dillo towers

Holiday...

2009-08-06T14:03:00.004+01:00

I never did get to chill out like I wanted to. The joy of genuinely choosing when I went to bed, rather than feeling the need to keep someone company or wait for someone to fall asleep, was somewhat lost as on the Monday dd2 wanted to watch tv downstairs until later than I would have liked, and on the Tuesday she was ill and I was cleaning, tidying and packing until later than I would have been if she'd been fit to help me. Also discovering that my bedding was damp in the dryer when I was intending to go to bed didn't help. There was much more cleaning and tidying to be done than I had thought and it didn't all get done, not by a long shot.

We got away safely on the Wednesday morning to catch our train. We had plenty of time in the end so I wished I hadn't rushed quite so much at home, as I accidentally shut a cat in my bedroom, doh. They had all been seen outside shortly before, but I'd gone back in to sort out an order. Thankfully she was found the next day so we didn't come home to a disaster. Meanwhile, as my Facebook friends will know, our first train of two was late, and we missed our connection by a bare handful of minutes. This was doubly frustrating as the platforms were back-to-back, we could have simply stepped off one and more or less onto the other without having to cross any tracks. (By the way, if anyone needs to know for some reason which platform a train is arriving at or departing from, try the National Rail website, though not all stations give platform information.) We waited for the next direct train, which was two hours later, in the Costa coffee shop (I do like Costa...) which at York station is in the old waiting room, a brilliantly-situated space at the end of the bridge, with a good view across the station. Fantastic for people-watching!

By missing our connection we also lost our reserved seats, and the next train was quite busy. We got two seats together, though not at a table, and also we were between windows, and settled in. At Newcastle we had a delightful addition to the carriage, a woman who proceeded to announce loudly over the phone that she was on the train with a can of beer and then spend most of the journey swearing down her phone. Thankfully that was the limit of her obnoxiousness so I read, and dd2 occupied herself, and we occasionally looked out of the bits of window that we could see. The view of Alnmouth in full sun from the train is stunning.

We did a lot of the same stuff we did last year at the same place but some was different... In the couple of days before we joined them, dh had taken the kids to shiver on North Berwick beach, and to pick fruit at Belhaven Fruit Farm but they mostly seem to have enjoyed the Burns' wii and trampoline, and the unfamiliar toys in the house.

Posting this now before I go away again! Will come and post some more another time...

autonomously learning to read...

2009-08-06T12:38:00.003+01:00

This is prompted by another blog: Home Education Heretic - Real Books- learning to read autonomously

See what I did with the title? I think that I've just said what he meant to say. Or maybe not, it's hard to tell. I guess I could go and ask him but, well, as an autonomous educator I am clearly far too sloppy in my thinking to go "Hang on a minute, what did you actually mean here?" If Mr Webb means to discuss the process of an autodidactic child learning to read, that's one thing. If he means to discuss how a child learns to read and then uses the skills autonomously, that's something else. Isn't it? Let's be precise about this now.

Anywho. If I can rise above the snarkiness that such uneducated polemic produces, I'll try to get my words out straight...

Here's my problem with your supposition, Mr Webb, that learning to read by 'osmosis' is the preserve of the supposedly very special conditions that are described in that blog. The conditions required for such learning are supportive, interested caregivers and a written-language-rich environment that the child can explore more-or-less at will. Visible examples of the use of reading, for pleasure or for the benefit of the reader in some other way, will contribute to the child's interest and desire. These conditions are not, or at least should not, be that special in our culture, and they are not related to the education level or wealth of the parent(s.) I was one such child who does not remember learning to read, could certainly read before the age of 5, my parents are very averagely educated. I left school at 16, have a little bit of further ed under my belt, not what I would think Mr Webb would consider 'well educated' and my self-taught readers are doing just fine, thanks.

The real problem with 'Real Books' in the classroom setting that Mr Webb appears to have overlooked is that the conditions are so different to the individualised learning of home-ed, whether intended or otherwise, that there is no starting point for the osmosis of reading to spread from. The group setting is too large for the random 'what does this mean?' and the passive learning from watching someone read instructions or labels or directions because they need to understand something cannot occur. The teacher-pupil relationship and the scale of the setting is the problem, not the method.

Having got that out of the way, now I'm left wondering what prompted the blog in question. Because I can't imagine any autonomously home-educating parent suggesting that leaving a child completely to their own devices will automatically result in their learning to read. So who, exactly, is promoting this without the understanding/assumption that autonomous ed. is about facilitating when required? And what parent would deliberately say 'I'm not going to tell you what that word says, you'll have to learn it by yourself'?? It makes no sense. Perhaps I'm expecting too much clarity of thinking.

ahhhh...

2009-07-20T00:16:00.002+01:00

Dh has gone today to Scotland with 3 of 4 offspring. Dd2 and I are travelling up by train on Wednesday, which gives me a couple of days of not having to cater for small people's demands, being able to do jobs and tidy up without interruption or it being undone as fast as I can do it, and having a bit of genuine help. I've been looking forward to this for ages now, this is my holiday.

Since they left I've tidied a bit, made tea, walked to the shop because I didn't have any breakfast cereal, watched Twilight with dd2 (I really need to watch it by myself, or perhaps with someone who won't start commenting on the bits that don't mesh up with the book, lol, to properly let myself get into it and enjoy it, I think, but it was still nice) and sat and listend to 1 and a half (so far) Muse albums.

Tomorrow I plan to do as much cleaning as I can, do some reading, maybe play Lips or Singstar with dd2, watch some more telly.

toooooo hoooooottttt

2009-07-01T13:36:00.002+01:00

Melting. Brain is melting.

Reminded myself to blog by following link on my twitter page (I'm trogglicious on there)

Not sure what I'm going to blog about, other than being too bloomin' hot to think. Heartily sick of small people whining at each other today, a general air of niggle going on... dd2 being greedy and using xbox and my laptop, which she needs for the walkthrough. Apparently.

I should talk about fun stuff like booking tickets to see Muse in November but it's such a long time away... I did just book tix for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, on the Thursday rather than the opening Wednesday because the premier seats are all gone (well, there was one left, not much good when there are three of us going) for the 8pm showing. And also I've booked train tickets for our housesitting holiday in Dunbar, dh is taking dd1, 3 and 4 up in the car on the Sunday and I'm going with dd2 on the Wednesday, giving me a couple of days of relative quiet at home and saving the massive sum of £4 on the train fare, getting a little bit of use out of the free Family-and-Friends Railcard. Must remember to get the half-price offer this time.

I've been posting on TwilightMoms, enjoying the analysis of the books (oddly enough, as I'm not usually that keen on analysing art, it's too personal a thing IMO, but discussion with enthusiasts for the fun of it is decidedly better than having to do it for grades!) and making new friends, I hope :-) There doesn't seem to be anyone very local to me, which is a shame because really I'm looking for someone to go to see New Moon with who won't be surprised if I'm a weeping mess throughout.

Right I must away, to let dd4 use a puter before she explodes, and to make good on my promise to myself that I would make a start on my dress this afternoon. Need to clear a patch of floor first!

more dreaming

2009-05-06T11:05:00.004+01:00

I'm blogging this because it was fun! lol...

So I ended up, at the end of this long rambly dream that I can't remember, other than needing to change my clothes at some point, and Sarah of Ethics Trading was in it, snogging Will Greenwood. Anyone who doesn't know who he is, well you can utilise your favourite search engine, lol, but he's not exactly pretty to look at. But he could talk rugby to me for hours and hours...

Not going to think about analysing this one beyond remembering that I was going to sleep thinking about the idea of embracing one's other half's interests. Think I took it a bit too literal somehow!! lol

accept, adapt, move on?

2009-04-29T11:35:00.005+01:00

I woke up early this morning, it was about half past 6 when I was conscious enough to remember to check the time. I'd had a dream, and it's stuck with me, unlike most dreams. Well really it's just the ending that I remember. I'm guessing the dream was sparked off to a degree by reading Rosalie's story in Eclipse, as I was part of some royalty and there was a big do, I think it was my wedding, so there were loads of guests and preparation and it was all really weird (well duh, it's a dream! but anyway...) I was going to wear a certain outfit, it was a bit Barbarella I guess, or perhaps original series Star Trek (hm, could I be Spock's bride, the new Spock that is? That would work for me, oh yes.) but when I came to wear it, it was too small as I had put on weight since I wore it last, and I had the court dressmakers fussing around me trying to sort it out.

