Christmas Day

Christmas day in the Paxton house hold and yes the animals got presents too.

Joy, Ian sister sent them both a present and here they are enjoying them.

Laxey, the cat, got a catnip bag in the shape of a mouse and tried to get into the wrapping before we could stop him. A picture here shows him playing with it.



Cubie got a rawhide Christmas card. As he was a year when we got him and he has always lived outside he was not used to getting presents. At first he just looked at it and did not think he was allowed to have it. A little while later and he realised just what it was for. Here is a picture of him making sure we knew it was his!

I took some video of Laxey chasing and playing with his catnip toy and I will upload some here when I get it out of the camera.

I hope you enjoy the photos.

Look I'm sitting up.

Yesterday Laxey was sitting on my knee asleep.

He then got restless and ended up as you see him in this picture, he did not even move when Sue went for the camera. I think he was trying out sitting like a human.

Today we got Cubie our dog. We did not know how they would react to each other but Laxey stayed away at first but was curious like all cats are. Here I think he is asking himself "Is that a dog ??" Cubie did not know he was there until he got close and looked up, then got a shock.

Here is a picture of Cubie in a typical pose.

Now Cubie has decided it is fun to have a cat around and he wants to play with Laxey. The main trouble is Laxey has only known dogs to chase him and see him as a meal, so while he will get close he does not want to trust the dog. Poor Cubie now barks and tries to get Laxey to play but Laxey is having nothing of it. They need to sort out their differences and decide who is boss.

Another new addition to the family !!

I have been building a new house. As well as refurbishing our house I have built one for our newest member of the family called Cubie.

We have had him ready for us to pick him up for about a year now. He will actually be a year old this month. Because we were living in a flat we could not take him and because we were going to the UK and have been away for so many weekends we have left him with his mother and grandmother.

The picture of the kennel shows it not yet complete but I have finished it and soon he will come and live with us.

I will have a picture of him on here soon so keep coming back.

Been away

Sorry about the long gap between posts and yes you have guessed, Laxey has grown quite a lot.

We have been back to the UK for around five weeks and before that we helped with a children's camp and then when we got back a postponed camp because of major flooding in the area was then put on so we helped with that one too. We have also moved house and did not have the Internet for a while.

Below I will show pictures of Laxey. The first is before we went away and is dated 18th of June.






The next photo is the evening we got him back. I snapped this as he was peering out from behind the chair.

He was a bit timid when he first got back.

He was nearly all black when we first got him but he has earned his stripes and now his kitten fluff has gone and he is a grey tabby.

The next two photos show him stretched out. The second one looks like he is balancing on his ears but it is only the position of the camera. I hope you enjoy the update and the photos.

He is learning !!

As the days go by Laxey is learning as he grows. He now knows to use his litter tray without being put into it, he is washing himself cat like and is also going to sleep in cat like positions.

As you can see from the photo, he is also getting into technology, looking at gadgets and working out how to use them.

One thing he is ignoring so far is drinking milk from a dish. We put his lips near the milk but so far will not lap. Hopefully he will do this soon.

The second picture shows him looking through Sue's legs. He is always curious and if he finds a gap he wants to get into it. He got into this position by pushing his way under one of Sue's legs.

Is it a cat or is it a parrot....

No its Laxey exploring.

He has been growing and not surprising the amount of milk he is drinking.

Tonight though we wondered if he was really a parrot after he crawled up Sue's arm and sat on her shoulder.

He stayed there for quite a while before getting down into her arms and going to sleep.

Keep coming back for more episodes in the life of Laxey the kitten.

Kitten update

Hello to you all, another update of Laxey.

He is growing and gaining stripes. He is also getting his character and walking better. His feet are more co-ordinated.

The first picture shows him feeding from his bottle with Sue. When Sue feeds him he always, at the beginning, raises his front paws in the air as if he is praising God for another feed. He never does this when I feed him. Maybe he is praising God that Sue is feeding him and not me ??!!

The second photo shows him finding his bottle and wondering how to get more milk from it!

It looks like a good picture for a caption contest? Anyone with any ideas can leave them in the comments here.

Sue came up with "I wonder if I could spit it all back in?"

Kitten update

Hello to all my readers.

I have been asked to put more pictures up here of our new kitten.

He has grown in the few days we have had him so here is a picture taken on the 3rd of May. This is the only decent, recent picture I have of him but as you will see he has grown since the 29th of April when I first took hi picture.

We have decided to call him Laxey from a tradition. We had a ginger cat years ago called Ramsey. We named him Ramsey as he was born on Tuesday, 2nd June which was Ramsey Sprint day during TT week on the Isle of Man. My sister later got a cat and called him Douglas keeping an Isle of Man theme and so this little fella is to be named Laxey from a small town between Douglas and Ramsey on the East coast.

I will take more pictures and put them up as he grows. Maybe I will get more readers because of him.

A surprise addition to the family

Hi,

I have not posted here for a while as I have been busy working on the house. Updates can still be found at www.paxo.me.uk.

Yesterday, 28th April, my wife Sue went to take the rubbish out. She came back a bit excited and said "there is a kitten next to the bins on a piece of straw and if we don't take it in it will die".

I knew there was no way that I could say no, she had made her mind up that we were to look after it so I just told her to go and get it.

It is about two weeks old and should really still be with it's mother. It can not lap and we have to feed it with a bottle. It needs to be fed about every two hours so last night we were woken up to feed it.

Have a look at the pictures to see how it is. I will post more pictures as it grows.

Looking to try Linux.......Read on.

Have you ever wanted to try Linux but have never ventured into the Linux world?

Are you fed up of people like me going on about Linux but thought about trying it?

