Making it up

for all of us.

Good to see so many of you there And as usual, Helen and Chris were the perfect hosts - we’d very much like to have been able to stay longer, although I think given the absolutely shattered state of our offspring, we left at about the right time

Tim has piccies, and may blog or something them at some point - they include some incredibly unflattering shots of me, which makes me all the more determined to keep up with my exercise routine, although right at this second, it’s the last thing I want to do. But my posture is horrendous and my figure is worse - I’ve got a spare tyre for pity’s sake, and my back is beginning to twinge on a regular basis. Although that could be from carting the not so small Small around. I’d pretty much stopped carrying Big when she was this age (because I was pregnant with Small) and I think it was a good decision. Not sure she’s ever completely forgiven me though

Right, the ping just now that you didn’t hear was my dinner, I haven’t done my exercise for the night yet, I’m falling asleep on my keyboard, and I have work to do.

Hohum.

is in a page of its own

I’ll finish it off tomorrow, but the html is killing me, and I just want to sleep.

There are more pictures on my flickr page too.

Other than that, I don’t think there’s much left to say about the day. My mind boggles with what is going on in both the government and media, but at least I’m feeling much more relaxed about the id card and database thing. Well come on, if they can’t manage the ppl that they’ve got locked up, and process them properly, what chance have they got of keeping tabs on the rest of us? Or is that a bad thing?

Oh, I did manage day two of my exercise routine. Come on, I thought there were more of you out there who said you wanted to do this? Am I all on my own???

Discover hundreds of little-known uses for well-known products,
by just clicking on a product! Wacky Uses

(Must stop doing this, how am I going to fit in rantings, if I fritter away my time on this sort of thing)

Is (or appears to be, doubtless one, or more, of the itinerant, jobbing pedants who frequent this blog will clarify this if I am in error) the definition of binge drinking.

I have a really bad feeling that I managed to go the whole of last year without once bingeing on alcohol.

Hence my New Year’s resolution.

In closing I would like to add … … here we go, here we go, here we go… you are all welcome to sing along this Bank Holiday weekend.

:chug: :chug: :chug: :chug: :chug:

are you spotting a theme?

Home today, and reached spitting point at the television very quickly. So turned it off, and lo and behold, the two bored, irritable children suddenly discovered lots of toys and how to play with them!

Big built Small a traintrack incorporating his newest additions (a Wooden Railway System: Stop & Go Station and an extra Light & Sound Police Car) I’m sure there must be some educational value in that, not least in the negotiating skills she develops to manage her little brother

They also found some more of their Easter stash, and giving up completely on the rationing concept, I decided it was better if it all got worked through, so they ate lots of chocolate. Maths when they were sharing? Straws, I’m grabbing at straws here aren’t I?

After a belated lunch and a brief visit from mother, they rediscovered the garden, and spent hours out there. Small couldn’t find any socks, but was thrilled to discover he was allowed out in bare feet. Wouldn’t have thought it was warm enough myself, but they seemed to enjoy it. Was rather a struggle getting them to come back in for tea in fact.

Tea was late, bath was a lot shorter than it should have been, although I did manage to get them to scrub their feet ;), and then off to bed. Trying to persuade Small to wear pjs we got into a discussion of belly buttons, as you do. I pointed out that I had one just like him.

“No”.

“No? I do, here it is.”

“No. Mine circle.”

“Oh right. And what shape is mine?”

“Rectangle.” (although it did take him two attempts at the word for me to understand what he was saying.)

Now where has he learnt that from? I know that he’s spent lots of time at school this week doing Montessori letter activities - in fact I’m told that yesterday he spent nearly two hours on it. They kept offering him other things to do, and he didn’t want to know, so he spent 2 hours working on about 4 different letters. (Not sure I’d have had the patience to keep it up for 2 hours tbh either.) Not sure whether they’ve done anything much with shapes with him, but he’s obviously picked it up from somewhere. The lack of speech (although it’s improving in leaps and bounds atm) has meant I’m not always aware of what he’s taking in, because I don’t get the instant feedback I used to get from Big when she was small (iyswim) I know I shouldn’t compare my children, and I do endeavour not to, but there are some bits it’s next to impossible to not remark on.

Anyway, I’ve now spent ages wittering on, completely forgotten most of what I wanted to say, and desperately need to go off and get my exercise routine started. And then I’ve work to do. What a surprise.

ETA - remembered that Big played the piano for a while as well. Still quite pleased with how she’s coming on with that.