And then I woke up, so I never got to see the finished article. But a mantra's been stuck in my head all day, the title of this post. On the surface it sounds healthy, to accept the current situation as being how it is, how it's going to be, adapt to it to make the best of it and move on from stressing/obsessing about it. But that unfinished dress is bugging me too. If I accept the status quo, will it all come back to bite me on the arse the next time I lose the plot like I have this Winter? And what part of the status quo was the dream about? My size? My home-life? My marriage? All of it?

If the thing that's really bugging me right now, which is my lack of time at home alone, is just how it's going to be, am I letting dh off? Can I really accept it or is the resentment going to build up and explode later on? I guess it feels more like admitting defeat than accepting the inevitable.

*sigh*

forgot a couple of things...

2009-04-26T10:35:00.003+01:00

This is what happens when dd4 doesn't get to watch a dvd in bed. Clearly it's the only way, still, that she will lie down for long enough to go to sleep. So if I can't persuade the bugger to work today we'll have to get a new one :-| Still, cute pics though eh?

Some of the things distracting me from blogging and fanfic-ing this week... New Moon Movie.org and Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook

another week...

2009-04-26T09:55:00.002+01:00

So Gloucester have crashed and burned in the past few weeks, gods know what they're thinking. If they're thinking. Ugh.

And yesterday was yet another focusless Saturday morning, but I'll let dh off a bit this time as he has hayfever pretty bad and I didn't want to wake him. But being woken up almost an hour before the time my alarm was set to go off by dd3 shouting, "Pye! Pye! Pye! Pye! *whistle* *whistle* Pye! Pye!" and this was about 40 mins after I'd already woken up for some other random reason, meant that I wasn't in much of a fit state to do anything anyway. *sigh* Our wedding anniversary is next Saturday, we're planning to go out for a meal, seems a bit unfair to hijack that for a 'meaningful discussion' but it's probably the only way, and fairly fitting really.

I haven't even looked at my fanfic this week. Maybe that means I'm in a better mood overall, it's pretty dark stuff and I need to be in the right frame of mind for it to flow. Makes one wonder how crime novelists and scriptwriters do it all the time.

I got round to getting my bass from my mum's but I can't find the lead now, doh. I don't often get into town or go anywhere near a music shop, though actually there is one quite near an alterations shop that I didn't know about until I was dropping dd1 off at St John's Ambulance Cadets last week. I could go and see if they might have the right sized press-stud machine for my faulty jackets, and go get a new lead and a tuning fork or something, and talk to them about the piano too. It's a shame the excellent fishmonger round the corner from there is long gone.

Speaking of fish, must dash, going to Sainsburys to see if they still do tuna fishcakes, if not I'm getting salmon for tea. And this afternoon I'm going for a walk.

another day...

2009-04-18T13:50:00.003+01:00

Another Saturday morning goes by without me being able to say 'this is my working time.' I really need to figure out how to nail this down with dh without it turning into a row, which could happen, or the conversation being about him, which is what usually happens when I try to go in empathetically. I don't want to lay down the law either, but the way things are isn't really working for me, something's got to change, and not drift back like it often does when we try to change stuff. It's not like there's the excuse of a dodgy back any more, dh shouldn't have to lift dd4 at all unless she throws a strop I suppose. Ah well, will brace myself to sort it out soon...

Meanwhile, it's the EDF cup this afternoon, come on Gloucester! When I get my head on right and stop overeating I might be able to fit the shirt that dh got me for Christmas or birthday or whenever it was, lol.

that's another fine mess...

2009-04-13T19:13:00.002+01:00

Not blogged for a few days, though I have been writing. I finished the chapter I was on and started a new one, but the first still needs editing. I still haven't transferred the doing impulse to work though.

I may be appearing to be invisible on msn/wlm as I have a new friend, who is male, who doesn't yet know that I can't really play on msn in the same way I might elsewhere. I'm sure he's just having a laugh, I'm also sure that dh wouldn't remotely see it that way if he happened to see flirting in an individual message box :-|

Back to Midnight Sun, or writing, or reading New Moon news... anything to keep me away from kids' tv...

bass notes...

2009-04-07T19:11:00.002+01:00

Dd2 wants to learn to play bass guitar. Cool! That's alright cos we already have one, and a small practice amp. If they still work. Been several years since I touched them, and I never really played properly. I got them before I got pregnant, thinking I could pick it up fairly easily as I played double bass in school, but I just didn't get round to playing. It will be really nice to see them get some use, if she follows through. I'm going to try to play the piano more too, it needs tuning again. I'm a bit puzzled though, I watched a couple of youtube piano lesson videos yesterday and our piano was way out from the one on the videos, like a good couple of tones out, does that mean it was badly done before? Or that there's some weirdness going on with the puter? Hm, answers on a postcard...

blergh

2009-04-06T14:31:00.003+01:00

I feel like a worn-out dishrag today. Not that I actually know what a worn-out dishrag feels like, but hopefully you get the idea. I got woken up in the middle of a dream, which I can't remember apart from the vague idea that there was a man I didn't know in it, by a delivery dude. He had the order of two new mice and a new dvd drive for the kids' puter, which hopefully should reduce the level of frustration in the house somewhat, but banging on the door when I'm sound asleep hasn't helped me at all. It's probably not the only cause of my malaise today, period day 3 is most likely more to do with it. But there's something about that kind of disturbance-induced brainfog that's hard to shift.

The end result though is that I'm lurking in my room (again) hoping that I'll get left alone with my blergh. Vain hope.

I've had more of a go at my fanfic, I think I need to pull it to bits and start again somewhat though *sigh* as I've managed to contradict myself and I hate that. It's not flowing all that well but I'm not expecting it to really, the subject matter isn't one that I know that much about other than from tv and films and I'm not throwing myself into research for this! Though the little bits I have googled have been interesting... My playlist is just right though I think, if I can add a few more tracks it will help set the tone for when I do have the headspace for writing.

Think I need to make one or two for work now, lol. Not sure what works best for writing about baby stuff, or for pulling website code to pieces, or for doing accounts...

a bit more on watching the Twilight DVD...

2009-04-05T20:54:00.003+01:00

Dh sat at the table while dd1, dd2 and I watched the film. He was internetting, watching baseball on his laptop (big ups for MLB's updated online tv service, btw, it's awesomely smooth and clear even over wifi and though we haven't tried streaming it to the tv yet I'm pretty sure it won't be pixelly at all) and I didn't know if he was really watching the film or not. He's had to live with my obsession for the past few months, dd2 and I sharing quips and quotes and laughing at in-jokes, and I suspect he thinks a bit of my recent weirdness is down to a Rob Pattinson/Edward Cullen crush (he's not entirely wrong but I think that's more about things being thrown into sharp relief, as the saying goes, by immersing myself in romance-driven fiction, than me actually fantasising about being with another person. And even if I were, Edward's not my favourite Cullen, lol.)

So I had a feeling he was prejudging it, sneering at it. Of course with him not sitting where I could see his face or hear him I couldn't be sure. And really I shouldn't make assumptions about what he's thinking because that old saw about assuming making an ass out of u and me is quite often true when I think I know what he's thinking. And more so when I think he knows what I'm thinking. But it did add to my unease while watching it and may have stopped me getting sucked in like I would have liked to. I think I was right though, when it finished he said the action sequences were poor...

...and that the love story was just like Buffy and Angel. The three of us on the sofa turned round and exclaimed 'What?!' at him. I'm not sure why it feels so different though. His argument was the group of geeky friends and he's a vampire and she's a human. Except that Bella has no supernatural powers and their relationship doesn't have any massive repercussions in the supernatural world, they're not on a hellmouth, there aren't any demons... The language and settings, beyond the high school part, is much different. Their motivations are also different, though Buffy and Bella are newcomers to their towns when their stories begin.

But if anyone is actually reading this who is familiar with both , I'd love to hear what you think on this point.

