Italy did my grandson the world of good

Well Callum has just returned from a month living in Italy with his aunt and uncle in a small village and boy has he grown up.

Not only can he now speak (with an excellent Italian accent) quite a few words in Italian but he has seen how different life is outside of the UK.

While he was away my first grandchild became a teenager and I am proud of him. He is turning into a great young man who is polite, funny and with a good sense of values. I hope he remains that way.

At school he is learning Spanish and French but I hope the ease in which he took to Italian while living there for a month will encourage him to try a little harder with his lessons and realise how handy it is to learn other languages.

It may be difficult learning languages but it is well worth the effort.

He is already looking forward to going back to Italy next summer to hopefully spend another month taking in the fantastic scenery; way of life and language.

Callum I'm proud of you.

Genealogy

Well I’ve lost count of the number of years that I’ve been doing my family tree but it’s one of those ‘hobbies’ that you pick up and put down and then pick up again at a later date.

So far I have just under 1,000 relatives on my tree and I’m back to the late 1700’s, early 1800’s. It gets far more difficult finding ancestors when you get to that era.

Due to the difficulties in finding further information and the extra work put on me in my employment my searching for ancestors ground to a halt for a while.

Then out of the blue I get approached by someone who has seen my family tree on Genes Reunited and Ancestry.co.uk and away I go again.

There just never seems to be enough hours in a day or days in a week to get everything that I want to do fitted in with everything I have to do.

But I keep on trying…..

August Bank Holiday

Well we are nearly at the bank holiday. The last one we get now until Christmas and wintertime.

Oh boy am I looking forward to a long weekend. Probably most of it will be spent sitting in our fifth wheel trailer :-) Not going out in it, just sitting in it.

I have to admit that the rush for the seaside at bank holidays is enough to make me run in the opposite direction. I don't enjoy sitting in queues of traffic and then trying to find somewhere to park and having crowds of people to contend with. Give me a little peace and quiet anytime :-)

It is really strange how we've began to see our trailer as our retreat. Normal weekends are spent playing catch up on all the jobs that don't get done during the week because we're out at work. So sitting and relaxing at the weekend when I'm indoors is a complete no-no. All I keep thinking about is "this needs doing, that needs doing" but by going out the door onto the drive and getting into the trailer I seem to feel a million miles away.

In fairness I have my phone with me so if anyone needs me they can contact me but I can't see that the ironing needs doing, or the rooms need vacuuming or any of the other multitude of tasks that you need to do.

My trailer is also my office. I have my laptop with me and I can sit and do whatever needs to be done without interruption. Or I can just lie on the bed and have a catnap. There is tea and coffee in the cupboard and I take some milk out and put in the fridge. The water tank is very large and full of fresh water so a cuppa is on hand whenever I want one.

Yes the trailer is great - whether being used on the road or just sitting on the drive.

Ebay Selling

Well I seem to have spent the entire weekend creating listings on Ebay!

As I'm an avid Ebay purchaser I thought it was about time I started to sell some of those impulse buys that either don't fit; don't suit me or just were not what I expected :-)

It took so much more time than I expected. First I had to photograph the items and upload them to my Photobucket account where I then edited them to the correct size. Then I created the wording for the listing and copied it to an Ebay friendly template site to get the look that I wanted.

I then had to create links to my ME page on Ebay and my feedback page.

After all that was done I had to enter all the details onto Ebay listing page along with the postage cost which I had previously checked on the Post Office site.

Oh and I mustn't forget including a link to a scrolling gallery site so that whichever product you were looking at you could see all other items scrolling along at the bottom.

Then I submitted it and checked it....

Phew I'm worn out - is it worth it I wonder :-D

Farmville

Now Farmville is a game that has caught on within Facebook. It's great fun and all the family keep building up their little online farms. I'm just as bad as the kids when it comes to playing this game but tonight there was a problem.

Farmville wouldn't open properly and I was told that my Adobe Flash needed updating. The problem was that as Adobe was installing a Trojan was trying to get in as well! Luckily I have a good antivirus and it grabbed it before it got in.

So the point of this post is just a reminder that we don't know what is going on in the background of cyberspace or what is infiltrating our computers!

Thank goodness for Antivirus programmes.... and we must remember to keep them updated.

Websites

Well much as I love my blog I thought I would like to have a go at creating a website. So if I've been a bit quiet on here this week it's because I've been trying to create it.

I didn't realise just how much work is involved in creating a site. The worst thing was trying to think what I wanted a site to be about! The designing I'm quite enjoying but having to do all the creating; researching and designing prior to even putting the website online seems to be taking forever!