Suggested first read is Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits.

House of the spirits on Ebay

Liveotherwise bookclub forum

These are all from a quick scan of today’s news:

• Angloplat to inject up to $10 mln into new project
• Trust plans to axe up to 450 jobs
• SIA raises fuel surcharge by up to US$60 from May 15
• Best practice procurement may save GLCs up to RM9b, says PM
• Father accused of lying to protect son faced up to 16 years
• 3 men facing up to life in prison in illegal immigrant smuggling …
• EHealth plans IPO for up to $85 million

More muddled-minded gibbering from the media. Completely meaningless nonsense. You could rewrite each of these, replacing ‘up to’ with ‘not more than’ and they would mean exactly the same. What the hell does ‘up to life in prison’ mean? You can’t serve more than life in prison. :rant:

In case you are interested. I presently have debts of up to £100,000,000, have had sex with up to 10,000 women, fathering up to 200,000 children. I intend eating up to 15 kilograms of chocolate this evening, while bingeing on up to 27 pints of beer and up to 5 bottles of wine. What are you all getting up to?

Ok, I know, MIU doesn’t have a web site of the day any other day, but I liked this one, wanted to share it with you and it is a nice sounding title.

Anxiety Culture

You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy)

You’re a great thinker and a true philosopher. You’d make a talented professor or writer.

Seen this a couple of places now. The reason I’m chortling is because I have a degree in philosophy.

Small was playing on paint today, and he made a wonderful picture. He’d done lots and lots of different rectangles and squares, and then he started filling in bits with colours. It looked great. He seems to very much enjoy that sort of thing. Then he decided he wanted to play on something else and the picture was gone before I got a chance to save it.

Ah well, daresay there’ll be another one. Shame though, I liked todays.

Got through a bit of paperwork, and managed to post some stuff. Also took the children into town and replenished their wardrobes - Small gets lots of handmedowns, so isn’t in such dire need, but Big doesn’t get nearly as much, and appears to have suddenly shot out of just about everything she owns. She was thrilled with a number of items from Wilkinsons and Ethel Austin, and I took the opportunity to talk to her about appearances - told her there was no way I was buying tops for her with dubious slogans on them. I don’t think it’s funny for a 6 year old to go around with “100% attitude” written on her chest, or “If you want my attention, buy me things” (although I can see the relevance of it!) Lead to some interesting conversations anyway, and I think she prefers pretty flowers and butterflies to words on her clothes atm. I also refused to buy a pack of skirts so short that they would barely cover her knickers - what’s the point of those then?

I know, I know, I’m a prude. But I want her to think about these things, and then she can choose what she decides her body should say iyswim.

I’m not sure I do. Time for an early night, leaving Sharpe to his enemy

So it seems somehow appropriate that Big got her next wildlife explorer magazine today

And I did the footprint quiz that Kris linked to:

“IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 1.6 PLANETS. ”

Hm. That’s a bit of a problem then. My main problem is the commute I think. Although I went back through it a few times, and found it very difficult to drag it down much (couldn’t get it to the one planet level without giving up work and therefore not needing the car!), would require quite extreme lifestyle changes.

Right, I’ve swanned around most of the morning (got up to do washing up so children could eat, then went back to bed as my head didn’t feel like it was attached to my body) and I’ve got piles of stuff to do. Quite literally - there used to be sofas in this room, and at the moment there is bottom room for only one 6 year old girl. I will declutter!

Might recap various bits of the week later on, but for now, it’s enough to say it’s been a very long week. I’ve worked longer hours in four days than I supposed to work in five. At least the four rather than five meant slightly less driving. And yesterday the children spent part of the afternoon with Kris, and they seem to have had a fabulous time. I got to unwind and chat with a human being, realised how rarely I get to do that these days. This working lark is hugely overrated you know.

I did a bit of research on the IT industry as well. I had no idea that I am so unusual - actually that’s not true. I’ve followed a number of less travelled paths through my time, it’s kind of a hobby of mine. And I know that as a female programmer I’m in a minority, but I hadn’t realised how small the minority is. But some quotes and links I found:

news.com
“Long hours and a macho culture are driving women out of the IT profession, according to research from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and IT trade body Intellect.

The “Women in IT” industry study was commissioned on the back of figures from the Office of National Statistics showing a 6 percent decline in the number of women employed in the IT industry between 1997 and 2005.”

A blog

“Women make up a pathetic 2% of the technical and software development workforce.”
(Although I’m still trying to find out where this statistic came from.)

