Making it up

Questions:
- Would you wear crocs out in public? Do you own crocs? What color are they?
I just bought crocs last week for my camping holiday. I have dark green ones, the kids have celery apparently. (I referred to it as lime and was corrected). Pretty much everyone in our swamp was living in either crocs or wellies - I mainly went for wellies until the field had dried out a couple of days and it was possible to wander around the puddles so that I didn’t get water in my crocs. (I did that once and didn’t like it much). Dunno whether I’ll wear them out in public much, but they are surprisingly comfortable.

- Given the chance, would you wear a princess dress while shopping? A tiara?
Nope. Tie dye is a different matter though. I don’t do dresses. Or tiaras.

- What about the kids? Do they dress unconventionally when you go out?
wouldn’t they have to understand convention to achieve unconventional dressing? Small wears whatever comes to hand or mind. Lots of his clothes go through phases of being ‘too’. So there’s a T shirt that was once described as too blue. And some Thomas trousers that were too Thomasy. Big has been known to go out in princess dresses and probably still would if she had any that fitted (she’s just been given an outgrown bridesmaids dress that will probably get used a lot this summer as a party or princess outfit).

I may be able to add pictures later…

The hardships I endure to spend time with my family.

The Belstead Brook Hotel sits in nine acres of tranquil gardens, alongside a willow-lined stream. The original 16th Century hunting lodge is still very much at the heart of the hotel, housing our restaurant, bar and private dining rooms.

etc.

“The government has not understood the scale, gravity and severity of what has happened” the rescue effort is the “biggest in peacetime Britain”(Fire Brigades Union, General Secretary Matt Wrack).

But heck, the Government is in London, and they were busy playing their political games and glad-handing each other.

Bearing in mind we have had not one, but two Prime Ministers this week, one would rather have thought that one of them might have bothered to turn up to look important and shake hands in South Yorkshire. Couldn’t Bliar have stopped off on his way to his constituency (he went through Doncaster on the very main line which had been shut by flooding) to smile at some of the poor sods who have lost their homes?

No, of course not, because, well let’s face it, these poor disillusioned sods don’t bother voting, so there really isn’t much point bothering with them is there?

I was also rather amused by this commentary on Quentin Davies As A Local Labour MP

BBC News’ 12 o’clock bulletin didn’t notice the flooding until 12:18, and that was just a mention of the quote (above) from Matt Wrack. It took until 12:22 before they could be bothered to provide any more coverage.

I wonder how long it will be before the new Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, manages to saunter up this way.

Pureed food ‘isn’t natural for babies’

Feeding babies on pureed food is unnatural and unnecessary, according to one of Unicef’s leading child care experts, who says they should be fed exclusively with breast milk and formula milk for the first six months, then weaned immediately on to solids.

Gill Rapley, deputy director of Unicef’s Baby Friendly Initiative and a health visitor for 25 years, said spoon-feeding pureed food to children can cause health problems later in life

She blames the multimillion-pound baby food industry for persuading parents that they need to give their babies pureed food. ‘Sound scientific research and government advice now agree there is no longer any window of a baby’s development in which they need something more than milk and less than solids,’ Rapley said.

Big got jarred foods and home cooked purees at nursery from 14 weeks. Small got stuff all but milk til he was over 6 months old, and then home made purees of broccoli and pasta and finger foods until he pushed them away and went for the real stuff. Got to say the latter approach was easier than jars (which he never liked judging by his reaction to the occasional exposure due to being out and about). I wouldn’t say either of them are unnecessarily fussy either - they have a limited range of stuff they eat at home, but then again, do do me and Tim.

Anything that cuts down on the expense and the fiddly little jars has got to be good, but this does look like another way of making working women feel guilty.

On the BBC is Bliar handing over to Brown. They have expensive outdoor camera crews all over London filming Jaguar cars and people going off for lunch at the Treasury.

And in the real world, quite a lot of the people who put Bliar and Brown into power are baling out their homes, and wondering why they were built on flood plains while flood protection plans are being postponed and underfunded. Blunkett was interviewed, but wasn’t even asked about how things are going in Sheffield.

I am glad to see the back of Bliar, but I can’t see that Brown is an improvement. This is the man who has masterminded the accumulation of the huge debts which have helped bolster Bliar’s Government by promoting a false feeling of wellbeing, and who stood quietly in the background when Bliar started his adventure in Iraq. I don’t get why he has been granted a reputation for prudence and if he had the principles the BBC say then he would have resigned along with Robin Cook.

