Miss Molly wants a doggie .......

Molly wants one of these

Molly's desperate for a dog. Ever since she's moved up here she's seen all of the dogs around the place and become more and more obsessed with them. Of course, we've pointed out to her that there's absolutely no chance of getting a dog because it just wouldn't be fair to get a dog since both Louise and myself are out at work all day.

Or one of these

And bless her, she understands this.
And being a very smart little girl she's already sorted out exactly how she's going to get round this small problem.

Grandma and Grandpa will move up to Pocklington.
Since they're retired they can get a dog.
And because they're not able to walk the dog, that will be her job.
A perfect solution. At least in Molly's mind.

Or him. She'd love him.

So in the meantime we keep looking at all of the dogs around and putting them into those two important categories: real dogs and silly dogs.
Real dogs are cool. Silly dogs are those stupid yappy things dressed in doggy jumpers and carried around in some dumb woman's arms.

It was 20 years ago today. Oh hell.My first ever gig - That Petrol Emotion

Gone gone is the love of my youth.

A little googling, a little you tubing and suddenly I'm looking at what happens to one of my favourite bands of my youth.
More specifically what happens to the young, lithe, sexy frontman of That Petrol Emotion; Steve Mack.

Then:

& now: This is Steve Mack today:

Since the break up of the greatest band never to have made it big. Steve Mack has become heavily involved in streaming media, worked as a higher up at Real networks and is now head of his own company. And although older, you can still imagine him on a stage somewhere.
Lux Media

Steve Mack's Lux Media bio

And all this from the man who so enchanted me at my first ever gig at Birmingham's old Powerhouse (now some shitty superclub) on 29th September 1987.
I must admit, when I started writing this post it was a few weeks ago and I had no idea (terrible memory remember) when the gig was, no idea that it was 20 years ago. 20 years ago! 20 years seems so horribly far away, yet I can remember it as if it were yesterday. Which is strange really, because these days I'm hard pressed to remember what happened yesterday.


I went with a group of school friends. Four of us on the 126 bus from Dudley, excitedly practising out fake birthdays to get into the venue. Turning up at the Powerhouse and being so scared they'd not let us in the building.
Then the gig. It was truly amazing. I'd loved That Petrol Emotion for a couple of years at that point since hearing Manic Pop Thrill. But Babble had just come out and I was in love with it; Big Decision, Swamp and every other damn track had me up and moving whenever I heard them. I'm sure I'd seen them play Big Decision and Swamp on the Tube before the gig (edit - August 87) and was amazed at the performance.
The actual gig was everything a first gig should be. So loud, so packed, I danced my ass off that night and went home with my ears ringing, ecstatic and happy. Thinking about it now makes me so wonderfully nostalgic and so happy as I sit here with Big Decision playing in the background.

I was fortunate enough to see them another couple of times and followed every move avidly, continuously wondering when they were going to make it big. Sadly they didn't. Although if they'd have been around post grunge instead of pre grunge the story may have been completely different.

So thanks Reámann O`Gorman, Ciaran McLaughlin, Steve Mack, Damian O`Néill, Sean O`Néill. Thank you for that night and thank you for some spectacular music.

That Petrol Emotion websites: fansite, wiki, amazon for Babble,
And finally, that Tube performance that I'm sure I saw. Still makes me go slightly tingly now:

Molly's 8th Birthday again .......

My little girl turned 8 at the weekend.

It's quite shocking how quickly 8 years can pass by when you're too busy getting on with things. She's grown so very fast and done so much even in these few years, it's terrifying. Now I have to imagine what the next 8 years will be like.
Because in another 8 years I'll have lost her. Not, of course, in the literal sense. Didn't someone once say that you don't own your children, you just borrow their lives for a few years until they leave?
But that's what I'm faced with thinking about now; the prospect of Molly turning 16. The prospect of 17, 18, leaving home, growing up. All too terrible to contemplate properly.

For some reason, 8 seems like a bit of a milestone. Possibly because in this last year she's become a lot more self-reliant and independent, possibly just because it's the half way point to her becoming 16. But it's come crashing down on me; this sense of loss and grief about her. Stupid really, because I'll always be Daddy, no matter what. But I just feel she'll never really be the little girl who cooed and gurgled in my arms ever again.

