All change

 It is, new to me tablet computer time... Brother is acquiring a good secondhand one... So I am getting his castoff, which is far better than mine!

We had a good sibling lunchtime out in Street and Glastonbury, and now to get ready for pirate to race tomorrow. 

Getting back....and hacked!

 Yesterday we had our first bike ride for a while. Car to the prom at Prestwick, then along the bike route for about five miles. We turned back when we would have had to do a section on the open road...busy Saturday traffic was not inviting.

We managed to dodge the drips, waiting for a shower to pass before starting and hardly got wet atall. Home again to an unexpected sunny afternoon, and after lunch we did a little work on the construction.

One hand was really complaining by the morning.. possibly adding a little pipe lagging to the handlebars may be needed. However with the use of Aloe Vera gel with MSM today my well worn hands are back to their normal!!

The bad news is that my Instagram account was hacked and hijacked...one minute you are having a conversation with a friend, then you carry on and in the interim she was hacked..to have to check the veracity of the sender of every small message....

Instagram have been no help atall..so I have opened a new account....for now. I think that a return to using Flickr is called for.

I have been talking to my webmaster...aka brother....and he agrees that a new website is in order.. I may stop using Etsy eventually as it doesn't work for me.

So fresh start.....and a walk around Hannahston while the sun shone

A modicum of decluttering took place this rainy afternoon, while I tried to think of what I wanted to do first with printing.   Probably get back to drawing...back to basics all round it is then

Cards

 https://www.etsy.com/uk/GwynnethRixon/listing/1042578752/trees-4-original-linoprinted-cards?utm_source=Copy&utm_medium=ListingManager&utm_campaign=Share&utm_term=so.lmsm&share_time=1627130179429

Not sure what I did there!! 

Stocktake done, some renewing started and one card listing done..I might reduce the price of some bigger prints later. 

These are what should be showing at the top- but they should also show on the Etsy link on the side bar.

And I updated my website as well...I will have to ask my brother if I did that correctly...we have it arranged that he can edit that as need be. I am very good at forgetting one last step...I must write down what that is!!

https://gwynnethrixonceramics.co.uk/news/16-restocking

Oops!

 Yesterday's pictures were from yesterday's walk with brother...not our walk with family and dog!!

When we had recovered from yesterday's walk we had lunch in the local garden centre and a slow afternoon..and during watching the second half of the film of Terry Pratchett's book Going Postal, giving the tablet some tlc!! Putting over two years worth of photos on the same sd card rather screws up the brain of a tablet with limited memory...It has other problems as well which could be solved by wiping it clean and returning to factory settings.....but that would lose a lot of things , bookmarks, cookies which need to be noted first!!

Anyhow, here are the missing walk photos...an interesting walk in what is basically an enlarged beech hangar, with a bronze age barrow and what looks like a sunken lane through it.

Day off

No driving yesterday!
Himself sorted his bikes and had a leg loosener on the turbo trainer.

Computers were sorted, two tablets and a laptop gone for recycling...one tablet too old so that it wouldn't accept any updates. The other young enough but working so slow that it couldn't even reset to factory settings...so something wrong with it.  The laptop actually turned on surprisingly, and we managed to retrieve some photos that had missed going on the external hard drive. However apart from that bonus it was not atall well, and with a cracked case was on its way to recycling.
The even older laptop I'd moved on from as it was too heavy for travelling, has a lovely 17" screen...so bro will be using it for his practising and learning Linux/Ubuntu!

Meanwhile Pirate attacked the lawn/meadow!  All the wildflowers had set seed so it was time.

Brother will rake a bit more moss from the lawn then sow wildflower seed mix.

Shop Tidying

I've put the Etsy shop on holiday...no point getting sales when I can't send items out..and cleared out all from Ebay except those being watched, and sent a nudge to the watchers. They have 8 hours to respond...

