welcome to... july?

You could be forgiven for thinking it was July all over again... I'm getting birthday presents, and I'm afraid to say that a family member is in hospital again.

Regular viewers will be aware that Bronwyn's father David has been having significant problems with his left leg, with major pain and frequently the leg simply not working properly. They left us a week ago today, arriving home in New Zealand via San Francisco. His leg has been getting worse rather that better unfortunately, and finally last night on medical advice Jenny took him to Waikato Hospital. After waiting seven hours (and only in a waiting room) they were finally seen by a doctor, who—awfully—apparently didn't even know they were waiting. In any case, David has been admitted, and they are planning xrays of leg, hip and spine, with possible MRI spine too. Hopefully he'll be getting much better pain relief immediately, and they'll keep him there until they figure out just exactly specifically what is going on. We're praying for you David.

That just leaves birthday presents. Hard on the heels of the arrival of my shiny (apart from the rubber-encased bits) new binoculars yesterday, today I received a most excellent uber-geek gift from the people who brought you the original launch of the babbage.tv domain, my birthday present last year. Well, this year it is a USB keychain device. Basically, it is tiny and light, will hang on my keyring so will always be with me, and holds 128Mb of data—that's about 89 floppy disks worth. (Quenching every ultramodern's fear: I'll never be caught without my CV again...) Thanks Nick and Hayley!

I have no idea if it's just me who thinks these things, but if you've ever wondered about the deep red backdrop that appears in most of these “studio shots” here on our blog, well, actually, it's our duvet!   : )