Each time she passes some milestone or other I'm continually fearful of how much I'll miss the stage just gone. But every time it happens I hardly have chance to think of what has been lost, being far too busy with enjoying what she's become instead.
I can look back to recall her baby days. How she used to smile that windy smile, fighting sleep until nearly collapsing, her head thudding on my chest as she finally succumbed.
Or the toddler days when she loved being swung around, or carried aloft on Daddy's shoulders.
Or the early school days, being so proud of how she'd make friends and how much fun we all had when we met them.

Now we're into the days when Molly the baby, Molly the toddler, Molly the tweenie and Molly the infant is but a memory. It's now Molly the junior; a lovely, polite, independent, occasionally stroppy, moody and incredibly interesting little girl. When we meet her friends she's more interested in them than she is in us. No longer do we play together, instead it's up to her room and us left downstairs, wondering what to do with our newly discovered spare time.

But no matter how grown up she becomes, no matter how independent, how old she is, one thing is certain: She'll always be my best achievement and will always be my little girl.
Welcome to your 9th year Molly.

She had a lovely birthday, friends and family were up from near and far. We awoke far too early and were dragged downstairs to witness the great present opening.
Although this year the presents were very thin on the ground.
Because this year she had a big present: After years and years of talking about it, she's finally got her DS.
In many ways this is a complete climb down on our part, seeing as we decided years ago to try to stop her becoming one of these children who seems to be surrounded by every possible technological revolution they can. These horrible children with a shocking pink dvd/tv combi always on the Disney channel in the corner, a computer to surf whatever they want and talk to lots of inappropriate chat buddies, a game console graveyard in the corner because stoopid parents buy whatever the latest hot console of the hour is and absolutely no books anywhere.

She certainly wasn't going to be the sort of child who spends every waking moment with their head embedded in their handheld console. You know the sort of child - they can be at the most spectacular event in the world and yet will spend more time watching some inane Japanese character on the screen than whatever the world can show them.

So we caved, and bought her one. It's not like it's a faddy present; she's been asking for one for many, many years now, ever since her friend Caleb got one. But as soon as we pointed out that Caleb saved up for his own and it means she'd not be able to spend her money on cuddley toys if she was saving up she seems to go off the idea.
But this year, whenever we enquired as to what she really, really wanted, the DS was top of the list. Every time we asked. Although, scarily, she also wants to put a Wiii on her Christmas List; after all, as she so considerately points out, if we buy her the DS for her birthday, it will be alright to ask for a Wiii for Christmas because we don't buy it, Father Christmas makes it. How the hell do you reply to that one?

And it's about bloody time too Daddy.

Of course, one unexpected benefit of getting the DS means we suddenly have a new punishment to threaten Molly with: the DS ban. Genius. Almost makes it worthwhile.

Today. Daddy made me do hard labour....

How did you spend day 2 of your summer holidays Molly?

I spent some of it traipsing up to Woldgate College to sort out daddy's forms for his course starting in September.
Then I got to go with daddy to get the car washed.
Then I spent a little while traipsing round Pocklington getting DIY stuff with daddy.
Then I got to buy stuff on the market, so at least something was good today.
Then I got to play swingball on my own while daddy cleaned the inside of the car.
(He says it's his service tomorrow and if you give them a lovely clean and polished car they look after it better. I think he's bonkers. All workmen, mechanics or not, don't care about your stuff at all. I'm 7 and even I know that. But I humour him.)
Then, joy of joys, he ropes me into painting the walls of the garage with PVA glue - yes, the stuff I use in art lessons - to stop the garage getting so dusty.
Oh, today was just great.
Tomorrow, we're doing more gluing the walls. I look forward to it greatly.

5 days to go at school, so why didn't I get anything done on the huge to-do list today?

See this post

Or actually, see this bit of that post:
Yes, I had a pissy day at work today, why do you ask?
Today I realised that what I observed at Lordswood with the ICT technician there is true of all schools. Once the network is okay, once the computers are okay, the main thing that gets seriously fucked up is the printers.

