Technical Test - Moving Gifs

If it doesn't work, this post will disappear in a few minutes.

If you can see a spinning globe, then what I am trying to do has worked and this will stay for posterity!

PS Sorry for the lack of posts- I been away a bit and have got panda eyes (it being hot, sunny and still a bit white in the Alps). I'll try to write something moderately interesting shortly.

Military Hospitals

Totally off topic and politics, but a subject close to my heart.

I see from the BBC News site that US Army Secretary Francis Harvey has resigned amid a row over the treatment of wounded US soldiers. That got me thinking about our own military hospitals.

The hospital I was born at has long since closed. Even the one that replaced that closed in 1999.

A bit of judicious searching this morning has revealed that, to my surprise, the only remaining British Military Hospital in the UK is the Royal Hospital Haslar in Gosport Hampshire. It is due to close in 2009.

On every level this is wrong, wrong, wrong. Don't expect me to rationalise it, it is just wrong.

For the reasons (or some of them) please see this article from www.portsmouthtoday.co.uk.

On a lighter note, I forgot to mention that my Grandma and I went to a concert last Sunday evening. The concert was given by the The Heavy Cavalry and Cambrai Band from Catterick Garrison. It was just what the doctor ordered- even a deaf 90 year old could hear the music - outstanding!

So, What's Been Going On Then?

Last Saturday's post was posted 'on the hoof' from my Father's laptop while sat in my Grandmother's front room. All a bit of fun really to prove to Grandma that she was 'On The Internet'.

I needn't have bothered, because I subsequently remembered another family blog with loads of pictures. My plan was to subsequently remove the post- I then realised that that could be construed as wrong, it is however simply an example of the way that social blogging works. I have however abbreviated some specific proper names down to ensure that this remains a virtually anonymous blog.

No that isn't a challenge to 'Out' my identity (Hercule Poirot would have no difficulty in that), it is just the way I prefer things to be.

So, what have I been up to?

• Sunday: Well, following a family birthday party in the North-East of England last Saturday, the rest of my immediate family left for home on Sunday morning. After lunch with Grandma in a local hotel we went for a ride up Swaledale and Arkengarthdale (in the hire car) stopping for a couple of minutes at the Tan Hill Inn. The Tan Hill is Britain's highest pub at 1,732ft above sea level. I know it might not seem very high to those used to continental mountains, but it really is in the middle of nowhere. Swaledale is where I come from and I get quite emotional even thinking about it. I am a country bumpkin at heart and very proud of it.
• Monday: I was set to work digging up sundry rose bushes, followed by the digging, weeding and bonemealing of the raspberries. Honour done. After lunch we went on a monster drive of the North Yorkshire Moors taking in Saltburn on the way we went to Whitby, Goathland, Pickering, Helmsley and then back via Thirsk and Northallerton. Four hours and about 130 miles. Fantastic scenery.
• Tuesday saw me on a lunchtime flight from Durham Tees Valley back to Heathrow, the 140 bus home and then (via the Central Line) to the London Palladium to see The Sound of Music with my parents. This is a good week!
• Wednesday was a chill out day, though in the afternoon I went out to leafy Buckinghamshire (and also not so leafy High Wycombe) on Chiltern Railways. All will become clear in due course.
• Thursday was a day of domestics with a quick trip to Ealing (Central Line and First Great Western) thrown in for good luck.
• Friday was a correspondence day with a late shop thrown in (repeat of Thursday).
• Saturday is well... now and I'm still at home.

Well if that hasn't done enough to shake off the die hard readers, I am not sure what to do next!

Pip pip!