NotSheep

I’m losing the habit of regular blogging here. Must try harder. I’ve just realised that apart from my post checking if the WP upgrade was working, the last thing I wrote was ten days ago. I was off-line for half that time, and it’s been too sunny to be indoors ever since. So it’s back to dredging the depths of my memory, with help from Twitter, to try to figure out what’s been happening. And another looonnnnnnggggg post. The short version: friends, sun, sea, sand, ice-cream, caravan, garden, French practice, interesting people buying stuff from me, annoying midwife. Doesn’t sound bad overall, does it?

On Friday (not last Friday, the Friday before that - it’s bad, isn’t it?) we went to visit friends who are soon moving overseas. They had a baby three weeks ago, and have three other children under six, so they’re pretty busy right now! It was lovely to see them again, and E (the mum) and I went into town together - abandoning all other children with K (the dad) - to get passport photographs of the littlest one taken. Ever tried to arrange it so that a three-week-old not only keeps her eyes open for the photo but actually looks straight at the camera? That took a while…I did get to cuddle the baby though, and that made me even think this pregnancy-business might be all worthwhile

(One of the midwives phoned me during the photo-attempt, and asked if I was going to have certain blood-tests done. I said no, and explained why - because the supplements I’m taking would make the results meaningless - and she said “well, it’s all about choice”. Which seemed good at the time.)

On the way home, Jack made me laugh when he said thoughtfully, “It’s weird that Daddy got you pregnant just by saying pregnant.” I’m not sure where that particular thought process originated.

On Saturday (not last Saturday, the Saturday before that…), as mentioned, I did a WordPress upgrade, in an attempt to correct the errors that had been appearing ever since the php upgrade on the server. It seemed to go smoothly - there are still a couple of plugins not functioning, but I haven’t actually properly looked at them yet, so fingers crossed they won’t be difficult to upgrade/correct. Once I was sure the blog was working (a girl’s gotta have priorities), we all took off to the caravan - taking two cars, so no packing people and stuff in to bursting point - yay! In fact the children shared themselves between the two vehicles to the point where we were actually driving with one child in each row of seats, which certainly made for a peaceful journey.

In the afternoon the boys took themselves off to various parts of the caravan site, apart from Barney, who spent some time in the caravan trying to get a digital tv box working - when asked why, he said, “So we can watch Eurovision tonight”. I pointed out that it was on a channel we could receive directly on the tv in the caravan, so the digibox wasn’t needed, and he exclaimed with relief “Thank goodness for that!” Should I be worried at how fascinated my children are by this song contest? During the show, Freddy wanted to know if anyone had ever entered a song just to make people laugh…hm, I’d have said that would be most of them. I didn’t stay up - after seeing the calibre of the first five or so entries (and wondering just how bad the songs that didn’t make it through must have been), I took myself off to bed, and was soon asleep.

We woke on Sunday morning (not yesterday…) to a gloriously sunny day. I was given a cup of tea in bed (and asked, “Is that cooked enough?” Er…) before getting up and hanging Barney’s one-and-only shirt over the deck to dry. He does own more than one shirt, but didn’t pack any extras. There’s always one, it seems… we spent the time doing some French revision (well, practice papers), then he joined his brothers in playing around the site with all the other children who were around. It’s nice to be up there on a weekend occasionally (although we love having the place to ourselves during the weeks too!) We spent some time down on the beach in the afternoon, and brought some of it back with us in our shoes. Scratchy left in the evening, as he’d work on Monday.

Someone (looks accusingly at eldest) taught my youngest to demand that people “say please!” when they want anything from him. This would be fine if he would settle for us saying it once, but he likes to hear it several times…

On Monday we went into the town, although I can’t remember why now. I took a bunch of kids and a bunch of coupons to Burger King and fed the lot of us for the grand total of £6, which I thought was quite impressive - and fortunate, for when we returned to the caravan, I decided it was much too hot to do any kind of heating-up-of-food, and we had cold chicken and good crusty bread with hummus for dinner. And coleslaw. Lots of coleslaw. Jack discovered he loved coleslaw, and ate half a family-sized container of it. He didn’t even stop when I told him it was vegetables

Tuesday morning was still bright, but breezier, and we hung out on the site for the morning. Freddy and Toby had a debate over a sudoku book - Freddy saying “It’s my sudoku!” and Toby arguing, “No! It’s my work!” In the afternoon, in an attempt to convince Toby to have a nap, I put everyone in the car and we drove off to a nearby town which has a lovely seafront with a great playground. Afterwards we went to buy ice-creams; the ice-cream shop owner was very interested in home-education and we’d a good chat about that. Over the years we’ve been home-educating, I’ve found that the responses I get have changed. At first it was nearly always “oh, I didn’t know you could do that!” but more and more often now, I’m hearing, “oh yes, we know someone who…”