The bbc
“I’m a programmer by trade and I know probably several hundred, and I have only ever met one woman,” Mr Sear said.

(Where is this guy socialising??)

The register
“The main problem here is lack of role models,” George says. “If you ask a room full of 11-year olds how many of them know a female programmer, chances are no one will put their hand up. Doctors, lawyers, teachers on the other hand, there are now plenty of role models.”

Well, I’m here to say that if anyone of you would like your children to know a female programmer, I’m here, I’m alive, and I think it’s a pretty good career choice.

:rant:

Can things get any worse?

Over the weekend I read a set of estate agents particulars “in our opinion a 4 bedroomed detached house”. Good to know that your estate agent can recoginise a house when he/she/it sees one, I suppose.

But no, gentle reader, the nadir has been reached, the ultimate low.

On Radio 4, on the Today programme.

“upsum”

Not from a guest, from the BBC interviewer - used in place of ’summary’.

Just BOLD those you’ve read, ITALICIZE the ones you’ve been meaning to read and ??? the ones you have never heard of.

Alcott, Louisa May – Little Women
Allende, Isabe l– The House of Spirits ???
Angelou, Maya – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Atwood, Margaret – Cat’s Eye
Austen, Jane – Emma
Bambara, Toni Cade – Salt Eaters ???
Barnes, Djuna – Nightwood ???
de Beauvoir, Simone – The Second Sex
Blume, Judy – Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret
Burnett, Frances – The Secret Garden
Bronte, Charlotte – Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily – Wuthering Heights
Buck, Pearl S. – The Good Earth ???
Byatt, A.S. – Possession
Cather, Willa – My Antonia ???
Christie, Agatha – Murder on the Orient Express
Cisneros, Sandra – The House on Mango Street ???
Clinton, Hillary Rodham – Living History
Cooper, Anna Julia – A Voice From the South ???
Danticat, Edwidge – Breath, Eyes, Memory ???
Davis, Angela – Women, Culture, and Politics ???
Desai, Anita – Clear Light of Day ???
Dickinson, Emily – Collected Poems
Duncan, Lois – I Know What You Did Last Summer
DuMaurier, Daphne – Rebecca
Eliot, George – Middlemarch
Emecheta, Buchi – Second Class Citizen ???
Erdrich, Louise – Tracks ???
Esquivel, Laura – Like Water for Chocolate

Flagg, Fannie – Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Friedan, Betty – The Feminine Mystique
Frank, Anne – Diary of a Young Girl
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins – The Yellow Wallpaper ???
Gordimer, Nadine – July’s People ???
Grafton, Sue – S is for Silence
Hamilton, Edith – Mythology ???
Highsmith, Patricia – The Talented Mr. Ripley
Hooks, Bell – Bone Black ???
Hurston, Zora Neale – Dust Tracks on the Road ???
Jacobs, Harriet – Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl ???
Jackson, Helen Hunt – Ramona
Jackson, Shirley – The Haunting of Hill House
Jong, Erica – Fear of Flying
Keene, Carolyn – The Nancy Drew Mysteries (any of them)
Kidd, Sue Monk – The Secret Life of Bees ???
Kincaid, Jamaica – Lucy ???
Kingsolver, Barbara – The Poisonwood Bible ???
Kingston, Maxine Hong – The Woman Warrior ???
Larsen, Nella – Passing???
L’Engle, Madeleine – A Wrinkle in Time
Le Guin, Ursula K. – The Left Hand of Darkness
Lee, Harper – To Kill a Mockingbird
Lessing, Doris – The Golden Notebook ???
Lively, Penelope – Moon Tiger
Lorde, Audre – The Cancer Journals ???
Martin, Ann M. – The Babysitters Club Series
McCullers, Carson – The Member of the Wedding ???
McMillan, Terry – Disappearing Acts ???
Markandaya, Kamala – Nectar in a Sieve ???
Marshall, Paule – Brown Girl, Brownstones ???
Mitchell, Margaret – Gone with the Wind
Montgomery, Lucy – Anne of Green Gables
Morgan, Joan – When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost ???
Morrison, Toni – Song of Solomon
Murasaki, Lady Shikibu – The Tale of Genji ???
Munro, Alice – Lives of Girls and Women ???
Murdoch, Iris – Severed Head ???
Naylor, Gloria – Mama Day ???
Niffenegger, Audrey – The Time Traveller’s Wife
Oates, Joyce Carol – We Were the Mulvaneys ???
O’Connor, Flannery – A Good Man is Hard to Find ???
Piercy, Marge – Woman on the Edge of Time ???
Picoult, Jodi – My Sister’s Keeper
Plath, Sylvia – The Bell Jar
Porter, Katharine Anne – Ship of Fools ???
Proulx, E. Annie – The Shipping News
Rand, Ayn – The Fountainhead ???
Ray, Rachel – 365: No Repeats ???
Rhys, Jean – Wide Sargasso Sea ???
Robinson, Marilynne – Housekeeping ???
Rocha, Sharon – For Laci ???
Sebold, Alice – The Lovely Bones ???
Shelley, Mary – Frankenstein
Smith, Betty – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn ???
Smith, Zadie – White Teeth ???
Spark, Muriel – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Spyri, Johanna – Heidi
Strout, Elizabeth – Amy and Isabelle ???
Steel, Danielle – The House
Tan, Amy – The Joy Luck Club
Tannen, Deborah – You’re Wearing That ???
Ulrich, Laurel – A Midwife’s Tale
Urquhart, Jane – Away ???
Walker, Alice – The Temple of My Familiar ???
Welty, Eudora – One Writer’s Beginnings ???
Wharton, Edith – Age of Innocence
Wilder, Laura Ingalls – Little House in the Big Woods
Wollstonecraft, Mary – A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Woolf, Virginia – A Room of One’s Own

