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Tuesday 30 June 2015

Spending

Thank goodness DH managed to sort out the freezer.  I hadn't spotted the wedge of ice that was holding the door open, but DH cleared it.  I am so glad, and grateful that DH sorted it so well.  All the contents had to be thrown.  Looking for a bright side, we didn't have to spend over £100 and I got rid of a lot of stuff that was never going to be used but seemed such a waste to throw out.  It's just frustrating that the stuff had to go.  I can also start a freezer book and keep it up!

That being said, the sandals I dug out from last year definitely needed replacing.  So I need to get something that can cope with the swelling, something that can cope with my loathing of toe posts, something that will be inexpensive as it is likely to be only worn half a dozen times each year and, mainly, something that will make bear say, 'Mother!  You can't wear those!'  I saw these.


They are more expensive than I want to pay, also I would definitely break my neck in them due to iffy ankles, steep steps, bank down to bear's school etc.  But I do love the look of them.   I am getting an Amazon order together, as I can get that delivered to DH at work.  At the moment it contains slippers, as mine have disintegrated and are shameful.  I shall have to put them in someone else's bin, they are so bad.  It also contains a bundle of some inexpensive computer games to keep my sanity over summer.

Bear had his sports day this morning.  He won his race (the hurdles) and was generally lovely.  I am very proud of him.

Monday 29 June 2015

Darn it to Heck

The freezer door won't shut.

I've been after a new freezer for a while.  This one is eight years old, which is apparently old for a freezer.  I find this hard.  The fridge freezer we got with our wedding present money was over fifteen years old when we got rid and the only reason we changed it was because I wanted more freezer space so got a HUGE upright freezer and a larder fridge.

If I prop a heavy bag against the door then it will probably be okay.  However I know that the freezer door has come open at least four times over the weekend, and was definitely open from Sunday afternoon (bear raiding freezer pops) and 3.30pm today (bear raiding freezer pops).  This begs the question of how safe the stuff in the freezer is.

I think the timing, waiting until the hottest week of the year before having a fail, is worthy of respect.  I'm still not impressed.

We don't need a freezer.  In fact I can make a good argument for hanging fire for a few months.  I've just had a look at AO.com (who rock, their customer service is up there with Lakeland and they are competively priced).  I whimpered at the cost.

I've looked at replacing a freezer seal and it looks beyond my skills.  As the trays are also iffy and I suspect it is on borrowed time anyway I am not sure it is worth the attempt.  Also I may finally be able to get a frost free model.

But darn.

Two Recipes

I spilled the last of my Aldi soap powder over the floor so had to go with the home made stuff earlier than expected.  I had copied the recipe carefully from the magazine - twice the weight of the grated bar of soap in both borax and washing soda.  I had some incredibly inexpensive soap from Approved Food that turned out to be pure vegetable soap, really nice looking stuff.  I decided to double up the recipe as the jar I keep my soap in is quite big.


 However, approximately 250g of grated soap, 500g of washing soda and 500g of Wizzo Oxi Clean look a bit bigger than I thought.


I thought I would try it on my table cloth that after a packed weekend looked like this.


I put the cloth into a 60 degree wash, pre-wash setting, no extra cleaning agents, vinegar as a laundry condition, home made washing powder into the drum and not the drawer.  Actually it came out okay.  There was a faint mark, but nothing that another rinse wouldn't deal with.  The downside is that there was a lot of undissolved grated soap still hanging around in the drum.  I did not expect this after a stern wash at 60 degrees.  It is fine in a table cloth bought second hand from an Indian restaurant for very little money and that is is designed for a boil wash.  It would be no good on our clothes.  I'm currently on steroid cream again for my skin, and soap left in clothes would not do me any good.  I suspect that if I sort of sifted out the grated soap the result would be fine, but I am unsure that I want to risk it.

I have now tried substituting my preferred Ariel with Tesco Everyday Value, Aldi and home made.  I am going to include a pack of Ariel in tomorrow's delivery.  I would consider Aldi if it was slightly easier to get to, and Tesco Everyday Value isn't too bad.  I just think I get a better result from Ariel.  Bear likes playing out in the summer, so I expect I shall have to use something fairly heavy duty.