Don't know which distro, (Linux talk for distribution or version) to try?

Today I received my monthly copy of Linux Format. I do get it a bit later as I am an international subscriber but it came out in the UK around the 7th February. So what I hear you cry. Well, this month they have included a double sided DVD with the magazine and there are TEN distros on the DVD. This means that if you had a spare PC lying around you could try out ten different copies of Linux one after another and you don't have to wait for them all to download. There is also a bit of help in the magazine about installing them. Some even come as "live versions", which means that you can set your computer to boot from your DVD and it will load up the version of Linux you want from the DVD and you can try it out without installing it. Of course this runs slower from the DVD than from a hard disc but at least you can see what it looks like and how it works.

I use Ubuntu on my second computer and as a dual boot on my laptop so I can recommend
this as it works for me.
Don't worry I am not getting paid for this blog post but I just thought I would share a very good opportunity out there with you all.

Any questions, just get in touch.

Firefox versus Internet Explorer and Operating systems.

In the past few months I have installed Google Analytics on my site and today I had a closer look.

It seems that what we really knew was right, Microsoft has the greater share in the operating system department.

The first graphic shows the list of operating systems that people who have logged onto my site are using. The various versions of Windows is winning hands down with the Mac next and Linux brining up the rear.



The second graphic shows the various flavours of Windows being used. As it shows XP is used most. Vista hardly has a show, not the success Microsoft really wanted. I do think people are not upgrading their OS as often as they used to. Why mend something that is not yet broken? I also think people are thinking of the alternatives to Microsoft. Linux in it's various flavours are much more user friendly nowadays.

With Linux being a free OS and getting better all the time, people are turning that way. As a basic desktop alternative to be used in an office or at home Linux can do everything Windows can. I use Ubuntu on my second computer and have it dual booted on my laptop.

BUT it is a very different story when it comes to web browsers. Firefox has the greater share in that department. The third graphic shows the web browsers and the operating systems side by side. Firefox is ahead on all three operating systems.






I have been a fan of Firefox for a number of years now and have found it secure and up to the job of any web site I have come across. To read of a time when Firefox actually helped me, go to this page, I could not believe the difference it made over I.E.

Click on the graphics to make them larger.

The stats on the graphics here relate to when I started using Google's Analytics on my site, which was from 8th January till yesterday 2nd February.

I have been using Trafficera to get more people to see my site, see previous blog post. It is a traffic exchange but I have found that it works. They do pay you if you get others to sign up too.

Trafficera: Get in early for "First Mover" benefits

Traffic Exchange Meets
Social Marketing: Trafficera

The fastest growing social marketing site on the
Internet at the moment is the newly launched
Traffic Exchange - Trafficera which I have just joined.

It is free to join as a silver member and costs a bit to upgrade but there are more benefits for upgraders.

Trafficera combines a
traffic exchange with a social network. The new program
has numerous features including the ability to promote
your website(s) to thousands of people worldwide, create
valuable contacts with others from around the world,
maintain your own blog space, search for other members
that share similar interests to yourself, create and/or
participate in discussion groups and create your own
splash pages.

Trafficera is being offered by the owner of TS25, TrafficPods
and HitPulse - so they know what they are doing.

Get in early for "First Mover" benefits:
http://www.trafficera.com/?ref=paxo

Terracotta stove for sale - Vand soba teracota

Hello to you all,

As an update on the house I have started to work on it. I am going to put central heating in as the first job to do. In doing this I have dismantled the terracotta wood burning stove in what was to be the dining room. This is now sat in the annexe waiting for buyer.

I am going to move the wall that divides the kitchen and dining room at present. This will make the kitchen bigger by two metres and make a dining/kitchen. The resulting smaller room will house the new wood burning stove and boiler etc. for the central heating and hot water system.

If anyone does want to buy the old stove they will have to collect it, Bearing in mind it is in North East Romania. I am not an expert but I would say it is in fair condition.

For more updates on the house project you can go to www.paxo.me.uk.

Sign up for a free bronze membership in MiAmigoServices.

Hello to you all.

This is only open till Sunday. You can still get in free after this time but the membership level is classed as free and you will not get as many perks or bonuses. There are other options with different payments and I would only recommend these if you can get others to follow you in.

Follow the instructions below and then tell all your friends to sign up before Sunday.

Step 1: click on this link
Step 2: Fill out registration and click register at bottom
Step 3: Wait for a confirmation e-mail from admin with further instructions
Step 4: Click on the confirmation link and continue the signup process.
Step 5: Choose Bronze
Step 6: Choose offline payment
Step 7: submit and no other requirements are necessary at this time.

Till next time.

We have signed up.....

Hello again and I wish you a happy new year.

With regards to the house situation, my last post on this was telling you we had decided not to go for the house in the small village attached to Radauţi and we were looking at another.

Well, there were no utilities like drainage and water with that house so we decided not to go ahead with it.

Showing some friends the pictures we had of the house in the village, we were wondering why we had not decided to buy it as it looked so good for the money. I have not said anything here for a while as I wanted to be sure it was right but today we have signed up and have bought the house.

It has stood empty for a few years and has no heating. We also want to put our mark on it and do some work that is needed so we are going to stay in the apartment we have as it is at present between -2 and -12 during the day. With no central heating it would be hard to live in at first and our apartment is so lovely and warm.

The pump for the water supply is broken so that is the first job I need to do so we will be able to use the facilities etc. (And make a cup of tea.)

To see more pictures and the work we want to do go to my site. This will also be updated as we go along with the renovations.

This has turned out not to be a house build but there is still plenty of work to do.

Thank you for reading.