The PC De-Crapifier
On past experience with configuring new machines, this should prove a real time saver, although I must admit my new laptop come remarkably free of rubbish – for once IBM seem to have decided to install useful utilities instead of the usual pointless junk.
As mentioned yesterday, Big is being kind of challenging atm. They ended up eating lunch outside today (not all that much of a hardship, with hindsight I should have relocated myself and left them in here!) because I couldn’t cope with the fighting, giggling, table rocking and so on.
It continued after lunch in much [...]
time to rattle cages again
equal pay for equal work. There’s legislation to mean this is supposed to be so. Doesn’t really go far enough though, as it seems to me that there is still a vicious circle at work, as can be seen by looking at the results of the NHS [...]
a lovely day.
Quiet-ish morning, until it degenerated into world war three amongst the offspring and I sent them to their room. I think what is happening is that Small is attempting to assert some level of independence, and Big isn’t overly impressed – he’s been a very compliant player of pretty much any game [...]
Gosh, it’s hot isn’t it?
Right, now we’ve got that over with!
As many of you will have noticed, we’ve been having some issues with the server, and that has taken up a lot of our time over the last day or so. Then there’s this work lark that I keep having to do [...]
Comment is free: The forest is dying
Scary post from the guardian. Go and fill in the petitions.
There are also some excellent discussion threads on there tonight. I particularly enjoyed Natalie’s Give Waynetta Rooney a chance
In other news, it’s Wednesday. Where are my thunderstorms? I was promised thunderstorms, and I was really [...]
This morning while I was in the shower, Big got up and got herself dressed. I heard a drawer opening in the bedroom, and assumed it was Tim, but when I came out, I found Small balanced precariously on the bed, shoving the pjs he’d taken off back into his clothing drawer. It’s [...]
I’m not a morning person. Anyone who knows me will testify to that effect, so when I found myself wide awake shortly after 6 this morning, I was not amused. However, I decided to make use of the quiet, and got up and got started on a few bits, and actually knocked a [...]
We have a homing wasp. No matter how many times I’ve kicked the little so and so outside, he comes coming back in. Either that or we have a queue of really stupid wasps coming in one at a time and being unable to find their way out.
I’m not sure which would be [...]
I’ve said time and time again that I don’t particularly like reading aloud. I do it because I feel it ought to be done, but it doesn’t light my fire iykwim.
This weekend, I’ve begun to see how it could work. I picked up some books at the library a visit or so back, [...]
Quite a lot, I think we have had about an inch fall during the rather spectacular thunderstorms. Big has decided that thunderstorms are exciting not scarey, which is good.
But really a rather grumpy day for everyone, cooped up inside.
Yesterday Big and Small went on their first ever school trip. They went to Ponderosa. Apparently, despite the extreme heat, a jolly good time was had by all, mainly because A and co planned ahead, and rented a classroom to use as a shady base.
And then they spent some money in the gift [...]
It has taken me a while to get round to blogging this. Last week I took the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday off to avoid the Great Yorkshire Show traffic jams in Harrogate, which would have added several hours to my travelling time to work (which is already too long).
I had planned to take the children [...]
Round up the youthful suspects! Govt to target crime at birth | The Register
Another version of the story that I linked to a couple of days ago, with quotes from and reference to ARCH.
Kids both found and read (or had read to them) multiple books. I indulged myself going through a couple of their books-for-sale boxes, and picked up
Illustrated Dictionary of Religions
One Gorilla: A Magical Counting Book (which was one of Big’s favourite books, so I’m looking forward to reading it with Small)
Clever Katya which looks pretty [...]
crawl off in a corner and sleep.
What I’m going to do:
wash up (put washed up stuff away).
clean the paint off the kitchen surfaces and the paint pots.
eat something.
put more washing on.
get some washing in.
put clothes away.
make lunch for children
shower
find library books – go to library
go shopping
find sofas
clean up table under floor
excavate dining table.
paperwork – shuffle [...]
The Observer | UK News | Fresh blow to Reid as violent crime rises
His cabinet colleague Hilary Armstrong will also announce proposals to target babies and toddlers under two in the war on antisocial behaviour, identifying children in problem families who could grow up to get into trouble.
Read on.
I don’t know whether to laugh or [...]
I hope!
Looking back into my childhood, I remember summers best. I remember weeks in caravans, sleeping in awnings, the summer of ‘76 when my sister got heatstroke and threw up down the hallway I guess I do remember winters as well (notably the one where the road got snowed in, and [...]
Tonight I got a text from the mother of Big’s oldest friend. Oldest in terms of length of friendship that is. They met at nursery when they were only a few months old, and as soon as they could move, they gravitated to sit with each other. It meant that P and [...]
it really is a different world.
On the way home tonight, we came down the A629 towards Sheffield. Big was thrilled to see the ‘windmill farm’. She wanted to know what was important about it – and we had a chat about electricity generation. I mentioned that some ppl don’t like wind farms. [...]