The second recipe is the 'two ingredient pizza' that I saw on Mumsnet.  There are lots of variations on the web, but I mixed 200g of fat free Greek yogurt with 200g of gluten free self raising flour and stirred, then kneaded, then instead of rolling out thinly I squidged it down in a tin, spread with a gluten free pizza sauce and sprinkled with chopped bell pepper and torn up sandwich ham.  I cooked it at 180 degrees C, Gas 4, moderate oven for fifteen minutes and it was lovely.  Bear loved everything but the sauce.  To be honest, I wasn't that impressed with the sauce, which I had got when on offer during a 'gluten free' sale.  Next time I shall gently fry peppers and onions, stir in tomato puree and herbs and sprinkled over with ham (or whatever meat was left from the joint).  The pizza sauce is actually quite nice used as a pasta sauce, but I shall be sticking to the tomato puree in future with that as well.

I shall also be using the 'greek yogurt and flour' combination to make flat bread type stuff, especially if I want to make fattoush.  Fattoush is a sort of bread salad and there is a recipe here.

So there are two recipes.  It is really important that you do not get them confused.  One of them works and one of them doesn't.  Heaven knows what I am going to do with the rest of the homemade soap powder!

Mountain Ash thank you so much for your kind words.  I took down the White Hart as I wasn't getting anywhere with it.  I had a blast writing it, and I had some great ideas but at the time father was actively stopping me writing.  At the moment I visit him in the early part of the day, look after bear and then DH needs a lot of support at the moment so I am spending lots of time with him in the evening.  Writing is being squeezed in as and when.

Friday 26 June 2015

Incognito Browsing

If you, like me, use Chrome then at the top right hand corner of the bar there is a little square with three horizontal lines.  If you click on that you get a drop down menu where you can select incognito browsing or you can press Ctrl + Shift + N and get a window where your browsing history isn't tracked.  You get a cute pic in the corner that looks like this



Incognito browsing is apparently sold as 'you can shop for presents and keep them a surprise from your other half.'  In the real world it is frequently used for looking at pictures and videos of 'adult' content.  I have learned to only click on stuff from Mumsnet in an incognito window, as bear sometimes uses my laptop and there is no shame on that site.

However, if you are trying to browse for something that you may end up buying online or you are trying to work out a good price or a better deal, it is worth using incognito browsing.  If you go on a cashback site, it checks to see if you have already been on the site by looking at cookies on your machine.  Usually you can only use a cashback site if you allow cookies.  If you have browsed, for example, M&S directly and then try and go through the cashback site, it could be refused.  I suppose the reasoning is, why should they give you cashback when you were going there anyway?  I don't want to risk getting refused a big amount of cashback because I have clicked through an advert or a link that I didn't realise went through to a different site.  Incognito browsing doesn't allow cookies.

If you do find that you have accidentally gone through direct to a site where you will be making a purchase that will get you a lot of cashback, you can go back and clear cookies.   You go back to the same little three horizontal lines, go down until you find 'settings' then go down again until you find 'advance settings' and then you can find 'clear browsing data'.  This will log you out of everything and you may have to re-enter every password again, but if you are getting a 3% deal on a £500 appliance then it is worth it.  Perhaps not so much so for 1% on a £3 purchase.

As a note, a little warning comes up to say that this doesn't hide your history from your employer or internet provider.  A site you are on can tell that you are on it.  I am confident that it is not a way to hide illegal activity.  As I have found arsenic on ebay, and searched the best place to find slow match for explosives for Digging up the Past, I think I'll just worry about shopping cookies.

Bear is Clear

I didn't realise how relatively close we were to Mother Shipton's Cave.  I went years ago when I was perhaps younger than bear, but I lived in a different part of the country.  I was telling bear all about the cave and the way things hung in the water would turn to stone - even teddy bears and it would be stone right through!  Bear was fascinated.  Then I mentioned that it was a relatively short drive.

