Earth Hour

So last night we decided (well I decided and the other half went along with it for a quiet life, sensible chap) to observe earth hour. It’s a bit of a gimmick and isn’t going to save much electricity – particularly as the website urges you to live-blog your hour in the dark (er, on what exactly? A wind-up laptop connected to the internet by string?). We went the whole hog and switched off everything except the fridge and – oops – my mobile phone charger*, not just the lights. I can’t tell if anyone else locally followed suit as we can’t see anyone else’s lights usually anyway, although the other half reported having gone out for a cigarette that the glow of Bigtown on the horizon was as strong as ever. Ah well. It’s the thought that counts. If you’re reading this, Ed Miliband, that’s one vote from me for the planet.

(As an aside – Looking through the photos on the BBC it struck me that lots of the lights that were switched off for the hour could quite usefully be switched off all the time. I mean why, really, are we floodlighting the Forth Rail Bridge? Or the Houses of Parliament? Can we not remember what they look like for 12 whole hours?)

Anyway, as 9:30 rolled around we turned on the lights with some relief (knitting by candlelight isn’t even as much fun as it sounds) and went to switch the internet back on so we didn’t have to talk to each other any more. And discovered that the ants had spent a happy hour taking over the kitchen in the dark. If nothing else, I suppose it did serve to remind us that when we pesky two-legs have gone, the six-legs will be taking over. If they haven’t actually done so already on the sly that is.

This is something of a bonus post because I’m heading down to London today for a few days. I may blog, I may not, so please keep checking on an hourly basis to see whether I have or not. My stats look so much healthier if you do.

Thanks

*It was charging my phone, I don’t leave it on all the time, honest

De-bugging

Hmmm, perhaps I should clean my keyboard

Spring, it seems, brings not just warmth and green shoots and sunshine – it has also woken up the ants. They have been evicted from their antly paradise, the cupboard where we keep the sugar, and now every morning brings a new set of scouts sent out to discover and restore these promised lands to the ant kingdom.

So I wasn’t that surprised to find one of them wandering across the wastes of my laptop keyboard – it is, after all, where I keep the remains of my lunch – although I would have preferred it if it hadn’t then disappeared under the keys themselves before I could catch it. So far some tentative poajfkalfjaing and then some vigorous shaajfiqaoefjafjanfidiing have not removed the little chap from under there and I keep catching glimpses of movement which suggest that it can dodge the keys faster than I can type. So I’m just going to have to wait and hope it emerges with the worst of the crumbs – there’soneunderthespacebarwhichisparticularlyannoying – and I can then squash it before it tells all its pals.