There are two sites for touring caravans next to ours, and one of them was inhabited last week by a very small caravan and two sisters who must have been in their 80s. They were lovely ladies, and thoroughly enjoyed the company of my boys (especially Jack, I think, who took to stopping and talking to them frequently). On Tuesday evening I went out for a short walk and was asked to see if I could fix their television. One of them had asked the other how to turn up the volume, the other had said it was the second button across the front, the first had counted from the wrong end and detuned it. She was very grateful when I managed to tune it in again, telling me it would save her from hearing “Now we could have been watching tv if you hadn’t…” all evening

On Wednesday, we had a lazy morning, during which the midwife from Friday’s call phoned me again, and announced that she had consulted with a haematologist and my GP (neither of whom has ever laid eyes on me, and none of this done with my consent) and they’d all decided I needed to be taking iron supplements (er, no…) and that she had arranged a prescription. Nice of her to make all these decisions for me…I expressed how cross I was at being told it was all about choice and then it being made clear the choice only existed as long as I was making what she considered to be the right choices, and she tried to tell me that the haematologist had been my idea - which was nonsense. In the end I told her I was considering her involvement in my pregnancy and would let her know what I decided, and hung up. Very cross.

We drove home on Wednesday afternoon - it was Barney’s last chance to get to a Scout meeting before Scout Camp, and we thought it might be quite a good idea to have the info about the camp. George and Freddy also went to Cubs, and came back with yet more badges. The pile of badges waiting to be sewn on is now about thirty-something high…

I had advertised a couple of items for sale in the local paper, and got home to find the ads had gone in sooner than I’d expected, so there were lots of phone messages. I spent Thursday ringing people back about them, and a couple of people came to look (and buy). One person said, “Oh, just give me your postcode, I’ll put it in the sat-nav” - and then rang three times during the 20-minute journey for directions. The last person who came turned out to be one of those fascinating people you occasionally meet - a New Zealander who’d been transplanted here, started a hairdressing business, branched out into various alternative therapies, and then found his passion in animal rescue - all kinds of animals. He’s invited us to go and visit his animals anytime, and we certainly will

The rest of Thursday and much of Friday were spent in the garden, enjoying the sun (and wondering if we were the only place in the UK getting any, given the tweets coming from people in other parts). We’ve a patio in one corner of the garden which is quite a little sun-trap and which is also very private, due to the arrangement of houses and windows on houses and trees around the garden, so I was able to free my bump without worrying about the neighbours - although I did wonder how visible it was to the helicopter which flew overhead. The boys got their super-soakers out, and I yelled to Twitter “Super-soaker fight!” - but sent it to the wrong recipient on my mobile phone, so presumably I’ll get a phone-call requesting an explanation the next time my mother turns her phone on

I also had a phone-call from one of the midwives (not the same one) wanting to make arrangements for getting cylinders of oxygen and entonox delivered - and never a word about blood-tests or doctors or anything else - think I must have scared them). The cylinders are to be delivered at the end of next week - which make the birth seem reassuringly close, but really, let’s face it, it’ll be mid-July, won’t it?

Scratchy, having spent the last two or three years making fun of me (and the three older boys) for doing Sudoku and various other logic-puzzles, got hooked on Sudoku himself, which caused great mirth for the rest of us

(In the meantime, I’m now doing Killer Sudoku in a magazine plus Hashi, Hanjie and Hitori on-line, so perhaps I shouldn’t laugh too hard at him )

On Saturday we did some tidying-up in the garden - trimming bushes etc - and played in the paddling-pool. On Saturday evening Scratchy was filling the bathtub with water so that I could have a soak in it, when Toby went in to investigate, leaned over it - ready for bed, in pyjamas and all - and fell in. He was perfectly fine, but a bit miffed

Sunday morning was more of the same, but after my nap (er, I mean, Toby’s nap…well, that was the intention), it was getting cloudy so we put some things away in preparation for the inevitable (we thought) rain. Not sure it ever actually arrived, though, and this morning is, once again, warm and sunny, so I think that’ll be our plans for the day arranged then

If this publishes successfully, without giving me any errors, then I might have succeeded in sorting out the problems of the last few days - through a reluctant upgrade, admittedly, but then a reluctant upgrade that works is better than a non-working blog, right?

If you pick up any errors, please use the Contact Form to let me know.

Errors won’t be fixed immediately, because the “minutes” in the title refers to how long I now have to pack and get everyone into the car (cars!) because we are off to the caravan and beach for a few days. See y’all later

Edit: Seems to have worked. I’m off!

