Pixabella

These little kittens showed up with their mother today and broke my heart to see the state they were in. The mother has been coming to our door for a couple of months now, we feed her, give her a cuddle, even de-flea her.

We knew she had been pregnant but assumed she'd lost her litter considering how much time she spent on our doorstep, but today she brought two of them around early this morning, then just before dinner time she brought another two kittens.

We don't know how old the kittens are but they're in a terrible state. Their eyes are filled with puss that need a regular clean out, and they have horrible patches of dry flaky skin on their tails and paws. It breaks your heart to see them like this.

I've mentioned before I can't wait for the day we start a family considering most of my family and friends have all had children, and for some reason the idea of having a baby just keeps coming up.

A very good friend recently gave birth to her first boy who was huge, he weighed 9lbs at birth, so I'll bet she'll be frantically rubbing the stretch mark oil all over her belly and thighs to try and get back to her normal beautiful self again very soon.

In fact if she hasn't already bought some I'm going to send her a tub of stretch mark butter. I was quite surprised to find that you can actually buy this online from Due, and it's quite reasonably priced as well.

Of course Due are best known for their maternity clothes, they stock a great range of trendy and fashionable items that won't embarrass any young mother to be. Seeing photos of my own mother when she was pregnant, I am so glad we live in the 21st century where comfortable and attractive don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Who would of thought that these days pregnant women can wear jeans and high heels and still turn heads, well OK, maybe only from the back, but still it's got to be a confidence boost?

When we were living in Australia the cane toad was one of the most feared creatures to enter my garden, first of all they scare the heck out of you when you suddenly jump out in front of you, they're poisonous to people and pets, and they kill off the geckos.

Some people we knew used to play cane toad golf or cricket with them to try and control their numbers. It's a cruel sport but the alternative to is try and catch them and place them in a deep freeze and just let them go to sleep and then die peacefully.

Today I notice that a bunch of scientists in Australia and the US have been studying how far cane toads can actually travel in different climates and they've come to the conclusion that a lot of Southern Australia is actually too cold for the cane toad so the invasion will continue, but they'll never really be able to take control like they've done in Queensland and the Northern Territory.

I guess knowing the toad's capabilities is good news because now we can focus our energies on their warmer routes across the continent, instead of trying to stop them reaching place like Melbourne or Adelaide. Maybe now they can finally start to figure out ways to make the toads stop moving north and west. That would be good.

BBC News

I took this photo a couple of weeks ago when some fireworks were being set off around town for the fiesta. Most of the photos didn't really come out very well but I was very pleased with this one.

I've written a few posts about getting good hosting for your website, and some of the best web hosting can be found by reading a proper review of their service in addition to reading the host company's sales pages.

I find that reviews let me see what other people find great about their service, but the ratings also let me see on a scale how different hosts rank against each other from other people who have used their service.

Of course, not all hosting is just your typical basic host for plain HTML pages, so it's nice to be able to compare hosts grouped into categories like ecommerce, linux or windows, control panels, cheap hosting etc.

That helps a lot when you compare three or four hosts with similar offerings, I mean one host is pretty much like another when you compare disk space, bandwidth, or number of domains you can use, but service, that's a totally different thing.

How does she do it? At 50 years old Madonna still looks gorgeous, has more energy than most people half her age, and she still sounds fantastic. I am so jealous.

Madonna is starting her latest world tour off in the UK, and each show is 2 hours of high energy hits from her whole career, including 'Like a Prayer', 'Ray of Light', 'La Isla Bonita' and loads more.

I know she's a very wealthy lady and she can afford the best trainers and beauty regime, but even so it can't all be about money can it? I'd like to think I can still look good at 50 without all that cash. Of course it does need discipline to keep working out.

Can't wait to see her when she gets to this part of the world. I saw her perform years ago, back in the early 90's and she was spectacular then, and now she has an even bigger catalog of songs to choose from, and some of her latest tracks have been very good. Different from her younger days, but as I get older as well I appreciate her newer music more.

Ugh! Why do some people have to be so annoying? Yesterday we were walking around Ronda, we had a fair bit to do in a short amount of time, so we had to rush. Now anyone who knows our little town will also know that the pavements are quire narrow.

So why do people stop to talk to friends and not make any effort to step into a doorway, or perhaps off into the street between the parked cars. This isn't rocket science, and they would be making sure other people can still get past them.

But they never do, and it tries my patience so much. Ugh!

Sometimes I wish I was the mayor, I'd create a new department with the right to issue fines, the first thing they would do is patrol the pavements and fine the people who block the way. Then I'd get them to deal with the kids and cars with loud music. What tries your patience?