Found that quite interesting anyway

HT: The learning umbrella

• declutter the living room
• deal with the (wet) washing that has been sat in a basket for two days
• either find or deal with the insurance letter thing by ringing up.
• customise a website
• garden (if it stops raining).
• go to bed at a reasonable time.

Right, you’re all watching. This might help.

and very odd it feels too.

Was woken this morning by heartbroken wailing when Small arrived downstairs to look for his sister and realised she still wasn’t there. He really is extraordinarily fond of her - he’s asleep now, before she’s back, and I’m sure he’s going to be thrilled in the morning when he wakes up and does find her.

Quiet day for me - spent the morning pottering on the puter (I know that’s surprised you all) and amusing Small, then took to bed just after lunch for no apparent reason other than that I was absolutely exhausted. Tim took over Small duty, and I left him to it while I slept for hours and then read a Deric Longden book,The Cat Who Came in from the Cold. I rather like Deric Longden - I’ve been to a couple of readings by him, and then I met him in the restaurant at Sainbury’s in Huddersfield. It was rather fun actually - it was just around Christmas, a good few years ago now, probably before Big was one. We had a lovely meal together, and this chap over in the corner kept looking over at us. As he got up to leave, he stopped to say how nice it was to see a mother and her child chatting and enjoying time together, and I asked if it was him. He got terribly tongue-tied as he agreed that he was, and then he left. For Christmas that year, mother got me one of his books, signed.

There you go, my claim to fame. Not as glamorous as other ppl’s author connections I’ll admit, but I like it

Anyway, still waiting for the return of the prodigal daughter and the pasta sauce has beeped, so must be off to sort out tea.

to the family at Naturally Nice

where would I be?

‘cos I can’t find it. I don’t need it to renew my insurance, regular readers will know that I did that three weeks ago. But I need the renewal sheet as it has evidence of my no claims bonus on it, and my new company needs that evidence. And can I find it?

In other news, despite a small wibble while getting ready, Big has gone off with her Grandma and Grandad for the weekend at my sister’s in Wales. Small was very upset about this - he didn’t want to go without me (and I’m not ready to let him go that far away without me either), but he didn’t want Big to go without him. He’s being very cuddly and just a tiny bit pathetic -it’s rather sweet. We’ve done painting and puter time, and now he’s watching Something Special - we do like that.

And I’ve been pondering a thread on early years he about childhood - I’ve long thought that childhood as we have it now is a rather recent invention, mainly limited to the privileged west. Which is not to say that I think we *ought* to be sending children up chimneys or down mines, far from it. But I also don’t think we should be pretending they are utterly useless and have no abilities. In fact, I’d love to have time to devise a home education curriculum that is based around crafts - I think you can learn an awful lot of what you need to (where need to is talking about useful skills that get you through the day, rather than any abstract set defined by a central authority) that way. Mix and match it with a literature based study like Muddlepuddle reading year and I think you’d have pretty much all the bases covered. Assuming that cooking can be thought of as a craft

Discussion link

all about the house we’d just bought, which was lovely and old, rambling, with lots of cupboards and rooms. Then Tim woke me up - for a moment I was slightly cross, then he pointed out it was half past 12!