The commentary on the DVD is fun, by the way.

once again I'm doing a 'long time no blog' post...

2009-04-05T19:12:00.005+01:00

So. Hm...

Well see it's like this. I'm writing a piece of fanfic. Which isn't something I've ever done before. I do write quite a lot but it's mostly chat, forum posts, facebook and the like. Sometimes I write for work. Actually I need to do a lot more of that than I have been, but maybe this whole process will help with that too. Anyway I was sort of in the mood for writing but not really in the right place mentally for my fanfic thing, it doesn't really go with tennis on the tv and I don't have headphones for my themed playlist right now, so I thought that maybe if I come and blog I might get more into the habit of writing stuff.

I had a thought about blogging, a week or so ago, that I'm grasping at the remnants of right now. It was about how I've never really got into it, because even with regular commenters and that kind of feedback it's pretty narcissistic (clicks spellcheck, yeah that's right) if you see it as *publishing* yourself, I'm not even much of a thread-starter on forums, but perhaps if I see it as just having a space to write stuff down it might go a bit better. And as long as I don't expect anyone else to be reading it and then get disappointed when I don't get comments, lol.

But hm, what am I blogging about? See this is my other problem. Do I rabbit on about the kids and dh, essentially invading their privacy unless I write solely about my thoughts about them, which is still exposing them in a way? I'm not going to write about business stuff here, I have another blog for that, and I'm woefully underblogging there too. I have a few minor niggles that I could share... I might go there later. I could go for the entertainment review thing, but anyone who has me as a friend on facebook or reads CosyNostra will know I'm pretty much obsessed with the Twilight saga right now, in fact I'm rereading Twilight for the 5th time. So that could get a little bit tedious... Oh hang on, I'm not blogging for you am I? I'm blogging for me.

Well let's go with that then.

Twilight, for anyone who doesn't know, is a romance. With a twist. If you aren't aware of it at all (oh come on who am I kidding? How can you be on the internet and not be aware, somehow, of Twilight? I'll ditch that thought then. Hm but then how much do I say about the plot? Oh well, it'll work out I guess.) So, scratch that.

OK so if you don't know already it's utterly incredible but it's a romance between a human and a vampire. The vampire happens to be part of a family who don't hunt humans, and has an extra talent, he can read minds. The girl is a normal human girl, ridiculously clumsy (really, I'm surprised no-one mentions dyspraxia in the books) and the only person who the vampire can't mind-read in any way. She is also the most delicious thing he's ever smelled, to the verge of breaking his fast, so to speak. So it's a classic 'boy meets girl, boy runs away to avoid killing girl, boy comes back but avoids girl, boy and girl obsess over each other without the other knowing, boy rescues girl, they figure out they're in love, things get a bit hairy...' type story.

I saw the film first, with fairly low expectations as I was taking dd2 and her friends to see it for dd2's birthday treat. And was completely blown away by it. It's an atmospheric production, the two leads are intense, the vampires are beautiful, the story is powerful... It all added up, possibly along with the pre-teen oestrogen hit, to an intense overwhelming slam of emotion. I was dragged along with the intrigue, the tension, the power of the first love/lust thing. And then we went shopping, a couple of weeks later, and dd2 bought the books with her Christmas/birthday money. Oh and the soundtrack album.

So I read the first one, and as is usually the case with books, and why I generally prefer to see the film or tv production first, there was so much more in the book than the film. Certain pertinent points were in different places but I wasn't so bothered about that. I read it again. And played the soundtrack lots and lots. And we went to see the film again, and for some reason I wasn't quite so taken with it, not so swept away of a wave of emotion. Well fair enough, the timing might have been off, and maybe I underestimated the power of 5 10 to 13 year olds in an enclosed space beforehand, and though I'd tried to not compare the book to the film I couldn't help myself. And, of course, I knew how it was going to work out.

I had thought I might not read the rest of the series until after those films came out. I really should have known better, lol. I picked New Moon up while at a loose end and rattled through it, and then the next one. And then I had to wait for the last instalment, Breaking Dawn. Dh gave it to me for Valentine's Day, bless him. I spent the evening and the next day reading, finishing this humongous monster of a book in around 18 reading hours I think. Damaged my hand in the process. And like I said, I'm rereading Twilight for the 5th time, I've read the others 3 times each, and the partial draft of Midnight Sun, which is Twilight from the boy's side (it's written in first person so you really only see what Bella sees. Midnight Sun fleshes the whole thing out so much more, I really hope it gets finished, properly and in the spirit of Twilight.)

Anyway... So I know the books pretty much inside and out. I've done a bit of the fangirl thing, facebook quizzes, the odd youtube vid, listening to the same music as the author, finding the soundtrack artists on last.fm... and pre-ordering the dvd. Which is officially released here tomorrow, but arrived here yesterday. I enjoyed the 'making-of' bits and the music vids, haven't quite watched all the extras yet. And I hustled dd3 and 4 upstairs after tea so that we could watch it before they had supper, I figured I had a better chance of watching it uninterrupted that way than later going by recent form. But dh was a bit oblivious to what I was doing, and for one reason or another I'm a bit lacking patience for repeatedly explaining myself to him right now, so I was narked by the time we got round to watching.

So I don't know if that was it, if it was too light outside, if I'm going to have to be really in the mood (or ovulating!) to really 'get' the film or what but I was pretty disappointed. I wasn't gripped, the tension didn't get to me, some of it seemed pretty cheesy, some of the effects looked lame... I don't know. Perhaps it just has too much to live up to now. When I read the book I see and hear the actors and some of the locations, so I basically have the film playing in my head, but more of it. And I really love the books, they don't fail to make my breath catch, my eyes start, my heart race and my lips lift at the corners in all the right place whenever I read them.

I'm glad I saw the film, I might not have got so sucked in to this wonderful alternate reality otherwise. But I don't know when I'll be able to watch it again now without this disappointment and sense of lacking.

One of those days...

2008-10-08T18:35:00.002+01:00

well, evenings really...

Nice day at home-ed group, despite feeling rather 'oh do I have to?' about going, lol. But a bit of sunshine and good company is handy.

On getting home, I checked my emails for orders and enquiries and refreshed the online tracking for my inbound parcels, as I tend to obsessively do when I've got an order on the way. There are two boxes, with consecutive tracking numbers. One is currently in Sweden, the other in Finland. :-| A day after being despatched and they've already got separated. Last time, one package arrived as normal and the other almost a week later, in a very dishevilled state. Am I going to get a piece of cardboard with a tracking label on it this time?!

Nipped out to the supermarket for stuff for today and tomorrow with dd2. We got lamb burgers and potatoes for making into wedges/oven chips for tonight, chicken and mushroom slices for tomorrow's lunch, mince for chilli for tomorrow's tea and own-brand filled ice-cream cones for the fun of it, and loaded them into two shopping bags and took a bag each back to the car. I put my bag in the back seat and dd2 put hers in the middle front, where I dumped my handbag. Called at the petrol station, used the wrong side of the pumps again (are there really that many cars with the filler cap on the right side???) and went home. Got out of the car and took the bag from the middle seat. And not the one from the back. So I have lamb burgers and ice-creams, but no potatoes, mince or chicken and mushroom slices.

DOH!!!

Laying down the smack

2008-09-07T12:39:00.003+01:00

It seems I've been a bit feisty in interwebbyland the past week or so. There's a troll at work on one forum, hopefully the cronies who she bleats to about how harsh and nasty I am (yeah I know this happens) will realise from this latest bout just what kind of damaged goods she is. I can be picked on. I can front up and deal and yeah I sometimes have a gob big enough to put my size 7s in. But when you start having a go at two of the nicest people that I know over something that is completely not your business and of so little consequence in the big scheme of things then you are showing yourself up as a twonk.

Such a shame that someone with such energy and doggedness couldn't find something more worthwhile to do with her time. Wouldn't be surprised if she watches The Jeremy Kyle Show too.

In other areas, there was a post looking for support in finding contacts who might model what I consider to be biologically appropriate parenting behaviour so that her daughter might not be quite so obsessed with putting her dolls in cots and giving them dummies. The only reply, before I read the post, was 'why are you so bothered?' and a long ramble about the lack of research proving any health benefits in co-sleeping or avoiding dummy use. I won't go into the 'she said/she said' nature of the ensuing exchange of emails but I would like to restate my point again.

