It occurred to me a while ago that the box of stamp albums I came by at UPU Congresses and elsewhere over the years might have a value other than its nuisance value in taking up space. The local stamp shop man called in today and went through them, concluding that they might fetch £320 at auction, hence that he'd give me £180 for them. Well, some of the albums are quite attractive, and they remind me of happy (as well as less happy) times at UPU bashes, so at that price I'm disinclined to part with them until I'm really short of a bob. If that's their current value, one wonders why Stanley Gibbons sent a representative to Rio de Janeiro etc to buy them up from Congress participants. (I had hoped they might pay to repave the terrace. Pauvre con.)
Turning to how we communicate forty years later, I'm having the usual frustrations with machines. The upstairs desk computer developed a serious dose of the vapours this morning, refusing to hook up to the router. I've given the network adaptor (the computer is so old that it lacks a built-in thingy) a good smacking, and it is hooking up again satisfactorily. The laptop meanwhile declines to connect to facebook other than via a text-only screen, having pulled a similar stunt with yahoo mail last week. The iPad does what it does as well as it usually does, which is usually not very well. Paciência.
Our spies report that work has begun in Another Place, and the builder has been in touch to confirm the same. We'll see what has been done in just under three weeks' time.
Meanwhile, spring is bringing new colours to the garden every day. While I was out playing at my hobby yesterday, Martyn added some rocks and chippings to the rock garden, together with a few new alpines. I've killed the antirrhinum seedlings by overwatering, dammit, but have sown more, as well as some cosmos. Probably a bit late, but they'll do one thing or the other.
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