Thursday August 30th

Well it's a miracle that I'm typing this! I've been in no-computer hell for about the last - well since last Thursday at least. Basically for the past two weeks, my cable has been playing up, and then as I say, last Thursday it packed up altogether. So if anyone's reading this, thinking that they might find out what's happened to me - there you go. No-computer hell!

Mind you, even if I had had it, I wouldn't have been around much. It was Mum's birthday on Sunday, and I was over there from what, Saturday - frankly, even though this was only last weekend, already it feels like weeks ago. The cake came out wonderfully, although I scotched the butterflies - simply too much trouble. Check it out!

The party went very well. We were blessed with really really good weather - we've been joking at work that this summer's consisted of a week in April and a weekend at the end of August, with autumn in between. But wasn't last weekend wonderful? People had to sit in shade, and come in out of the sun! Best of all though, Mum herself was on form. When someone's suffering from dementia, being on good form, or having a good day is particularly important - I can remember when Dad was in what was still the reasonably early stage of Alzheimer's, he and Mum went to visit my Aunt living in Birmingham, and they got half way there and he became convinced that Mum was kidnapping him! Writing this, it may seem like something of a joke, but believe me it wasn't any kind of joke at the time. Anyway she was in a very good mood and a good time was had by all.

So of course when I got home I was all excited that the people were coming to fix the cable - and indeed they did. Unfortunately they had to leave very soon after they arrived, as they didn't appear to have foreseen that in order to put the cable right they would need to get the other end of it out of the hole in the pavement. Frankly I would have thought this was pretty obvious to start with, but clearly not, and away they went again. If I hadn't have started shouting down the phone like a mad thing, frankly I think I'd still be here waiting, but I have a loud voice and I can make it work for me. So the web is once more mine!

Some of the books I ordered with my birthday Amazon vouchers have turned up! It's always thrilling to get parcels in the post isn't it? Anyhow, so far I've received 'The Popinjays', which is the account of the Woodville family. This frankly was a bit of a disappointment, rather than the rollicking read I was expecting. I can't really put my finger on why, it certainly should be a lively book given what the Woodvilles got up to.

Then, my second parcel arrived, with Christopher Brookmyre's Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks. Now this is an oddity, it's the first of his books I've ever read, and I bought it because I'd seen some good reviews. I'm not saying it's a bad book, but it's oddly disjointed, which is probably his stock in trade. I'd guessed the solution by about the third chapter, which was rather disappointing, but - well, what the hell, it wasn't that bad. Not sure I'll be buying any more of his books though.

The third book was a biography of Edward III. I'm still plugging my way through this, but a problem I hadn't anticipated was that in order to make the paperback small enough not to put people off, they've made the print so tiny that I have to go back and re-read half of what I've read! So it's very slow going. But it is interesting, and I do like Edward III. I've already learnt stuff that I didn't know, which is always a good thing in a history book, particularly when you're reasonably familiar with the background. So one up on that I say!

But ultimately, this shows the problem with buying from Amazon. You're dependent on reviews for a guide to whether you're going to like something or not, and in a lot of these cases, the only reviews that are there are the buyer one's. You can end up spending a lot of money without really knowing what you're buying. Still I've got another two books I think to come, so maybe it'll turn out to be 50/50 good/bad. Here's hoping folks!