Why the printers?
Because the teachers like to print.
Because the teachers have no patience with the printers.
Because the printers have little coloured buttons on them.
Because teachers like to press little coloured buttons over and over.
Pressy, press,pressy,pressy,pressy,press,pressy,pressy,press,pressy,press.

Then they call me.

Today was, yet again, lets fuck up the printers day.
Someone tried to print double sided on an inkjet, mucking up all the rollers and meaning I had to spend ages cleaning it.
Someone else decided to change the print cartridge and did a piss poor job of it. We now have a printer going to the service place and the spare old printer in it's place.
Amazing how something like two printers can steal 4 hours isn't it. By the time I'd cleaned off the first one. Sorted out the service call, installed the spare, reset all the network computers to talk to it and generally messed around I'd said goodbye to most of the day.

Arse.
So now I have just 4 days left to get at least a months worth of stuff done.
Part of me knows I should just leave it.
But a big part of me is loving the job so much I can't let go of it.
Which is why I've just spent an hour plus sorting some of the paperwork out that I was going to do today. Arse. Arse. Arse.

The Longest Day,and tonight's been quite long as well.....

Oh joy. It's the longest day.
Now, whilst that might be delightful for some people I can guarantee that these people either have:
1. No kids or
2. Blackout blinds.

We used to have a blackout blind in Brookfield Road for Molly's room. We installed it before she was born and have never gone through a summer without one.
Until now. Stupidly, we just haven't managed to get round to putting them up here at Bruton Mansions v2.0. Actually we haven't even managed to get as far as going to the hardware store and buying them, never mind have the 4 hours of fun that follows the start of a minor DIY project as I struggle to get a fixing screw to stay in a wall.

Which means that Molly's bedtimes have been getting more and more like the Calvin & Hobbes cartoons I'm reading her at bedtime.
If we go to bed at 8 and read, by the time it comes to putting out the light we realise that there was absolutely no point putting the light on in the first place since it's still broad daylight outside and Molly's room, having a window at both ends, has light pouring in every which way.
And then we have at least an hour of fun.
In no particular order we had:
toilet, drink, can't sleep, too hot, want duvet, no, want blanket instead, another drink,
too hot with blanket, different blanket, another drink, need toilet,
can't sleep because of the light,
can't sleep because of the heat,
can't sleep because of the noise of the rain,
open window, close window, drink, toilet,
can I read my book for a little while until I get tired,
can you read some more of my book,
I'm hungry, can I have some more milk, what's mummy doing, toilet,

Finally, it's over. She's spark out. So are we.
Looking in my crystal ball, I see a trip to a large DIY emporium and 4 hours of trying to fix screws into walls in my future.

Father's Day

Molly and I were talking the other day and I realised an unbelievable thing:
No matter how long I live, no matter what I do, I will never love anyone or anything as much as I love my daughter.

And today was the day where that simple idea was perfectly realised. Today was my favourite day of the year, today was Daddy's Day. (We've always called it that and it's stuck).

Today was the day where I got to have a great time enjoying just how much my daughter loves me. It was absolutely wonderful.
Of course; i knew everything i was getting; Molly's always been awful at keeping presents secret. In the Co-Op the other day she pointedly stood by the father's Day display and asked me if i thought the big chocolate "Best Daddy" medal looked tasty. Surprise, surprise, i was wearing it at 8am this morning.
Or when she and Louise were in the kitchen the other day making stuff and she comes out looking all worried and asks me whether I'd use a saucer if I had one. That's my new coffee cup (& saucer) then.
Other treats included: more chocolate, a clay model of me - big smile and spiky hair, an "I Love You Daddy" clay stonecuddling up on the sofa this afternoon to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 1, pizza tea (chosen by Molly, because "it's daddy's favourite tea") and then finally cuddling up on the sofa again to watch tonight's great Doctor Who.

A very good day. And a very loved Daddy.

Wacky Warehouses - the return......

