By all accounts, Paul Green is a traditional, long-standing, property-developing, racehorse-owning, tax-averse, non-resident, dyed-in-the-wool Scottish Labour supporter. Thanks to him, the people’s flag - mauve when last sighted - is flying high. Though not, sadly, on Jersey. Herald

I do envy Scotland its newspapers, especially the Scotsman. I also envy their scenery and open spaces. I am wondering how easy it is going to be to get a Scottish passport when they secede.

Taking marriage private.

Looks like I’m rather more old fashioned than I’d realised

I do like snipurl. Got this from a link in their feed.

I’d rather not think about it. Suffice to say that I didn’t go to work as I couldn’t face being away from a toilet for the length of the drive

But it was a 24 hour bug, so I was back in the saddle today, while Tim dropped my car off at the garage for its service and MOT. Quite impressed to get it back this evening, was fully expecting to hear that it was going to cost at least £100s to keep it running for another year. Kids enjoyed the drive up as well - Small sat next to me on the way up and Big on the way back which was quite pleasant (apart from the wailing when Small realised I’d meant what I said about taking it in turns this morning) and headed off the usual bickering.

Managed a bit of Chrimble shopping today, something for Small. Couldn’t find a similar set for Big - they had some good ones (under £10 in the local coop) but none that really seemed right. Quite liked this but she’s seen at least one of them already. Tempted by this but think I might have enjoyed it more than her

Anyway, I’m off work tomorrow (just love getting to December with holidays left over ) so I’ll probably be back tomorrow night with more shopping reports.

There’s a surprise!

“Ed Balls has again weighed into parents who insist on bubblewrapping their children and leaving them in front of the computer, after research showed British kids have slipped down the world’s literacy league.”

Balls blames parents, computers for English literacy slide

Nothing to do with schools being **** then, eh Ed?

We’ve spent the last couple of months catching the cat every time he’s made it upstairs and dragging him back down again. Last night, I carried him upstairs with me and let him explore - he spent the whole time watching me with half an eye, wondering if I was going to come to my senses and cart him off downstairs again. So I got to go to sleep with the sounds of a cat prowling about instead of mice skittering through the floorboards.

I wasn’t quite so impressed when he woke Big up at 6.20am to tell her it was time to get up and let him out

In other news, Small has discovered tantrums. We knew that, he did it at the weekend. It wasn’t so much tantrums at school as just bad temper, but he belted a couple of ppl today. A is beginning to think he’s understimulated and I am wondering whether boredom is influencing these little outbreaks. I don’t mean boredom in the sense of he’s nothing to do - Small pretty much always keeps himself occupied. I mean boredom in the sense of there’s undirected energy kicking about in there - so we’ve spent large parts of the evening discussing new ways to entice and amuse. A is going to continue to focus on his maths and literacy (oh, how very schooled! rofl) while Tim and I have discussed a whole bunch of other activities that might just draw him on a little.

Big is doing fine. She’s going on a trip to London with A and some of her classmates - they’ve been practising a carol. She’ll love it - I’m taking Small to meltham for the night so that he gets an overnight stop out as well. I’m anticipating that he may still be slightly annoyed though.

Right, scrabulous is failing to load and I’ve nearly drunk my hot chocolate. Must go and try out the contents of my secret parcel* and clear off to bed.

*Tim was most confused to receive a delivery all the way from holland - I didn’t buy it, we’ve been sent it to review, and I’m being paid for it into the bargain!

“I should have pointed out that every time you touch something, if your security systems rely on biometric ID, then you’re essentially leaving your pin number on a post-it note.” Bad Science

Lot’s of nice home science projects to do with the children.

“…a serious risk that all the Bank has done is to enable Northern Rock to continue to trade unlawfully by providing it with a flimsy, uncertain line of credit. Should that be the case, the loan from the Bank may be irrecoverable in law, having been made for the illegal purpose of assisting Northern Rock to continue trading while insolvent. …

Stanley Brodie, QC
London EC4 ”

Times letter

Oops!

“Suppose six castaways are stranded on a deserted island, five Asians and one American. Further, suppose that the castaways decide to divide the work load among them in the following manner: (for the purpose of simplicity, the only desire the castaways work to satisfy is hunger) one Asian is put in charge of hunting, another in charge of fishing, and a third in charge of finding vegetation. A fourth is put in charge of preparing the meal, while a fifth is given the task of gathering firewood and tending to the fire. The American is given the job of eating.