This having dogs business is great; the exercise and fresh air are doing us all good This morning we headed off to some parkland set on a hill; as well as woods and gardens there’s even a castle. There were quite a few people walking their dogs; we got chatting to one couple and discovered that we already knew each other through an on-line dog rescue forum We even let the pups off their leads for a while, since there was a wide-open area to run where we could see them, and no roads anywhere near - and I was very impressed by how well they did

Back for lunch, then I cleaned the kitchen and Scratchy went to basketball; my kitchen is probably now about as clean as it was when I was heavily pregnant and heavily nesting.

Still playing with Twitter too, and trying to decide if it’s worth upgrading my WP to 2.2 so I can run the Twitter plugin

Blogger has just allowed me to sign in for the first time in weeks. I’ve not even been able to load the sign-in page for ages. So those of you who have Blogger blogs - beware! I shall be doing much commenting today! Well, this morning anyway, since I won’t be here this afternoon

If the periodic wailing coming from Jack is any indication, he is coming down with the same thing from which I’m recovering. (I hope. I mean, I hope I’m recovering, not that I hope he’s coming down with it.)

Jack is not a good patient - he makes a lot of fuss when he’s not well. As a result, he gets sympathy for the first couple of hours, then we’ve all had enough.

Oh, and the too-light-for-old-and-otherwise-eyes-blue links in the sidebar are now a slightly-darker-blue. Better?

And I’ve just discovered I’ve no search-box. I’ll have to rectify that too.

I’m sick - as in, I can’t swallow, I ache all over, I’m hot then cold then hot then cold again, and I was delirious (not in a good way) all night. So since I’m no use to anyone in any other way, I changed my blog-theme. Comments aren’t threading and the recent posts widget refuses to show anything less than ten posts (so I’ve removed it until I figure it out), and I’ve decided that widgets are a pain in the neck, but other than that, I think it all works. Let me know if you find anything that’s broken.

I got tagged by Allie to tell you weird stuff!

Six weird things about me: THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

Hm, where to start

1. When I work out at the gym, I set the exercise machines to run for 9 minutes or 18 minutes or 27 minutes - any multiple of 9 will do. The reason? The little display has 18 columns, and it bothers me when they correspond to odd units of time like eighteen-tenths of a minute.

2. My appendix was in the wrong place. When it had to be removed, it took them a while to find it.

3. I find Lord of the Rings boring. Star Wars too - I fell asleep during it twice (once at a drive-in movie theatre).

4. I don’t watch television. Consequently I often have no idea about things that become part of “mainstream culture”. But I don’t consider that becoming acquainted with “mainstream culture” would be worth the many hours of my life that it would take, so I’m not bovvered. Do I look bovvered? (Did I get that right?)

5. I’m not “trying for a girl”, and never have.

6. I often eat breakfast in bed. About 11 p.m.

People I’m tagging (quick as I can, because it seems like nearly everyone’s been tagged already):
Sharon
Hazel
Jax
June (now that she’s finally awake ;-))
Unshelled
Sally

…for all UK home-ed blogs - click “join” in the green box over there :arrow:

It’s been a quiet day around here - that’s “quiet” as in “very little noise”, not as in “not much happening”. I’ve been busy planning and organising various things. One of those things was the birth of a new blogring, much like the Early Years ring, but without a focus on any particular age-group. I figured since half of my own lot were past the EY age-group now, it might be good to link a few blogs with similarly-aged children. So if you have your own blogs (and if not, why not?! ;-)) - click here and join I’ve stuck the box-thingy at the top of my sidebar for now, just to give it a bit of startup publicity - you should see it over there :arrow:

As well as that, I’ve been writing a long list of things we’d like to do and places we’d like to see before some of our children run off to France. There’s so much we’d like to do, and the time is just zooming past. I did think of working out, but thinking was as far as I got. The boys entertained themselves for most of the day - much GameBoying (with link cables) and reading and a bit of computering going on. At one point I went upstairs to see what everyone was doing and found four boys in Barney and Henry’s room - I was told it was “a Pokemon party”. Not being even faintly interested in Pokemon, I didn’t ask for details

One good thing about being sick in the first week of December is that when you disappear into your bedroom for the afternoon - to do, uh, preparation for the weeks ahead - your children assume you’ve gone to bed and leave you alone.

Mostly.

Jack (pushing door - it’s locked): Mummy!
Me: What?
Jack: What are you doing?
Me (faking sick voice): Resting!
A few seconds of silence.
Jack: Then what are those noises in your room?
Me: Uh, I’m writing a letter.

