A Derby Day

After the excitements of yesterday's visit by Sally, we had a lazy start this morning, then took the bus into Derby for some retail therapy. We got some more Fleximats from Lakeland, some paper stock for making business cards from WH Smith and looked into the Apple Reseller to talk about getting an upgrade for my copy of Disk Warrior to run under Snow Leopard.

(If you're not a Mac person, that last won't make any sense at all, but don't worry about it. If you are into Macs, you should know about Disk Warrior, the only rescue software you're ever likely to need; my current version is 4.0, which won't run under Snow Leopard, and there's an upgrade pack available from the States. I'd hoped to be able to buy one over here, but no luck.)

We also found a big tin of dubbin in Mountain Warehouse; we'd planned to go into Field and Trek, but the shop has gone. They say they've moved into the Sports Direct store (oh no) but no sign of them there.

We had lunch in the Westfield centre from Pasta4U; only average quality pasta and pizza. Maybe we should have gone upstairs to Pizza Express, or chosen a different kind of grub. It being half term, the whole place was very busy, but coping.

The 1300 bus got us back to the boat just after half one, and we've been hunkered down since. Sheila's been working on something for one of the mags, and I probably don't need to tell you what I've been doing.

After all, my sister lives in Brooklyn, so I've a very legitimate interest in the news from the USA. Actually, I've had a reassuring email from her; her building is fine, though New York is a very strange place at the moment.

If there's anyone reading this on the Eastern seaboard, we're all thinking of you and wishing you well. As Jane says, at least it's made a break from all the electioneering.

Talking of reassurance, Sally is fine after her unauthorised meal of rabbit yesterday, and Sue, no, I really wouldn't have wanted to take it home. It was a well decayed hind quarter, and the sight of the paw on the end disappearing downwards as I felt her throat pulsing will stay with me in my nightmares for some time.

Sally is definitely a scavenging dog; when Elanor got back in the evening, Sal gave her a big welcoming lick with breath that still stank of well dead bun, and Elanor was gulping quite hard too...

Tomorrow, another lazy start, then a walk in the afternoon with the WfH gang.