So, on our island five Asians work all day to feed one American, who spends his day sunning himself on the beach. He is employed in the equivalent of the service sector, operating a tanning salon which none of the Asians on the island utilize. At the end of the day, the five Asians present a painstakingly prepared feast to the American, who sits at the head of a special table, built by the Asians specifically for this purpose.

Realizing that subsequent banquets will only be forthcoming if the Asians are alive to provide them, he allows them just enough scraps from his table to sustain their labor for the following day.

Modern day economists would say that this American is the lone engine of growth driving the island’s economy and that without his ravenous appetite, the Asians on the island would be unemployed.”

From an article at Financial Sense

While sorting, tidying and chucking the other day, I came across a letter. Actually I came across a whole pile, I seem to be really bad at keeping on top of paperwork.

However, this one turned out to be from the hospital, and invited me to a memorial service to remember my baby (it was in between the miscarriages) to be held sometime late spring, in a marquee in a carpark. There was a slip to send back if I wanted my baby’s name read out and a candle lit.

This infuriated me somewhat at the time, bit of a paltry follow up. Last night on the way to bed though, it suddenly because too much to handle. You see, I didn’t give them names. There was nothing to give a name too. There was no baby, simply a not very fertilised egg, and it didn’t last long enough for dreams or names or hopes or wishes to have any kind of form.

Was I supposed to give them names? Would it have helped? I can’t stop crying (again) - I wept all over Tim for what felt like hours last night. Wrap it up with the fact that every period feels like a little failure, and another step towards no more children (ticking body clocks have nothing on what’s going on in my head at the moment) and I couldn’t have found that letter at a worse time.

There’s a post in draft somewhere about, ranting about the absolutely dire way my second miscarriage was handled, and the complete lack of any kind of follow up psychological assistance. I can have drugs, that’s no problem at all, but they don’t help me (it really doesn’t help to become completely disassociated from the world around, especially when you spend so much of each day driving up and down the M1) and my doctor doesn’t believe in counselling. Online therapy that rattles on about warpy thoughts left me wanting to throw the puter about out of the window - just because I have depression doesn’t make me a fool you know.

I just want to feel better. I wouldn’t really mind stopping wanting to have another baby (I think) - I’d just like to be able to enjoy my life again instead of dragging myself through each day and hating the fact I don’t seem to be able to be nice to the children I have.

(So if you were wondering why there were no posts for a while, there you have it, it felt completely hypocritical to waffle on about day to day nothings when really all I wanted to do was scream. Then I realised that I felt even more isolated when I wasn’t posting so I started again. Bet you wish I hadn’t bothered.)

Someone needs a sense of humour transplant.

Voice of the Tube is fired for spoof announcements

The woman who warns more than a billion London commuters a year to “mind the gap” has been sacked by Tube bosses after posting a series of spoof announcements on her website.

They are here (Site is overloaded pro tem) but you can hear my favourite here.

The fridge magnet game is fun too

“WALES’ sheep industry could be “decimated” within two years unless supermarkets increase payments to producers, an industry leader warns today.

Rees Roberts, who chairs red meat promotion body Hybu Cig Cymru, said the industry was in “crisis” and could be reduced to half its present size, threatening rural life across Wales.” IC Wales

Now, when I see ‘decimate’ I immediately think ‘reduced by one tenth’. I don’t think ‘halved’. I find it very confusing. If they don’t mean it is going to be decimated, why say so. The article would have been a lot clearer if they simply hadn’t bothered with the first paragraph at all.

Is it just me?

…and don’t get me started on “up to”.

Oh yeah, while I am in rant mode:

Peter Hain: ‘Our mission is to get British benefit claimants into British jobs to become British workers.’

What you mean it isn’t ‘to get Italian benefit claimants into Swiss jobs to become Polish workers.’ ?

It’s called nuspeak.

It’s for the occasional post where I rant about redefinitions by politicos to make the world fit their targets, instead of having their targets fit the world. I might even go back and recategorise a post or two (the one where satisfactory stopped meaning good enough springs to mind).

The inspiration for this effort?

The target of making two million people take up physical activity by 2012 has been regularly cited by ministers but is quietly being dropped. Official participation rates in sport are likely to fall by at least a million people, as the most popular activities - recreational cycling and walking - will no longer count. From April, the number of grassroots clubs and coaches that can win lottery money to support their work will also fall.

Cycling is no longer a sporting activity it would appear. And funding is only attached if you’re wearing a strip and in a team. (Pauses to wonder whether swimming is a sport then.)