God, I hate these bloody places.
I'm in a wacky warehouse type place again. You remember that I don't like them much.
Every so often our good nature gets the better of us and we cave in to Molly's continual requests for a trip to the local play barn.

Of course, being in Yorkshire and being out of the inner city urban experience that was Birmingham we're frequenting a nicer standard of play barn now.

No longer do we have parents getting slowly pissed next to us at the Wacky Warehouse.
No, instead of this we have about a hundred sets of parents whose concept of parenting seems to have been developed in some ecologically aware, capitalist frendly, proto hippy state somewhere.

We're surrounded by bloody Tarquins and Tarquinas here.
As we walked in we almost tripped over the crowd of parents playing the party arms race game and cooing over whatever stupid award Tarquin had just picked up -
(Most impressive use of an inbred aristocratic genetic defect by a minor? GCSE in latin at age 3? Yoga for cattle, sheep and toddlers stage 1?)

It's the sheer annoying nature of these people that I find so difficult to tolerate. They just live and breathe specifically to annoy me. These people always be found standing in the narrowest section of the play barn type thingy. They always stand up for some reason, possibly because that's what one does when one is having guests round for an official engagement. They then always insist on talking in that horribly loud and annoying voice so that we can all hear exactly how much money Phillip earnt for his last bonus and how they're all so tired of the usual holidays at mustique and they've decided to save the planet this year by helping out the Nepalese Yak Farmers with their annual harvest. But they'll of course be flying Club Class because to go economy is taking this whole green thing just a little too far.

And I fully expect to have one of the little Tarquins trying to kill Molly at some point because she couldn't be bothered playing croquet with the inflatable mallets and wanted to play Power Rangers instead.

Only kidding, they don't really have inflatable Croquet mallets.
People did request them, saying that the existing football pitch for the children merely fostered feelings of competitition and encouraged children to try to win things which as we all know merely fosters competitive feelings and may actually introduce the dreaded concept of losing and failing at something.

Luckily someone told these idiots to sit down and shut the fuck up.


......... and breathe.
More coffee needed I think.

Because that will calm me down I'm sure.

Media Anxiety ........ I've got it, have you?

I'd like to introduce a new concept into the lexicon: Media Anxiety.

It's a modern condition that I suffer from and I know that many of my friends do as well.
Symptoms include stress, a feeling of ever increasing age and a desire to keep up with current trends in music, literature, film and popular culture, just like you used to do when you were younger.

There is just too much media available to us today and it's only getting worse. This makes it practically impossible to keep up like we used to. You have many more things to do with your time now; It was a lot easier to absorb everything about the latest band's album when you didn't have to go out to work or look after a 7 year old.

So instead of coping with the avalanche of media available we stockpile:
We build up piles of books, comics, magazines, cds, videos and other stuff to get through.
And to make it all worse those magazines are full of page after page of reviews of more books, comics, cds, tv shows, films and stuff that we might just want as well.
So as well of building up towers of media to get through we also we build up lists of stuff to look at, stuff to get. Stuff to add to the pile of stuff that we haven't got the time to get to already.

It's a treadmill and we end up desperately trying and failing to keep up, all the time wondering if we're not missing out on the latest thing, the next big thing.

In the fast life we live with very little down time there simply isn't enough time available to read all the books, magazines and comics you want to. There certainly isn't enough time to catch up with all the must see tv, go to the latest cinema releases and watch dvds. There isn't enough time to actively follow modern music.

So instead of accepting this and getting on with it, we end up getting increasingly concerned about what we could be missing and increasingly anxious and stressed about it all.

If I've got a pile of things to do, loads of books and comics to read, a rack full of magazines I haven't read, music I haven't listened to, tapes of tv shows I've yet to watch and the latest amazon dvd sitting in it's case unwatched I find myself feeling under pressure to get it all done.

So my leisure is no longer relaxing, it's actually causing me more stres.
And it's not just me, I know some of you reading this feel exactly the same.

The only solution to media anxiety is to ignore it. Don't let it get to you and refuse to get sucked in.
To this end I've placed myself under a book buying ban. Currently there are 20 books on my bookshelf that I haven't read yet.
This is completely insane.

