Gourmet flight to France

On Friday 11th April Tony and I flew with Matthew to a delightful restaurant near to St Malo. Boasting no less than 3 Michelin stars, Les Maisons de Bricourt, offered us the perfect excuse to nip over to Cardiff (to collect Tony) then head South in Matthew's beautiful Cirrus SR22, overflying Jersey and Guernsey before making landfall at Dinard and then heading over for a fabulous lunch!

Zoomer ride to Hendon

Thought I would take the Zoomer up to the famous 'Ace Cafe' one Saturday and ended up joining friends from the X9 riders club on a jaunt up to Hendon where there was a bike show.

In mostly urban driving the 50cc Zoomer had no problem keeping up with scooters powered by engines over 10 times its size! Sometimes, even on a bike, less is more :-)

Airborne Lama 5 fascinates Bushka & Minibu

Do they look terrorised by those whirling blades of death? Yeah, right - not a bit!

Red Arrows April 1st Fly-past

The Red Arrows flew over Canary Wharf today. They were celebrating 90 years since the creation of the Royal Air Force. Luckily I was ready for them...

Minibu checks the chopper!

This is the model helicopter - a twin engined, Lama 5 - bought from Maplin in Putney, U.K.

In the background is Minibu the Persian, waiting for another chance to nibble one of the rotor blades.

She thinks I can't see her in the shadows, but I know her plans!

Bushka checks the chopper

Had my first real hovering flights with the Lama 5 this evening. Much harder than you might imagine - with lots of little hops till I got the hover more or less under control.

Bushka the Maine Coon watched from on top of a table, but dropped to the carpet once the helicopter had landed.

Pussies & choppers - who would have thought...

Sniffing the machine

Rather unexpectedly the cats love the sight and sound of small radio-controlled helicopters! They hang about on the arms of sofas, or high on the mantelpiece, their tails flicking as the micro machines hover and dance around the living room. Their heads follow each circuit of the room.

They are sensibly wary of the swirling blades, but when the helicopter lands or crashes they drop to the carpet to approach and sniff the machine...

Today I decided to get a slightly bigger helicopter - a Lama 5.

I must remember to take a photo of it before I have my first crash!

Zoomer on Putney Heath

I thought it might be fun to try the new 50cc Honda Zoomer on Putney Heath, so with Kyle's help we made this little video. The camera on the bike is an Oregon Scientific 'helmet-cam' whilst Kyle provided some steadier shots with my Panasonic Lumix.

The video was put together very quickly to teach myself how to use KDEnlive - a free video editor for Linux...

Bushka sees snowflakes

This was today, Easter Day 2008, in London, UK.

We awoke to snow falling. Both cats could barely believe their eyes; they jumped from the bed to the window to try and catch the dancing flakes with their paws.

I took the above video - edited it in kdenlive - and posted it to Googlevideo. This is my first link to a video.

Christmas Update - Bushka

Bushka is a beauty! She has a more interesting temperament that comes across in her moods. Sometimes she is loving and wants nothing more than a lap to lie on and purrs her appreciation.

Other times you can see that she does not suffer fools gladly and if you miss her twitching body language - she is not averse to a (scary) hiss or swipe of her razor sharp claws.

More power to her I say!

Christmas Update - Minibu

Well, our two cats remain happy and healthy. Minibu is the cuter as she seems to have no antisocial characteristics at all.

She loves to be brushed (just as well) and eats well, though demands only the best food!

Christmas turkey, for example, with smoked salmon on the side goes down well. She then finds somewhere to doze from the exertion of feeding.

This is a photo of her taken today...

Twin headlights!

Just thought I would show you a better picture of the bike. It's a funky design with chunky tyres and two powerful headlights that light the road ahead just as well as a car does. The bike can also be driven off-road - those knobbly tyres providing plenty of grip!

In case anyone is wondering, Minibu is on my lap as I write this. Bushka has been up on the desk, but her latest trick is to knock the lamp off, after which I normally knock her off!

New Honda Zoomer

We drove down from London to Portsmouth today to collect an almost new (immaculate) 50cc Honda Zoomer! I drove it the 70 miles back and barely stopped smiling - it was a sunny Autumn day, so I took my time, enjoying the scenery, and stopping in Petersfield for a coffee. The Zoomer growls along with an absurdly deep exhaust note, cruising at a gentle 40mph but sipping petrol - 100mpg should be easily possible. A perfect bike to run the 12 miles or so across London to work each day.

Technical aside - Ubuntu under Beryl

With all the hype around the launch of Windows Vista (putting the wow factor back into your PC) I thought I would share what can be done with FREE (open source) software on a 3 year old PC. This then is a Linux distribution, called Ubuntu 7.04, with 3d effects supplied by a program called Beryl (again free). Be surprised :-)




Cat content - both Bushka and Minibu continue to entrance us with their antics - for all her appetite Minibu stays mini sized (and cute). Bushka can be scary if you brush her too roughly!

Morning Cuddles!

I went back into our room, after breakfast this morning, to find these two furry friends having a quick snuggle and cuddle!

So cute :-)

We had to keep them apart a few months back as Bushka (Cecilia), the older Maine Coon, would stalk and hunt little black Persian Minibu. Now it looks like they will live happily ever after.