He seemed satisfied with that, though I think he came back to listen through the door again a little while later

All the Christmas gifts have been wrapped, except for those that haven’t been bought yet. I’m going to have to brave the shops again at least one more time I’d buy on-line, but it’s getting a bit close now, so the shops it will have to be. Most of the outstanding stuff is for people outside the immediate family. If anybody has any really good ideas for girls aged 12.5 and nearly 10, let me know in the comments - which are now working again. It appears that while trying to fix the problems with this theme, I managed to prevent anyone from commenting, but I’ve sorted it out. I don’t think this theme’s going to make it as far as Christmas though; too many annoyances

Barney, George and Freddy had swimming classes this morning. George and Freddy were also supposed to go to the gymnastics class display, but the instructor said they had to be there for 9.30 - which happens to be the time that Freddy’s swimming class finishes, and the time that Barney and George’s swimming class starts. When I told the gymnastics instructor that, she shrugged in a sort of “that’s too bad” way and said something about it being too difficult to manage individual children with so many in gymnastics. I can see that, but I do think it’s a bit off to be getting annoyed because you’ve decided that a child needs to be there 2.5 hours earlier than usual and it turns out they’ve other commitments In the end they didn’t go to the gymnastics at all.

I worked out while they were swimming - first time in a week, but it wasn’t as hard as I expected. Meanwhile, Mollycat finally came home - a full week since the last time we saw her. She’s stayed out all night a few times, and has disappeared for two nights once or twice, but she’s never been gone as long as this before, so we were concerned. However she showed up this morning, looking plump and well, so clearly she’s been getting fed somewhere else - and one of neighbour’s cats came looking for her soon afterwards, so presumably she’s been hanging out with him. Very independent, cats. Human don’t have cats, cats have staff

Yesterday morning (once I’d finally dragged myself out of bed), we made giant snowflakes from the pattern here - they turned out great. I meant to take photos of the boys with them, but forgot - I’ll try to remember tomorrow. We’re planning to make candy-cane reindeer tomorrow too, and I might even manage to sew that tablecloth I planned.

Scratchy took the afternoon off because I really didn’t feel up to taking the boys swimming - and now that Jack has a swimming lesson on a Friday, we can’t just not bother. Henry decided to stay at home with me; I think he felt the need for a bit of quiet. And it was very quiet with all the others gone

It’s fairly quiet now too, mainly because the kids who make all the noise are asleep

I am sick and I am coughing and I am too tired to get up and do anything so I am also bored. And you know what that means, don’t you? I’m playing with my blog

Yes, this new theme is fairly in-yer-face, and no, it doesn’t all quite work properly yet, but it’s only for Christmas I have to say though, those widget things aren’t any easier than a half-decent sidebar markup.

In other news… well, there isn’t much other news. Someone helped themselves to some of everyone else’s Advent calendar chocolates and nearly caused a riot. But there’s been a confession and reparations and so the less said the better. George went to Cubs last night, but Barney and Henry didn’t make it to Scouts (Barney was busy thinking - there’s a clue there - and Henry decided not to go if Barney wasn’t).

Scratchy has seen a chiropractor and with any luck his neck will shortly be back to normal. Toby’s been taking more steps (and the others have been taking turns to play with him so I can lie about feeling sorry for myself). And I still haven’t written that half-way-through-the-exchange post that I promised.

Oh, and one of the cats hasn’t come home since last Saturday. Getting a bit worried about her now

Sorta

What we did today:

I helped George tidy his room. When I say “helped”, I mean I sat on one of the beds and fed Toby and kept George “on task” and occasionally tossed a piece of K’nex in the general direction of the K’nex box. Well, mostly when I tossed something towards the K’nex box, George became suddenly energetic and leapt across the room to catch it before it landed in the K’nex box because it was actually a piece of Bionicle. But the floor was eventually visible clear.

We all went downstairs and I had one of my “why does nobody ever put stuff away?” rants for a bit - some of which wasn’t really audible because of the vacuum cleaner (also called Henry - causing some confusion some mirth the same tired old jokes to be repeated at regular intervals). Actually Freddy was on helper duty today and he’d done a better job in the kitchen this morning than any of the rest of them ever do, but the rest of the house made up for it, so I feel justified

Barney and Henry did some more digging for miniscule dinosaur bones in the kitchen. I got Freddy and George started on some maths, then Henry gave up on digging and came into the dining-room and I worked through some of his English book with him. I’m not sure if there’s a point to this or not. I expect that by the time he’s been here for six months, there won’t be much English vocabulary for him to learn. On the other hand it highlights the things he needs to work on, like when there should be a “h” sound and when there shouldn’t (which seems fairly logical to me: there’s a “h” sound when there’s a letter “h”… but then lots of things seem logical to me that don’t seem that way to other people, so :shrug:) and where the verb goes in the sentence. His first language is as much German as it is French, so he tends to put the verb at the end of the sentence or question - for example, “I will more have” and “after breakfast, can I shower have?” (though I also have difficulty understanding that question because it’s not typical of any of the other 11-year-old boys I’ve lived with ;-)) His English is really improving though, and I’m not at all worried about this, so why are we using his English book? Mostly because it’s there and he expects to use it, I think

He did some maths from his French maths book, and we pulled out the Cuisenaire rods to work on the idea of equivalent fractions. It would have been more fun with a huge chocolate bar though

By this time Barney had also had enough of digging for bones, so I gave him his literacy book and he did a page of that (which doesn’t sound like a lot, but given the speed at which he writes… *sigh*)

Toby sat in the dining-room and threw the colouring pencils all over the room, then made a start on some of the toys on the bottom shelf.

