Pond

This morning watched Fantastic Four 1994 version with Ben. After that I started researching on t' pinternet about how to get the full copy of the birth certificate. I found the county council websites had quite a bit of info on what you need to do and also had forms you can download, fill out and post to request a copy of your birth certificate. Filling out the cheques for payment was weird - you have to write loads of stuff on them, and Notts CC said on their website make the cheque payable to 'Superintendent Registrar' but on their form they say to make the cheque payable to Notts CC. Other CCs seem to say make the cheque payable to the CC so I just did that. I also had to phone Surrey CC to check the registry office I needed to send the form to.

After lunch I finished off sorting out mine and Ben's birth certificate requests, I left Yumpts so he could copy mine. I did a bit of vacuuming and then me and Ben helped Moohar with the pond she's been digging the last week or so. She had already dug it all out so we had to smooth all the mud out and get rid of all the water in the deep bit, which was all clay at the bottom. Smoothing all the mud (using they clayey water) took quite a while. After that we covered it all with newspaper then put the pond liner on top of that. We put some turf back over the end bit near the shallow end and then started filling it with water from the water butt. After a bit Moohar realised that the mud she was putting in the shallow end (which is meant to be a boggy area) would just mix with the water from the deep end.

So we all went back inside and Moohar looked at the book she was using and saw they had stones like a dam between the boggy area and the rest of the pond. I went on my comp for a bit and then watched some pixel perfect episodes with Ben while Moohar fixed the pond. She made the stone dam, and filled the boggy end with mud, and also put some pond plants she had bought in the pond. It still needs the turf replacing round the edge and the liner trimming. Also, Moohar said she needs to get some oxygenating plants for it and Ben said you should some goldfish.

After dinner me, Ben and Yumpt watched Trekkies, it was scare-chee how weird the people on it were, especially some bloke who said wore lipstick and said his character was the wife of a nasa astronaut from one of the episodes.

Food
Breakfast: Frosties; Cup o' tea.
Lunch: ½ beetroot sandwich; Genoa style ham with iceberg lettuce sandwich; grapes; satsuma; Montana; chocolate truffle mix crispie cake stooef.
Dinner: Toad in the hole; potatoes; Swede; Broccoli; gravy. Pudding was 2 x american style chocolate brownies.

Annoying passport heads

Yesterday me, Ben and Yumpt all got a letter to say our passports couldn't be processed because we didnae include our Birth certificates. On the letter it says that they need the FULL version of your birth certificate, and if you're born after 1982 it must include your parent's details.

So I got our birth certificates, and they don't have our parents names on. I had a look on the passports website and it doesn't tell you how to get a version with your parents names on. To find out this info you would have to phone the government, using an 0870 number (Companies using 0870 numbers normally make money on each call made to them).

Since its a Sunday and I didn't really want to phone their expensive phone number I did some googling and found out that there are 2 versions of birth certificates - a short version (which we all have) and a full version, which has the parents names on. The government has a website where you can request a copy of your birth certificate, so I registered for this, but when it comes to actually ordering your birth certificate, it doesn't let you choose whether you want the full or short version and I couldn't see anyway on their website that tells you what type of birth certificate they send you.

So rather than waste £10 per person on what may be just the same as what we already have, I did a bit more googling and found that you can request a copy of your birth certificate from the registration office where your birth was registered. It costs £7 for the full version, but I couldn't find any info about what the registration office actually requires to send you the copy. So tomorrow we will have to phone the registration offices to see what they need, and then post them the info they need and a cheque.

Another very annoying scheme by the government to get yet more money out of it's citizens.

Food
Breakfast: Strawberry Jam toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
After church snack: Wedding anniversary cake; coffee.
Dinner: Chicken curry; rice; puppodum. Pudding was fruit cocktail and ice cream. Coffee. Creme egg.
Tea: Genoa style ham sandwich; banana; grapes; slice of sultana and currant cake; cup o' tea.

Snowman died and ratties

Today the rest of the Ben loves Po-man that Yumpt & Ben made on Sunday finally melted away, leaving just a pile of grass cuttings.

This morning I did quite a bit of work, then checked my emails. After lunch I beed bored and went on the pinternet. Then about 3pm I helped Ben make his papier mache shield and saw some rats in the garden. Earlier in the day Ben had seen 4 of them on the bird table, I saw one climb up the pole to the bird table and it was quite funny and also clever how they can climb up a thin upright metal pole. I took some photos of the rats:

This one tried to get on the peanuts, the first time he tried he grabbed onto the peanut holder but then fell down, which was funny. I didn't get a photo of him falling though.

He did get on there eventually though.
This other one climbed up the bird feeder thingy but Rad had taken away the bird table bit so he just ran around on the feeder thingy for a bit then came down to look for bits of dropped seed on the grass below

Arrr.. look at his cute human style little hands
Someone should be coming on Monday to EXTERMINATE them like a Dalek (well if they actually did it like a dalek that might be a bit scare-chee.

After watching the rats Ben had done the front part of his shield and had to leave it to dry before he could do the back, so we made some chocolate truffle style stooef. Me and Ben used some of our easter egg chocolate and really well crushed biscuits to make truffle mix for ourselves and then still well crushed, but not as crushed biscuits and rice crispies and milk and plain scotbloc to make some family chocolate mix.

After that I went on my de la spomp and sorted some pics of Moohar's nice pink flower I took a couple of weeks ago.

After jin the pinner I went on the pinternet a bit more (I finished reading the PHP book now) and sorted the rat pics and wrote this blog.