"I'm not going." Bear said firmly.

Bear has also advised me that his school shoes are now too small.  He breaks up from school on 21 July.  If he gets shoes this weekend he will scrape maybe three and half weeks' wear out of them - and at £40 for school shoes that is around £10 a week.  I don't believe that they will be fit for September.

But this is the first time bear has actually mentioned that his shoes are too tight.  Normally I have to just guess.  I was looking at his shoes yesterday and thinking I was glad it was coming to the end of term.  They look like he has been working in a quarry - and not a clean one!

I wonder if I could get away with some assertively black trainers for the last few weeks.  I shall study the shoes in the playground and see whether it is worth the risk.

Thursday 25 June 2015

Saturday 20 June 2015

Back to the Basics

Yesterday I bought a bottle of vodka (at 9 in the morning!) for the fennel vodka.  I looked at the vast swathes of fennel still in the garden.  I looked at the fronds in the kitchen.  I thought I would never drink the dratted fennel vodka.  I will be making chilli vodka for a Christmas present so the vodka can keep for that.  I reluctantly got rid of the left over fronds.  The waste grieved me, but the waste of a bottle of vodka flavoured with fennel sitting there being ignored would be just as much a waste and more expensive.

Apparently there was a pub called The Squinting Cat.  It is currently closed due to violence, which doesn't surprise me.  Psycho cat was a devil after catnip. To my delight I found a picture of it on WikiCommons.


The one in Swarcliffe is not to be confused with the one in Harrogate.  I don't think the one at Harrogate ever had a fight at a funeral and the one at Swarcliffe definitely did.  I think the name is awesome, though, and I may well nick it for a novel.

Thursday 18 June 2015

Different Types of Minor Problems

It's minor problems.  To be honest, I think it shows I have too much time on my hands.

Problem Number One - bear has come back from a school trip convinced that a ghost is attached to him.  My great-grandmother was a medium which has convinced me that a lot of the mediums are hokum.  My grandmother went to a Spiritualist Sunday School and Summer Camp and she had beliefs that absolutely shackled her behaviour.  I've done a brisk, 'I'm sure it's nothing' but it doesn't sound like the teachers nipped what sounded like hysteria on the coach back in the bud.  I can happily encourage bear to believe in dragons under the house steps, but I can see me being up and down all night with nightmares.


Problem Number Two - I have vast quantities of fennel and no idea what do do with it.



At the moment I am considering getting a large bottle of gin, leaving the fennel in it to infuse and making my own gripe water.  Back in the less enlightened days, gripe water was gin flavoured with fennel and fennel is supposed to be good for the stomach.  I don't know how it will affect my stomach, but the summer holiday is only a few weeks away, just enough time for the gripe water to mature and I'm sure it will make me feel better after a long day full of small boys.

Fennel is also supposed to be good for fish.  I can't see me serving up fish fingers on a bed of fennel, but who knows.  I'll put a large quantity in the frittata tonight and see how it goes.  If it is a fail we can always go to the chippy.

Cat versus Magpie

I saw a large cat being menaced by two magpies this morning.  The cat had been watching a particular place in the verge so I wonder if he was menacing a fallen magpie chick or whether he had seen a spider disappear there three weeks ago and was wondering if it had come back.  The cat looked supremely indifferent to the magpies, but I wasn't betting against them.  They didn't have the cat cornered and it was the cat that widdled on my window a few days ago so I left them to it.  I know that DH's late grandmother's cat got cornered by magpies and got quite badly hurt.

My stats on the blog are odd.  I keep getting hits for posts that happened a long time ago, and one from May 3rd had this picture.


The same bush now looks like this


It feels good to feel Summer

Wean - I think that Clas Ohlson could be a new friend.  I'm looking at their stuff and it rocks

Wednesday 17 June 2015

I Remembered to Get a Card!

Father's Day on Sunday!

