The puppies happily leapt onto the bed tonight, having spent a lot of time watching the road outside the big windows at the front of the house. I think Emma, especially, has missed what we call her TV. There were a couple of instances of Norwegian Forest Cat intrusions in the front garden which were cause for great squealing and frustration, but other than that, they were content that we had finally returned to the house.
And, while the morning started off wet and gloomy, by the time I was moving stuff from the stuga to the house, the sun was out and the wind had blown all the wet away.
That’s the blossom on the pear tree in the front garden. I thought it looked especially Spring like against the blue sky.
My first order of business, in the house, was to mount and connect a cat cable socket behind where the TV usually goes. This was the first order of business because it was a lot easier doing it in a virtually empty room. And, while it was a bit fiddly for my big sausage fingers, it was eventually complete, tested and approved as working.
It is so Mirinda’s iMac can directly connect with the modem to give her the best signal possible. The previous owner of the house had already supplied a cable which I managed to redirect to Mirinda’s study a few weeks ago. I then bought the sockets, leads and punch down tool*, in order to improve the connections.
Even though I worked in IT for many, many years, I was never really involved in physical network implementation, so this was a bit of a new experience for me. I have to admit that I did watch a few YouTube videos in order to work out what I’d need and how to make it work. Still, in the end, it all paid off.
Checking the connection was a little complex given the iMac didn’t have a mouse (Mirinda took it away with her) and I have no idea how to navigate an Apple screen without one. Mirinda had a lot of stuff open which made it even more difficult. I managed to test the connection by sending her an email and watching it successfully arrive.
The rest of the move involved shifting things from hidden places around the house, back into their respective homes, until the place started to resemble the place we left. Well, without the wallpaper, anyway.
I happily finished my ‘working day’ with a salad for dinner, prepared in my new yellow kitchen.
All of my work was rewarded by being able to watch the second semi-final of Eurovision. I had discussed the first one with KSP on Wednesday, almost crying because I couldn’t watch in the stuga so I was determined to watch tonight. And I did.
What fun it was too. I especially enjoyed the two hosts, Hazel Brugger and Sandra Studer who were great fun. Though I’m not sure about Hazel’s dress. When she fell into the audience and they passed her over their heads, bits of plastic from her outfit managed to fall off. It was very odd.
I was texting KSP throughout the performances, and she thought the dress looked recycled. If so then it proved that old saw: Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
That’s Hazel on the left looking a bit uncomfortable.
In the end, the votes came in and six countries were eliminated, one of which was Australia. I’m not sad about that. I didn’t think much of the song or the performer. There were a few like that and, I’m glad to say, they fell by the wayside as well.
One successful entry was Israel. Yuval Raphael was one of the few survivors of the Hamas terrorist attack on the Nova Music Festival; the one that started the war with Gaza. She phoned her father during the savagery and he told her to get off the phone and hide under the dead. She did, for eight hours, fearful for her life. And she managed to survive.
The fact that there were protestors targeting her for competing at Eurovision, is an indication of how some people have absolutely no empathy for other fellow humans. They fail to see the individual inside the big picture. I think she should be applauded, not just for her talent, but also for overcoming a horrific experience and coming out the other side, confident and defiant.
Moving on…I thought the acts that went through to the final were nearly all excellent and the ones knocked out, the opposite. My favourite of the performers tonight was Laura Thorn, representing Luxembourg. Not that it was an easy choice. Finland and Germany were also pretty amazing.
It is safe to say that excitement is building up for Saturday’s final.
* I’d never heard of a punch down tool before, but it is essential for connecting the little wires to the posts in the socket. And, beautifully, it does exactly what it says. It is a tool for punching down! Genius.