Mammals cosleep. Mammal babies have their mother's milk, and sometimes that of other herd members (thinking about elephants here.) Apes carry their babies around until the babies stop wanting to be carried or until they can keep up with the family group as they move around their territory. These are the default behaviours, this is how it is, the baseline. If you want to convince me that not following any of these patterns is equivalent to or healthier than, you will have to provide me with the research. I do not think the same should be true in the opposite direction. Anyway, despite protestations to the contrary, the evidence is there already, I could outline it but that would take too long and isn't the point. And when it comes down to it, what we do as parents is down to what we believe, which really doesn't always have to be grounded in research. Sometimes it's just about what feels right.

And really both of these situations could so easily boil down to Thumper's rule: "If you cayn't say anythin' naice, don't say nuthin' at awl."

Very very belated holiday blog...

2008-09-07T11:53:00.002+01:00

So the last saved draft of this was at the end of July. I am such a slack blogger that I've only just got round to finishing this! Oh well. I'm trying to get more of a pattern to my life so hopefully I'll be able to slot in a regular bit of blogging...

So, picking up as of 20somethingth of July...

We've been away, and back a couple of weeks now, but due to complications which I will most likely go into later, I've only just got round to blogging. We went up to Scotland, house sitting for Lucy while they went to France. So here's a bit of travelogue and pics...

I'll start with a bit of a rant (rant? moi? never...) about online train ticket booking. I'd thought about dh and I travelling separately, like we've done before to Filey, one of us driving and the other on the train with the children. SO... I looked up ticket prices on a couple of sites and discovered that there was an 'advance' ticket available. But it wasn't showing me the advance price when I selected more than 1 traveller at a time. Being Yorkshire born and bred ;-) I didn't want to have to pay 4 booking fees, also I didn't want to have to faff around with getting the seat reservations and being the proud owner of the Family Railcard from the special offer in the Daily Mail (must get the follow-up offer sorted out actually) I looked up the conditions on Advance tickets and Family and Friends Railcard discounts are applied. So I think 'right, I'll ring up and see what I can do' and of course by the time I ring up the advance tickets are all gone.

All because the online systems don't work in accordance with the ticketing rules. Twonks.

Anyway... so we drove up together on the Saturday (because £90 was too much extra) and actually it was really nice, even though we were late setting off due to the usual faffery with laundry and packing. Stopped at the services outside Durham as we'd checked it out and there was a Costa, lol. Ooo'd at the Angel of the North, waved at Ikea, drove into Alnwick seeking somewhere reasonable and family-friendly-looking to have tea and drove out again. Wandered off the A1 into Belford where we found The Belford which despite being a golf club (sorry, dh's prejudice is seeping through) was family-friendly without being patronising and reasonably priced. We were forewarned that they were busy and we might be waiting a while, and we were, but when the food came it was top quality and very well cooked (as in they'd done a good job, not a euphemism for burnt, lol.) Definitely recommended.

Got to Lucy's to find out that her 3 bedroom house woud fit at least 1 and a half of my 3-bed house in it. It's just as full of stuff though, lol.

So on to the pics :-) They're all taken on dh's or my phone because I hadn't, and still haven't, got round to getting my camera sorted out.

Taken at some point by someone who had been given my phone to take pictures with to keep them occupied in the car. It worked, for the most part. That and playing Worms on it...

The Forth Bridges. Thanks so much to Jayne (mummybuttons) for hunting online for a postcode for a Pizza Hut so that we could find a relatively child-friendly and reliable place for a very late tea after our trip into Edinburgh. We didn't take many photos as really we were there shopping. And bizarre (and saddening really) as it is that there are so many mobile phone shops, and 3 branches of Boots, on the same road, we didn't really feel the need to record it.

Hermit crabs at North Berwick

North Berwick is a lovely place and would be fab for a seaside holiday, nice little town centre, nice sandy beach...

with fab rockpools...

Oh phooey I thought I'd taken more photos of the rockpools. Oh well, this one gives you an idea...

and this nifty man-made lagoon thingummy...

The rockpools were well populated with hermit crabs, fish and shrimps, which was cool. We picked a really nice day to go and the two ice-cream vans by the beach were doing well, the bigger, flasher 'whippy' van got more trade than the small, old, less ornate local icecream van (M Luca of Musselbrough) so I figured I'd give the local dairy some trade, it was really nice. Not quite a Dixon's Milk Ice but still good. The one thing I was surprised I didn't find was the kind of beach tat shop that Filey has several of, with flipflops and buckets and spades and hats and kites and cheap, naff sunglasses and bats and balls and all that, I ended up buying buckets and spades from the RNLI shop, which is fine of course, it's a very good cause and I'm happy to support them, but there wasn't much choice and it's not the same. But then we were there on a beautiful day in the middle of the first week of Scottish schools' Summer holidays and it was surprisingly not-busy so maybe there just isn't the trade to sustain it. But then where do people go? Were they all abroad? Or just not gone to the beach that day?

East Link Family Park was fun (and sunny, am glad all mine are old enough now to say 'you stay here' to one and 'you watch these' to another, lol, while I dash back to the car for hats and suncream...) Lots and lots of photos on flickr of this so I'll just post a couple here:

What else did we do while we were away? We mooched round the local shops in Dunbar, which apparently has the most sunshine hours in the UK. It lived up to it that week, we did get rained on but not as much as the rest of the country I think! There's a PYO strawberries place (with the strawbs in growbags on stilts, very odd but much easier on the back!) and a smokehouse just off the A1 outside Dunbar so we went there, oh and we had locally-caught langoustines bought in Dunbar for tea one day. When Lucy's cooker decided to cook them for us. On the Saturday, before coming home on Sunday, we drove to Bamburgh to look at the castle (and found a nice little deli, impressive range for such a tiny shop!) then to Lindisfarne for the fun of driving over the causeway and back, though it was too early to watch the tide rise over it. And then to Berwick-upon-Tweed where we got totally soaked and didn't find a replacement for dd2's worn-out-at-the-sleeve-cuffs zip-up hoodie but still felt like we'd had a good day.

Home the next day via Alnwick to look at the castle, where, in case there was anyone who wasn't aware, some scenes in the early Harry Potter films were filmed.

From there we went straight home apart from calling at Durham services again, for Costa and a 'win every time' £1 teddypicker machine that dd3 had been promised a go on if we didn't find another while we were away. Which we didn't.

Never did get round to sorting out that half price railcard offer.

"someone will die!"

2008-09-07T10:23:00.002+01:00

dd4 getting one of the buns she made yesterday while at my mum's...

K: "I want that one and that one and that one and that one and that one!" [there's pink icing and sugar sprinkles on them all, no chocolate, but they are choc. buns]
Me: "Oh. Are you going to choose one, then we can take the wrapper off and put it in a dish and you can go and sit down and eat it?"
K: "Well it's that one, but there are too many chocolates on it. Someone will die!"

She took a different bun and has gone back to the tv...

couple of bits of video...

2008-09-06T10:37:00.002+01:00

One's just plain silly...

One is very very funny (if you have a passing interest in US politics...)

And one is heartwrenching

Plastic free for a month?

2008-08-01T11:31:00.002+01:00

Christine Jeavans of Auntie Beeb is attempting to not accept or buy any plastic for a month. Interesting challenge! We already recycle most of our plastic waste, but not because our council accepts it. The neighbouring one has roadside refuse collection points with bins for nearly everything, so when dh is driving past that way he takes our stuff, which has usually been loitering in the kitchen for weeks, and bins it there. Our in-laws put everything with a recycle symbol on in their green bin, even though the council has a list of what not to put in, which is what we did too until dh found the layby with the bins.

But it would still be nicer to not have any to recycle, after all the mantra is "reduce, re-use, recycle" and there is a reason why recycle is last on the list!

And that's reminded me to look for a digester-cone type thing to go in the garden...

New blog link...

2008-06-15T00:03:00.004+01:00

I just added a link to my blog-roll. It's absolutely vital information for anyone considering buying slings, and I'm going to add it here too: Baby Sling Safety Please spread the link as far and wide as you can.