Somewhere in there I started making bread.

Lunch consisted of a variety of leftovers, supplemented with sandwiches for those who still weren’t satisfied. I vacuumed again (this is why Henry lives behind the dining-room door, always plugged-in… that’s the vacuum cleaner, not the child) and the children who still had work to do completed it. Some of them drew pictures too; I got a great picture of a flower from Jack, who’d drawn it just for me

Since they’d all done so much yesterday and this morning, and since it was a rainy day, I suggested a DVD in the afternoon. They chose Back to the Future.

Freddy fed the fish and searched for our latest fry, as part of his Animal Friend badge for Beavers - though he also spilled half the food on the floor, so the kitchen got vacuumed for the third time in one day.

When Scratchy arrived, the house was tidy, the boys were all peacefully engaged in productive tasks, there was fresh-baked bread sitting on the counter and the rest of dinner was just about ready to come out of the oven and be served. All of which makes the dinner conversation kind of amusing:
Freddy: I don’t think any other mother could cope with this many children.
Me: You think I cope?
George: Well, most of the time.
Freddy: No.

After dinner the kids requested another movie, and watched The Princess Bride Retro? Ah, they don’t make ‘em like they used to

Of course if I was really domestic, I’d have all those Cubs badges sewn on already. I’ll probably be going at them with fabric glue at twenty past six next Wednesday though. And we won’t even start on the badges that Barney brought home from Scouts, because although as a Scout he’s supposed to sew them on himself, somehow that takes three times as long as me doing it myself (which itself takes ten times as long as it would take anyone else).

Remember our six-legged visitors? I have to put in a plug here for the Nitty Gritty comb, which was recommended by Gill in my comments. I won’t go into details because you can read them on the website and I don’t want to make you itch - but it’s excellent. The people who make it are fantastic too - I left a note on the order-form on Sunday asking if it could be sent quickly since we’d five infested heads, and got an email on Monday saying it had already been sent first-class and offering me a second comb so that we could get through them in half the time - free of charge! I think they were hoping I’d tell the school and the GP etc… but since we don’t have any of those things, I’m singing their praises here

Oh, and Scratchy laughed when I told Toby he couldn’t have my laptop mouse because he’d deleted my last entire blog post last time he grabbed it. Scratchy isn’t taking this blogging business seriously…

I got tagged by Ann, and I’ve cheated shamelessly by often giving more than one answer, or giving an entire category

ONE BOOK THAT CHANGED YOUR LIFE:

I can’t think of one (I’ll probably remember one as soon as I publish this!), but one book that changed my parenting - or rather, shaped my parenting, as I read it before I became a parent, is Kids Are Worth It. A close contender would be Three In A Bed, though that might just have been edged out more recently by Listening to Your Baby

ONE BOOK THAT YOU’VE READ MORE THAN ONCE:

Hm, there are quite a few. My favourite-ever fiction is probably A Prayer for Owen Meany.

TWO BOOKS YOU’D WANT ON A DESERT ISLAND:

Build and Fly Your Own Plane would seem a surefire winner here
Failing that, Survive on a Desert Island would have to do.

No, I haven’t read either of them. I’ve never felt the need before

ONE BOOK THAT MADE YOU LAUGH:

The Monster at the End of This Book has been a family favourite for years. Some of us have grown out of it, but not me

ONE BOOK THAT MADE YOU CRY:

A Mother’s Ordeal: Story of Chi An - One Woman’s Fight Against China’s One-child Policy. Serious stuff, eye-opening and heart-rending, very distressing in parts. Do not read it if you’re pregnant.

ONE BOOK YOU WISH HAD BEEN WRITTEN:

The one that got me off that desert island

ONE BOOK YOU WISH HAD NEVER BEEN WRITTEN:

Any book on parenting that encourages parents to listen to a so-called expert instead of their own babies and their own intuition.

ONE BOOK THAT YOU ARE CURRENTLY READING:

Right now, I’ve got the Mammoth Book of Seriously Comic Fantasy, and The Kitchen God’s Wife on the go.

