Street scenes from Edinburgh (U.K.) 2008 International Festival. When it rained you didn't notice, when it didn't, more people, more artists came out in to the streets to play.

The bongo band added to the tropical warmth and sunshine.

Two delightful Taiwanese dancers on The Royal Mile.

This little bobbykins was 'guarding' the entrance to a brilliant bookshop.

...and here it is.

There are many spam filters available. Hubby boots up a filter he bought, then he clicks on it and hey presto! Mail appears. The filter has been trained to alert the user to known spam, (from a central register presumably) and it seems to be a fast learner for new stuff. I have a filter that is integrated into my email client, It works similarly,and like hubby's it appears to be very efficient; it certainly does the job.

Recently though, some of my mail to hubby  with attachments (what! I hear you say, you email him? Yes I do)has ended up, so hubby thought, lost in cyberspace only to be found in his spam filter. Now what could I have done that may have caused it? I don't know.

The spammers (they're as bad as virus creators) have a lot to answer for. Perfectly good ordinary words have been hijacked by them. As for the email and attachments I sent to hubby, we're still not sure why they ended up  in the spam, unless that also has something to do with words.

I can think of a whole host of words I could use in the direction of the spammers, but they would all end up being heavily filtered.

The weather forecasters were wrong.  In my corner of the UK the weather was gorgeous. On Monday I got two or three hours gardening done in my patch of the garden  then rain and thunder stopped play.  Yesterday afternoon when I had time, it was too wet to contemplate gardening.

At half past two, famished and parched but with a glow,  I stopped for light refreshment and listened to the afternoon play on the radio.  Rested and re-energised, I went out again to work in the garden. 

Then I heard the weather forecaster telling me that it had rained on and off all day here.  Well, I've got news for you, it didn't.  However, I cannot vouch for the temperatures tonight.  They're forecast to drop to as low as 2 degrees centigrade.

Rain lashed down this morning, I rushed into town to get my feet seen to. The podiatrist said she was gagging at the TV news to know the next instalment with the arson case, where up to then, two bodies were found, one shot, burned and identified. It was like a Ruth Rendell mystery she said. I feigned lack of interest. There was something distasteful about the smiley face at my feet, raking around in the 'joys' of the mystery of that awful situation.

Next, still in the mist and rain, I travelled twenty miles to the dentist. He guarantees that the remedy for his accidental burring of my tooth enamel will put things right. This is treatment number four out of five, there is a slight improvement. I am not as confident as the dentist is in the absolute success of this treatment.

Before returning home in unexpected warmth and sunshine, I stopped off to deal with some business bits and pieces. The poor lass in the bank was at the end of her tether and needed to get her frustration off her chest. I listened to her tale of woe.

At home again, with the warm and dry spell, I decided it was time to massacre the front garden, so I did. I got nearly half of the three years overgrowth cropped and uncovered the other half of a path. Great! that'll give us room to walk. I was really into this cutting and chopping lark. The biodegradable 'hedge' was mounting up. Thunder rumbled not too far away, large drops of wet stuff began to pelt down on me. I grabbed my tools and put them and me in a dry place. I got out again to chop around a bit more, then the heavens opened. So, that was that. I'll have to wait for the next window of opportunity to finish off what I started. I'll bet hubby's breathing a sigh of relief, it gives him a break from finding somewhere to clear the massive amount stuff still to come.

Oh sweet revenge, hubby got pierced by the bits of a rose tree that he planted, that I never wanted in my patch of garden. I got rid of one tree but this remaining one had a tap root I couldn't budge.

"Ouch"
"Well, you planted it, I didn't"
"You've got a photographic memory"
"With a visual reminder, that wouldn't be difficult".

As I stepped over the threshold into the warm night air, I was greeted with an urgent throaty call. It happened again. I turned to look from where the salutation came. Looking appealingly at me, from the field opposite, was a shorn sheep. I acknowledged the ruminant with a nod, it seemed happy with that.

This plain looking sheep was in the field with two drop dead gorgeous friends of the same ilk, all smartly dressed up in their party gear. Why on earth did this one want to attract me?  

What a shiny, lovely and luscious cabbage it was! We saw it lying on our grass, just beyond the six foot chain link fence that separates our garden from the path where the farmer passes with tractors and carts. S/he must have thrown it over the fence; it was undoubtedly, a high quality cabbage. The cabbage evoked memories of times long gone.

The chain link fence stops farm animals from wandering in to visit us. Before it was erected, the hens used to leave us their eggs in not quite secret places. A goat or two would curiously wander up to the pram in which the baby slept and snuffle at the blankets and the baby. I have memories of superwoman, who had never been near a goat in her life, taking firm hold of the rope or strap attached to the collar of the goat and take the animal for a walk in the opposite direction, chatting to it, while hubby, anxious to protect his offspring, was still jumping up and down, arms waving everywhere and shouting at the goat to frighten it off. This athleticism was worthy of Olympic status. For some unknown reason, the sheep nor their lambs ever paid us a visit.

There are still hens on the farm, Sheep and lambs. Occasionally there are young cattle for minding, sometimes also for fattening up before they move on. The farmer no longer keeps goats. And there is the chain link fence to keep the animals within the boundaries of the farm.