I think we just have another Bliar, just as ugly on the inside, but a bit uglier on the outside.

So how come I am listening to “impartial” BBC personnel chattering on and on about how everything is so much better than 10 years ago? How the public services are so much better, how we are so much better off?

Parents warned not to smoke at home

Simon Clark, director of smokers’ rights group Forest, criticised the proposals. ‘It’s wrong to draw an automatic correlation between children seeing parents smoke and then assuming that they will take up smoking.

I have a little boy, a four year old. His father smokes, not in the house, not in the car, only outside, but nevertheless, he smokes. I listened to my little boy playing mummies and daddies with his sister, and was dismayed to hear “I’m going for a cigarette.” As far as he’s concerned, that’s what men do when they are grown up.

Now I know there’s a long time to go before he’s grown up, but then again, Tim wasn’t nearly 16 when he took up smoking, so it isn’t as long as you might think. With the greatest of respect, Simon Clark, I don’t think you know what you are talking about, and while parents might have a right to smoke, they do not have the right to show their children that it’s a normal healthy thing to do, because it isn’t.

In pouring rain, and with an immediate diversion to avoid this……..

Which is about one hundred yards from our house, fortunately, we are a couple of feet higher. I was disappointed when some people at the other end of the flood dissuaded a moron in a little Suzuki 4WD from trying to drive through it. It would have made a great picture when he failed, it really is quite deep in the middle and little Suzukis are not Land Rovers.

Some music for my friends and family in tents….

All together now….

Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high

Your daddy’s rich
And your mamma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby
Don’t you cry

One of these mornings
You’re going to rise up singing
Then you’ll spread your wings
And you’ll take to the sky

But till that morning
There’s a’nothing can harm you
With daddy and mamma standing by

Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high

Your daddy’s rich
And your mamma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby
Don’t you cry

and…

The sun is up, the sky is blue
Thees not a cloud to spoil the view
But its raining
Raining in my heart

The weatherman says fine today
He doesnt know that youve gone away
And its raining
Raining, raining in my heart

Oh, oh mistery, misery
Whats gonna become of me

I tell myself, the blues wont show
But pretty soon all these tears will flow
Raining, raining in my heart
Oh, oh misery, oh misery
Oh, whats gonna become of me

The sun is out, the sky is blue
Theres not a cloud around to spoil the view
But its raining, raining in my heart

From the bbc

But he added: “The government’s own figures show that about 80,000 people have already waited too long for an assessment, while our own survey shows that the average wait around England for a hearing aid fitting is 48 weeks.”

While I can see that keeping ppl waiting for a hearing aid who have lost their hearing in the service of the country may not be politically the way forward, I’ve been waiting for a call back to see how my new hearing aid is working for ooh, about 5 years now. That was after waiting quite some time to have it fitted. At the time I was told that a digital aid would be a great improvement for me, and that I’d be on the priority list for having one.

I can only assume that they’ve lost that list The aid I have at the moment is so useless that I don’t wear it, and my experience of trying to get anything out of the NHS is so negative that I just do without. I wonder how many other ppl there are out there like me?

I think Jax is really rather glad not to be sitting in a tent looking out on this. Instead she has a fairly gentle day’s packing and a plan for a nice, dry, night’s kip and an early departure for the Holy County tomorrow.

Not quite sure but I think if I insert a link to the BBC webcam image, it should update…….

• I was working last night.
• I was working the night before that, in fact, I’ve been working evenings for two weeks. Working evenings means finishing at 12.30, then driving home, getting to bed around 2, getting up to help with kids at 7, going back to bed, and finally rising late morning to faff about and go back to work for 4. Consequently, I’m knackered.
• This week, due to other things going on, the kids stopped off the path on Thurs night, I stopped at a friends in Brighouse, I picked the kids up and brought them home yesterday and didn’t get home til lunchtime. Consequently there was no window for packing up camping stuff.
• I have a stinking head cold and suspect I ought to be in bed rather than contemplating camping at all. I feel terrible.
• The children have no wellies or waterproofs - we’re going shopping this afternoon.

I’ve only just discovered that many of my friends have been twittering - thought it was kind of quiet on the blogs in some ways. It’s odd having just joined up and realising that they’ve been chatting this way for a bit, I feel adrift. I also feel adrift at work because of the shifts (I’ve been working shifts because one of the team members I recruited didn’t work out and that left a gap.)

