Spooky Happenings

Oooh, I've managed to scare myself with my pumpkin carving this year. We thought at two and a half M'laddo might like to make some scary bats and stick them to the window, watch the Nightmare Before Christmas and help me carve a pumpkin. We got part way on all of the planned activities, he managed to stick the bats to the window, swap Tim Burton's masterpiece for Toy Story and do a bit of spooning out of the innards of the pumpkin.

I went out and popped a couple of tea lights in the carved monstrosity, left, which elicited the predictable "Too scared for me!" (I must admit that the inverted photo of it gives me the frights too).

So roll on next year, where the little lad will have hopefully progressed from Disney's Tinkerbelle to something a bit more scary :)

The Hefty Weight of Pumpkin

We dined out in extravagant sumptuous fashion this evening, courtesy of a two for a tenner voucher for Pizza Express. It was a struggle to work out who enjoyed themselves more, M'laddo stuffing his face with his 3 course banquet or the Wee Lass, flirting with virile Italian men all through dinner whilst ramming her chops full of pizza.

With the nights drawing in now, the walk back through the park was plunged into murky darkness. This was an excellent opportunity to wrest some more value out of our torch/lantern combo we got for camping a couple of months ago. M'laddo took the duty of lighting our way very seriously and the task of blinding me with the bright beam more so (if it was your potted shrub I nearly decimated, I'm sorry but what was it doing on the footpath anyway?).

The evening was rounded off nicely by a trip to Waitrose for a pumpkin for carving purposes. I'm pretty sure I shed most of the pizza-centric calories lugging the bright orange mass of pumpkin home too.

Open Letter to Two School Lads in St Albans

Hello Lads,

I know it's half term and the break from school is a good time for hijinks but I think you crossed the line this evening and I hope after the comments I shouted at you, you realised this and did the right thing.

You see, nicking is one thing, especially from someone's front garden, that's easy if they've just left the stuff there, it's almost inviting it isn't it? But what you did in taking a baby walker from the front garden of that house in Victoria St was literally stealing from a baby and you don't get that much lower than that without going to prison.

I know you're too young to know about babies and things like that, but trust me on this one lads, there will be a little baby, probably under one year old who is going to be crying inconsolably because you thought it was funny to carry off their walker. Our ten month old has such a lovely look of satisfaction and achievement on her face as she waddles along the sitting room with her walker. There's a little baby who won't be able to do this because of your selfish actions. I hope you're proud of yourselves, you pair of inconsiderate, thoughtless, pathetic bastards.

I do really hope this gets to you, maybe on of the local papers will print it on their letters page. Do the right thing, take it back or make recompense.

Cheers,

Alex

No Words Wednesday- Beast of Burden

The breakfast of (salty) doom!

So, I was reading recently how breakfast was apparently incredibly bad for you (hurrah- I normally eat an apple on the walk to work as its quicker than scoffing a bowl of cereal). I thought this might be a useful tester for the infamous FSA Salt application on the good old iPod. I must start by saying that I used the producers portion size (30g) but I would expect anyone with an appetite greater than an anorexic lemur to have more than that unless they're following the "serving suggestion" which involves a trip to the market to get some fresh oranges to freshly squeeze, along with some grapefruit and/or some strawberries and the lashings of perfect toast. Frankly I'd need to get up an hour earlier to manage that, so a larger bowl of cereal is my weekend breakfast of choice.

The first thing I noticed was the devious inclusion of sodium as well as salt on the ingredients list. The app usefully says that to convert sodium into salt you have to multiple it by 2.5. So 0.7g of sodium and 1.8g of salt per 100g soon add up. In fact it adds up t0 3.5g, which is more than half an adults recommended daily allowance, all in a paltry portion that the lemur is now thinking twice about.

All in all, I think I'll stick to my fruity breakfast and eschew the boxed cereal approach. Although the lack of fibre will continue to cause those around me a problem :)

The Phrases of Mini-Genius

M'laddo has developed his own stock phrases- that is little catchphrases that don't appear to come from either wifey or me.

