So, this issue has two pages from Tom with the promise of a regular contribution to cover his South West Walks. As I told him, my ambition would be for many local individuals to have their own regular pages (or better still, their own web sites) which I would then just link to each month.

The less happy event in July was that both Carol and I caught some sort of bug or virus. At first we thought it was just a summer cold. I found that I had noted in Alezane's Diary on June 28th that Carol was getting over her cold. How wrong can you be? Being a strong believer of mind over matter I resolved not to catch it. What this meant was that I was just five days behind her with all my symptoms.

Starting with a very sore throat, moving on to coughing, sneezing and temperatures it lasted for both of us for something over three weeks which leaves very little change out of a month.

I therefore did not get out to take many photographs in July and was doubly happy for the contributions of all the other local folk.

Finally, I did something in July that I have never done before - I built my own computer. Believe me, I am not bragging, it's really not very hard.

It started when my current machine started playing up even more than usual and I decided it was time for a new one. Looking around, however, I couldn't find any of the major computer firms that could supply what I wanted even after trying out their 'specify your own' packages. There were some people in small firms who declared that they could build what I wanted but I thought - if they can do it, so can I! In the end it was just a case of screwing pieces together and joining up all the cables, needing only a small screwdriver and a pair of long nosed pliers - oh, and loads of patience!

pete