So from last year I decided that I really don't care how good a book is meant to be, there's no point me buying it now and just have it adding to the pile and adding to my media anxiety.
Similarly with TV. I'm practically giving up on everything. There's no point in getting stressy over missing shows anymore, just accept it and move on.
Every so often I'll look at magazines and newspapers and contemplate getting some. This feeling soon passes however.
Maybe it's time we just realised we can no longer live in thrall to our media obsessions. Cast them aside and live free.

But if anyone's got the latest Regina Spektor cd, can they do me a copy please?
And remember to let me know what you're reading or watching.
I can add it to the list of things that I may need to look at eventually.
Because sadly, even though I'm not actually accumulating physical stuff anymore, my Amazon wish list is growing larger and larger and larger.

See, I talk a good game, but really I'm just as crap at avoiding this media anxiety stuff as you are.

Floating Floors, Back Ups and my obsessional worrying.....

The latest obsessional things rocking my world.....

The Floating floor:
In the world of Richard, everything is grounds for obsessional behaviour and most things are fair game for me to worry obsessively about. But one of the worst things I choose to panic and fret about is the house. I did it at Birmingham, worrying about everything and anything, cracks, creaks, slipped tiles, water, drips. You name it, I will obsess over it.

And in a new house it's even worse. Whereas in the old house, I pretty much knew that, bar major earthquake, nothing was going to bring it crashing down. It had survived over a hundred years, it was pretty solid.
But a new house is something completely different. All those stories of cracks suddenly appearing, all the new creaks and moans, all the strange little things that only seem to happen because it's a product of our fantastically rubbish construction industry are all fair game to keep my mind worrying.

Of course, it does help to have people in similar circumstances and people who know about houses.
A friend of ours tells us tales of spending the first year going around filling in all the cracks in the house and then having to go round in the second year and re-fill the filled cracks. By the third year he gave up and is only now thinking about finally going round and sorting them out.
And we do have "the builder's daughter" on the end of the phone issuing reassurance and key buzzwords.
For example, since moving in I've always been a little worried (ie obsessively fretting) about the floor in the office. It seems to move and creak a little too much for my liking. Phoned up builder's daughter - Floating floor says she. Perfectly normal says she. Nothing to worry about says she.
So I have now stopped worrying.

Which means it's onto the next thing.
Back-Ups.
I've always been really particular about backing up all the stuff on the computer. Zip Discs for essential data. CD-Rs for essential data & pictures & music. Not one but two external hard disk drives for backing up the entire hard disk.
But since I moved all the music in Bruton mansions over to hard disk and the i-pod it's only gotten worse.
Strangely enough I can remember feeling this way when i was much younger about music on tape. I'd very carefully make back up tapes of all the original tapes I had, jut in case.
And likewise, with the advent of digital music and having music only on hard disk, rather than cd, I've become obsessive about having many copies.

The latest thing was a worry about formats.
When I put it all onto the computer and the i-pod I copied it as AAC files, playable just by Apple and I-Tunes. Lately this has started to worry me. Sure for most music I've got the original cds as a back up. But what about all the music that I haven't got the cds as back up?
Of course, all these tracks are backed up onto both hard disks and onto CD-R but what (and this is where it gets really ridiculous) if one day I won't be able to play the AAC files? What if Apple suddenly goes bankrupt and stops supporting the format?

So now I've spent a while getting all the music without original cds converted into mp3 format and I've put that on both hard disks and CD-R as well.

Like I said, I realise this is ridiculous and silly. And in some way, my knowing that it is silly makes me think (hope) I'm not turning into a raving loon quite yet.

But then again, what if mp3 stops being supported. Maybe I should have them backed up onto a third format just in case......???????

Things to never say to a 7 year old before they go to sleep.......

Well, apart from obvious things like
"make sure you don't dream about the Cybermen, you know how that makes you have nightmares"

But maybe I should also add:
"Daddy needs to be up early tomorrow so I'll make you a deal; you have to make sure I'm up. If I'm not up by 8:30, I'll give you a pound for each ten minutes I'm still in bed".