And has anyone told Gordon Brown?

But his message is at odds with that given 10 days ago by Gordon Brown, when he addressed a Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation conference through a video later posted on YouTube. He said: ‘The government has issued a challenge to sport. We want two million more active people by 2012. It’s our responsibility to make sure that women and girls represent at least half of those two million … it’s a great opportunity. Let’s take it.’

guardian

of lesser known soft-play centres of West Yorkshire, today found us in Ossett. Getting to Ossett was easy enough - only sticky part of the M1 was the queue lining up to get into M’hell at opening time. (Note to self, no more going to M’hell at weekends until February at the earliest). So that was OK, but then my directions indicated that I was supposed to drive into the centre, which proved a touch impossible - Little Monsters is on a pedestrianised bit of the street. Bit of improvisation later, and we were parked up and walking.

Party was much as these parties are, except that there was a really very good facepainter in residence. So I’ve brought home Spiderman and a special Purple Cat And I got to spend a couple of hours talking about home education, flexi schooling and montessori secondary education with two more mothers in very much the same boat I’m in. Unusual experience that, finding other ppl going through the same things. Usually it’s either school or not school - but right now there are several other children in Big’s class who are also flexi-schooled (I don’t think there are any full time in the elementary room) and they are all of an age where we’re wondering what happens next.

So for once it wasn’t too deadly sitting in a corner, right up til the point it came time to go home. Then Small had a full scale meltdown and I ended up having to physically remove him from the premises - always feel like such a failure when it gets to that point. But when you’ve done the reasoning, the explanation and so on, and it still hasn’t worked, so you end up leaving with a child screaming, hitting and kicking you, it’s a whole load of no fun.

Now feeling sorry for myself at home, as it’s the time of the month to celebrate womanhood by aching all over and bursting into tears at the slightest excuse. Joy.

Concern at pupil data microchips

A secondary school in Doncaster has been trying out a scheme where pupils’ records are stored on a microchip embedded in their school uniform.

It’s time for smaller schools - I’d wager that every single one of my teachers at secondary level knew how I was doing and what I was doing. Granted that was a private school, but I don’t think that that was the deciding factor, it’s the fact that it was a very much smaller school, and many of those teachers taught me for several years.

And what is the point of a tracking system in a jumper? Guess it doesn’t matter how they are doing in the summer then???

a Baileys cocktail shaker? Brand new, arrived today. I won it in a competition, I don’t want it, quite happy to post it on, would really rather not just throw it out.

There may be more to come, I’m in a decluttering mood.

And as promised:
schofield and sims times table practice book 1. Has two pages used, otherwise clean. Free to a good home (would appreciate a contribution for postage if it’s going on its own), or being recycled.
Times Tables: Magical Skills Level 1 (Magical Skills). Completely untouched, would like say 50p plus postage?

Blush. Have just found unaddressed but labelled and sealed envelope which I suspect contains T shirts supposedly on their way to SallyM some time ago. Sally, are these still of interest to you? If so, can you drop me a comment so that I can mail back to get your address?

would a company from whom I have only placed orders online send me a brochure through the post that can only be redeemed for orders placed by phone, post, or in person?

Just who runs marketing depts anyway?

after my brief posting last night, I didn’t do a whole lot of anything else. I went for a brief lie down, and woke up at 3 minutes to 7 this morning when the children decided it was morning. I was very unimpressed at that point as well!

Got up properly just after 9 with a stinking headache, which two paracetamol and a cup of tea have failed to shift. Played moves in my 7 games of scrabulous (it’s nice to have a social life don’t you think?) and have sat trying to ignore cbeebies. It’s so loud!

Time for another cup of tea - kids have now cleared off upstairs to play so I’ve turned the tv off at last. Bliss.

“A woman who became pregnant after a one-night stand has been given the right to keep the birth a secret from the father. The Court of Appeal ruling came after a county court ordered the 20-year-old to tell both her parents and the father. She said she wanted the baby girl, who is now 19 weeks old, adopted at birth without the knowledge of either them or her father.

Lady Justice Arden said the father’s rights had not been violated because he did not have any to violate.” BBC

This comes a day or so after I was reading an news article about how important fathers were Peers attack ‘fatherless’ IVF bid .

Hmm.

Not quite sure what this says about my working life that the definite highlight is finishing on a friday

Kids went out shopping with Tim to get presents for their friend E from school - yet another party on Sunday.

now going to eat snack, might come back and write more later.