2010, cow-beds, rabies, ipods, wines, january trousers – the usual stuff…

5.1.2010billn

Happy New Year!

The dog (Elsa) was very, very pleased to be rescued today, after 14 days of kennels (prison), and seems to fit her new ‘cow’ bed quite okay! She had to stay behind because she failed her rabies test – actually I think the lab made a mess of the first test, but there is no redress. A second ‘shot’ and her result was 10x the level needed to pass the test, but the UK passport for pets rules say they can’t travel until 6 months after the positive test – because of the early failure, she couldn’t quite make the trip – poor thing is now shadowing everyone just in case we leave her again!

Yesterday was an 11 hour road-trip back from the UK; no snow, mainly clear skies, -1.5°C to -7°C, and cruise control set to 135 kph the whole way as I’m sure my speedo underestimates… 😉

I learned something from this trip – FM transmitters for iPods are completely rubbish and a waste of money for car travel as interference from anywhere will regularly overwhelm the signal. On the outward journey I don’t think we had more than 10 consecutive minutes of clear playback from my relatively expensive Belkin model with built-in charger. For the return I took the cheaper (but not recharging) option of the cassette-wire-link which was perfect for the whole trip…

Wine of the holiday break was the 2000 Bonneau du Martray Corton-Charlemagne
Medium, medium-pale colour. Both nose and palate are charged with energy and power, it’s no shrinking violet, but complexity and class, still with plenty of wood flavours and aromas. Perfect condition and a long way from peak performance.

Of-course the hard slog of a Christmas visit plan and its associated (and apparently mandatory) consumption opportunities, often brings on the need for the ‘January Trousers’ – something I avoided completely last year by jogging almost every day, though the year before still had the trouser requirement well into April! This year, and despite a bad back and cold conspiring to leave my jogging shoes in the case for the duration, I think I may have survived with a slight pinch, and no January trousers – hooray! I celebrated with 60 minutes of jogging today, and will likely continue that celebration into the night with a Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey St.Aubin!

Leave a Reply to billnCancel reply

There is one response to “2010, cow-beds, rabies, ipods, wines, january trousers – the usual stuff…”

  1. Rick6th January 2010 at 8:25 pmPermalinkReply

    I’ll second your opinion on the FM transmitter. The only time we had a clear signal was in Death Valley. Not much interference out there…

    • billn6th January 2010 at 8:30 pmPermalinkReply

      LOL – Death Valley – reminds me of the ‘looks’ I was getting from the domestic management (for 14 hours…) after (obviously) choosing the WRONG option!

Burgundy Report

Translate »

You are using an outdated browser. Please update your browser to view this website correctly: https://browsehappy.com/;