I have to admit that the internet is so time consuming. By the time I've looked around at different designs to get ideas; checked on what I can put in and what I can't; gathered the information I want to add and tried typing the text in Word and entered it onto my template and previewed it - well there goes another couple of days (or more).

Oops and the problem with laptops is that perishing little box that you are supposed to use instead of a mouse. I've just lost my spell check facility on my blog because as I type and a shadow is created over the box then it does its own thing and opens or closes what it wants - or sends my cursor up to the top of the screen!!

Please excuse any spelling mistakes.....

Sunday Evening Blues

Did you know that there is such a thing as the Sunday blues? Well apparently it starts to descend on you at about 3pm on a Sunday afternoon when you start to realise that the weekend is coming to an end and it can occur whether you like or job or not.

It has something to do with your body rhythms so it is physical as well as mental. As your body clock goes out of sync with later nights from Friday night onwards and you lie in longer than you do during the working week then everything goes slightly awry...

Well physical or mental whatever it is I know I get it too :-)

Roll on next weekend...

The Most Incredibly Boring Person Award

Do you know anyone who you could give the above to?

I have the misfortune of working with someone who I could gladly give the award to - and they drive me crazy….

I would not wish to upset them or hurt their feelings by saying who they are – but they are soooo incredibly boring…….

You know, the type of person who can’t stop talking about anything and everything – all of which come over in that drone-like manner as an incredibly boring subject, and they go into great detail; and I mean minute detail; giving blow by blow accounts every step of the way….. and when they are talking to someone else you try to block out their voice and get on with your work but you are unable to as their voice permeates every part of you...

Oh hell, do they know they are boring???

Come to that – maybe I’m boring and no-one’s ever told me :-)

Keeping Up Appearances & Mrs Bucket

Only those that remember the TV series ‘Keeping Up Appearances’ with the legendary Mrs Bucket (pronounced bouquet) will appreciate this post.

My mum, age 82, has yet again come out with a classic which will have me chuckling all day. She had sent her passport off to be renewed and it was taking longer to come back than she hoped. While on the phone to the passport office she was being helped by a lovely Irishman. Frustrated at not being able to hear what he was saying properly she burst out with “can’t you put me through to someone who speaks English!!”

I just said “you can’t say that!!!” but she was totally unaware that she had said something wrong.

Mind you the Irish have a lovely sense of humour and I can imagine him turning to his colleague and saying “Mrs Bucket here wants to talk to someone who speaks English” – however they got her passport back to her next day by special delivery.

Well done passport office.

Fifth Wheeler Maiden Trip

Well I've booked up for our maiden journey in the 5th wheeler!!!

Not having much holiday time left we decided that we had to get away at least for a long weekend to give the new trailer a 'try-out'. So, no sooner said than done.

A quick flick around the Internet and I found a site that is only an hour and a half from where we live. This means that we can leave early on the Thursday night after work and return home on the Monday thus only using up 2 days of the precious holiday entitlement.

Another good point is that I've found a site that isn't too far from where my mum lives on the coast so we can pop and visit her as well.

Up until now we've only travelled around France in our old motorhome so it will be a novelty to stay in our own country :-) but with this new one I think it's best to try it for size, so to speak, before we venture across the seas (or should I say, Channel).

Booked up for end of September so the site should be fairly quiet and hopefully the weather not too bad.

What do you use yours for? – The internet that is…

I really don’t know what I’d do without the internet now. It has become part of my life :-)

So what do I use it for?

Well for a start I order my food shopping each week for delivery. I know that sounds awful but by the time I get home from work at night it’s too late to shop and weekends are a definite ‘no-no’ for going round supermarkets!

Shopping for presents is another nightmare that is alleviated by shopping online. I can take my time to look for what I want, purchase it and there it is delivered to my door.

I research absolutely anything and everything online. If I have a query – then I Google it – or Yahoo it - it’s great that the whole world is there at your fingertips.

Online forums are great when I’m gathering information and I've learned a lot from them but helpdesks are brilliant too.

Of course there’s the obligatory EBay for buying and selling and just for keeping track of what’s available.

Facebook is my main social network (what a word!) site but mainly I use it for relaxation. On Facebook I can leave messages and chat to my friends and family/play games (favourite at the moment is Farmville) and just generally keep an eye on what’s going on.

Amazon is great for buying my books or just reviewing what others think about anything I’m interested in and of course there are all the language courses that you can join.

I’ve completed quite a few online courses, in varying subjects, and love the idea of being able to just download any coursework/books etc that I need – immediately and without having to wait.

Of course there is my blog and I’m now researching (online of course) how to produce better web pages and sites.

So what do you use yours for?

Me, well I just use it for everything…..