There are various other reasons that my head isn’t quite with life atm, I’m hoping that a holiday might help, but I’m also afraid I’m going to arrive a day late and get stuck out on the edge and barely see anyone. Oh well, I’m taking a couple of books and some crochet. And no computer.

Halfway through my second week of evenings, and I’ve a kitten to vaccinate. I was back late last night - doing code reviews during shift handover, and then the most amazing thunderstorm, which I would have enjoyed watching, but made driving less than amusing. The added bonus of fog patches didn’t help either.

Up to help children get ready for school - they are counting the days, even Small. Back to bed, but knowing the alarm was going to go off I couldn’t sleep properly and was awake every half hour checking I hadn’t slept through it.

Late to the vets - there’s a garage at the top of our hill, and for some reason a guy with a truck and a trailer was parked on his way into it, completely blocking the road up the hill. The guy in front of me sitting on his horn didn’t encourage movement, and eventually the stream of traffic down died away and we managed to pass by on the other side of the road. Then at the vets, I paid for an additional torture opportunity, I had a rescue kitten once, and despite being vaccinated against everything, she died of leukemia at 6 months. It was absolutely horrid, she went blind first and that was what tipped of the diagnosis, so I’ve paid for blood tests before vaccination just to check we aren’t setting ourselves up for that one again. Kitten (still unnamed, although it’s beginning to get embarassing) was extremely vocal in his distress at this point, and then proceeded to bleed everywhere afterwards

We’ll get the test results either this aft or tomorrow, and then he can go back for his other injection on Friday. Oh great, something else to try to fit into Friday, how much better can that day get?

Looking at the weather forecast as well, seriously considering not going to camp til Sunday - don’t like the idea of pushing myself after a night shift to arrived in the pouring rain. I know I’m a wimp, but putting up a tent with two kids in a downpour just doesn’t appeal somehow. Hohum. (more…)

Click here to create your own painting.

I have a new phone, you may recall the agonies I went through to get it. A little while ago the suretype predictive text thing turned itself off, and I’ve been having to multitap all sms, which has been driving me up the wall. I read manuals, searched the help on the phone, nothing.

Then I googled, and found this excellent link. It would appear that I have to be American to have suretype working.

Blackberry, I’m not impressed.

Click here to create your own painting.

Found this a couple of places on the blogring and couldn’t resist exploring. Wish I could find the energy to do it with paint instead of a keyboard though.

There’s a kitten asleep in the middle of the floor. He’s taken to just dropping off wherever he happens to be - I guess that means he feels at home here. He’s settled in very quickly - if he’s in the mood to be stroked he loves it. If he’s playing scat cat, you can’t touch him - he’s gone.

Small is bursting into writing - he’s just filled a page with wonderful letters, some of which he’s managed to read out. He’s decorated it with happy ppl and the man in the moon

Big is watching Megamaths - 9 times table at the moment, complete with signing. She’d like to be on the computer in the dining room but I brought boxes home from the supermarket yesterday to start packing things to go in the newly rented storage crate and now you can’t get at the puter. Must sort that out for her and soon. Right after a cup of tea, sorting out the disgusting litter tray and hanging out some more washing.

There is still dissent about what the new addition to our family should be called. Some say Mist, I say Furball. I think Furball is an excellent name and very descriptive.

Found this interesting list of the best market towns.

I love market towns, and although I don’t think I would necessarily have made any of the same choices in the only region I know well (the East) this looks like a pretty good list. I wish we lived somewhere which had the characteristics of some of these. FWIW, in the East, I would pick, Ely (ok, so I know it is a city), Woodbridge, Bury St Edmunds and Diss over John Gummer’s choices.

SOUTH-EAST
Judge: Penelope Keith

1. ALRESFORD Hampshire.
It has a steam railway to Alton and its Millennium Trail is a successful new walk. Plenty of good shopping in aptly named Broad Street.

2. FAVERSHAM Kent.
The first town to be given a bypass (by the Romans), it has the oldest Cinque Ports charter, and thriving local company Shepherd Neame is the oldest surviving brewery in the country.

3. LEWES East Sussex.
In the foothills of the South Downs and close to the south coast. Its steep high street with its melée of period houses and ancient passageways-called twittens-give a special character.

EAST
JUDGE: THE RT HON JOHN GUMMER

1. MALDON Essex.
One of the least spoilt towns in Essex, it lies on the wide Blackwater estuary. There is a seafood month throughout September and an oyster festival. The Maldon mud race has recently been revived.