I picked up a card from bear to father, a card from me to father and a card from bear to DH.  The presents have already been organised.  However I boggled at the 'Happy Father's Day to my Godfather' card.  Apparently there is a call for them.  I may be failing at card sending - it never occurs to me to send half of the ones my newsagent stock (at very reasonable prices).

Of course there was the minor fail when I got bear's packed lunch for the school trip ready - and then realised it was tomorrow.  It could have been worse.

On the way back from visiting father I called in at Clas Ohlson.  It is a sort of cross between IKEA and Wilkinsons and I bought some necessary things plus a copper over the door hanger.  I don't need an over the door hanger.  I haven't even got a spare suitable door.  However it was inexpensive, copper and irresistible.  There was also the pack of twenty compressed cleaning cloths.  I have a weakness for compressed cloths as well as copper, and as they were next to the till I was caught.  I really don't need any more cleaning cloths, this was pure self indulgence.  I may have to self exclude.

Tuesday 16 June 2015

How Many!?!?

Bear is happily working his way through the Beast Quest series.  They are aimed at young male readers of bear's age or a bit older.  We have worked our way through the first chapters of Book 1, Ferno the Fire Dragon, as the bedtime read with bear reading for a change.  Bear has read through the first six on his own.

It sounds impressive, but he has read the first six out of over a hundred of the dratted things.  There are 86 in the fifteen Beast Quest series.  There's another fifteen 'specials', three choose your own adventure books, four 'Chronicles of Aventia and three 'Battle of the Beasts'.  Then there are sixteen Sea Quest books, four Sea Quest 'specials', a 'Complete Book of Beasts' and an Adventurer's Handbook.  That's 133 not including Annuals and sticker books.  The only blessing is that it hasn't yet been made into a cartoon.  To be honest, I'm quite glad that suddenly I have some inspiration for when Christmas and bear's birthday roll around again.

There is a website, which has a lot of fun stuff and bear could sign up for a newsletter.  The most wonderful thing about that is that to sign up you have to include your parent's email address as well.  I really appreciate that touch.

They seem great, age appropriate, fast paced tales of adventure.  I got the first eighteen in an awesome deal from The Book People a few years ago, and it is really working now for bear.  It is also the start of strategic negotiations about who buys the next installment of the collection.  I may delegate that one to DH.

Monday 15 June 2015

Going with the Flow

The call to the council about rats seems to have stirred up more than the furry vermin.  Nice Mr Next Door is currently moving stuff (they moved out officially in April, and it's been a bit hit and miss) and so is the Landlord.  No furry sightings.

So stuff is being moved gently around and the skip is getting incredibly full incredibly quickly.  There is a chance that by the end of the week we will have a more or less normal street.  That is, it will still be full of potholes, badly made and the laurels at the back of Matalan will be encroaching over their sagging wire fence, but for the first time in ten years the place will not be full of cars in stages of repair.  I'm going to really miss it.

I have found someone called Mica Peet who makes extremely attractive jewellery.  I am wondering when I would wear it, but even though I don't have many days out I am very drawn to this hare  

I really shouldn't wander in places on the internet that sell stuff.  It never ends well.

Sunday 14 June 2015

Words to Live By

Do not go on eBay when depressed.

(please let me be outbid, please let me be outbid, please let me be outbid, please let me be outbid, please let me be outbid...)

Friday 12 June 2015

Something in the Water

For the last few weeks I have been certain that there has been a smell to our water.  I thought it may be chlorine but it was a strong smell, it made me queasy smelling water freshly out of the tap.  I rang Yorkshire Water (who were lovely) and they asked me to boil some water in a pan.

I boiled the water in a pan.  It still smelled a little odd.  Apparently stuff can come back from a washing machine and dishwasher and contaminate the water with phenols.  I didn't really follow the whole story.  They are sending some valves out to fit and fix the problem.

