Last but one Planet Earth

I must rush to acknowledge Gavin Newman as the author of this photograph of the Lechuguilla Caves. The caves have only recently been discovered and the coverage is 'one-off' because the authorities are not going to allow further filming.

There was, as usual, some fantastic shots and the programme was interesting but neither Y not I are terribly keen on caving. So, it was our least favourite episode up to now.

The day has been typical April and this morning there was even thunder. Much warmer though. My Panorama toy has occupied my attention and I have already learnt several things about it. I nipped across the road at dawn to catch sunrise-over-the-football-field, and found that it is much better to restrict oneself to 4 or 5 frames at the maximum because of the time the programme takes to produce the panorama. It must have taken 40 minutes today 'blending' 'rendering' 'stitching' et al - maybe it's with my computer being comparitively slow. Probably use the result in tomorrow's blog.

When I was taking the Moorgreen Res. shots, Brian drove past and later emailed me saying we ought to meet up. The earliest date available for us both is April 17th ! That's being retired for you.

Yvonne reached the tram station bang on schedule at 6.15pm. She had had a super time but was glad to be home. I'd done one of her favourites - tiny pork-loin chops with apple-sauce, steamed new potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and lots of hispi cabbage. It was a success; we ate it on our trays while watching Planet Earth. Rest day tomorrow. Y usually needs a day to recover from London because 'grannying' for days, rather than hours is very demanding.

Tracy told us that she had been to see Steve's new factory and how impressive it is - and so big. We really must go over and see it. We have, after all, been invited!

Exchanged nice emails with David. He has been reading the blog and said encouraging things about it and is using the 'old man' picture as his desktop. He had scored 5 out of 8 on the siteadvisor quiz and sent two lovely family photos. One showed his new laminate-floor and it looks as if he has made a very professional job of it.

Thanks to Madeline (WUforums) I more or less solved my 'working offline' problem. She directed me to the IE Help menu and thence to 'opening web pages' > offline > display etc....... I just tried the Telegraph Connected page as a test-flight and it worked. To check it out involved crawling under the sideboard to disconnect the modem and router. But Yvonne wasn't here to tell me I shouldn't and I couldn't resist trying it out. There the page was, in black in the Favourites list, the other non-accessible sites were greyed-out. The 'links' wouldn't open though but I can research that, now I'm more-or-less on the right track. Madeline makes the point that there is more in Help menus than people realise.