Serendipity

Been a bit quiet recently, mainly because I've had nothing of note to blog about.

The house continues to be a money pit and we had to take off two walls of plaster in the small spare room. Oh it's a sign of things to come as we know we have to do that with pretty much all the rooms in the house. Joy of joys. But at least we might have the spare room done once we've sorted out the "interesting"pipework and replaced the skirtings and coving. One job jobbed or so i thought.

No sooner had we fixed on leak than with this torrential rain we've had recently the small bay window on the kitchen decided it'd had enough of being poured on and now whenever it rains outside, it rains inside the kitchen. Cue buckets and super absorbent cloths and pretending it's not there.

Great considering I've also got to renegotiate the mortgage this month so I can try and keep a handle on my payments and also pay for bills which seem never ending and painful to say the least.

Had a short break over this weekend visiting my cousin in Darlington for the wedding of a friend of ours. It was cool as my brother came up from london with his wife and it was a good laugh, bit hot though. The bride fainted as it was about 32 degrees when we were having the photos taken! It was fun. Quite a glam wedding in a posh place. It's funny that's the third wedding in 2 months and they're all similar but different. Still don't see the point myself. Never had that white dress envy as a kid, seems to complicate things more than complete them. I do think i'm a little bit cynical though as marriage isn't as ancient as we perceive it to be and it was "invented" by the church and government as a way of taxing and keeping track of people... yeh nice huh? Kinda the reason I'm not a religious person either, too many inconsistencies.

I was watching a documentary on TV this week about the scientific study of Neanderthal DNA taken from bones in a Croatian cave. It's currently being processed in a lab to create the DNA genode of Neanderthal man - something that's not been able to be done before due to contamination by modern people. The old theory was that when homo sapiens encountered Neanderthal man in Europe once they began colonising from Africa and they killed them off and took their place.

After studying some of the findings coming out of the DNA tests they now believe that it was more likely to be homo sapiens and Neanderthal man were more closely related and may have interbred basically assimilating. I read an article where some bones had been found in Portugal which scientists believe were "hybrid" bones of a part homo sapien and part Neanderthal which could corroborate this.

They also reckon that some of the genes we have now are Neanderthal not Homo Sapien - like speech and Ginger hair which before has been lost to the common view that Neanderthal man was an apelike creature with no speech ability and limited intelligence.

I'm watching with great interest how this develops and what the results of the DNA genode testing is - whether they can create a DNA strand for Neanderthal man or not. It's a subject that I'm really hooked by. I'd love a time machine so I could go back and see what it was like.

It'll be interesting to watch the debates on who is right or wrong that come with these things :)

I better off and do some more work, i'm not loving this heat much slows me down and I really want to muster the energy to have a play with my new 50mm f/1.4 lens. I'm itching I tells ya, itching!

That reminds me... I should get my results soon :s