That night the pipe burst at the back.  A lot of water ran through, it was trickling down the front steps and into their yard.  I haven't been able to find out exactly what happened, but I can make some deductions.  First, we hardly ever heard anyone in the house.  Second, you do not get two police vans for a burst pipe.  Third, someone connected with the police was putting rubbish in a skip.  I believe they were connected with the police as the van was still there and they didn't look like the Landlord's usual workforce (who make Shameless look like Savile Row).  These were not wearing the sort of coveralls you see on the news and in police dramas, so not a violent crime.  Fourth, the skip had lots of sort of tubing, like you would get for vents of a tumble dryer, and lots of hosepipes.  I suspect they were growing drugs.

Now that the stuff has been removed and it has all quietened down the water is okay.  There is a faint chlorine scent, but nothing like it was.  I wonder if something has been coming from the house at the back, as our water comes through there before passing through us and then on to next door.  Perhaps there was something but it has all been flushed out by the massive outrush of water.  Perhaps I have just imagined it all.

I'll never find out, but at least the water is getting back to normal and the kitchen no longer smells of seaweed.

Leaving it to the Last Minute

It's my fault.

Okay, bear did wait until all the local shops were shut last night before telling me that he needed to wear sun cream today.  But that is normal and thankfully I did have some in the cupboard, unopened from last year.  Bear has a slight tan, and I'm not sure if that makes me a good mother or a bad mother.  I just give a good scrub to make sure it's not dirt and keep my head down.

I didn't check that the shorts he was planning to wear to the sports day were okay.  I mean, they were shorts, they were new and they were about the right length - not too far above the knee, plenty of room for running.  What I didn't realise until 8.30 this morning is that, because bear is a skinny soul and there is more meat on a butcher's pencil, the shorts hung off him.  The apparent drawstring was only apparent as well.  The 'drawstring' was just two small bits of tape sewn to the front.

Now, given time and an absence of bear giving me a full explanation of why this is inadequate, I could snip into the waistband and try and shorten the elastic.  I wasn't going to try that with twenty five minutes to go and a complete lack of skill.  Bear insisted he was going to wear his jogging bottoms.  I suggested shorts and safety pins.  Bear was adamant - jogging bottoms or nothing.

The weather forecast is for warm weather.  The jogging bottoms are thick.  They are also about two inches too small for my taste and are definitely going to the clothes bank on the next run.

Reluctantly I let him wear the jogging bottoms, sent him in slathered in sun cream and told him to change in to the shorts in his PE kit if he felt warm.  I'm wishing I had stuck to shorts and safety pins.

Thursday 11 June 2015

Another Normal Night and Day

Last night in the early hours I heard what sounded like a burst pipe in the house at the back.  I ended up knocking on the landlord's door as it was really loud.

Then I heard the banging on the door, the breaking in and the looking around.

This morning there were two police vans outside the house.  Apparently there is nothing to worry about.

I'm going to have a duvet day.

Wednesday 10 June 2015

Thinking Inside the Box

Bear was not happy.  His best friend/greatest enemy (delete as applicable, varies between one day and the next) had cut the bits off a HUGE cardboard box that had once held an Approved Food order.  This apparently was the end of the world.

I weakened a little and got another Approved Food.  It had things we wanted in, but it was touch and go.  I probably wouldn't have bothered if it hadn't been for the box situation.

The box situation sounds far worse than it sounds.  It is one of those little niggles that take up far too much attention.  I could live with bear being a stroppy eight year old about a box but that box was supposed to be swapped for the huge, saggy lawnmower box that a vast swathe of woollens arrived in from eBay.  Bear had been using it for a den but DH had done a deal where we could lose the huge lump of cardboard that was disintegrating all over bear's bedroom and instead have the slightly more intact huge lump of cardboard with the castle windows drawn on it.

The Approved Food order arrived today, and the box was a small one.  I hadn't ordered enough.  What was worse, the stuff I put in as a treat for DH wasn't in either.  The pennies are credited to my account but that isn't the point.

I've had a quick look at the Approved Food site.  There is nothing I want.  Poor bear is going to have to wait for his replacement box.  I'll have a quick word when I'm in the local shops but I don't think they have the big size that bear is coveting.  He will get over it.