"Don't worry mumma/dadda, don't worry." This one often isn't an either or on the mumma/dadda front either, he sometimes says both. It is often accompanied by some sheer lunacy on his part that he knows might be dangerous. You know, like carrying two house bricks, or hanging one handed from the mantelpiece reaching across to turn the telly on.

"Eeeek, robot get me!" Usually an excuse for running away, making a fuss, wanting attention, we have no idea what the robot is, other than it spawns the next awesome phrase...

"Robot!! Urrrz, urrz, uuurz.." This one is coupled with a 1980's style bit of robot style break dancing that is cute if it isn't for the fact that Robot is M'laddo's evil alter ego that generally wreaks havoc upon all.

"No like that, it too scare for me!" M'laddo knows what's what, what he likes, what he doesn't and whats frightening. Unfortunately there isn't much rhyme or reason to what is scary. It could be a large spider, equally it could be a pigeon. Maybe a piece of toast with too much butter on it.

So that's how the wee lad rolls. He's always coming up with new ones, today he said, "Dadda, me have big idea, watch this." I'm waiting to see if this becomes a new catchphrase, time will tell :)

20p, Wow Mummy, Thank You!!!

Those words were uttered by me on more than one occasion in the mid 1980's (I would have been ten in 1985 you know). 20p got you a lot in 1985- it was enough to buy a copy of the Beano (14p) and have enough over for a sizeable bag of sweeties. And if your little brother had a similar 20p, the Dandy was also a distinct possibility, along with a pooled collection of sweets that was too big to argue over without feeling sick. I have to admit a secret love of Whizzer and Chips though, the idea of it being two competing comics in one, was both dangerous and exciting in a way that few printed things are for little boys.

It got me thinking though as I pocketed the change from a box of large matches in Wilkinsons earlier on today, does loose change actually serve any purpose other than to provide change for things that don't come to a round pound? 25 years of inflation (well 24 and one year of deflation but lets not get pernickity eh?) has meant that 20p isn't really worth much any more, unless of course you've got one of the Royal Mints cock up 20p's without a date on it.

So, with a bit of research, this is what you can get for your 20p now days:

Space Raider crisps! That's right! A blast from the past, coming in either small bags (10p) or big bags (20p) and all the proper traditional flavours like cheese and onion, pickled onion and salt and vinegar. The best thing is, its not an ironically retro crisp, its just plain old fashioned and proud of it.

6 minutes parked on Trumpington Road in Cambridge (a good 15 minutes walk from the city centre but usefully close to the Fitzwilliam Museum. Not so useful really.

Back in the 1980's my Dad's Mark 1 Golf would have been parked pretty much anywhere a ten minute walk from the city centre for nothing. Not that he would have, he'd have shoved it in the Lion Yard car park and probably paid about 50p to park there himself.

Ignoring the inflation on car parking, the amount of free parking has dramatically decreased over the years.

A candy necklace! Or, a third of what's in the picture! They now cost an outrageous 15p. This is only outrageous if you fail to realise that the Beano now costs a whopping £1.25 a week. Makes me wish the Beezer was still in print!

And that is pretty much it. Panda Pops are too expensive, other pick and mix might just make it but have you seen the price of a BlackJack now days? So my advice is to either save them up and get them changed into 2p's at the seaside for use in the 2p slidey machines, or develop a love for Space Raiders.

Me, I'll have a bag of pickled onion please!

Waterstones- a Rant

The horror section now appears to comprise of the following:

A handful of Stephen King books (none of the "classics" either),
3 Dean Koontz books,
A metric ton of teen vampire books by several authors I've never heard of. All the covers have photos of young ladies (presumably the protagonists) on them and are all recommended by other authors of the same sort of rubbish.

The the heck is going on? No Ramsey Campbell, no Cliver Barker(!), no Graham Masterton or any other "proper" horror authors but plenty of this sort of rubbish that should be refiled in the teen literature section.