So I missed half the day. I think I’ve been working too hard. No idea what the children had been doing this morning, came down and gave them lunch, had brunch myself, then we went out shopping. Aldi for food, and then we headed for Hobbicraft, intending to buy some craft stuff to do over the weekend.

We didn’t make it to Hobbicraft. There’s a new very large Au Naturale interiors store just before it, and it had a big display of learn to paint stuff in the window, so we swerved in there instead. Inside we had a protracted lesson in maths - I told Big she could have up to £5 to spend. Turns out that that was far too much, as it took her nearly an hour to figure out what she wanted to buy! Mind, I could have spent hugely more than I did, and I really wish I had bought one of the making card sets I drooled over. But I never take the time to finish anything I start, so probably just as well I didn’t

Back home, and after I’d woken both children up from their power nap in the car, they romped in the garden while Tim and I mended the fence and then gave them tea. They were back out in the garden after that - usually it’s bath time straight away but they’ve been outside so rarely recently that I didn’t have the heart to drag them straight back in.

And that was our day. Watching some programme about country music on BBC four now, and cranking up to NCIS on fx in ten minutes time.

Oh, and here’s something I did earlier: Typical day posts page Was thinking it might be good to do a rerun of this sometime soon, but say the week after next, so that holiday time is over? Any takers?

with balloons today.

Yesterday the children were with A again, although we went late and I picked them up early. Given that she’d even brought in a tv and some videos for them, they were very happy to be there

Reason for picking them up early was because it was J’s birthday party, and they were both invited. It was at one of these play places, and I have to say it was actually rather pleasant. Got to do my standard fish out of water thing, not knowing any of the parents at all, but I’m getting remarkably good at looking civilised (or I assume I am, ppl seem quite happy to make small talk with me!) so it wasn’t too bad.

The children had a fantastic time. Small was very happy to be going to a party (wasn’t sure that he knew what a party was, not sure he’s been invited to one in his own right before) and had shoes off and disappeared into the distance within seconds of us finally making it there. (Missed the turn the first run through, then to come back had to turn right twice in quick succession in rush hour traffic. We were a little late.) Couple of funnies - they played pass the parcel, and I’m sure he’s never played that before. He really wasn’t getting why I kept asking him to pass it on when other ppl were getting to unwrap it and get sweets out, and each time he passed it on, he got just a tiny bit more deflated. And then when it was finally his turn, he won! He was ever so impressed with the little colouring book and crayons. And then a bit later I noticed that the small pack of older boys were ganging up on him. It would appear that at not quite three he isn’t a push over though - he backed them down, by sheer force of will power I think. One to watch, my little boy.

So to this morning, and they had the party bags out, complete with caterpillar balloons. Finally managed to blow Small’s up, and get Big’s started. She proceeded to blow it up, and let it down, and blow it up, and let it down and blow it up until…you guessed it. You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you? So did I. But you didn’t know that somehow I was going to hold my tongue, bite back the “warned you that would happen” and just cuddle her while she cried. I was ever so impressed with myself - the whole maternal caring cuddling thing doesn’t come easily, and I’m trying to remind myself atm that I don’t get nearly enough time to just cuddle and be there for them, so I need to seize every chance that I can.

Then Small came bumbling in and we explained what had happened, and immediately he offered her his balloon - “share!” I’m sure I read somewhere recently that three year olds don’t do that - guess my nearly three year old can’t read then A bit later the cat got his balloon anyway, so that was the end of that. And when he shed a tear, Big went and found him a normal balloon, and that brought his smiles out again.

Other than that, they were pretty tired today, so they were fairly subdued. And then we all had a difficult afternoon in the wind - part of the fence blew down, and the house over the road had its alarm going off all afternoon. Headaches all round I’m afraid.

Mother popped in for a cuppa and that was quite pleasant, and that was pretty much it. Oh and the work that I was supposed to be finishing up today so that I could have a relaxed weekend off has magically extended, so I’m not quite in wind down mode yet.

Hohum.

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Labour backs down over regulatory reform bill safeguards

The government is to write new safeguards into a controversial bill giving ministers sweeping powers to change the law after Labour’s chief whip in the Lords warned it would otherwise face defeat.

I shall be watching to see what amendments they think are necessary - is this why the bill has gone back a week? Because they’ve realised that they need to do something about it? Wonder if all the letters to Jim Murphy had anything to do with it?