After the wedding

Well, the wedding is over.

My eldest niece is now married and the whole ceremony went really well, even down to some fine speeches, especially from the best man (Craig), the groom's younger brother, not to mention the groom (Stuart) and the bride's father (Brian).

Once there are some pictures available, I will post some here. Meanwhile, here is a picture of Stuart and Michelle with son Taylor, who was born just under a year ago.

Wedding Time

Tomorrow morning we will set off for Berkshire to attend my niece's wedding.

As a church organist, I have played the organ at numerous church weddings (and blessings), in fact too many to count. At one of the churches I was organist at, I think we averaged two per Saturday for about five months of the year!

In my longer distant past, I worked as a wine waiter in the restaurant of an art gallery whilst at University. Because of the setting, many wedding receptions took place there and so I have served the "happy couples" in a different capacity.

However, my niece's wedding will be the first time I have attended a wedding where the entire event takes place at a single location. I have even heard that we will not be going outside. Indoor photos, eh?

I will write a review (possibly with pictures) after the event.

The end of Netscape

I read today on a BBC site that AOL (the current owner) is removing support for Netscape Navigator.  The other browsers built on the technology are Firefox (gottit!) and Flock (what??  Nevereardofit!)

So, I decided to make an excursion into this new "social web browser" (I think I have got that right) and have loaded it.  Having found that I can set up my blog so that I don't actually log into the blog page, but simply get a little window up that allows me to type my next set of diatribe, I thought I would give it a go.  And, if this works, you will be able to read this!

Blogged with Flock

Now I see clearly

Well, it has happened at last. No, nothing dreadful. Just the inevitable effect of a design flaw. This design flaw means that something that should be able to flex has now not got as much flex in it. It goes one way, but not the other. And what does this mean? It means that no matter how hard my eye muscles pull, the lenses in my eyes just cannot focus on close objects any more. And it is a design flaw, as the lenses just will not carry on for ever doing what they did when they were younger. And so neither can I. Therefore on January 31st I was not a spectacle wearer, but on February 1st I was. Just like that. But I'm not bitter - after all now I can see clearly all those small print things that I had to hold at arms length to focus on, but which then became too small to read. Yes - the health information on most packaging was beyond my eyesight. And now I can read it, will I follow it? I don't think I'm going to change that much!

Gobsmacked !

What a day!

At work I was just a couple of slides into a presentation to about 70 people when the fire alarm went off. Standing out in the cold for about half an hour in freezing December temperatures is not my idea of fun. AND when we got back in, about 20 of the audience seemed to have forgotten to come back from the pub!

But why am I gobsmacked today? Read down a couple of entries to my tale of the exam that I took and the way in which that one event would influence the recorded result of months of work. I was gobsmacked because the result of the exam was available yesterday and I had not received an email saying it was there. But more gobsmacked to discover that I had, in fact, received a distinction, which becomes my result for the course as a whole.

WOW!

WOW!

WOW!

In Limbo

Back from holiday, but not back at work yet. This period exists for about one day a year only and I am reaching the end of it. What's more, I haven't finished organising the write-up of the holiday and the pictures that we took. Something like 1800 miles on the road, some more on foot, about 800 photos, and a short daily write up that would have been suitable for here - except that we were so cut off from civilisation in Wales that we did not even have a telephone OR even mobile phone coverage on O2, Vodafone or Orange!!!!

Limbo finishes tomorrow when I go back to work. Nice [work] while you can get it!

Exam

Well, here goes. Eight months of stydying, four assignments carried out with good marks and now it is down to a three hour exam to determine my fate. If I fail the exam, I fail the course. If I do well in the exam, I do well in the course. So there it is. Eight months study and at the end it just comes down to how much I can cram into my head and regugitate again in a sensible fashion in three hours.

Still, IU can't wait until it's over!