It's bad enough half the sci fi shelves are fulled with franchised tat like Star Wars, BSG, Dr Who, Warhammer and Trek but Waterstones seem to have signed some sort of deal with Orbit books as the shelves are now packed with tens of unknown authors who can't write for toffee at the expense of well established quality authors.

In amongst the Star Wars tie in merchandising it might be a sodding good idea to stock a copy of Jack Vance's Tales of Dying Earth if you have a large display of hardback copies of the tribute to Jack Vance's Tales of Dying Earth. It's not rocket science (although they could probably order you a copy of a book about rocket science if the Bang Goes the Theory! tie in book from BBC Worldwide doesn't cover it) is it?

And don't get me started on our local library, which seems to want to enter some sort of competition with Blockbusters in the DVD rental area...

I shall take a deep breath and go for a lie down.

Strutting His Stuff Like He Owns the Place

M'laddo had his first settling in session at the child minders yesterday. The two of them (M'laddo and Childminder) aren't strangers to each other; he went there when Wifey went back to work after he was born but difficulties with his breath holding meant it didn't last long. Which was a shame as he loved it there and she clearly liked having him. But the breath holding has pretty much stopped now, and since Wifey is about to rejoin the ranks of the great unwashed, it's time for him to go back...

So it was more of a reacquainting process than a settling in one really. It was only supposed to be a couple of hours but M'laddo decided he wanted to stay for lunch and wouldn't leave. He also decided he wanted to stay when Wifey tried to pick him up after lunch. Eventually he swaggered back into the house at around 3 o'clock, leaving us all safe in the knowledge that he'll be okay at the Childminders.

He's seldom as full of himself as he was last night and he asked, nay wanted, nay demanded, Harold the Helicopter as his bed time book for the third successive night. And then told his Mummy he'd fly the helicopter and she could sit there in the passenger seat. After a bit of thought, she was relegated to Percy and I got to co-pilot but the thought was there.

The wee lass is having a harder settling in period though. As you might have read, sleep for her is a little like a Chinese meal, little portions and a lot of them (only she doesn't always manage the whole meal). She spends the day exhausted crawling round after Wifey (or me if I'm at home), and spends the night sleeping on and off in little bite sized chunks that mean she still effectively employs CIA torture techniques on us every night. By "us" I do of course mean Wifey, although I try to vicariously suffer a bit too. She's done a fair bit of crying so far at the childminders, mostly because she doesn't know the minder yet- she often spends the morning with her Nan, her Uncles taken her out and so on, so it can't be separation anxiety in my book.

I think she's too tired to be the usual grinning little lady she normal is- she'll smile and get on with anyone normally but at the moment she's not sure of anyone, which is unlike her.

Cough, Splutter and So On and So Forth

So I had a cold for a couple of weeks.

It turned into a cough, I couldn't shift it.

Then I got a sick bug (from the wee lass, who got it from wifey, who caught it from m'laddo).

The cough was diagnosed as a chest infection.

I got a temperature at work.

It was 40.1 degrees.

Wifey called the SwineFlu helpline who decided that I probably had swine flu and maybe had pneumonia on top of it.

All well and good but about 5 hours later my temperature was back to normal. Yes, I felt rough but then I did have a chest infection. I've had the flu before and I know how badly it hits you- most people think a bad head cold is the flu and they're going to be in for the shock of their life if they actually get the swine flu.

And Another Thing

If anybody is interested in listening to the first chapter of the new Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy book, you can listen to it here.

Douglas Adams is obviously no more, so he's been replaced at the helm by Eoin Colfer. I've listened to the first couple of instalments, and it is abridged but I'm still not convinced. Having said that, the later books by Adams himself weren't entirely brilliant.

Give it a listen, see what you think. I for one am hoping that when M'laddo is a bit older he'll become enough of a spanner to know and love nerdish science fiction like the original Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Where's the Sodding Marmite???

In the Marmite debate, I fall on the side of people who like it. I'm not potty
enough to want it on Weetabix or to spoon it out of the jar but I like it on toast and on french stick.

This is why I suffer continual frustration at supermarkets and specifically Sainsburys frankly bizarre shelfing choices when it comes to my favourite yeasty spread.

