Bewildered

Sharon - I do hope the birds come back. Mind you, the sparrows are like a gang of teenagers outside an off licence, but they are so much fun to watch. You have to be careful that they don't notice, though.

Wherethejourneytakesme - everyone I speak to says that the area of the school run is a tough drive, around Heckmondwike, Dewsbury and Birstall. Every single route that I know, and I must know around a dozen variations, has a tricky part. I hope that it wasn't too bad for you in IKEA. I could do with picking up the veggie meatballs from their food shop, but I'm waiting until after the holiday.

Eileen - I can't imagine how an automatic would work on the hills. There are some seriously sharp slopes around here and if you time it wrong, you have to grind up in 1st. But the thought of an automatic without fuss is very tempting. I would definitely consider having a go.

This post may not make sense. I am feeling strangely tired. Mind you, I didn't sleep that well last night. 

I've got some writing done, then I turned the study upside down. My brother came round to pick up bear. They went out to pick up the pieces to build a computer. They were upset that the place was shut today, so they went online. My brother works with computers, so was talking bear through different motherboards, cases, things, stuff... I recognised the language as English, but I got out of my depth pretty quickly. Bear is utterly thrilled. They really seemed to be having fun, though bear zoned out a bit when brother and I started talking family history. There are some strong characters in my family tree. I mean, seriously strong, scary, stubborn, difficult characters. I often feel that I've let the side down. 

But between a bad night, rushing around trying to work out all the different feeding points, and all the chaos of the study which is all in pieces, I'm shattered. The kitchen looks like it's in special measures. Washing and ironing are overflowing. Also, something weird happened with the porch door.

I had to move a lot around. Brother took an old chest which meant that I had to move a small chest of drawers for the printer to sit on, and I had to empty things and stack things and sort. I feel like I've been hit by a tidal wave. There's so much to do tomorrow. Also, my editor is making, 'are you writing' noises. It may be the change in the weather. I swear the windy weather is wearing me out.

And when we took the chest around to my brother's car, I saw a huge lock of hair on the pavement. It's not that odd as it's only a few feet away from a hairdresser, but it made me think that there should be a story about it. I took a photo, but it didn't come out well. It was an auburn colour and a rather nice curl, around eight inches long. It looked quite dramatic.

Hugs and good health to all.