Happy, and safe! babywearing...

adverts like that really p*** me off!!

2008-05-02T22:40:00.002+01:00

I just uttered these words, at the end of a short rant. Dh said 'noooooo really?' :-|

The advert in question was the MiracleGro Organic ad, nauseating enough with its 'now we're starting a family...' schtick, I mean for goodness sake why wait?? If you've any inclination to go organic, just bloody do it! And you don't need something in a cardboard box, do you? Get yourself a composter or digester or wormery or do the no-dig thing and chuck your veg waste straight on the garden. What really got my goat, or gripped my sh*t as someone on a yahoogroup once said, was the 'it's 100% chemical free' line. Look honey, everything is made up of chemicals. Atoms, elements, compounds, molecules, suspensions, gas, liquid, solid... it's all chemicals dude. That's the whole big-thing point. Some chemicals are more useful to us than others, some more harmful. Chemistry is knowledge, understanding is obviously somewhat more difficult.

Oh and while we're on the subject of adverts, the one for Hofmann automatic garage doors, one might hope the automation includes switching the light on!!

It's only a game...

2008-04-21T18:41:00.003+01:00

Huge apologies to Deb for giving her the impression I was really really pissed off with her when it was more like mild pique and annoyance, coupled with amusement for 'n00b'-ness.

Also apologies to anyone who is fed up of the repeated invitations to play Packrat, I get bonuses for inviting friends and more when they accept.

And now the back-story. There's this game, on facebook, that Becky of bigmamaslings was kind enough to suck me into :-| Someone on a forum described it as being like collecting Panini stickers, lol. Now the outward premise of the game is to make your collection *at any cost* by stealing the cards from your friends. Everyone has 10 rats in their game friend list, along with any of their facebook friends that have the game installed, and one steals cards by swapping them with something from one's own pack. You can also buy cards, and get them as pop-up bonuses. Certain cards can only be found by making them with combinations of other cards, these tend to be the higher value, harder to find or make ones. Oh and the pack size is limited so you can't just collect credits and buy stuff up, you have to trade and make and vault to get what you need.

Generally speaking, whenever someone new to the game starts playing, they go round the packs in their friend list and steal what looks interesting or high value, it bumps up the player's level which gives access to other things. It's fine, totally understood etc. But most people, IME, play co-operatively, finding or buying things that their friends are collecting, not stealing things their friends need for their collections, and it's actually good fun finding random things for other people's collections in the rat pack or the markets, and dropping them in their packs as a surprise or a trade. It's addictive and absorbing and is eating up far too much of my time at the moment, lol.

So anyway. Yes it's a game, yes there are bigger problems in the world and in individuals' lives right now, and no I didn't mean to come over as distraught as perhaps I did. Just... don't mess with my pack, alright? ;-)

pyrena

2008-04-18T23:08:00.001+01:00

pyrena
Originally uploaded by trogette

kitty no3 arrived today. Will try to get better pics in daylight...

Pip and Halo3

2008-04-08T21:55:00.001+01:00

Pip and Halo3
Originally uploaded by trogette

Furbaby no.2

Phoebe, 5mo

2008-04-08T21:50:00.001+01:00

Phoebe, nearly 5mo
Originally uploaded by trogette

One of our new fur-babies :-)

april numpty

2008-04-02T12:54:00.001+01:00

april numpty
Originally uploaded by trogette

Got a few people with this April Fool pic on flickr, and now I need that 'hehe' smiley from CosyNostra...

adventures in motoring...

2008-04-01T20:31:00.006+01:00

What is it with cars? Getting to a certain age and then loads of stuff conking out at once. Ours has cost us a good bit of money this year already, but Lucy the Multipla really took the biscuit coming home from the Harrogate Nursery Fair that I've blogged on my business blog already. She'd been doing odd things for a few days but nothing that our local mechanic could suss out, so we set off as usual. The draggy-whooshy noise was there on the way but wasn't really giving me any problems as such. We got there, we trawled round, we chatted... I missed my Costa coffee! Was going to get one to drive home with but we stayed so long they closed the catering stands!

Got out, went 'oh crap look at the time!' Kirsty (of FrontBackandSides) rang up to say that we were just setting off and got a 'what??!!' type response... think we all thought we wouldn't be still there at 6.15! Paid for parking, ugh, set off home. Got to Pool and the dratted car wouldn't go into gear. On a mini-roundabout. Hmmm....

Cue more phonecalling, what's the number for the breakdown co, not sure how long we'll be, all that. But the clutch pedal released, and it seemed to be working fine, so we set off again. And all was well. Until we got to a traffic lights halfway up a long long hill... And then we had smoke! I have never seen Kirsty move as fast, grabbing her bags, my bag and her blagged DreamGenii pillow (seriously, jammy bugger!) and jumping out of the car. I was less worried as it smelled of something stuck rather than actual fire, iykwim. But I did put the hazard lights on, grab my phone and jump out. Much to the disgust of my fellow drivers! As if I'd chosen to break down! Am I not deserving more of sympathy than revulsion?? Whatever...

So after getting the location of the car through to the breakdown service operator (I'm at the junction of 2 A roads, I gave the numbers, how much more flaming specific do they want?? And no, the A660 doesn't run through Staffordshire as far as I know!) I said 'we're going to push the car into the pub carpark and wait inside.' And so, we went in the pub, found some helpful men, got the car smoothly into the car park and went and bought ourselves drinks. Offered drinks to said men but they demurred, bless them. And then talked about us as if we couldn't hear them. The Dyneley Arms does a very nice Sam Smiths Old Brewery Bitter though, and the two half-pints I had were well pulled too. But they stop serving food at 5pm on Sundays so Kirsty couldn't get herself a pudding.

The breakdown bloke turned up, eventually. We couldn't see the car park from where we were in the pub, and I didn't have any signal on my phone. So he was there for 10 minutes before actually coming in the pub to find us, apparently they're not allowed to go in pubs to find people! How ridiculous is that? And how come the control centre bloke didn't tell us? Grr!

So after a bumpy trip home, with a pregnant K and a me who forgot to go to the loo before setting off from the pub, we got back home. K had to get a taxi home from here because Jobsworth couldn't do the extra drop-off. A good day, with a lump at the end, I think!

So what's up with the car?? Well the local garage that we take it to for tyres and exhausts and stuff don't do gearbox-y stuff so it's gone to the people they take MOTs to, who think it was the clutch release bearing. £250 worth of parts and labour. Oh joy. Could have been much much worse I guess!

LOLZ...

2008-03-28T11:11:00.002Z

I'm a huge fan of web acronyms and abbreviations but I'm not so big on the bastardised English some people use, there are a lot of examples of it on ICanHasCheezburger. But there are also some darn funny captions and some v cute pictures...

see more crazy cat pics

oo summat I forgot...

2008-03-07T01:04:00.001Z

in my last blog. I've joined a gym. Not just any old gym, mind you. When have you known me to do things by halves? No... 'dillo is paying me wages by funding this: Club Titanic And I have my first spa treatment next week. Yum!

more from the hopeless blogger...

2008-02-22T13:19:00.002Z

I just posted over on BabyArmadillo News that I got reminded last night what a hopeless blogger I am. Well, yeah, hands up, fair cop, I'll go quietly... (yeah right!!)

So what's going on in the land of Trog? Hmmm... same ol' same ol' mostly. House is the same crap'ole that hasn't had owt done at it for ages, the neighbours are trying to sell and one of their viewers has said something about our garden being too scruffy *rolls eyes* Dh restrained himself from pointing out that we didn't want anyone that up-themselves for neighbours...

The kids are still growing like weeds (dd1 is a good 3in taller than me now I'm sure and dd4 is shaping up nicely as a prop...)

Am just grr-ing at a garage for being numpties. Car has a recall, we book in for recall (for Monday) rang today to ask how long it would take and it turns out they need to look at it to order the part in. Fine, no problem... except that the nearest Fiat dealerships to us aren't in our nearest town any more, oh no, one's in a village a couple of miles outside Wakefield and the other is in Cleckheaton. So it's not a case of popping down, it's a good 1&1/2hr round trip. For them to decide on the parts for something that's a standard recall. And if the woman on the phone said 'I'm not a technician' one more time...