ONE BOOK YOU HAVE BEEN MEANING TO READ:

This is the easiest question in this meme, except that I have a huge long list and a poorly-stocked local library that won’t order stuff in! So I’m being very greedy and having three
The Whole Story: Alternative Medicine on Trial? sounds like a good read; I heard the author interviewed on radio when it was published, and have been wanting to have a look at it ever since. I’d also love to read Non-Violent Communication and its sister, Raising Children Compassionately.

FIVE PEOPLE YOU TAG:
I don’t think I dare tag anyone with this. First, it’s a toughie! Second, a lot of people seem to have done it. Third, some of the people who’ve been tagged have bailed out (apparently it’s a toughie ;-))

So if anyone wants it, consider yourself tagged

Tagged by Claire.

Meme of three:

1.Things that scare me:

• Fluttery things indoors. Outdoors is fine, they can even fly around my head. But not indoors. Yes, I know it’s daft.
• The thought of anything hurting or injuring my family
• A lot of the legislation which has been “sold” to the public under the guise of safety and security, both in the UK and the US.

2. People who make me laugh:

• My children - but that’s five…

3. Things I hate the most:

• Hypocrisy.
• Bigotry.
• My body. Working on that one.

4. Things I don’t understand:

• Why some people choose to have children but then don’t make any effort for them.
• Why people think they have the right to criticise others for having more children than they deem acceptable.
• Homeopathy (I know it works, but I don’t understand it.)

5. Things I’m doing right now:

• Breastfeeding.
• Laundry.
• Waiting for the water to warm up so I can have a shower.

6. Things I want to do before I die:

• See my children become happy and fulfilled adults.
• Travel more.
• Have another baby… maybe.

7. Things I can do:

• Pregnancy, birth and babies.
• Facilitate my children’s learning better than any system.
• Eat. I’m really, really good at that.

8. Ways to describe my personality:

• Impatient
• Lazy.
• Loyal.

9. Things I can�t do:

• Understand four people who are all talking to me at the same time.
• Keep my mouth shut when I see injustice, even if opening it will get me in trouble.
• Keep my house even vaguely tidy.

10. Things I think you should listen to:

• Your children.
• Your body.
• Your heart.

11. Things you should never listen to:

• People who don’t treat you with respect.
• People who try to manipulate your decisions.
• Anyone who thinks they know what’s good for you better than you do.

12. Things I’d like to learn:

• How to do small-talk better.
• Cantonese.
• What it’s like to be wealthy.

13. Favorite foods:

• Really good pizza and panzerotti.
• Bread. Nearly any kind.
• Chocolate.

14. Beverages I drink regularly:

• Water.
• Orange juice.
• Tea.

15. Shows I watched as a kid:

• The Clangers
• Crackerjack
• Multi-Coloured Swap Shop (what was that all about anyway?!)

16. People I’m tagging to do this meme:

I got tagged by Esther

5 things in my refrigerator:
- eggs
- pita bread
- juice
- lettuce
- tomatoes

5 things in my closet:
Erm… I don’t actually have a closet. Yes, that’s how much of a snappy dresser I am. The closest thing I have to a “closet” is probably the sofa in my bedroom I do have a couple of skirts hanging in the closet in the spare bedroom… can I count that?

5 things in my purse:
Assuming this is “purse” as used in North America, aka “handbag” for those of us in the UK
- my wallet
- my mobile phone
- my camera
- a sudoku book
- library cards
Bet none of that surprises anyone

5 things in my car:
- so many children’s carseats that I’ve lost count
- a few £1 coins, for paying for various kid activities
- books (always; I think they grow there)
- several maps that are probably too old to be any use anyway
- a pen, I’m sure… somewhere!

There were plants in it this afternoon though - flushed with success from the arrival of our first strawberry, and envious of H’s delicious salads we bought more strawb plants and some lettuce and tomato plants

5 people I am tagging:
- Jax, because she called me brave
- June, because she might do one of these someday, you never know!
- Sharon, because I bet there are trains in her car, closet and bag, and maybe even in her refrigerator
- Sue, because she’s about to move house so there might be interesting things in her car/bag
- Merry, because she has the same kind of car I do (though I think hers is quite a lot newer!) so there seems to be some kind of vague relationship there

…by changing my blog’s colour-scheme to look more Spring-like.

*looks hopeful*

Bah, it’s still raining.

Maybe I need to give it more time?

I’m just testing to see if my comments close automatically or if it was me that somehow managed to do that on my last post (I’ve opened them now).

Edit: It appears to have been something I did last night. It would appear that 9.25 p.m. is past my brain’s bedtime

Or, “how long can a bumblebee live in a toilet?”

