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                                                        '______________'
       
       Hey there, I'm Fred (Vela025) I live in Worcestershire, UK with
       my long suffering partner. I work as a gardener, but also have
       an interest in older technology mainly as I'm on the hunt for a
       simpler life.
       
       Each year we grow many of our vegetables from seed (although we did
       cheat last year and buy a chilli plant, as I was a little too eager
       for windowsill space and moved mine to the garden before the last
       frost...oops). We have a elderly chicken (10) who loves to scratch
       around the garden when she's not confined to her Winter Palace
       (the greenhouse) whilst bird flu is in the area. I have a small
       obsession with trees and have far too many planted for our garden
       to need.
       
       I've been fortunate enough to be able to study the RHS Horticulture
       qualifications for a few years now which has enriched my gardening
       knowledge immensely. However it does mean that when ever we walk
       anywhere I take equipment for cuttings to propagate at home.
       
       As well as gardening I like to read, which you may see reflected in
       some of my pages. I'm not a person who consumes 100s of books a
       year, I instead aim for a modest 12 and anything else is a bonus.
       
       I'm not a huge watcher of TV, we will watch a TV program in the
       evening after tea (or dinner as some of you call it), and we'll
       make time for a film every now and again. I think my current
       favourite shows are 9-1-1, White Lotus and Bob's Burgers. As a
       child I was obsessed with The Simpsons which may explain why I still
       love animated shows.
       
       I terms of nerdiness I've had a few 8-bit computers over the years
       but now am pretty settled on my Acorn BBC Master 128, most
       probably because the M128 was my main computer up until around 1993,
       before computers became a bit dull and beige. It's for this reason
       I also have a certain affinity for the Atari 2600. You can find out
       more about these respective systems on their pages.
       
 (DIR) Pssst....I'm Vegan too