With all the nibbling off of fees for this and that I'm going off ebaying, and etsy finances are no longer simple..It is supposed to be, by combining all the ins and outs in one place and time. However monthly bills were far clearer.

I'll be able to put my mind to organising selling work when we return...hopefully!
Then I can get the bigger camera mended, possibly..it may cost more to have new "brains" in a digital camera than buying a new one!   Meanwhile I have the loan of a smaller camera which will be good for travelling, and an early present of a new tablet computer so that I have less to carry..a 17" screen laptop takes a lot of room!

Time to learn how to get images from the new image takers onto the computer!

website progress

I now have the same website,same address, but hosted differently...and I need to learn all the wordpress tools to update and post in it!

I've just got brave enough to start....now to carry on....

Preparations and visitations

The Wizzard Geek and his Rose are visiting, and it is good to see them.
He helped us move almost a year ago, but she hasn't seen our 'new' home as she had to be elsewhere at the time.

They have been mountain biking near Peebles for four days, now near Newton Stewart for a day and somewhere on the way home tomorrow.  Great fun for them.

Preparations go on steadily for our NZ travels.  A certain amount has to be done online and I don't like it...I'm really a pen and paper person.  I just about manage phoning, but online entries and bookings phase me.

I'm sewing Woodchip's cot quilt whenever I sit down...that should at least have the construction done before we go, if not the quilting.  It calms my frazzled nerves if nothing else!

my bloglist

I've just gently weeded the blogs I'm following and have saved the list on my downloads file....just in case!

The list hasn't disappeared like some peoples' but I could just imagine it,so played safe!!

trying new ways

I'm writing this using a small phone..hopefully for free ! I'm looking forward to getting back to my laptop, even though it is a bit sick!!
We've been having a good but hard working break...also one gold medal won plus a second and third place...and an infusion of enthusiasm!!

website and workshop

I'm changing my website host and domain registration...my brother, having retired from his job as a systems analyst, is now managing websites...so I thought, keep it in the family!

Cue much stress...it would be easier if he were a little nearer, and if the companies concerned actually had a phone contact.....many support tickets later, we are getting there slowly.

Many thanks to Brother and Son in Law.....

Incentive to update what goes on the website. 

Meanwhile the Pirate is grabbing the sunshine and sporadic lack of rain to work towards erecting his workshop. (Then mine follows)
He has found that the soil here is definitely clay, one reason for our lack of drainage. That explains why many gardeners in the village use containers/raised beds!

infuriating

I'm working on some new cards-and I'm wasting time getting the images right in one system (gimp) and saving them...that does in in something called xcf....
I can't find a way of opening and printing that.....
so I get them to a pdf file..great, better than a jpeg....
unfortunately the system I use (shotwell viewer) which lets me produce cards easily...HAS to have a jpeg file.

Right, convert one....and before I note how I did it, get called away to do something completely different....

Now can I remember or even re-find how I did it? No.

Nearly an hour wasted on top of the time spent editing the original images to the right contrast and clarity....ok, should have taken better images to start with..but at a party, with limited light, you do what you can....

rake and roll

 It WILL be a lawn....the customer wants it smooth but undulating...good!

 it was like this a year or so ago...then we helped clear and level it...then they built a house..

 with sky views...

just by here...

We do have to travel sixty miles to work on the job, but we DO get to stay in the house and are well looked after.
All we have to do is work,which the Pirate does too well...he has to learn to stop when told that he has done enough.....then he wont be feeling sorry for himself for a day or more because he has over done it..... still, his appetite and blood pressure are good. So we are getting something right.

We now have internet in the new abode, but not a marvellous connection. Hopefully some judicious tree pruning will help....

back online

We've been in since 20 July...still not sure if we can afford to stay,but we'll do what we can.

It took a while, but now we're back online...would have been only a week if the engineer had actually come here on the first appointment...even though he couldn't sort every connection!