I like to think at times I'm a sane man, I have a fairly logical mind but I'm not the worlds most organised person. When I look for a thing to spread on bread, I look in the close environs of the bread. There, I've said it, it's not rocket science and I can't be the only person to think this. It must be fairly reasonable as its where the jams and marmalades live after all.

Furthermore, the gravies and stuffing live on shelves over the deep freeze cabinets containing the frozen meat. Sensible stuff I'm sure you'll agree. So why does my local Sainsbury have the sodding Marmite next to the gravy, above the frozen chickens? More importantly why does the sodding Sainsbury at London Colney not have the sodding Marmite next to the sodding gravy?

I want to cry.

The Vomit Marathon Has Begun!!!

I went out for the first time in ages this evening, to the St Albans Book Club. I must say they were a lovely bunch of people and hopefully by admitting most of the books I read involve spaceships, or as my wife puts it, elves, pixies and goblins, I haven't alienated myself.

Unfortunately just before I headed off Wifey was sick and whilst I was out of mobile reception range, the wee lass was violently ill over my poor brother. I did umm and aah about going but I cancelled what would have been my inaurgal visit last month at short notice due to sickness in the household and since they've closed the group to new members, I thought it would be pushing my luck to drop out at the last minute twice on the trot.

I am now waiting with not much optimism for the vomit comet to make its visit to me.

Telephone conversations with a toddler

When the caller ID on my work phone displays our home number, I know one of two things has happened. Either M'laddo has done something astonishingly ill conceived (the word "naughty" is currently taboo in our household as it apparently encourages conformity to type- tell a nipper they're naughty and they'll behave in a naughty fashion), or the little fella wants to talk to me.

This makes answering the phone a bit tricky as I could have a two year old on the end of it or wifey at her wits end. I often go with the neutral, "Hello?" and wait to see whether I get an adult or a toddler reply.

I think it's funny that M'laddo knows what a telephone is for and moreover he can demand that his mummy calls me on it so he can have a chat. And when he's got the phone to focus on, I get a proper conversation out of him as he's not distracted by the myriad of other things around us. This caused a bit of a problem last night as he wanted to talk to Nanna before he went to bed. We phoned her and they had a little natter but as a result of this, M'laddo insisted on taking Wifey's old Sony Ericsson mobile to bed with him so he could be in contact with people.

I discovered this to be an unfortunate thing at around 6am, when the hysterical sobbing started. I assumed it was due to the loss of two bun-bun, who often falls out of the bed, but no, this was a whole different kettle of fish. M'laddo was clutching his mobile phone and in clear distress because the battery had fallen off the back of the phone. The little so and so had been clutching it tightly all night and was distraught that the thing had fallen to bits (well it is old. Perhaps I should superglue it back on?).

Needless to say this obviously coincided with the first prolonged period of wee lass silence all night. Funny how they time it isn't it? Must be some sort of rota.

So What Have I Been Doing Thats Not Drivel?

Not watching pointless telly is harder than it looks. Just pressing the "on" button is pretty easy, and certainly less effort than anything that requires more effort.

So here is a snapshot of whats been going on with my evenings for the past few days:

• playing find the charger (for phones, cameras etc);
• fitting in the odd xbox game of Fifa (well it's interactive);
• listening to some music in the living room (don't rate Newton Faulkner's new album, "Rebuilt by Humans", compared to his début effort but should probably give it a few listens in case its a grower);
• doing some writing, although nothing of particular note;
• trying not to get horribly addicted to Twitter (easier said then done);
• watching the Box of Delights on DVD as I somehow managed to miss out on this when I was a nipper- a real OMG that's Patrick Troughton moment occurred- hadn't seen him outside Dr Who;
  
• pondering the correct use of semi-colons when doing lists :)

So nothing earthshattering, I haven't replaced Eastenders with freefall parachuting as yet but its a step in the right direction.

The Waiting Game(s)

I had the rather odd privilege of watching (not literally I hasten to add) a fellow twitterer going through labour yesterday. With enough detail to bring the odd Vietnam flashback (but with more gore than your average US independent observer suffered) and some photos of the end result (baby I mean), it was a really vicarious experience.