Food
Breakfast: Strawberry jam toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Cheese on toast; sausage roll; pear; iced lemon madeira cake
Dinner: Battered fish with malt vinegar and salt; potatoes; peas. Pudding was (Mr Kipling) blackcurrant pie with custard

Dick Turpentine

This post is meant to be for yesterday.

Dick Turpentine = It's workin' time pun on Dick Turpin and Turpentine in One. Today did mainly work. In the spleenvening I watched my boy jack which has Harry Potter in it, was a bit boring really as not much happens. I think it was a made for TV movie, but it had good productions values which is weird for a TV movie.

Then after jin da pinner me and jinny watched US Office series 3 and I played on Eledees with Ben for a bit.

Food
Breakfast: Blackcurrant jam toast sandwich, cup o' tea.
Lunch: Ham with mustard and salad sandwich; caramel rocky; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Chicken & Asparagus pie; potato; green beans; parsnips; gravy. Pudding was tiger swiss roll with pear halves & custard. Coffee.

Annoying cold

Since Thursday till today I have had an annoying cold, so haven't really been able to do much. Did a little of PHP learning and a bit of work but probably spent most of the time in bed.

Yesterday and today Maccy P has been in Mansfield.

Food
Breakfast: Honey & Lemon drink.
Dinner: Pasta; cheese sauce; bacon; broccoli; cauliflower. Pudding was a slice of black forest gateau.
Tea: Cheese with salad sandwich; clementine; hot orange juice & water.

Jin de Pin de Mark & Mindy speak in de Hindi

Well as you can smell from the tie tell of 2 days' blog, its very windy at the lil' mo. There's a storm over Britain, but lucky Lee its not too bad here, its a lot worse on the South coast, especially in the Southwest.

This morning I went on deviant art and had a look at the last fews days daily deviations and read a couple of messages. Then I did some php learning, but after maybe a couple of hours I was really bored so I stopped doing that and started to sort out the passport stuff since we still have nae sent that off yet.

After that I cleaned my polariser and a UV filter, and set up some camera stooef to take photos of some dead daffodils. Then Moohar came home so we ate lunch. After lunch I finished setting up the spamera stooef and took some foe toes of the dead daffodils. Then I put them on my comp and edited them a bit and then put a sum of them in won pick Cher.

Then I picked up Ben from school as usual. After that I read the D300 review on dpreview, then did a bit more PHP learning.

After dinner I watched an episode of US Office with Yumpt, then 2 episodes of Pixel Perfect with Ben, then did some more PHP learning.


Food
Breakfast: Frosted shreddies; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Cheese with iceberg lettuce sandwich; ½ banana; clementine; slice of malt loaf with butter; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Deep pan Pepperoni pizza; chips with salts; ooh ahh just a little bit of salad. Pudding was 2x US style chocolate brownies. Coffee; galaxy caramel.

Michael Buerkin'

This morning I did some PHP learning, then at lunch time some urgent Michael Buerk arrived from Michael Buerk, so after lunch I did that. Then Michael Buerk spleen-mailed me to say that actually the Michael Buerk they sent me isnae so err.. gent, as they are sending me a bit Michael Moore to do and said to send them the rizzlas when I've done the ex-tr bit.

Any whey, I did Michael Buerk all Alfie Moon.

After Jin the pinner me Ben and Yumpt watched the rest of Barefoot Gen 2, then me & macSpleen watched US Office series 2 until 10pm.

Food
Breakfast: Chocolate oat crunch cereal; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Chicken Tikka sandwich spread sandwich; satsuma; slice of malt loaf with butter; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Chicken pie; potatoes; peas; carrots; gravy. Pudding was pancake with sugar and lemon juice. Coffee. Happy hippo.

Nice walk, nasty camera dust

Went on a nice walk with Rad this morning, was sunny with blue sky and fluffy clouds, and the village we parked in was very nice with old sandstone houses. After the walk we went to Aldi, then came home. I copied all my pics to my comp and geo-coded them (although the gps switched off (probably ran out of batteries) about ¼ way through the walk). I checked my work email and hadn't got anything new to do so that was nice. Converted all the NEFs to JPEGs.

After lunch I had a look at the converted JPEGs and they look like they all had a blurred bird flying across the image - it was a large dust spot. I checked my photos from yesterday's walk that I hadn't looked at, and they all had the same problem. Unbaked bread!

So I changed the lens on the camera to check the dust was on the sensor and not on the lens, and it still had the dust spot. So I tried to clean it off with a squeezy blower thing, and pretty sure I got rid of it. Then I remembered that Capture NX has a 'dust off' feature, so I tried to use that, but it only works with an image taken with certain parameters e.g. needs to be at camera's lowest iso. So I couldn't use the dust off feature since I didn't have an image with the specific settings needed and couldn't take an image with the settings needed as the sensor now was dust free (or at least the dust isn't in the same place as it was before). Double unbaked bread!!

So now I am going to have to remove it all by hand.

I went through the photos from yesterday and got them sorted and fixed okay, then started sorting the ones from today. Then we ate dinner and after that me yumpt and Ben watched satrwars in 1080p that MacP downloaded.

Food
Breakfast: Orange marmalade toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Breaded ham sandwich; ½ Chicken Tikka spread sandwich; apple; 3 grapes; slice of cherry genoa cake; caramel rocky; cup o' tea.
Afternoon snack: Plain chocolate digestive; malted milk; coffee.
Dinner: Battered fish with vinegar, black pepper and salt; peas; potatoes. Pudding was creamy yoghurt, I had passion fruit flavour; Plain chocolate digestive. Coffee.