When I first spotted this distant poppy filed I was impressed. Normally only part of a filed gets a concentration like this. I had to find the filed to take a closer look. I love poppies. When i got to the filed I was in for a surprise. Rather than these poppies growing up amongst a regular crop the poppies were the crop. Initially I assumed it was a filed that had been left fallow and the poppies had taken over as early colonisers. Even so, that didn't account for such an even spread. The give away was the fact that there were crop lines present where an irrigator had been pulled through the field and also, the poppies were planted in rows. You can see this clearly from this shot below.

How wonderful to be able to see fields like this. I can't imagine there will be a big call for such fields though as the only commercial use I can think of for this crop would be for poppy seeds used for toppings on breads. I must admit, though, I didn't realise they used filed poppies for that. anyway, I hope this is a success for the farmer so that maybe we shall see a repeat in following years.

Microsoft User-Mode Driver Framework Install-v1.0-WinXP.exe

I hate it when my PC, or more correctly, software on my PC starts acting erratically. Today I noticed the hard drive seemed to be chugging through something even when nothing other than my browser was open. Added to that my mouse cursor kept flicking between normal and an hour glass symbol. I called up the task manager and in the processes window noticed a program kept popping up and disappearing again on my in time with the hour glass appearing. It was 'Microsoft User-Mode Driver Framework Install-v1.0-WinXP.exe'. I quick search in the internet showed me this had something to do with Nokia PC Suite. I looked at my device manager which can be found under My Computer > Properties > Hardware > Device Manager. It showed me that there was a problem with a connection to my mobile phone. Of course there would be a problem, it wasn't connected and so no connection was required however Nokia PC Suite seemed to think it should be connected. Nothing I did seemed to be able to sort the problem out. I didn't want to unistall the phone or PC Suite as I do use it regularly but I certainly don't want it running all the time, it doesn't normally. I tried a system restore but that had no effect either. Problem still remained. In the end I decided if you can't beat them, join them so I connected my phone. Initially Windows went through a 'New Hardware Found' routine and returned a fault but that cleared and the phone connected fine. I synchronised it just to make sure it was all working properly and then disconnected it. Hey presto the original problem cleared and everything was working normally again. No more 'Microsoft User-Mode Driver Framework Install-v1.0-WinXP.exe' problems...or at least for today. I have no idea why this started and no doubt it will return but at least I now know a way to fix it.

Last week I broke the LCD on my mobile :-( I loved that mobile so I was gutted. I tried making some enquiries about getting it repaired first at my phone dealers and second at a mobile phone spares shop and they wanted shed loads of money to do it. I thought it might have to be consigned to the bin. In a last hope attempt I tried searching on Google for a repair and low and behold I found my saviour on e-bay. Spectrum Mobiles based in Barking, Essex, UK were happy to do it for just £20 including postage. I hurriedly sent it off and 6 days later my phone has been restored. I can't say it's perfect as there is a small amount of flare at the bottom of the screen but I'm more than happy and it comes with a 6 month guarantee so what more can I ask? If any of you suffer a similar problem just drop me a line here and I'll pass on their details to you.

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Christmas Wishes

A Christmas card for all of my Blogger friends. I hope Christmas brings you all an abundance of love and happiness that stays with you throughout the New Year.

Christmas countdown

It's only when I reach mid December that I really begin to get into the feel for Christmas. I simply can't stand thinking about it before December and even once December starts it still feels too early. It's not that Christmas feels a long way off, far from it, it's more that it simply doesn't feel that long ago since the last Christmas! Consequently I start to feel pressured, that I've not allowed myself enough time to get things done and that has an even greater dampening effect on my Christmas spirit. Still, for all that, I have finally finished writing my Christmas cards and got most of my present shopping done so maybe now I can start to look forward to it a bit. I probably won't be putting these deccies up today though, still too soon for that..."bar hunbug" :-)

Bad day

I had a bad day again yesterday. seems I'm not quite over the caffeine withdrawal after all. I had a headache all day despite regularly taking paracetamol to combat it at the advice of my GP. They made no difference. To be honest, it wasn't a thumper but I was concious of it and found it hard to concentrate on anything much because of it. What if really hate about such niggling headaches is how they seem to affect my whole day. I couldn't find anything to smile about and everything seemed to go wrong. OK, I know that's just a warped perception of the day building negative energy and causing me to look at the black side of things rather than the seeing the positives but knowing that didn't help.
I could have just grabbed a cup of normal tea of coffee and cleared my head but I was determined to stretch it out longer. I knew I had gone 72 hours before between caffeine fixes so I needed to make sure I went at least that this time. the trouble was that would mean the next time I could have a caffeine fix would be my after diner coffee and that would likely cause me another sleepless night. There was nothing for it but to stick it out until this morning making it a good 80 hours between 'fixes'. As I woke this morning my headache was nestled in well behind my left eye and throbbed at me as I sat up. No matter, I was going to have two mugs of normal tea with my breakfast...Yes!
Breakfast was 2 hours ago now and my headache is 90% better. Not totally banished I have to say but I'm sure it will be soon. At least I feel more positive today which is good because I have a lot of work to get through.