But reading the tweets about contractions and time passing made me think of our own situation. As wifey has just blogged, M'laddo was sick, exorcist sick at that, on Friday night. I'd just pulled my newly rediscovered Lowe Alpine fleece on for the brisk 2 mile walk home when the phone rang and wifey had the tones of someone who's just experienced something fairly unpleasant. "Toddlerboy has just been sick everywhere."

I'm the VomDoctor in our house, I'll never forget M'laddo's first bout of winter vomiting virus- he'd puked in his bed and was busy chundering all over me in the middle of the night. I stripped him off and took him in the shower with me and Wifey hosed us down. I had to remove the chunks of sick that had become wedged between my buttock cheeks ((even marriage vows only carry so much conviction in this sort of situation). Afterwards when we were both clean and dressed, M'laddo drank rather too much water and began to bring it up. I called for something to catch it with and in a panic got passed two girly sized tissues. I caught the second wave of sick (mostly water thankfully) in my PJ's which I'd pulled out like an apron to spare our bottom sheet and duvet.

Back to the now though, or at least last Friday. It's times like this the 2 mile walk home from work becomes a pain rather than a benefit but by the time I got home things seemed rather normal, save the rather damp pushchair and M'laddo on the sofa under his duvet looking a bit forlorn.

We steadied ourselves for a nightime of vomiting and also begun the long wait for the 3 of us to come down with it. In our experience, winter vomiting is a bit like the Three Musketeers, one for all and all for one and all that. Well, its now Sunday night and the remaining members of the household are still vomit free. M'laddo had a spectacular night time sick bout last night after a day of seeming perfectly fine and running around the D'Havilland Museum, so he's still not well. But the metaphorical Sick Bowl of Damocles is still nestling beside our bed and our own special waiting game is still unresolved...

The Hunter Gatherer Instincts Kick In

Whilst Wifey was wheeling the pushchair through doggy mess on Sunday, M'laddo and I were busy providing for our family.

Perhaps I should explain. For my birthday this year a £15 Amazon voucher winged its way to me from my best chum, which was a nice surprise. There was a particular novel I wanted but it meant I had to spend a couple of extra pounds to qualify for free delivery. So I did. Best £2.93 I've spent in a while I can tell you. I've always fancied doing a bit of foraging that goes beyond blackberrying and this book is the perfect accompaniment. It's well illustrated and fits in the back pocket of your jeans nicely.

I'm fairly adventurous in my eating (as wifey will testify) but I'd probably draw the line at picking and eating wild mushrooms or fungi. Lets be honest, whilst there's little that could kill you in your local woods, mushrooms all look the same, none look like the nice illustrations and its pot luck if you end up chundering. Nope, we were on a quest for early season sweet chestnuts. My brother and I always used to collect them when we were little but we never had them roasted for us and it was only when wifey introduced me to them as an edible treat that I realised how yummy they were.

So M'laddo and I (with encouragement from the wee lass and help from wifey) rummaged and tried not to prick our fingers.

It is (according to my book) a bit early in the season for sweet chestnuts, late October or early November is better but I must say they provided a hearty hot snack in the evening.

No Words Wednesday

It's drivel

I'm watching Gok on Channel 4 at the moment and have had a moment of clarity. Why am I doing this night after night? There are books to read (some that I really want to read too), stuff to do, chilling to occur and so on and so forth.

As a result of my moment of clarity I have now turned the telly off (well I'm using it to route some music through but you get the gist). I mean for goodness sake, I have over 5,000 photos that need sorting, I've written 60,000 words of a book I need to finish, I've got a separate blog with a comic that I've managed to post one strip on and that's just for starters, I haven't finished the last dozen or so books I've started reading either which definitely isn't like the old me. I'm I starter, then I give up and watch telly. In a word, I'm more than a bit useless. So, who's with me? Lets kick the telly out. And hopefully I will feel like I've achieved a bit more come the end of the week.