Dunkeld Cathedral, April 2006

Originally uploaded by cosmicsmudge.

Messing about with flickr. Thought I would try and post this pic of Dunkeld Cathedral. I took this photo during our last visit there.

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Yesterday was more like Summer than Spring – it's only April!  When out for a walk yesterday, I spotted a number of bees and one butterfly.  Is it just me or is it far, far too early?  Last week I was still wearing my winter coat.  Yesterday I didn't need a jacket.

The whole issue of climate change really frightens me.  Well, to clarify, it is the attitudes of some of the world's population towards the issues of climate change and global warming that frightens me.  The attitudes being that these issues do not exist, or that they do exist but that it is too late to do anything about them so why bother?  I find those attitudes very problematic.  We may not know exactly what will happen as a result of global warming and climate change but I think that we have to accept that something is going to happen and that we each have a responsibility for that.  We may not be able to prevent whatever will happen but we could take steps to lessen the impact, such as recycling our household waste, investigating clean and sustainable energy sources, building sustainable and energy-efficient housing, even using public transport instead of cars.  I just think that if everybody made some small changes it could make a difference. 

Well, I don't seem to have had a lot of time for blogging lately, but as I'm working the evening shift tonight and it is fairly quiet at the moment, I'll take the opportunity now. 

A wee bit of chaos at work this week past.  My colleague has found a new job and has handed in her notice – her last day is on May 17th.  This means that we'll probably be down one member of staff in the library for the rest of the college term, one of our busiest times of the year.  I'm really pleased for her as her new job sounds like a great opportunity, although a little scary.  At the same time, I'll miss her because I think we work together really well.  It has made me think about whether I should move on too.  I am quite happy to be where I am for the moment, but if something interesting comes along, I will go for it.  My problem is that I'm not terribly ambitious. 

It was my birthday during the Easter weekend.  I am now 27 years old.  We went out to lunch at the Baby Grand, which was really nice as usual.  Husband was looking forward to fish and chips (they do really nice fish and chips) but they had run out.  Well, the table next to us seemed to have ordered the last of the fish!  Apart from that, it was a delicious meal.  Husband had a beefburger, while I had sea bass in a thai seafood broth.  It gave me the opportunity to try scallops, which I've never tasted before.  My mum ordered risotto, while Dad had lamb which he declared to be excellent.  The Baby Grand is a great place because it has delicious food, a nice, relaxed atmosphere and sometimes they play jazz in the evenings.  I would definitely recommend it.

During the Easter weekend we also went up to Perth to visit my mum-in-law.  We spent a couple of days there and went through to Dunkeld for lunch on the Friday.  I love Dunkeld, it's one of my favourite places to visit.  It may just be the time of year when we've visited before, but it always seems really calm and peaceful especially down at the river (although I'm sure it's manic in the summer when tourists descend!).  On the topic of food again, there's a really nice coffee shop on the main street.  It's called Palmerston's, and they have a wonderful smoked venison baguette, as well as yummy cakes!  It's definitely worth a visit.

Today I went to a training course on web page creation using Dreamweaver MX 2004.  It was a really useful course which gave the participants a grounding in HTML and introduced us to the features of Dreamweaver, including creating and using style sheets.  It also touched on creating accessible content.  The best thing about the course was that there were a number of practical sessions that allowed us to see the features of Dreamweaver for ourselves.  I've been on a few training courses where it is difficult to see how theory relates to practice.  However, this course seemed to get the balance right.  It was provided by Netskills who run various Internet training workshops throughout the UK.  My colleague and I are planning to create a website for our library.  Summer break is going to be very, very busy.

Husband is laughly very loudly at Two-and-a-Half Men – it’s the squab episode (his favourite, I think). He has now taken to saying “squab” at random intervals. What is squab anyway? Discovered it is four week old pigeon, apparently – not sure I would want to eat it either.

Well, it seems like Spring is finally here. The sun is shining, and although there has been sporadic outbursts of rain, it has been a lovely weekend. Spent a great afternoon yesterday with Mum, wandering about Byres Road and browsing in various shops. Poor husband was at home, loaded down with the cold, although I think he enjoyed being able to veg out and watch Ice Age.

Today I went to my jive/lindy-hop class. I decided this year that I should learn to do something that I really want to do, like dancing. It’s also a challenge. The jive class was described as suitable for beginners, so I thought that was the best one to choose. This is the third week. It’s a lot of fun but really difficult, especially when you try to make your legs and arms move properly and they decide to do something else entirely. However, I can now tap-step, kick-step, twist, slide and roll off the log – not very well, but hopefully with practise I’ll get better. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of room at home to practise and I keep bumping into things. The class runs for blocks of seven weeks at a time. I’m not sure if I’ll sign on for another seven weeks once this block has finished. I am enjoying it though and it’s great exercise. I’ll just have to see how things go.