Tuesday 9 June 2015

A Fail so Epic it's Widescreen

I was checking my stats to see if the betting site was still linking to me and what was the weird spike in views and I noticed that I had had some views of my 'To Do'.  I thought I would remind myself.

Epic Fail.  In fact we are heading past fail into such a lack of success that it has no name.  I have done so little of it.  I could cry.  However the ideas were good, and just because I haven't done them yet doesn't mean I'll never get there.  I will certainly get there quicker if I have a positive attitude.

I have no idea where to start at the moment.  Everything seems all over the place.  However bear is doing fine and DH usually has a clean shirt and the amount of mess is slowly ebbing.  It's not brilliant, and it is only marginally better, but it isn't worse.  I'm going to have a positive think.

In other news my kitchen smells of seaweed, despite never having had seaweed in the house, and a rat ran across the garden when I went out to pick up bear.

The positive attitude may need some work.  Here is a picture that makes me feel positive.

Monday 8 June 2015

Knowing my Place

Our kitchen is actually in our cellar.  Some competent house owner before us converted the large, low ceiling room into a kitchen, dining room and walk in cupboard.  This means that I always need the light on as the small window is at eye level inside but ground level outside and doesn't get much sun.  It also means that it is cool in summer, snug in winter and the only downside is carrying food up and down steep steps as father was too frail to manage down to the dining room.  

This morning I was making bear's cereal when I saw a very handsome tom stroll into the garden.  I had the perfect angle to admire him as he padded over the yard.  He was entirely black and very self assured as he looked me over, ignored me, sniffed the plants and then widdled on the window glass - dead centre, perfect aim.

The window needed cleaning anyway.

Saturday 6 June 2015

Bear's Birthday Party

Bear had his birthday part today.  It was six months late.  I am a very rubbish mother sometimes.  We had it in the Thackeray Medical Museum, and it was beyond epic.

First of all there was a cake.  DH's cousin performed miracles at short notice and made this...


Then there were the demonstrations and opportunities to make slime and have a wound make up session.  Bear looked awesome with a huge gash on his cheek.  All the kids had a go, but I made sure I warned the parents first.  The staff were amazing!  We will be going back there for a visit again, it looked brilliant but not for the faint hearted.  After the make up there was a guided tour of some of the galleries followed by food.  It was a success.  Then DH took bear to visit father who was suitably impressed.

It may be late, but it was perfect for bear.  And that is definitely the last party I am going to sort out until his eighteenth.

Friday 5 June 2015

Bear and Bananas

I have finally found out what colours bear needs to wear for his sports day - on the 12th of June.  Now we do have the weekend, and at least it is some notice, but a minimal six days before he needs to trot in wearing 'appropriate colours' for his sports day.  As he is in 'Sweden' team he needs to wear blue and yellow.  He does not have anything that is blue and yellow.  I briefly considered sending him in an IKEA bag.  We went into Matalan and got a more or less blue and yellow t-shirt.  He had better get the wear out of it!  Bear was not keen on the t-shirt.

Bear was also being very clear that he was utterly rejecting bananas.  Apparently they are radioactive.  Watching YouTube videos on science does have side effects and now we have a concern about radioactive bananas.  They are actually very faintly radioactive, like tobacco, but you need to eat around 35 million for a lethal dose, the wiki article is here.  Bear is taking no risks.  I think I may have to have a word with him about this.

When I was looking on Wiki for a banana picture (I donate to Wiki, it seems only fair) I found this


They are red bananas.  I didn't realise that bananas came in so many different varieties, none of which have ever ended up on my shopping list.  Every day is a school day, except possibly for bear as I am thinking of limiting his YouTube to Donald Duck cartoons.

Thursday 4 June 2015

Bear is Doing Fine

Bear is doing okay.  He is currently ninety percent leg and sprawled watching a YouTube video about the world's ten most dangerous chemicals.

He is still being bear.  I told him that we were having baked potatoes for dinner.  Bear utterly rejected this.  I was told that as he had had baked potatoes for lunch he couldn't possibly manage baked potatoes for dinner.  I'm putting the potatoes in the remoska in about ten minutes.  I'm sure we'll all survive.