That is the question

Large bumblebee discovered in pile of laundry which had previously been hanging outside. Nearest receptacle for said bumblebee: toilet. Approximately one hour later, bee is still floating and moving in the water, despite attempts to flush. Yes, that’s right: this bumblebee was swimming

We think it’s gone now. I’m still using the kids’ bathroom tonight though. I’ve seen the X-Files and I’m taking no chances

Apart from bumblebee excitement, today has included:

rummaging through books at the library booksale. I brought two large boxes of books home, mostly non-fiction but a bit of Philip Pullman included. Three very large books which, purchased new, would each have cost more than I paid for the whole lot. Quite a pile of books about ancient civilisations, several about Einstein and his work (an interest of Barney’s), a couple about spies and spy history and spying equipment (something the older three are all interested in) and a few more besides. Not a bad haul. So we’ll just add those to the thousands of books we already had and the 45 library books, ‘k?

I could probably have found more, but the room was hot and airless and there were too many people and the Grumpy Old Man was waiting outside in the car and making faces about having to go back to the bank machine to get more cash out.

Barney spent most of the afternoon engrossed in books (surprise surprise). The others played in and out of the house. One of the little girls from down the street came in and started asking about the aquarium because they’ve just set one up in her house (water but no fish yet). I fixed the comments on my blog (I hope! - please let me know if I’m wrong!) and fixed a wonky feed link on someone else’s (again, I hope). Do people still say “wonky”? I just realised I haven’t heard that in ages. All meals today eaten in the conservatory, some with windows and both doors open - I do like warm sunny weather

Freddy’s birthday is in just over a week; he had expressed a wish to have a party at an indoors adventure playground place, but I explained that the cost of that would severely limit the number of invitees, so he went outside to “see how big the house is” and then came back in saying “Here. I’ll have it here.” So I suppose I’d better get on with inviting people. If you’re reading this and you’re local enough, come over next Sunday

Forgot to blog my favourite line from yesterday. The three older boys were told to wait for me before getting into the swimming pool, but when I came out of the changing-rooms, they were all exploring the shallow bit. “Didn’t I tell you to wait for me before you got in the water?” I say. “Well,” says George, “we didn’t really go in, we just put our heads under the water.” Oh. That’s all right then…

…there’ll be another post along in five minutes.

If you can’t see it, it will be because you’re not registered and logged in.

The next time I manage to screw up my blog’s theme, or forget to close a tag, or do something else silly that affects my blog’s appearance or performance, I will remember this, and I won’t feel so bad

Official Google Blog: And we’re back

The Google Blog was unavailable for a short time tonight. We quickly learned from our initial investigation that there was no systemwide vulnerability for Blogger. We’ll let you know more about what did happen once we finish looking into it.

Update: We’ve determined the cause of tonight’s outage. The blog was mistakenly deleted by us (d’oh!) which allowed the blog address to be temporarily claimed by another user. This was not a hack, and nobody guessed our password. Our bad.

I’m being hit by comment spam, and although my settings have not let any of it through, I’m getting fed up with deleting it. So I’ve changed my settings, and for now, only those who are registered and logged in will be able to comment. I think most of my regular commenters are already registered anyway, but if you’re not, and you have some reason that you don’t want to register, and you have something to say, use the Contact Form

I’ve been blogging for a year! One year ago tomorrow, I wrote my first post. I don’t think I ever managed to keep writing in a paper diary for more than a week, but I’ve kept up with this - and very much enjoy it. And three of my kids blog now too

It’s been quite a year too. The big event was, of course, Toby’s birth He’s seven months old now, and he’s still tiny, but he’s lovely. It’s getting harder to blog though, now that he’s discovered that bashing my keyboard makes an interesting noise (and makes mum make some interesting noises too LOL)

We had a few less expected events this year too - like buying a house and moving to a different town. That was a difficult decision to make - not so much whether to move, but which house to go for! I think we made the right choice though

There were a couple of negatives this year, but overall it’s been a very good year for us. I’m glad I blogged it!

Wow. A year. Amazing.

I have the greatest admiration for Alison, who can remember what her family did all week and put it all in a great big long blog-post - but if I don’t record it the same day, it’s gone forever. So this will be a great deal shorter than three days worth of blogging would normally be (do I hear a few sighs of relief? ;-))

Tuesday - I thought since it was half-term for the local schoolkids, we’d not bother with doing any work. Except that none of them was around - presumably back at school. Poor things

George and Barney had St John Ambulance Badgers and Cadets respectively on Tuesday night, but Beavers was cancelled (due to half-term… I thought…) so Freddy had a night off. While the others were out, though, a friend who lives a few miles away phoned to ask if I could have her kids for the day on Wednesday, since they were still off on half-term, but their dad (who’s a teacher) wasn’t. So Wednesday was a busy day, with seven kids here instead of the usual five. Surprisingly little difference - just extra quantities of food

