Catching up!

Hi everyone! I feel like I've been away for ever, it's been nearly two months!So, what's kept me away from here? Well, first my trip to the Caribbean. Then when I got back I'd just started adding my first photos to my travel blog when my computer crashed spectacularly on me! It didn't just lose my Windows ~ everything disappeared. Can you imagine, I'd just put 1,300 photos of the Caribbean on there.... panic stations! One of my staff is doing a Masters Degree in computer technology so I asked him if he'd look at it. Unfortunately it was too serious a problem for him to deal with, after a couple of visits trying to fix it he gave up so I had to call my trusty Geeks On Wheels! That's the name of the company! They're a lovely group of computer techs, not a bit geeky and always seem to know how to cure computer problems. Well my computer is rather quirky, I'd told the 'geek' who arrived that he'd never get the CD drive drawer open, I have to use a knife to flick it open! He said I shouldn't do that, and he'd get it open. After five minutes he turned to me and said 'Can I borrow your knife please!' I like a man who knows when he's beaten! He tried four recovery discs and the hard drive didn't respond. He said I needed a new hard drive. I told him about my photos of the Caribbean and asked if he could possibly save them. He said he'd do his best but couldn't guarantee how much he could retrieve. He took the computer away for a week. Last Friday I got a call saying he'd put in the new hard drive and transferred all he could from my old hard drive. He'd not been able to get one of the same dimensions in the 160GB size so he upgraded me to 250GB for no extra charge! When he got here he set it up and I found he'd saved just about everything, bless him! Relief swept over me! Although another trip to the Caribbean to re-take all the photos would've been nice! Lol!
I've just done nearly two weeks of working nights then some long 12hr days so I've been too tired to come online much this week.
We had problems at work. A measles epidemic has hit the city and we've had kids brought into hospital with it. I really don't see why they're brought in. Remember when we were young? All I ever got when I got measles, mumps, chickenpox etc was a bottle of Lucozade and a Noddy book! We were put to bed at home and didn't get up till the spots were gone. Anyway, having staff from countries who don't get measles means they don't have the immunity that we develop from getting the illness. We had to send six staff home including one of the other supervisors so it's been hard work covering the shifts for the past few weeks. I was intending to give Andy all my overtime money for our holiday to Australia but it's had to go to paying for my new hard drive. Ah well, c'est la vie n'est-ce pas?! Nina and Katinka are both doing well and waiting for the summer! It seems we get a few warmish days then it's back to winter again. The past few days we've had strong gales and heavy rain to contend with. Where's the heatwave we've been promised?! Bring it on now, I'm more than ready for it!
Here's a few photos of Nina and Katinka. I bought new pillows for my bed a few weeks ago and they've got my old ones as a bed, they're a lot cheaper than cat beds and you can change the pillowcase on them more easily than washing the bed!

Hey everyone, I fit nicely into my mum's handbag don't I?!

Last weekend I was so glad I didn't go to see Andy on Saturday like I normally do. I was looking out of my kitchen window towards the office blocks opposite me. I saw something strange flapping around, I couldn't make out what it was until I looked through binoculars. It was a dead seagull, tangled up in the netting put over the roof to keep the gulls off. Then I saw another seagull trapped under the same netting. He was jumping up hitting the netting then giving up and sitting down. I couldn't bear to see him sitting there starving to death as he surely would. I called the RSPCA who to their credit came out within half an hour. A young girl inspector came to my flat so that I could show here where the gull was situated on the roof. Nina didn't like her much, I think it was the badge on her uniform which stated Animal Collection Unit which made Nina nervous! Lol! She said she wouldn't be able to go up on the roof due to Health and Safety legislation so she'd have to call the fire brigade. Off she went up the road, a while later I saw her out on the balcony with a security guard, a few minutes later a fire engine arrived. I had my camera ready and took photos of the fireman getting onto the roof and tucking the seagull safely under his arm before coming down again. I'd given the RSPCA inspector a visitors pass to use for her van in our car park so she wouldn't get clamped while on her rescue mission. When she returned she said the gull was very weak and frightened but he was uninjured and would be OK. She was keeping him overnight in the RSPCA shelter before giving him a meal of fish in the morning and releasing him. I was so happy that he was free, it was just so strange because I'd normally be over Andy's at that time so wouldn't have seen him trapped on that roof. The fireman also cut the dead bird out from the netting and took him away. I'm using the photos from this on the Photo Story Photo Challenge which hopefully I'll be doing later this weekend. I've spent ages this week adding photos to Photobucket, ready for when I start adding them to my travel journal. They upload so much faster than adding them from the computer.

While we were sailing back to Miami we were followed by some large brown and white birds. I googled 'seabirds of the eastern Caribbean' and discovered they were brown Booby birds. This is one of the things I love about the internet, it has just about everything on it. If you want to know something it's just a few clicks away!

I'm still not smoking. I don't know if I told you I gave up in March before we went on holiday. I thought we wouldn't be able to smoke on the ship so I bought nicotine patches. When we went onboard we were told we could smoke on all the open decks and in our cabins! I didn't bother, just carried on with the patches. I've graduated to the very small 5mg patches now and some days forget to put one on. Funny but since I stopped smoking everything tastes awful! First off everything tasted of sardines! Weird! Now I can't eat cheese, it just tastes too salty. I know that manufacturers add salt to most things but I've never been able to taste it before!

I think I'll get off to bed now and wish you a good night.I'll be over to visit you soon. It's just such a pain when you've had no computer for three weeks and have so much to catch up on. I really need to sort through my new holiday photos and put them on CD where they'll be safe from errant computers! Enjoy the rest of the weekend.