OK... For anyone who thought I'd not be updating while away from home, scroll down a bit, Carol let me blog on her computer this week...
Sunday was great - run out to Porton where to our amazement they had a
sun (aka camel) spider! Astonishing creature, one of the ugliest spiders I've ever seen, with
huge fangs. £35, not bad at all given that their half-grown Red Knee was £99. Kai managed to do his usual, charmed one of the staff who caught a locust for him, opened up the sun spider's tank and let us watch the thing catching it. And slowly biting it in half. Very impressive... Now that is an arachnid I really wouldn't mind getting. Not so easy to look after though: need to provide a desert-style habitat, hot in the day, cold at night, with damp sand so it can tunnel. The staff member I spoke to said a three foot long tank, with a cool damp half and a hot sandy half separated with a pane of glass that it could burrow under as required, would be the best habitat. Not so easy to set up. But at least it's easy to feed - eats anything that moves...
They also had a halloween crab. Unfortunately I can't find a pic, but it was dark purple and pumpkin coloured with a cute little mask-like marking over its 'face'. Oh, and having now seen the price of snakes, I won't be getting one, much as I'd like to. Until I get that best-seller, anyway...
We ate at a Harvester pub on the way home -
gorgeous meal, then Kai and Carol both ordered a Honeycomb Explosion dessert... ooops. The biggest sundae we'd ever seen, vanilla ice-cream drizzled with caramel sauce and filled with bits of Crunchie. It defeated Kai, alas, though Carol managed it... I had a Rocky Horror - hot chocolate sponge with chocolate sauce topped with Cornish ice-cream and whipped cream with flaked chocolate. Only half the size, luckily, since it was very rich and very filling, especially after my volcano chicken (spit-roasted half chicken with a deliciously ferocious chili sauce. I do
like hot 'n' spicy...)
While I remember... [grins] Funny thing happened the other week. Carol tells us she was sitting at the computer when Bella came in and froze, staring under her chair. Carol assumed that meant spider and lifted her feet in a hurry: Adrian caught the offending beastie in a glass and showed it to Carol. Who looked at it, frowned, and announced, "That's not a spider, it's a
harvestman"...
(Should I explain that? Carol's an arachnophobe, and until we got Rosa, as far as she was concerned a spider was a spider was a spider. But not any more... Kai's explained the difference between the different arachnids, and despite the eight legs a harvestman IS NOT a spider. Well, it makes a difference. I never had a problem picking up harvestmen in my hands, whereas I wasn't at all keen on handling spiders. Heh, my bratling, the aversion-therapy expert...)
Lovely run home, sunny and colourful. Hundreds of emails awaiting - even though Ken had trashed the spam - including a bunch of Purgatory sporks. [growl] Home half an hour and I get nagged for an addy - after waiting a month for my last one to be replied to...
Copied across the photos, mp3s and ZoneAlarm4 from Carol (many thanks! Kai's clock pic now on his own site, so you can delete from yours at your leisure. And I'd forgotten how much I like
Call Me! Cheers!) Photos will be uploaded when I can find half an hour to resize and post. Oh, and Ken likes the look of the Dimage 3, but I think he wants something with an even higher resolution. Definitely into an upgraded recharger and batteries though - save a fortune on my AAAs for my tablet pen and new mp3 player (hereinafter Rix. Wonderfully simple plug'n'play, drag'n'drop tracks straight onto the hardware without any software required. Great stuff!)
Several other parcels were waiting as well, including one from onna containing the
Haibane Renmei anime on DVD. I don't know this one, but it looks interesting. [GLOMPS onna] More when I've had a chance to watch it.
I did, however, treat myself to a Twinfix this evening (after
Spooks, which I thought was an
excellent episode!) And this time I paused the DVD at the very start of the freeway chase: I was sure you can see the driving twin's eyes over his shades at one point. [sigh] I was right, you can. Beautiful, dark (which they would be given the light conditions) and perfectly
human eyes. Soddit. Second time I've got eyes wrong in fanfic...
Tomorrow is forecast to be the last good day, weatherwise, this week, so I'm planning to take Kai up to Horfield to the Briz Special Reserve store to ask about Nappa. A two-bus-ride up the Gloucester Rd: we'll walk back down to town checking out the second-hand shops, Kai's still looking for clock mechanisms for his projects. Practically a day trip by the time we're done. And there I was looking forward to a restful day. Ah well - the exercise is good for me. So they say. (No idea who 'they' are but if I ever find out I shall have
words with them...)
Then Wendy's visiting Wednesday - looking forward to that! And then I suppose I'd better start writing this book...
[GLOMPS Carol and Adrian] Thank you - we had a
fantastic time! [GLOMPS Sue] Good to argue with you! [grin - just joking].
Wanders off growling "This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway, this is the road to hell..."
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Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor
pontificated this at 11:13 pm
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