Maybe Lucy can prod me to blog more regularly and you might get me commenting on other blogs too. I still prefer the flow of forums better though. And of course I can often (though, slacky! not atm) on one of the various IM networks that Trillian lets me connect to ;-)

100 Books

2007-07-17T23:18:00.000+01:00

Nicked from Lucy's blog

Look at the list of (100) books below.
Bold the ones you’ve read.
Italicise the ones you want to read.
Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in.
Movies don’t count.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

white coat idolisation...

2007-05-31T20:06:00.000+01:00

What is it that leads otherwise educated and sensible people to believe everything that someone says simply because they're wearing a white coat or a nametag that says 'qualified medical professional' on it? I can't wrap my head round it. I've been told in the past couple of days that reminding a pregnant person that she does not have to go to hospital appointments is irresponsible. Really? It's a simple statement of fact. And is it any more irresponsible than telling someone to go when you don't know whether the person they'll see will know their arse from their elbow?

Gosh, couldn't possibly suggest that a mother relies on her instincts over what some white-coated protocol peddler...

2007-05-20T23:48:00.000+01:00

Got photos now of the aforementioned tankini. here's the outside...

pretty, no?

And here's the inside...

Now obviously this is simply not designed for going swimming as such. Because people who go to swim don't want pretty cossies, it's only people who go to pose by the hotel pool or on the beach who want pretty. *sigh*

So now I'm going to take my scissors and cut all that unnecessary crap out and hope it still looks ok :|

Did I say sane??

2007-05-20T20:12:00.001+01:00

I blogged a couple of weeks ago about not being able to find a tankini without bra support. Well today I went to Meadowhall, to meet a friend and continue the hunt for the elusive support-less cossie. The plan, roughly speaking, was for us to meet there then go on to Decathlon, she'd looked when I ranted before and said there were several, and then we were going to go back to Meadowhall for coffee at Costa and a chat, both of us feeling the need for some RL conversation without children present (slung older babies notwithstanding :) ) J was going to text me with her phone number and I was going to ring when I set off, since she's in the neighbourhood, relatively speaking. So I kept checking my phone, no message. Looked on YahooIM and she's not online, so I pinged a mutual friend to ask if she had her number, which said friend duly gave. So I texted to say I was on my way...

When I arrived, 10 mins after I'd said, which I don't think is too bad for someone used to running on home-ed time, J wasn't there, so I looked round, no sign, I headed off to M&S to look at cossies and tried to ring. 'This number is temporarily unavailable...' hmmmm... Back to Costa, still no sign. I had a good look at the number, there's an extra digit :|

So I rang dh to ask him to check if I've saved the number to my phone properly, and yes... so then can he sign in to Trillian and see if anyone's online who would have had it, he pings a couple of people but no reply. So then can he find out where the Decathlon store is in Sheffield, which he does, and explains to me, and I know roughly where it is so I set off...

And here's where it gets fun...

I was going from Meadowhall (the black circle here) to Bramhall Lane (just about where the red circle is)

On leaving Meadowhall I saw signs for the ring road, so, naturally enough since I knew that I wanted to be on the ring road, I followed them. The thing is, Sheffield has an inner ring road and an outer ring road. You can see on the map of the outer ring road that it's not actually a ring, more like a quarter of an oval. So perhaps there's some explanation somewhere for me ending up in Derbyshire, turning round at the junction where I've drawn a circle on this pic:

Quite a long way away... There's obviously something wrong with stating 'Outer Ring Road' on a road sign when 'ring road' will suffice to confuse the incomers. It seems like Sheffield don't want the supporters of teams visiting Sheffield United to find Bramhall Lane either, going by the lack of signage when I found my way back towards Sheffield itself. Driving through Woodseats reminded me of Bishopston, where Born are based, so if there's anyone in that area, it might well be a good place for a natural/ethical baby products shop *grin*

I got to the *inner* ring road and spotted a sign saying Bramhall Lane, finally. So I made it to Decathlon, which is big, but there weren't any tankinis at all, only triangle and balconette tops and different styles of bottoms. It obviously shows though that people want tankinis without support, since they'd obviously sold out! I had a wander round while I was there, and bought a float belt to help dd3 when learning swimming strokes (she can swim, in as much as she can propel herself through the water, but I thought it would be good if she didn't have to worry about sinking when figuring out how the arms and legs go together for breaststroke...) I had a look at the bike seats while I was there too, but I still want a Wee Ride and while there was mention of front-mounted seats on the bike seat blurb, there wasn't a slot for one.

So from Decathlon back to Meadowhall then, back to M&S to buy the tankini I'd seen there and loved, even though it not only has a support shelf it has sculpted cups, eurgh! I got there and updated dh, who told me that he now had J's phone number, so I rang, and we met up. Turned out J had my number from before I swapped the shop number to my new phone, so when she texted me it was lost in the ether, along with mine to her. She'd been to M'hall and hung around, mooched about feeling bored and eventually left. We'd even hung around in the same bookshop and missed each other, doh! Anyway it was about 4pm, so she made arrangements and came and met me, we had coffee and cake and chatted, it was lovely :) Her son is a little charmer too.

Will blog about the cossie itself in a few when I've taken pics of it...

ugh, gurus...

2007-05-17T20:41:00.000+01:00

Morag's blog

Not much more to say really. *sigh*

the only sane woman in the country

2007-04-30T21:32:00.000+01:00

Am I really the only sane woman left in Great Britain? Or can someone tell me where I can find two-piece swimwear that doesn't mean that I have to make special dispensation for the fact that *shock horror* I have breasts?

Seriously, I have spent my afternoon trawling my local town with my two older daughters looking for swimwear for all of us. There's some lovely stuff out there, funky patterns, fun details, all that. But we couldn't find a single adult-sized two-piece that didn't have either triangle tops (oh there are plenty of those in the girls' sizes too, and really don't get me started on that little piece of social engineering) or formed cups or halter necks or those really annoying support shelf things, have you tried to take one of those off when it's wet, and you're dealing with a small child? Ridiculous.

A few years ago the shops were filled with tankinis, I had one from River Island that was perfect, plain black long-length top and shorts, little silvery sewn-on badges, no fuss, no stupid 'look at my tits!' malarky. Easy to pull up or down for feeding babies, enough coverage for my ample backside, perfect. But trends change, don't they? Even long-length tops were in short supply today.

All I want is something comfortable, maybe a fun fabric, that doesn't shout 'look, I have breasts!!' and covers my arse. That's all. Oh except that I want something similar for my daughters that doesn't scream soft porn when they're only 10 and 11! Surely it's not too much to ask? Surely I can't be the only mother of pre-teen girls who don't fit the children's sizes any more? Answers on a postcard...

pop quiz - can you name this disease??

2007-04-28T23:18:00.000+01:00

symptoms: general mardiness followed by high temp, which settles down to be followed about 36hrs later by vomming and rash. Rash is small spots that are red when child is hot or agitated, vanish when not and leave 'goosebump' type feeling on the skin??

And meanwhile if anyone would come and look after everyone else while I doggedly get k into doing the same thing at the same time each day for a fortnight, please form a queue here 4

evidence for the LEA

2007-04-16T11:23:00.000+01:00

Warning, bit of a jumping-about stream of consciousness ramble, this one. LMK if it's utterly intelligable and I'll see if I can clarify. But don't expect miracles ;)

Late last night, much later than I 'should' have done, cos I was sleepy at midnight, ahem, I was reading Gill's blog and came across the stuff about home-ed blogging = evidence for the LEA and the idea that it looked bad for those who don't blog. There's the obvious parallel here, for those who know home-ed politics, with the home visit issue. Except for a couple of things.

People blog because they want to. They provide evidence for the LEA because they are compelled to by law when the LEA make informal enquiries.

I'm not a fan of home visits, or, in fact, of any kind of regular monitoring. But if you're in a situation where you find yourself needing to meet the LEA's informal enquiries, and the most appropriate way for you is a home visit, then that's what you do, isn't it? The problems arise when LEA officials *insist* on home visits and don't accept other forms of evidence. I really can't see the day when blogging becomes the favoured form of evidence in that way!