We're working hard with garden work, and have got some coming in as under-gardeners for a local gardener when she needs extra hands.  We like that....no chasing the work or the payments!!
One possibility will be actually buying some new tools if we have to carry on with garden work to make ends meet.  At 76 and 62 years old we had hoped we could ease down and concentrate on things we want to do...like riding bikes, doing our own garden and making pots and prints.....

I've been sorting out the email and spam backlog...almost time to get a month's photos on the computer and show you a few.....

Meanwhile Daughter has been here for a couple of days, with family, and much of my paperwork has been weeded,a few boxes sorted and the recycling wheelie bin filled!!!!

Plus we've had a couple of trips out!

relief!!

I tried taking a new image....still it didn't show...

Tried a new SD card...bingo!   We're back in business.

At least I now have a file on the computer with all the images from the SD card.

But that doesn't explain how a two-thirds full SD card suddenly starts taking the photos on,as far as the camera is concerned....but not the laptop.

I've only got to re-take two images, thankfully!!

more tech problems...and some art success...

Took photos before the end of 2014...you've seen them!  

Took two more today...I can see them on the camera screen, but when I go to download as usual, those two only are missing ....

problems with changing years? Who knows...no-one else seems to yet

So no photo of the latest linocut of a running hare.....I've almost completed it, not doing much more , as it is getting late and you make an overcut in lino, you're stuck with it.
It is A6 size, good for a small print on nice paper to be mounted, or as a card.
As my confidence grows and skills return I'll be doing A5 or even A4 prints.
However I'll have to be selling some to afford that.

WE have found a good art supplies shop in Castle Douglas (sells lovely yarns for knitting and suchlike too...must not get sidetracked!)  lino there was £7.99 for A4 size....and a tube of ink was nearly £12.....must sell plenty to get the next lot!!

Now how do I get work on here, fb or etsy, if the pooter wont see the photos????

return

I now have my laptop and printers back!

We had Christmas lunch at the local pub...not cheap,but no cooking and no washing up for either of us!! So a nice walk down, a relaxed meal and a longer walk home arriving just before the latest rain shower!

I've been going through emails this afternoon, deleting rubbish and sorting the good stuff! Would you believe I had 85 emails waiting in my website inbox....and 84 were spam!!
I've been instructed...no work today!!  So I'm planning pot and card photography and postage and packing pricing...then I can hit the ground running again!!

This year's cards were linocut and  handprinted..and I'm definitely going to carry on with that.  I enjoyed it 40 years ago and it is still fun now.

Here is the Elf (Santa Baby?!!) who was the prototype...before the IT problems...

Now to choose the next image for a linocut.  It is too easy to get big ideas and try too complicated images too early..so I must ease back into it and keep it reasonably simple.

We're here eating special treat stroopwaffel, dark chocolate, plums and homemade flapjacks in front of the fire.

Hot water bottles are in order as the temperature is dropping ready for tomorrow's possible snow or freeze.

Work tomorrow!!

a quick post

A quick few words...we are just back from a week on the Isle of Lewis, thanks to Andrea and Eve. 

Much unwinding was needed...now we return tobthe round of appointments and gardening ( still warm enough for there to be work for us) 

Please excuse the odd spelling and lack of pictures....still no news on the sick laptop, with the malfunctioning  printer driver....live in hope....

meanwhile I'm using a small tablet computer, which has its limitations but at least keeps us in contact

technology 1 gz 0

More techno problems..the software driver for the printer has bugs...so is refusing to recognise printing commands AND it is clogging up the screen and brain of the computer.

Luckily I've been given a tablet so I'm learning to use it. 

Meanwhile no printer or laptop....

a find?

Or perhaps not....found an Epson  stylus sx 100 printer in a charity shop  for £3

It wont turn on....we'll get our Electrical Wizard to look at it....but £3 isn't too much to lose!!

Possibly back to the drawing board.....perhaps that IS the answer....

get drawing!!