2. FAKENHAM Norfolk.
Famous for its mills, it also has a racecourse which celebrated its 100th anniversary this year. There is a charter market every Thursday and a farmers’ market every month.

3. FRAMLINGHAM Suffolk
A town with a medley of architectural styles from timber-framed and Regency to Georgian red-brick and Victorian yellow-brick gives the town a distinct character and the curtain-walled castle is where Mary Tudor was proclaimed Queen.

NORTH
JUDGE: DAVID HOPE

1. BEVERLEY East Riding.
Beverley Minster towers over this country town. It has folk and literature festivals, and the Saturday market-with 140 stalls-dates back to the town’s charter in the Middle Ages.

2. HEXHAM Northumberland.
There has been a settlement here, 20 miles west of Newcastle, since Saxon times and it is the closest country town to Hadrian’s Wall. Among many useful stores, it has a violin shop. In 2001, the new market was judged the best Farmers’ Market in England and Wales by the National Farmers’ Union.

3. BARNARD CASTLE Co Durham.
Perched high on a bank overlooking the River Tees, it is home to the splendid château-style Bowes Museum.

MIDLANDS
JUDGE: BEN FOGLE

1. NANTWICH Cheshire.
A popular food and drink festival is held next month (September 23-25) among the Grade I-listed timber-framed houses. It also plays host to the world worm-charming championships.

3. ASHBOURNE Derbyshire.
Popular with tourists and locals, this largely Georgian town nestles in the Henmore valley on the edge of the Peak District. It has many small tea rooms and restaurants as well as specialist outdoor clothing and climbing equipment shops.

3. STAMFORD Lincolnshire.
Called ‘the finest scene between London and Edinburgh’ by Sir Walter Scott, this country town was one of the richest in England by the 14th century. It also benefited from the stagecoach era of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Today, its riverside festival is one of the biggest free music and arts festivals in the area.

SOUTH-WEST
JUDGE: NOEL EDMONDS

1. TAVISTOCK Devon.
This country town has wonderful specialist shops (such as the famous N. H. Creber delicatessen), traditions (such as the Dickensian Christmas) and a great local paper. And it is all surrounded by stunning scenery and close to the rugged fastness of Dartmore National Park.

2. SHERBORNE Dorset.
A beautiful town with an abundance of medieval buildings, a superb Abbey, famous schools, picturesque almshouses and a new castle, as well as an old one. There are several societies, including a town brass band, and there is a regular market every Thursday and Saturday.

3. MARLBOROUGH Wiltshire.
There is plenty of room in this unusual country town for the twice-weekly market in England’s widest high street, which has yet to be swamped by chain stores. It also hosts one of the best jazz festivals in the country.

Just had an interesting question from Small about digestion.

He is fascinated that food goes in one end and something else comes out of the other.

Now he wants to know if the process is reversible.

“The property is an end terrace being one of two other properties…”

Still trying to follow the logic of this offering.

saw the kids for nearly half an hour this morning, this is not good. Was reading earlier on the BBC website some have your say about flexible working in which there seem to be a lot of ppl feeling that women with children get the easy life. Can’t say as I’ve seen it anywhere I’ve worked - everyone is pretty committed at this place, and everyone pulls their weight, children or not. Where the company can be flexible it is, and we all appreciate that and are flexible right back. Bizarre level of anger on the bbc website.

Not nearly as much as on the one about public breastfeeding though! I can’t believe the number of ppl going on about how disgusting it is - most of them are probably unaware that they’ve ’seen’ public breastfeeding and never noticed it…it does strike me that we have a major problem with body awareness and complete lack of ability to be comfortable with natural functions. (And no, I don’t equate breastfeeding with urinating and suggest that if you are OK to breastfeed in public it’s OK to urinate in public, I equate breastfeeding with eating and say it’s OK to eat, it probably should be OK to breastfeed. (The probably covers situations like I might snatch a sweet while driving a car or a sandwich as a passenger but I wouldn’t breastfeed at that point….))

Big’s school report arrived home last night. It’s not quite as incomprehensible as last years which little discussion of pink or green materials. I think the general gist of it is that she’s doing fine. I may undertake an exercise of comparing it with key stage standards for her age and then have a chat with those reluctant relatives. I’m more likely to decide that that’s too much like hard work and do the research in case we get turned it to the authorities. Just got a sneaking suspicion that it might happen at some point.

Hohum. Must go shower and get ready for the day. Just two more of these then it’s the weekend. (And then it starts over again on Monday (but then after another week, it’s the holiday, woohoo!))