Of course, I'd also recommend that if you're going to say something as stupid as this it would also be a good idea to not stay up till 4am messing around with i-tunes, music backups and the coding on the weblog.

In the end it cost me £9.
And today we somehow miraculously ended up in the toyshop with £9 burning a hole in Molly's pocket.

Tonight she casually asked me if I wanted to be up early again tomorrow morning and maybe we should do the ten minute penalty thing again.
I declined.

I love my job...... But......

I am having a fantastic time doing the ICT technician thing at the primary school.
Sure, I know not much about networks, but I am learning. Yesterday I installed a new printer onto the network and shared it so that an entire suite could use it.

But the main enjoyment of the job comes from working at a primary school with the children. After years of Louise telling me so, I am realising that I'm perfectly suited to it. I'm also, so it seems, very good at it as well.

Home yesterday in such a bad mood. I was really fed up. And the entire mood could be traced to me helping one of the year 1 kids on my way to and fro this horrible printer. She was trying to get her coat on for afternoon break and couldn't quite manage it so I stepped in to hold the sleeve. Then we hunted for the right hanger for a coat that had fallen on the floor. We had a chat all through this about stuff and she skipped happily off to play. Then the depressed mood hit me.
I love working with primary kids, I'm also enjoying sharing a knowledge of computers with them. But I know that it's all going to come to an end in July when the temporary maternity cover finishes.
So I'm in the idiotic position of getting depressed and upset because I love my job too much.
Insane.

Or at least I think it will all end in July.
There is always the possibility that the woman will either not want to come back at all or will want to extend her maternity leave.

But in some ways I'd rather know for certain that she was coming back, because that way I would be able to try to stop falling in love with a fantastic job.

Customer Service, how can we annoy you today?

Had to phone up Scottish power and British Gas today - they still haven't sorted out our gas account transfer. And this morning Scottish Power sent me one of those lovely "pay or it's debt collection" letters.
Bastards.
Particularly since we've done everything they asked and got readings, details and anything else to them as soon as they asked. It's British Gas and Scottich f-ing Power at fault, yet we get the nasty letter.

So, onto the inevitable automated phone service.
Menu, menu, menu, menu, menu.
Then the request to key in the 100 digit account number.

Finally through to a person.
First thing they ask: "Can I have your account number please?"
Why? What is the point? Why ask for it already?
Bastards.

Yes, I had a pissy day at work today, why do you ask?
Today I realised that what I observed at Lordswood with the ICT technician there is true of all schools. Once the network is okay, once the computers are okay, the main thing that gets seriously fucked up is the printers.

Why the printers?
Because the teachers like to print.
Because the teachers have no patience with the printers.
Because the printers have little coloured buttons on them.
Because teachers like to press little coloured buttons over and over.
Pressy, press,pressy,pressy,pressy,press,pressy,pressy,press,pressy,press.

Then they call me.

Work & Birthday

Today it was my birthday.
I am old. And infirm.
To celebrate I decided to start work after 75 days off.
In retrospect not the greatest way to celebrate a birthday.

The job is in a local primary school, doing ICT technician job covering for the ICT technician who's on maternity leave.
The school has about 15 networked classroom computers and an ICT suite of another 15. Luckily the ICT technician who's off on maternity seems to know what she was doing, because it's a very professional network setup which will hopefully prove to be extremely resiliant and wont break while I'm looking after it.
Now we've all taken a great leap of faith here, particularly the head and the ICT co-ordinator who employed me, because my networking skills aren't that great.
(As in, "George Bush jr isn't that great a president")
But they seem to want an ICT technician who can help out the teaching staff with ICT generally (which I can do)
and someone to be a teaching assistant in ICT for the kids
(which is what I wanted to do anyway).

Obviously it's crap money, because all education stuff is. And I'm only working 9-3:15 so I can still drop Molly at school and pick her up, so money continues to be tight, but hopefully I wont be too wiped out by it.
Although after today, I'm really not that sure.

Okay, it's the first day of a new job, which is stressful enough anyway, but I'm completely emotionally and physically wiped out.
And today was a training day, with no kids.

