Aaaaargh! Computers.

Computers: love them most of the time. Hate them when they go wrong.

Decided that today was the day when I would finally stop procrastinating and do some of the things I have been promising myself I would do for the past couple of days (or weeks, or probably several months if I am honest). Got off to a good start - sat at computer, made coffee, walked the dog, sat at computer again, made lunch, put on a washing, sat at computer and imagined glue holding me to seat, typed letter & managed to add attachments to email (without resorting to consultation with children, which with most things computerly is quite an achievement for me. I probably still did it vastly more slowly than they would have done. Ho hum ...) and pressed send. Yippee job done.

Then, the email bounced back - notification of failure to deliver. What?!!! Was the web postie on his tea break? Turns out my server has probably been blacklisted by the recipient (whatever that means). Resorted to normal behaviour of my generation and sent it again and then again - a bit like shouting louder at the foreign waiter in the deluded belief that he will then understand - it bounced back again and then again, somewhat inevitably perhaps.

Luckily, I have two email addresses and apparently the second is not blacklisted yet, so posted email to myself and then forwarded it on to desired destination. Felt very clever about that. Especially when it didn't bounce back. Little bit worried now that it might have got lost somewhere in the flickering ether of the web; not very confident about the web postie's ability to find the right address really. Guess I won't know for sure until I get a reply ...

Comments

Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

Yes - it is a real word. Flochetage. Well, a real-ish word. One invented by the painter Delacroix, when he found the dictionary cupboard bare and required a word to describe his technique of layering different coloured paints, using lightly pulled brush strokes to create texture and pattern and thereby enhance his base-layer colours (... lost? - stick around, read on and all will become clear. Or perhaps muddier ...). Flochetage implies both stringiness and threadiness. Apparently. And it sounds good - in a filling-the-mouth-with-sound sort of a way. Try it ... flochetaaaage. Not that I speak French. So I am probably mis-pronouncing it. Nor am I an artist. So what do I know about painting techniques - except that I think this one works. What I do like is the concept - you invent a new technique in whatever it is you do, hunt around for the vocabulary to describe it, find the dictionary is lacking, so make up a word of your own and announce to the world what it means. Delacroix isn&#

Confetti for the brain. A little bit of history regarding a use for holes and a couple of quotes.

Confetti - noun: small pieces of coloured paper thrown over a bride and groom following their marriage ceremony. Also the bane of church yards and wedding venues - who wants to exit church after their favourite spinster aunt's funeral and slip on the papier mâché mush of last weekend's weddings, or step, in your wedding gown, onto a pink spattered step when your colour theme is lilac? Confetti - derived from the Latin confectum, meaning something prepared. Which suggests that there is something missing from the traditional wedding rhyme 'something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue ... something prepared.' How about something shared ... declared ... or ensnared?? Nature's confetti is all over the ground at this time of year - The garden, footpaths, and pavements are covered in blossom snow. And, when he falls asleep beneath the apple tree, it speckles Four-legged-friend's black coat. The confetti we know today - bits of b

My beloved boy, how lucky I have been

It's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die ... and I say someone here even though the one in question was a dog - but to us he had character and a place forever in our hearts and was more of a familiar someone than some of the people in our lives. So, I'll start again - it's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die, our senses go into overdrive. We notice things that normally would be part of the background of our every day. We breathe more - or rather, we don't but what we do is notice our breathing more, as we watch his. We pause. We think. We listen to ourselves and our inner voices speak. Memories flood our dreams ... though sleep is fitful. Why am I telling you this? ... ... we lost this beautiful boy today And in the hours before he went, I saw perfect spheres of dew on blades of grass - little orbs holding micro-images of our world; a bumble bee drunk on nectar, yellow-dusted with pollen, resting in a crocus; ten - yes, ten!

Walking The Dog

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