I peeled off five superb, large cabbage leaves and prepared them for our meal. The juiciness and the flavour all lived up to expectations. It is so big, the cabbage doesn't look as if it has been touched

I listened today, in amazement, to a caller on a radio phone-in programme, letting the world know how badly she's been driving for too many years; she thought she was a great driver till she got her motorbike, took some training to use it and realised she needed to be aware of other drivers, cyclists and traffic conditions.

Horror of horrors, the caller couldn't remember the regulations on driving speeds on particular roads. She didn't mention road conditions, distances and speeds. It doesn't say much for the instruction she received nor how the hell she passed her original driving test. Was she so drop dead gorgeous that the examiner was mesmerised...it makes you wonder.

On the basis of this personal experience in more mature life, (She didn't sound elderly, just a bit divorced from reality) she advised the Driving Standards Agency enquiry into improved driving training, that tests should be re-sat periodically, meaning frequently. Thank heavens the majority of drivers are not on that woman's planet where ever that is, nor living too near where she might be treating us to her wonderful driving skills.

Yes, the Highway Code has been added to as roads develop, usage alters and more symbols, signs and regulations appear. Surely, keeping ourselves informed is a feature of responsible driving. This aspect, I know, will vary between individual drivers. But not to know the different speeds on controlled roads, not to be aware of other road users, is beyond belief.

On the basis of what I heard, it seems to me,that more attention needs to be given to the standards and skills of driving instructors in the first instance, then how the skills are applied to teaching and practice.

Did you hear the erudite Eddie Mair on the PM prog tonight? There he was all set to emit Ed Balls over the airwaves and the wrong report was transmitted. "Okay", he said "this should be him, fingers crossed."

A policewoman called round to our house tonight. She was all kitted up with a bullet proof vest and chunky things on her belt it was best not to know about. No, it was not a kisso - or strip-o-gram call, this policewoman was for real.

Taking the short cut, hubby arrived at the boat club building, found himself in the line of fire and also saw that plastic bottle targets had been set up on some rocks.  He ducked into the boat house and called the police. Shortly after, the beach started to fill with walkers out with their pets and families out with the children who are still on their summer holidays from school.

After wondering what season were in yesterday, today has been pleasantly warm. I should have worn yesterday's clothes today and vice-versa.

Lunchtime I made a salad. Hubby had trouble forking up some of the green leaves. No wonder, they were part of the design on the salad bowl!  

I've been completing a complex form for the last two days, it feels like longer, a lot longer. By the end of it, too fed up to edit it as well, I began to think I knew what it might be like to write up a business case, an academic proposal or a load of bunkum.    

The re-cycled,(horrid off-white) print paper I bought, described as the weight of paper I like, is proving to be crap. There's too much waste. Several sheets slide through the printer at a time and it sticks in clumps in my printer, then I have to rescue the print run and save the printer. It's not even safe to print one page! If alternative manufacture can't come up to scratch I won't be wasting my hard earned pennies on it in future. I've got more unusable scrap paper than I now know what do with.  

Tonight, I am going to relax, maybe with a tipple, and read my much neglected book.

Can anyone tell me what this is please? I know from the suffix it's a .exe file, but what are Bonjour Services and what are/is mDNSR?

Bonjour/Services/mDNSR/ Responder.exe

Possible clues:

This flashes up once or twice during my time working at the computer, first after I have booted up also when I revive the computer from standby mode. At present, I have this .exe file blocked. My firewall tells me the status is 'listen'. The protocol seems to be TCP though I have seen a description of UDP, (whatever that is).

My mouse is still missing.

Two long distance calls later, the shop finds its stock list is wrong. Thirty-three mice in stock, since I ordered on the 21st July 2008, should have read and should read now, zero mice.

A very nice man told me the sad story but the good news is, I am being recompensed for my disappointments and a mouse has been located in Edinburgh and should be with me very soon.

Well, the summer weight bed covers that saw the light of day for the first time in two years, about three weeks ago, are likely to be short lived and stuffed back in a bag to make room for warmer covers. I have shivered the last few nights.

The argument has been between whether to don warmer night clothes (fleece night wear doesn't sit comfortably in my psyche in August)or use heavier bed covers. So far this week, the bed socks have been dusted off and the bed has been pre-warmed. For heavens sake, what next, it's not yet Autumn. Then again, we only get three seasons here, sometimes just two and a half.

I did say we were using heavy bed covers for two years, so maybe three weeks of a lighter experience is par for the course... is it?

THIS WEEK:

Listening to the author Antonia Fraser this week on the radio; she discussed her Catholic faith then talked of her six children. Had she wanted a large family, the presenter asked. "I never thought about it" came the reply and she added "it wasn't planned."

I chased up an order yesterday and was advised it was likely to arrive today (Saturday). It did. I opened the padded envelope, took out the lovely inviting shiny box that pictured my little mouse. When I opened it, apart from a sheet of instructions, the box was empty!

What a lovely,(if a bit cloudy) morning we had. This afternoon it poured down with rain, the heavens literally opened. The local Gala starts tonight with the crowning of the Gala queen and the endorsing of her attendants. It continues to be damp but may not be wet enough to dampen spirits.