Got there at 9, after waving wife and child goodbye at 8:52.
It's very local as you can tell. Which is good because from tomorrow I'm having to really push it to get there on time. Have to walk Molly to school, dash back home, jump in the car and drive the 5 miles or so down the A1079 (proper Yorkshire folks like us refer to it as the ten-seventy-nine).

Started with a quick staff meeting. Lots of names passed my memory and then disappeared.
Then off to the ICT suite. Had a quick look at the machines and the room.
Then the problems started coming in. Now having worked in secondary schools with ICT technicians before I know how difficult the job is, with most teachers just about able to open up their free laptops but not knowing which button switches it on.
It seems that primary teachers are a little better but still manage to fuck up anything they touch. So today was fucked-up printer day. 4 different printer problems. Lots of time spent resetting, re-aligning and re-filling inks. My favourite is the one that someone's obviously yanked paper out of and knackered the feed. It now only feeds paper if one side is propped up at a 20 degree angle. (That's in the bin as soon as I work out who to talk to about ordering new stuff.)

The actual place itself is a mess as well, with loads of discs, cds, manuals, computer bits and pieces and other weird stuff floating around the room. Now those who know me will realise this is already pissing off the obsessively tidy me.

The main problem is just the feeling of being a little adrift and not knowing what the hell I'm doing. Which I know is perfectly normal in new jobs, but even more so in this job where certain of the important things (the network and networking stuff in general I really don't know what the hell I'm doing).

Tomorrow the kids arrive. First thing I'm supporting year 1. No idea what I'm doing, but at least they're not likely to be downloading porn and deleting most of the software on the network like the kids at Smiths Wood used to try and do.

The best thing about today - being welcomed home like the conquering hero by Louise and particularly Molly. Barely had chance to sit down before I was bombarded by presents and then a delicious cake that Molly made for me.
(I would have pictures but I was too tired to go upstairs and get the camera so I just concentrated on eating it instead).

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me.......

Finally - the I-pod is here!

One great thing about this Christmas was that I finally got that nice, shiny I-pod I've been craving all year.

30Gb doesn't go very far though does it? Only 8Gb left after loading all the music onto it.

It's sitting next to me in it's new permanent home, attached to the On Stage speakers. Tiny it might be, but in my small office it gives me enough sound to get by comfortably. If I'm of the inclination I can still fill the house with noise from just this setup though.

Christmas this year......

When I left you, Christmas eve night / Christmas morning early hours wondering what time to go to bed, in the vain hope that Molly would get some sleep and not come bounding in at 3am like last year.

In the end, we decided to get crafty this year on Christmas morning with Molly, so we just changed her clock. She got up at 6am, yet thought it was 5am. Worked for us.

Although since she went to the toilet at 2am (our time, 1am her time) it was 3am by the time I got to bed after waiting a while for her to go to sleep so I could put her stocking out.

After the Christmas Eve panic over the number of presents we had for her, when we put them all out on the sofa (she left a nice note asking Santa to leave them there), they looked just fine.

Of course, this is a valuable lesson to any new parents out there. It's never too early to start thinking about Christmas. But since the adverts for all sorts of kiddie crap don't really hit the TV until December, you're always going to be on a deadline for getting the stuff. Now, because you're all sensible parents and know the value of not spoiling your child, you're not going to get too much.
BUT always get the presents out at least a week before Christmas and look at them.
If there are too many there, congratulations, you've just bought some birthday presents. Put them in a box and put them away until then.
But if there are too few, at least this way you can get some more.
We had to do the insane Christmas Eve secret dash for extras, which ended up with me buying a very nice and very expensive big teddy bear because I just knew that would make the present pile look fantastic!

The major hit this year is Teksta. A robotic puppy that's probably got more computery stuff than it took to get Apollo 11 to the moon. She's already burnt through one set of batteries on it and we can see it needing more before the end of the week.
It's basically a very simple 8 week old puppy with an on/off switch and less shit on the carpets. Which is nice.

My mom and dad finally made it to us about midday on Christmas Day and we began the second round of present opening. Molly loved it for her Baby Born car and I loved it because I have now finally got that proper I-pod I've been after for so very long.

