Recipe: Rain + cake

After a few weeks of my usual procrastination I am now learning a bit more about the use of ubuntu and the operation of linux on a home pc. None of it is quite as strange as I'd thought it would be and having a stable operating system to work with is proving to be a bit of a stress buster. The time spent monkeying around has taken the edge away from my search for a new laptop and has also given me the opportunity to de-clutter the numerous ancient and unnecessary files that have built up over the past few years. A bit of a house renovation job really and at last one that is giving a certain level of satisfaction that is not normally present in my computing life. Certainly I'm finding that every ubuntu based application I open is full of unexpected and useful features and they all have the familiar functionality and simplicity that MS Office has, but all for free. I was also pleased to find the open ubuntu happily deals with existing MS Office files (on this side anyway), I've yet to try to open any ubuntu files in Office.

A family of crows have turned up in the garden, awkward, young and gangly like spotty teenagers exploring a new shopping mall with skateboards under their arms. Inspired by MacArthur Park I decided to place the remaining chunk of Emma's birthday cake out in the rain and at the very top of the bird feeder as a challenge to the scrawny hoodies. By and large and despite being obviously hungry they seen to be unable to recognise two week old iced carrot cake that has been rained on for 48 hours as a food. I'm sure they'll soon learn that all food does not just look like road kill rabbits or the strewn remains of a Burger King meal scattered across a bleak car park or lay-by. The robins and finches know better and have enjoyed the feast, the squirrels are a bit puzzled and seem to lack the range of acrobatic skills to get to the prize (and I don't think I can take it as it took so long to bake it...). They remain content to destroy the top of the fence while the cats observe from a safe distance.