So, I’ve been meaning to move to a new blog system. Y’know, something shiney(tm). With bells and whistles and spam filtering. And, er, a billion or so critical security flaws uncovered each week.

In reality, I’m more than happy with blosxom. Vim-over-ssh is a much better way of writing entries than any editor written in AJAX-y javascript and hosted in a crash-prone web browser. And I don’t need on-the-fly spaling or grammar checks, ‘cos, well, I know how to write already, thanks.

So, yes, balls to wordpress, movable type and their overcomplex, php-driven, sql db-backed ilk.

So, er, what have I been doing in the last 171 days?

Well, travelling lots: Firstly, swanning around Ofotfjord and Vestjord in the far north of Norway, supposedly to see orcas.

Shitty picture as we were on a boat, and the sun didnt ever get above the horizon

Then, a week spent in snowy Tallinn, in Estonia. I’m not sure what I was expecting from part of the former Soviet Union - but I was shocked by how prosperous, clean, and unspoilt it was. The walled old town is an astonishingly pretty medieval fairy story brought to life; every restaurant seems to offer bearmeat and wild boar and serving wenches (Olde Hansa scores several billion bonus points for the post-meal music, provided corsetted students from the local university’s medieval music department). I’m fairly sure I’ll be back in the future…

The town hall, built in 1371, just round the corner from our apartment

I’ve also spent time in Leeds and Donegal, and met interesting people, and done interesting things. But, er, I’m flagging a bit, and I’m sure you don’t really care. fleh. Will write more soon :)