Friday, October 30, 2009

Laptops, Halloween, Leaf Miners and Photos

Oh the joy of shared university computers! It took me 5 minutes just to download an email. And this keyboard is so sticky I am worried my fingers will be permanently attached to it. Why, you ask am I in my university office typing my blog on the 'computer' they provide us with (actually they provide us with 9, between 200 postgrads! We sign a contract that they will provide us each with a computer, a locker and a desk, hmmmmmmmm Melbourne Uni!?!) Well, scarily, the laptop is in for repairs, and hopefully the problem isn't terminal. This means no access to my pictures, which will probably mean no posts for a few days! They just are not the same without the blurry photographs of the balcony garden. Hopefully I can get back online soon to post pictures of the balcony garden all dressed up for the Halloween dinner party I am holding tomorrow night. Alas too, this was a week I had set aside for serious thesis work, so I will just have to make do with the university computer and quit my whinging. At least I have access to one, and i have backed up my thesis. Imagine losing that ...

Anyway yesterday I posted about the Gazanias and other leaf miner victims in the balcony garden. It seems though that the balcony garden is not alone. As I was wandering into Uni I noticed several weeds on the way that were similarly afflicted. Plants too on campus seemed to have occasional signs. This is not somehing I have noticed before. Beginnings of a leaf miner epidemic in Melbourne?

5 comments:

Dan said...

Sorry about your laptop, it's like losing a limb when they go in the shop. My laptop is 2 years old now and badly needs to backed up, have everything erased and then reinstalled. Now I come to find out vista does not allow this! I think windows should give vista users a free update to 7 just for producing such a crap operating system.

Leaf miner was really bad here this season. In fact they are still munching away in my cold frame. Life would be so much easier without bugs wouldn't it.

I have lots of seed for the Australian Yellowleaf lettuce if you are interested. It would be like a repatriation ;-)

Sue Swift said...

I lost a lot of stuff to leaf miners too this year. Must have been the right weather condiitions, because I've not noticed them so much in past years.

Kate/High Altitude Gardening said...

Buy a mac? They are so reliable. Plus I love the fact that they fix themselves... I've not heard of Leaf Miners. Will need to get smart on that...

PJ said...

Dan - totally, for some reason it set my thesis back a week! Lovely new laptop now. Leaf miner just seems worse than last year. Oooohhh Australian Yellowleaf lettuce - sounds good though wonder what the quarantine restrictions are ...

Sue - worldwide epidemic of leaf miner???

Kate - hehe afraid I am not a fan of Macs, so the new laptop is not one. I'm a bit less worried about leaf miner, they just seem to hit a few leave snad unless it is the leafy greens it isn't such a problem.

Tony Brown said...

I am looking to buy new laptop for my brother on this Halloween. If there is any Halloween 2017 sales are ON then please do share with me.