Check out this "Before and After". I'm a bloody magician!

Um...

I'm the lai, with no sort Of grave, solemn thought, And I Will never be caught By miseries sought, Nor sigh; Where battles are fought Or arguments brought, I fly. What Poetry Form Are You?

Look at this incredible image:


It's from the BBCi website, a report into "4D ultrasound scanning".

It's a technique that can show realtime 3d moving images of the developing foetus and has shown foetuses as young as 12 weeks' gestation moving, scratching, yawning, crying, grasping and more.

There's some more fascinating images here.

Here's a screenshot of my desktop.

Last night I downloaded a load of Apple Mac Icons, plus a set of "grass" themed icons for Mobydock.

Only changed a few icons so far, but it's looking good!

Also I've used an ObjectBar theme to emulate the Mac Finderbar.

Anything that takes the computer away from the stale look of Windows XP is fine by me, and I've got to say, with the Zen Garden wallpaper I found recently, I'm really happy with how my puter looks right now.

I used WindowFX to make the shortcuts transparent, TweakUI to get rid of the shortcut arrows and WindowBlinds to emulate the Mac OS-X Aqua theme.

It's successful enough of a conversion that when we visited Dixons recently, I showed Charlie an iBook which she found strangely familiar!

Did someone get me a subscription for my birthday?

Where did this come from?

Oh well, let's have a look anyway.

Jordan - Pinup girl of the decade?? Germs! Ick! I mean, OK, she gained a bit of kudos from I'm a celebrity... but really, keep your kit on luv.

Euro 2004 special: One problem, I don't watch footy. I did watch the England games, once because I'd lost the remote and once because Allison wanted to watch it. I'd rather be watching videos, or listening to the radio.

All the pictures are either daubed with faux childlike doodles or have stupid speech bubbles that would do Viz proud.

The Hedonists Notebook looks promising, but isn't. Beer fridges rated on how patriotically they're decorated? A Troy review which starts "Before the Simpsons there was another fella called Homer"? Run. Run now, screaming.

The most entertaining thing about my shiny new promotional free copy of LOADED is the self-conscious digs at "herberts" who they know damn well make up their main readership.

Bearing that in mind, I think I'll just slope off to JJB Sports for my shellsuit and a Burberry baseball cap so I can buy the next issue without being laughed at...

Or not.

Okay then. It rained yesterday, so I can't kid myself it's hot enough to sit outside (or want to) anymore.

A few things are good now:

I've planted a windowbox full of herbs - Curly & flat parsley, Thyme, Coriander, Chives, Sage, Red & Sweet Basil and of course Mint. That will smell divine when it's grown in.

We've finally got a lawnmower. Last night, just before the rain hit, we took delivery of a thirty year old qualcast dinosaur, which has been meticulously looked after and works like a dream. I did half of one side of the garden in maybe quarter of an hour. Then it started raining.

It's my birthday tomorrow. Thirty bloody one. It ain't good. I've already had my present - a Peter Gabriel CD. Got to send Charlie out today to get my Cards.

We're almost got throughthe vast pile of clothes washing which has dominated the living room for weeks, and we're keeping up with the housework. Shocking! Efficiency! What's wrong with us?

A friend of ours gave me a GeForce 4 440MX graphics card last week. Lovely creature. Gotour desktop extended onto the telly - very flash. Only problem is it has to share a channel with the DVD card because the third AV channel on the telly won't show in colour for some reason. Well, at least I finally get to play Max Payne. Sadly I discovered it's crap, but hey, I've played it.

Holidays are creeping up on us. Eek!

If anyone knows something kids can do in Stratford-Upon-Avon, I'd be grateful.

Hi! It's been far too hot to sit here writing blog entries, so I've been in the garden and down the park and stuff all week.

Now we've finally got some cool weather, I'll start catching up with what's been going on this week, including some pics (and maybe a video) of the family at Cannon Hill Nature Centre.

No "Dead Like Me" until July 25th! Gutted! I thought it'd be the end of June. Ah well.

"24" isn't back until January and "Enterprise" is in repeats until September.

Looks like I'll have to look around for some other shows to download. Either that or I could spend the time tidying my hard drve, buying the DVD-r I've been promising myself and making some proper room on my Puter.

Or alternatively, I could enjoy the summer. Yeah. That one sounds good.

Just a quick reminder that there is a Yahoo Group you can use to chat about stuff I write about if you want.

For those of you that can't get a grip on XML/RSS/ATOM feeds, I've set it up so the content of the Blog is posted to the group too, so now all you have to do is send an email to hedgewitch-weblog-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and you'll get each entry mailed to you automatically.

Aren't you lucky?

Been feeling a bit off this evening, so the Chilli will have to wait for another day. Bangers & mash went down reasonably well though.

Just got back from a nice round of window shopping.

Took Bethan round a few of my favourite shops - T W Ryder army surplus, B & Q and Sainsbury's.

I could spend a fortune in each of them!

I'm off again tomorrow to have a good long mooch around another favourte shop - The Pier.

I love window shopping, planning the stuff I'd buy when I've got the money.

Today I was looking for camoflage shirts, summer trousers, some new sweatpants, cheap t-shirts and shorts from the Army Surplus, stuff for the garden from B & Q and I got a bit of shopping from Sainsbury's, including a packet of red lentils because Allison asked to try some the other day.

She's having Chilli for lunch at nursery and it's given me a bit of inspiration to try something like that for my dinner tonight: a tin of beans with cumin, chilli powder, kidney beans, smoky flavouring, garlic, beef mince (or chicken, haven't decided yet), onion, boiled rice and taco shells. I'll let you know how it goes. Hopefully it'll go as well as the gorgeous Satay sauce I made over the weekend.

Bit of a manic week, and it's not letting up yet.

Charlie's birthday was spent at the local "Wacky Warehouse" where the kids had a great time (until the schools kicked out and some big bullies turned up).

Since then, however, Charlie's been down in the dumps - to the point where she spent the last three days in bed.

Things are looking up now though.

Oh, and it's my mum's birthday today.

More later, if I get the chance to breathe.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Leslie Frost Ballantine