It could be worse.  Bear goes to a maths tutor as a treat.  She is really careful not to go beyond what he is doing at school but wants to challenge him.  She was teaching him to play cards - DH calls it pontoon, I've heard of it as vingt et un, and I think it is played in casinos.  The tutor was explaining how to work out the percentages of getting the right card.  DH has already shown bear how to palm a card (though his hands are a bit small for standard cards at the moment).  

I'm not worried about bear getting in to too much trouble.  He is born cautious.  I do wonder at the selection of chat up lines he will have available

Wednesday 3 June 2015

The Fun Bits of Parenting

Wean - I may well try that approach.  I am with Nanny Ogg, children should have mythically scary stuff as they grow up.  A few years ago I convinced bear (and quite a few kids on the street) that there was a dragon living under our front steps.  Actually there was nitromors and no lock on the door, and they were never threatened with the dragon.  The dragon stayed safely under the steps and Nice Mr Next Door used to get me coal for it.  There was a time when it got out and down the street (saw a burned patch a little down and made the most of it) but bear never seemed scared in any way.  He was just rather impressed that he had a dragon under the steps.  This is what it looks like now - with a lock, just in case.


Smaug wouldn't give you sixpence for it as an entrance to a dragon's lair, but it kept the kids away from chemicals and more or less out of trouble for a while.  It also added a layer of magic.  I think all childhood should have that, and bear seems to have flourished on it.

I have just finished writing an email that wasn't really to DH but was to Father Christmas to pass on to the ToothFairy.  I'm not 100% behind the concept of the tooth fairy, but I go with this flow.  Bear knows that I have Father Christmas' email address and I have let the tooth fairy know where the very important tooth is being left.

I try and keep a sense of wonder for bear, but I try and balance it with being truthful.  I've been honest when bear has asked about things he sees on the news, or stuff that is in the shops or that crops up on YouTube.  Last night he asked what would happen if father carried on not eating or drinking.  How do you tell an eight year old that effectively their grandfather is starving to death and there is nothing anyone can do?  I said it probably wouldn't be good, and changed the subject.  Bear seems okay, I'll try and keep an ear out for the hidden questions.  I just wish I knew the right words.

Smallest Unit of Time

The smallest unit of time is the time between the moment I stock up on something bear swears that he loves, adores, cannot live without, please can he have it for every meal and the moment he utterly rejects it, loathes it and cannot stand it.

I have got wise to this, to some extent, and I rarely stock up on things for bear but sometimes I am tempted by an amazing bargain for something bear has steadily enjoyed for months.  Then *bam* it is suddenly treated like an arsenic sandwich with cyanide seasoning.   I need to work on this.

Tuesday 2 June 2015

Bearly keeping up

Bear has altered the settings on my phone and now it doesn't sound when it rings.  I am going to have to get him to change it back but darned if I can work it out.

This is my future, isn't it?

Monday 1 June 2015

Monday Feeling

Wean - I haven't sold enough books to worry about getting the royalties from Smashwords yet.  I'm just not selling that well.  I am really pleased for you, though, and for anyone interested here is a link to Wean's blog  If I ever find anything out I will share.

Bear was incandescent that I couldn't find his jogging bottoms.  As they were getting small on him I bit the bullet and bought another pair at Matalan and dropped them off in the office.  They cost £7, which puts a monetary value on my disorganisation.  It turns out that the normal Monday PE didn't happen anyway.

The office at bear's school are lovely.  They returned my lunch money cheque.  I had paid for the half term, but apparently I am already in front by £35.  I have no idea how that happened, but I think it shows a lot about my lack of financial management.

I also have the dire rear so I can't visit father, but have managed to get bear to the barbers to get a hair cut.  I'm glad about that.  It was getting so far too long and scruffy.  Bear was not impressed but he does look better now.

So while today isn't entirely a fail, it has quite a slice of fail in it.  I'll start again tomorrow.