So... why do home-edders blog?

For me it's because I like being on the 'net, and I have good friends who blog, and I'm trying to be in with the in-crowd, lol. And also because I like having a good old soapbox. But then I guess I can't be accused here of providing evidence for the LEA.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, nothing really. Just that I hoped it might provide a less-well-travelled space to generate a bit of clarity on the issue. kwim?

visual DNA

2007-04-16T11:21:00.000+01:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

So hard with these things when things don't entirely match where you are...

a done deal

2007-04-09T16:14:00.001+01:00

haircut1
Originally uploaded by trogette.

hair hair everywhere...

2007-04-09T16:13:00.001+01:00

haircut2
Originally uploaded by trogette.

Happy Easter!

2007-04-08T02:33:00.000+01:00

However and whatever you celebrate around now, I hope it brings Spring-like new beginnings :-) I've been really happy to hang out and be domestic this past week, but now I'll have to knuckle down and get a ton of shop work done. Tomorrow promises to be pleasantly warm and chocolate-laden for the children, and hopefully sleep-laden for me!

K took herself to bed at 7pm earlier. Which in other households might be fine, but seeing as she didn't wake up 'til around 11am, when I came back to bed (I'd booked myself in for a leg-waxing at 9am, I wanted to get it done with enough time for my legs to settle down in time for the show next Friday and Saturday and when the woman said '9am?' I thought it was alright because I'd be taking M to drama class at 9am, so I said 'well it will be a few minutes after nine,' which was fine, of course, but then dh said on Thursday evening 'but there isn't any drama class this weekend' and we were out at Cannon Hall and the farm park next door all day Friday so I didn't get chance to rearrange it. So I went to bed about 2.30, leaving dh watching baseball on the MLB website, set my alarm, and as is usual at the moment I don't seem to sleep well when I know I have to get up, though H said she woke up at the same time I did so perhaps there was something particularly noisy going on at 7am? Anyway, I got up, and had a bit of time, and decided to play Lego Star Wars II which is really good fun :-) until I had to go, but I didn't finish the bit of story I was playing and it doesn't save mid section, so naturally when I came back I had to carry on playing. Actually it was really nice to have a bit of daytime alone-time to just mong out and do my own thing, even if I did have to do it quietly! In the end it took me 'til just before 11am to finish the bit I was doing, so that was when I went back to bed. Are you still with me?? LOL) it's Not a Good Thing here. As the fact that she's still here at nearly 3am shows. *sigh* Goodness knows what time we'll be up tomorrow, but as long as she doesn't fall asleep on the way home from MIL's it'll be alright I guess.

Oh bother, what else was I going to blog? Hmmm. Must have been really important...

gordon ramsey...

2007-03-25T20:32:00.000+01:00

say what you like about him but he writes a clear recipe that comes out pretty good :) Except the quantities were a bit off, no way was there enough rice for the 6 of us, lol. Malaysian chicken curry was tonight's offering... dd1 said that she expected it to be quicker but uhm that means *hurrying* at certain points...

autonomous living and mornings!

2007-03-24T21:13:00.000Z

We don't do mornings well here. We seem to have a strong 'evening' meme that leads to people staying up later and later and then obviously not getting up in the morning. So we've imposed (it's been in place a long time) a suppertime so that ostensibly dd3 goes to bed. Not v autonomous at all and I'm a bit uncomfy about it but without it...

Last night was a case in point, my mum came round to look after the kids while we went out, and even though I had a fixed bedtime of 9pm myself when I was little, for some reason Mum doesn't think it's a good thing to continue when she's here. So I rang at 11 to find myself talking to A, and then my mum, and then M who was just about to have supper.

This morning, I got M up at 8.30 to go to drama class and she said she was too tired, so I said she needed to sleep and to go back to bed. And she really was too tired, even though after a few minutes she got up again and we dashed through getting dressed and she went, she's been really whiny and hard work all day, because she's tired.

So what to do? Forget about doing stuff in the morning? Hope it will all balance out? Just not have my mum to babysit in future???

How do bedtimes work in autonomous houses? Does it make a difference if people are sharing rooms and does it make a difference how many adults there are in the house?

I'm Luna Lovegood!

2007-03-20T15:53:00.000Z

You scored as Luna Lovegood. You're an extreme introvert and because of this, are also a deep thinker. You ponder things others would never dream of pondering and stand with your beliefs without backing down. You find it more valuable to daydream than to socialize, because there's so much more going on in your head than others'. Most people don't understand it, but you seem to prefer it that way.

Luna Lovegood

69%

Albus Dumbledore

63%

Ron Weasley

59%

Sirius Black

59%

Harry Potter

59%

Hermione Granger

53%

Neville Longbottom

50%

Bellatrix Lestrange

47%

Percy Weasley

44%

Oliver Wood

38%

Severus Snape

38%

Remus Lupin

38%

Draco Malfoy

28%

Lord Voldemort

25%

Harry Potter Character Combatibility Test
created with QuizFarm.com

Could have been worse I guess :-|

My ears are still ringing

2007-03-11T21:45:00.000Z

went to a gig this afternoon to see a friend's band, they're called HD7 and they were playing at Marsden Band Club. They do 'classic rock,' the sets ranged from Pink Floyd through the Who to ACDC with a bit of Ocean Colour Scene and they're pretty good for hammer-chewers *grin* But I think I was sat a little too close as I can still hear whistling :S Dd1 enjoyed it but didn't recognise most of the music, I must dust off the albums and rescue the turntable from under the laundry...

snarky? moi?

2007-03-11T20:46:00.000Z

You're Totally Sarcastic

You sarcastic? Never! You're as sweet as a baby bunny.
Seriously, though, you have a sharp tongue - and you aren't afraid to use it.
And if people are too wimpy to deal with your attitutde, then too bad. So sad.

How Sarcastic Are You?

Lucy the Multipla's Adventures

2007-03-09T23:20:00.000Z

Lucy the Multipla has many adventures. It comes of being an MPV I suppose, she gets used for various purposes other than your usual taxi-ing and shopping. Today she's carried doors. Interior house doors. This was acheived by folding the back seats forward, the middle front seat forward and the passenger-side front seat back as far as it would go. The doors were put in through the boot, shoved under the boot cover flap thingy and wedged in place by the headrest on the front passenger-side seat. Dh drove from the door shop in town to Brighouse to a meeting and back home again, with his very sore rib* and then we rang for chinese takeaway from our lovely local where they write down the order in sinography and know us because we order meals with beansprouts in place of the onions. Really who likes that much onion?? So a phone-call, a 'discussion' with dd4, I forget what about, a trip to the co-op to use the cash machine and buy essential supplies (milk, beer, viennese whirls...) while swearing at the sloppy parking in one of the village car-parks here meaning that I had to walk another 40 feet, lol, and then up to the lovely takeaway. Another lovely thing they do is pack big-ish orders in boxes. V handy. Except when the only place you have to put said box is on a flat door. From the takeaway to home it's 3 or 4 lefts and 3 or 4 rights, great fun stopping the box from sliding into the boot, heh. And she's back to being the family bus now, with the seats back up and the doors inside ready for the joiner to call tomorrow.

*Dh in his infinite wisdom was sawing up some bits of MDF that have been in our house for 2 and a half years waiting to be used for skirting and doorframing. Don't get me started on offgassing, really. He did one piece, then turned and somehow fell on the pile and we think he cracked a rib, or at least badly bruised it. I do keep shoving him where the arnica and symphytum tablets live...

Happiest town in the North

2007-03-09T20:11:00.000Z

Happiest town in the North

Not sure how long the link will stay active, they only used to stay for a day. BBC Dorset have their crow about Bournemouth.

Funny thing, happiness, and 6,000 people doesn't seem like there would be enough people in each town to make it representative. Still, I like it here :-)

Please sign this petition

2007-03-09T00:21:00.000Z

Independent Midwives Petition

Edited to clean up ramblings... I was a bit ill and rambly when I wrote what was here before!

