Yogi its so surprising how quickly the mole hill kills the grass.  When I first saw a mole hill I was taken by surprise and didn't sweep it away.  I am still trying to re-grow the grass on that bit it must have killed a circle of about 7 inches

I'm impressed with your mole plan squiggle I think it's brilliant! A human/mole compromise

Hi everyone  Wasnt on yesterday, had a nice family day, then collapsed in my bed 
squiggle, hope mr mole has moved on x

Yes, they really do some damage, don't they?

Summer, I love the idea of a mole/human compromise.

I think Squiggle should draw up a Treaty and get Moley to sign it.

 

Good morning Skylark, glad you had a nice, family day yesterday. Enjoying yourself can be exhausting, can't it?

Hi Yogi, yes it can lol   I had the wee one Saturday night, she awoke at 5am  Had her all day till mum came , then we had our meal, cleaned up the devastation. I was fair puggled !
Watched Vera, but only because nothing else was on, but cant say i enjoyed it. Its one of those programmes you want to like but dont , Just my opinion x 
Laughing at squiggle having a meeting with moley  

I agree with you about Vera. I want to like it because the brilliant Brenda Blethyn is in it, but I'm not really warming to it. I keep watching, in the hope that it's going to get better.

Vera,s hair was annoying me, i wanted to get  a brush and do something with it! Sad i know........

I felt the same.

Need some bread and milk, so I'm off to the shops. Be back later.

Bye for, i am off too. Going for my BP check and blood tests. Hope my cholesterol has gone down this time, its my crisp addiction . Just love them, but have been good this past month.

We could all be witnesses to the treaty

I must be getting used to Vera as I found yesterday's less downbeat than the first two. Did you see Daniel Flynn as Godrey Waugh in it and think you recognised him from somewhere? If you did, and can't remember, he was Supt John Heaton in The Bill for the last 3 years of that series.

Skylark what is happening with your computer?  Did you manage to retrieve your pictures?

Hi, i popped into the shop when i came out of docs. He works in the shop by himself so takes him time to look at things. I had phoned him on Saturday to try to rush him on a bit. Anyway, he said he had looked at the tower, the fan needs replacing (as i suspected), then went on about rams etc, The graphic card needs replacing (hence the strange coloured screen i was getting). So its good news that it can be fixed. With everything and his labour costs he said about £150. I said i would phone him back at 5pm to say to go ahead or not. Is this reasonable or not? I could cut my losses and maybe get another one, even 2nd hand, but i would lose all thats been stored over the years. Maybe £150 isnt so bad, all things considered.....think i have just answered my own question !

Skylark, although £150 is quite a lot for a repair job, though the graphics board is likely to be an improvement over the old one, the value of the photos is priceless, so I personally would get the work done. (and it may be helpful to get one of these pen drives if you don't already have one so that you can take backups of the photos to keep)

Yes, thanks El. i will never put all my eggs in one basket ,again...so to speak xx

Will pop in later, son due home, hungry as usual x

I too would pay the £150 repairs skylark, if it were £200 or more I'd probably say no and get a new one. Can the tech guy retrieve & back up your pics for you?

He's also the brother of (Soldier, Soldier) actor Jerome Flynn of "Robson & Jerome".

While Robson Green's career goes from strength to strength, we see very little of Jerome.

Its good to know the pictures are safe.  While its with the repair guy he could do a general update which is why he was probably mentioning RAM.  Its the labour that costs the most with these things so ask him about the spec and see whether he recommends any other tweaks while he is at it.

 

When I update my PC I shan't replace it entirely but get my computer guy to put in a new motherboard and everything it needs to make it comparable to something really up to date.  He did this before and its been going for years.

And I have seen more than enough of Robson Green I tend to avoid anything he's in along with that guy who used to play Phil Mitchell's brother.

Skylark, did you get on okay at the docs - cholesterol down, I hope?

I think I'd pay the £150, if it meant I didn't lose my photographs.

In the next few weeks, I intend to scan all my non-digital photographs onto my computer, before they go back into storage up in the loft. Son says I should also put them onto a memory stick, then compress them and burn them onto a disc (or something like that). Anyway, he says he'll make sure I have copies in case the laptop breaks down on me.

Oh dear Squiggle, I love Robson Green. He played the lead in one of my all time favourite programmes, the part of profiler Tony Hill in The Wire In The Blood. Now that ITV have decided not to make any more episodes, I am reading the books by Val McDermid on which the series was based.

I didn't connect Daniel Flynn with Jerome Flynn, but then I never saw Soldier, Soldier. But now I realise they are brothers I can see some similarity in appearance. Looking on IMDB, Jerome hasn't appeared in anything much for the last 10 years, but he is in that Throne of Swords thing on Sky Atlantic.

 

As for Robson Green, I am indifferent though I am lead to believe that some women find him attractive .

Yes El, a lot of women do.

We will have to agree to disagree on Robson Green Yogi   It would be a funny old world if we all liked the same actors and actresses. Some would be very busy and others would never get any work at all

Very true, Squiggle.

And I don't mind if you don't want to share Robson with me.

I phoned him to say go ahead, he said he could save them on a stick or disc and transfer them, or something like that, i dont understand the computer lingo.
Yes Yogi, thats a good plan.
hi Summer, thanks for asking , think i have answered here, rather than individual posts xx 
By the way squiggle i have opened a photobucket a/c so when i am up and running, i will post a pic of granddaughter. Although the way i am going she will be 5 and in her school uniform!! 

Hi Yogi, Bp fine, cholesterol still high . Discussed taking statins again, but i am not keen. Will try my best this month to get it down x

Skylark, because I can have high cholesterol I use Flora proactive as that is a good way of keeping the bad cholesterol low and the good cholesterol higher. I may be one of those people who have inherited high cholesterol as I have always tended to eat low fat foods, lean meat, eat plenty of fruit and veg, don't eat any fried food, and am not over-weight. Although I have raised blood pressure which is kept under check, my risk of heart attack etc is assessed at 10% in the next 5 years. I would suspect that even someone of my age in perfect health would still be assessed at 5%, because no doctor is ever going to say there is no chance of a heart attack.. And so I'm not on statins as the perceived risk has to be 20% or more. At least that's what I've been lead to believe.

Check that he will save the pictures in .jpg format (it is easily interchangeable and you are able to open it with just about every format).  I have a disc full of pictures that I had to open using a JPG converter because they were saved in some strange format.

 

Glad your BP is fine and they are sooooo picky about cholesterol these days aren't they, they've got me on statins and my cholesterol was only 5.2

Skylark, high cholesterol seems to run in Mr Yogi's family. His trigyceride levels were high and he has HBP and diabetes, so the doctor put him on statins.

I have high Bp, El, and am on Atenolol, a bit overweight and a smoker, my diet is not too bad, generally. I may have inherited it too, as my mother died at 57 from hypertension and kidney failure. So i am high risk. You have a good diet . So many have conflicting views about the effects of statins , taken in tablet form. But i may have to to take them if i cant get it down. I am a terrible worrier too, which doesnt help the stress levels x

I know that Benecol drink works well too, it helped to keep my hubby's cholesterol low and like Mr Yogi high cholesterol runs in his family.

squiggle 5.2 is just about normal, why are you taking statins?
Yogi, yes levels are usually high with the combination of HBP and diabetes .
Any side effects, which you find are unpleasant?