Today, we’d a bit of a catch-up on homework, then Scratchy took Barney, George and Freddy off to archery - they’ve just recently got back, which is why I’m blogging - Toby is playing with Barney so I’ve finally got two hands free. I’m down a finger though, since I tried to slice the top of one of them off this afternoon while washing the blade from my new food processor. I do like my food processor - been making lots of yummy things including many many smoothies - but I wasn’t so fond of it this afternoon when I was bleeding all over the kitchen. It was one of those stupid moments - I was washing up one-handed, and turning the blade around inside the bowl (which was filled with soapy water) and thinking “need to be careful not to cut myself here” - famous last words, eh? I should know better really - I’m not good with fingers generally: I tend to get them caught on things and stuck in things and burn them a lot. On one memorable occasion I managed to burn all the fingers on my right hand when I lifted a tray to put it in the oven, forgetting that I’d only taken it out a minute before, and then, five minutes later, now operating left-handed (because the right one hurt!), I plunged my other hand into a basin of hot washing-up water - fast, because I knew the water was hot - and realised too late that there was a bread-knife in the bottom of it. That was most impressive, but apparently didn’t teach me anything

Ooh, and has anyone noticed my new and (I think) snazzy favicon? (Apart from Scratchy, that is, who wasn’t given any choice in the matter LOL)

Wuuuhhh….eeeehhhhhh….

Yep, after being coughed on all day yesterday, it’s my turn today. Jack, on the other hand, is only slightly sniffly today, and back to his usual bouncy stuff. Grrr…

I got tagged by Naturally Nice

Four Things

Four jobs I’ve had
I’ve worked in:
> a library - It was a university medical library, and I really liked it. It involved much more than just stamping books in and out!
> a hospital lab - working in Blood Bank (which I never expected to find so fascinating, but I did!), pathology (cutting up the bits people had had cut off - quite disgusting sometimes LOL), haematology, etc.
> as a nanny. The opportunity presented itself, and I went for it. The job I had for longest involved working for two families, each with a baby boy (hah! I see a pattern emerging…). The babies were about six weeks different in age and it was great fun. Made me want twins. I still want twins…
> as a temp - which was brill, because I started off working in the agency office, so after that I got first refusal on all the jobs that came in. I loved it - lots of variety, I worked when I wanted, and no office politics

Four movies I can watch over and over
> Pirates of the Caribbean
> Mrs Brown (Judi Dench and Billy Connolly)
> Shakespeare in Love - I didn’t expect it to be any more than mildy entertaining, but I really like it

I can’t come up with a fourth movie, so I’m going to offer two made-for-tv-but-not-tv-shows instead:
> Pride and Prejudice - the Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle one, and
> Twelfth Night - the one with Parminder Nagra and Chiwetel Ejiofor

Four places I’ve liked
> Toronto - because it’s a clean, open city, and friendly (for a big city)
> Dublin - I used to love it many moons ago, when I was a party-girl
> Berlin - I visited before the Wall came down, and it was the most amazing experience - one half of the city new and shiny and modern, the other - well, repressed and retro about covers it!
> Durham - because it has the Cathedral. It’s a nice town, but it doesn’t need anything more than that Cathedral.

Four TV shows I love
We haven’t had a tv for quite a while, so all my choices will be very dated - but I used to like:
> Coupling - I got hooked from the very first episode
> Have I Got News For You - for its irreverence and unlikely guests
> Ballykissangel. I’ve lived in places like that! But it also earns its place on this list for its portrayal of Siobhan’s baby’s birth
> Dharma & Greg - but only the first season, it kinda lost me after that

Four places I’ve vacationed
> Toronto - and went back to live there.
> Berlin - see above
> Georgia, USA - those accents…drool
> Scotland - in a caravan with a decal of Mickey Mouse on the window in the door. I remember nothing else about that holiday, except for that Well… I was only about 6!

Four of my favorite dishes
> caesar salad (when it’s a really good one)
> roasted vegetables (the way I do them every Christmas)
> Panzerotti from Bitondo’s on Clinton Street in Toronto
> chocolate

Chocolate *is* a dish! It is so!

Four sites I visit daily
Hm. There are quite a few blogs that I visit when they’re updated, but mostly I just go through my feed-reader every day (or so). I visit BoohBah daily at the minute, but that’s for Jack LOL. Currently I’m visiting the Amazon site every day to see if they’ve shipped my food processor yet…

Four places I would rather be right now
> Somewhere hot and sunny
> In bed

I give up. I can’t think of four. Either that means I quite like where I am, or it means I’m too sick to think straight.

Four bloggers I am tagging
Only four? Now this is one where I could come up with a long list…

> Emily from The Voyage because it will be the first time she’s been tagged
> Mamadillo, The Reluctant Blogger because it will might just get her blogging
> Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - because June probably has some interesting history to divulge, and it will get it on the Early Years blogring
> The Purple Goddess in Frog Pyjamas to give it an international flavour