We have all this public/private partnership stuff going on. Now fair enough this is all so much pocket-lining for cronies, but I think it's less pocket-lining than the old system of the public sector deciding to build something and some big company building it... there's more opportunity for profit with PPP but the companies have to get more involved... but that's entirely by the by.

Really the issue is this: what does this govt have against choice? And in particular, it seems, choice for parents. Home-ed, indy schools, indy midwives, anything else? Oh yes, childminding regulations mean that I would have to register if I was to do a child-swap with a friend on a regular basis, which would mean a whole load of unnecesary-to-us safety provision, so it's a non-starter. The people at the top are parents themselves, don't they see it?

Must get that shrug smiley sorted...

rude? moi?

2007-03-06T18:03:00.000Z

Apparently the following statement is rude:

"I personally believe school is, in itself, coercive and damaging and only of benefit to children who would be more damaged at home, of which there are thankfully very few."

What do you think? Does it say 'I think parents who send their children to school have problems at home' as I've been told today, at length? Or do you think that perhaps the assumption that that is what I meant also assumes that I'm a judgemental person?

IOW is it me or is it them??

rock on South Ashford Priest!

2007-03-06T16:44:00.000Z

The guy has got the point exactly.

Interesting stuff about Canon Law supporting the parental authority.

interesting concept, the library...

2007-03-01T20:17:00.000Z

while at the library, once we'd located dd1 (anyone who knows Huddersfield library will know it's a bit sprawly with lots of different bits to it so when she wasn't where we expected her to be the locating bit took some time... eventually found her tucked in a corner reading Jurassic Park...) we were looking at the sci-fi section and dd2 found a Doctor Who novel. Dd1 put it back saying 'ah I could just buy it from Waterstones' Now I understand the book collection thing but... well... I dunno. Just seems a bit of a waste to decide to buy it, or something, when it was right there to borrow. Maybe it's just from being skinter when I was growing up.

We did already have 7 books between us and only one ticket at the time though, lol. But not the book that I really wanted to borrow because they had nearly every other book in the series but not the one after the ones I read the other weekend when I was too ill to do anything else. Grr. I'll have to get the online thing sorted so I can find out where it is.

Stationery Box are closing down so we managed to spend £50. Funny how that happens... Legit business expenses too, mostly. But perhaps not the sweets.

oh the joys of working from home...

2007-02-28T14:12:00.000Z

As I've posted on my business blog, one of my suppliers ceased trading on 31st december and I've found out, from another retailer, today. I'm soooooo naffed off it's untrue. And I'm posting here because I get really mixed messages from the Universe sometimes. Am I supposed to be in business at all? Am I supposed to be in business but not making any money? Why give myself this frustration? Argh!!!

We're suffering sleep-creep here atm. It's not good.

the weekly cook-in and other inconsequential minutiae

2007-02-24T22:19:00.000Z

the choosing a recipe thing is going pretty well, apart from the incredibly expensive tastes my two older daughters have and the disaster with the crabs (moral of the story, frozen crab is worthless and crabs need to be *big* to 'dress' at home successfully.) Tonight's choice was paella, v v tasty with the choriso and fresh thyme (next door neighbour's plant grows through our fence) and saffron, next time needs more saffron. But I must remember to have the liquid really really bubbling before I put seafood-y things in it.

Tomorrow (we missed a couple of weeks, with the crab and me being ill last week) we're having a Swedish lamb recipe from the Green and Black's recipe book I got for my birthday. Which will be really interesting, though I've had a meat recipe with chocolate in before, partridge in rich chocolate sauce for Christmas dinner pre-children.

Woohoo dd4's just fallen asleep!

There are rumblings that Virgin Media won't be able to show Sky One for much longer, which is a drag for us fans of Bones and Battlestar Galactica. Downloading and converting to wmf to play through the xbox or figuring out exactly why we can't get the sound through the tv from the pc is going to be the way to go apparently. Anyone with good links or info on how to sort that out please lmk!!

PS

2007-02-19T19:37:00.000Z

have I said how much I hate having a cough?

how babies are designed...

2007-02-19T19:01:00.000Z

thanks for the challenge Gill :|

I suppose it's pretty simple though. Human babies are born a bit like kangaroo babies, in that they're not mature enough at birth to do stuff that most mammal babies can, like ape babies being able to hang on to mum's fur so she can get on with foraging and whatnot, or hooved herbivores being able to walk pdq so the herd can leg it away from the lions. In a cave-mum situation babies can't be left alone cos of the sabre toothed tiger and bears and shit, plus the hypothermia thing from lack of fur, so it's utterly counter-intuitive and counter-evolutionary to expect a baby to not call to mum in some way or other, and I'm big on psychic communication with mum/baby relationships, if cave-baby is on its own for any length of time. So that's the basic design thing with babies, they need human contact to feel safe and secure and they're programmed to communicate the need so that the bear doesn't get them. On a more esoteric level, there's aura-sharing and chakras over nipples and if you're into that kind of thing you'll kwim.

The bf stuff I can't separate here from my annoyance at the person on the forum I was talking about before, with her talk of mostly expressing and not being able to wait until she could unwrap the bottles in her cupboard and routines and dissing my suggestion of a co-sleeper (not actually sharing with her, but having an open-sided cot or crib thing next to her bed) because she doesn't believe babies should be in bed with Mum and Dad. Cos how is a baby going to be nurtured *energetically* with a bottle or while in a cot/pram/car-seat/bouncy-chair/moses basket and not in contact with anyone?

So to sum up: I reckon babies need human contact and regular doses of energetic nurturing, at whatever frequency they deem fit. Cave-mum didn't have a clock, or a baby monitor and we're not all that different now. Seems daft to expect babies to have caught up in evolution with society's changes in the last 200-300 years. And other such 'natural parenting' platitudes.

meaning to blog...

2007-02-17T23:35:00.000Z

I do keep meaning to blog. But then I wonder what I'm going to say. I might get round to posting about what the kids are up to, sometime! I can't do the stream of consciousness stuff like some people and tbh I don't like looking like I'm soapboxing (yes really!) that much. OK maybe that's not entirely true, lol. I'll have to remember to use this space when I get frustrated with attitudes in other places, like people who say they're going to try to breastfeed but really either don't understand how bf works, and therefore how babies are really designed, iykwim, or actually don't want to but can't say so, for some reason. Either way it's grim and I should stay away, damn my inner spammer for keeping me posting...

hey ho. Will get back to being ill...

Backyardigans rock!

2007-01-24T17:48:00.000Z

I love backyardigans, it's ace. The incongruous music (New Orleans blues and steel drums for and Ice Age 'cavepeople' story?!) the characters (Pablo... Pablo...... Pablo!!) and storylines (the River Nile has dried up because the princess is rude?!?!) are just brilliant. Got to see it.

Meanwhile, dd1 and 2 are currently clearing dd2's room out for NTL (or should that be Virgin Media??) to come and put the old cable box in there. Should have been done last week but some numpty didn't put the two jobs of fitting a new sky+-style HD tv box and moving the old box on the same work order. fab customer service and efficiency there. Hope Virgin do better :|

dd4 and I are poorly, we both have colds. dh has flu. real flu, not man-flu. honest. And that's reminded me I'm supposed to be going to get lemsips. Does anyone want to come round and do my washing up?

Oh no, we're starting to look like a proper home-ed family...

2007-01-21T12:49:00.000Z

Dd1 was talking about New Years Resolutions... I suggested that once a week she gets a recipe from one of our large collection of vastly underused cookbooks and cooks it herself, with help of course. Well dd2 wanted in on the act of course, so now we have each one doing alternate weeks, one day of the weekend and so far we've had home-made pizza, moules mariniere and roast chicken (which is of course something we would do, but actually using a recipe is a different matter... but then the recipe wasn't folowed because I wasn't supervising, I mean helping, ahem!) But coo, it looks like education!

As does the Happy Mais strewn over the table. I keep meaning to take photos of the elaborate creations but perfectionism means that they get scrapped before I get round to getting the camera out, lol.

And here's a quick 'squeee'. If you know why I'm squeeing then *grin* but if not I can't tell you cos it's seeeeecrit. Sorry!

new year, new blog...

2007-01-20T12:36:00.001Z

Just a new space for posting family-ish stuff. :)