They ended up staying all Christmas Day and Boxing Day before leaving us on Wednesday. A very enjoyable visit, leaving us just today free before the next round of visitors arrive - Del, Matt, Caleb & Amy should be with us at lunch tomorrow. In fact, Molly is still awake at this very moment because she's too excited to sleep because she's looking forward to them arriving. Great.

Off to try and get her to sleep. Is it wrong to give whisky to a 7 year old?
Okay, how about gin?

Molly's Christmas Play 2006

Yesterday was Molly's Christmas play at school.
Now before I go on about it I'm going to assume several things. Most importantly, I'm assuming you have all seen Love Actually. Now I know some of you may hate the film, but the final bits where the Christmas Concert takes place are important to the narrative here.
If you haven't seen it, just think of the most middle class, politically correct Christmas Concert you can and that will probably do.

(while we're on the subject of Love Actually; I have to go on record as saying I love the film and it never fails to set me to blubbing. It falls into the same category as It's a Wonderful Life, Holiday Inn and truly Madly Deeply - all film s that I've never sat through without uncontrollable crying. I know it's flawed, I know it's not the greatest film ever, but I just can't help it!)

Anyway, back to the Christmas play.

Firstly it took place at Pocklington School, the local private school. The school hall at St Mary & St Joseph - Molly's school, is tiny (only 108 pupils after all) and couldn't hold the parents. Pocklington school is huge, very impressive (& very, very expensive). The play was being held in the Tom Stoppard centre (the playwright was an ex-pupil), so we all filed round to this huge theatre block. Full stage, stadium seating, lights, mics everywhere with the main cast members having remote mics as well. We took our very comfortable seats in the very big auditorium - no crappy school hall and seats that you can't fit in here.

It started out very well, Class 1 & 2 (Reception, Year 1 & 2) came out and did a quick half hour Christmas story. It had all the classic elements of a school play.
The smallest kid in school wore the sheep outfit which didn't quite fit, so she ended up shuffling around the stage looking cute.
The angels stood there, spreading their arms/wings at random points, one of the boy angels decided to try to balance on the edge of one of the steps on the stage and fell off not once, not twice but at least three times.
But the best, the funniest, the thing that had every parent giggling was one of the angels at the back. Even though we could all see her, she either didn't care or didn't realise, but after 10 minutes she was bored stiff and started singing extra loud, out of tune and just out of time enough to finish each line on her own. Then she starts wandering around the back of the stage to look at what else is going on and finally starts fiddling with her costume, first the deely boppers (angels have deeley boppers?) came off, then she started lifting her angelic robes over her head repeatedly. Every parent was desperately trying not to laugh. Fantastic.

Then a quick hit of the choir, doing a selection of poppier Christmas tunes with full recorded backing. At one point I fully expected the curtains to open and a full band to appear, as in Love Actually with a visiting American diva leading the staff and children in a rousing chorus of All I Want For Christmas.....
But no.

Next it was the Class 3 & 4 (Years 3, 4, 5 & 6) performance. Now we knew we were in trouble weeks ago with this one when the script and the song sheets came home.
It was called the peace child, a very modern Christmas parable about two primitive tribes separated by a river and endless years of violence and rivalry. It had African songs, rapping, modern cultural references via the film crew who were making a documentary (Big Brother, I'm a celeb etc etc) and a very, very loose connection to Christmas:
One tribe's chief gives up his son to live amongst the other tribe and this "peace child" will end all fighting and rivalry.
Do you see what they did there?
Peace child = Jesus?
Given to other tribe by leader = God gave us his only son to bring peace to the world?
(Doing a good job by the way)

As lovely as it was seeing Molly and her classmates up on stage the thing was a very, very slow hour long. You could feel the relief around the room as we all clapped and cheered them as they finished, partly in parental pride and joy, but quite a bit of it just because they'd actually finished. After that there was the traditional milling around of the middle classes and lots of chatting about how big the Christmas dinner parties would be this year and how difficult it is to get any Goose fat now Nigella's let the masses in on our little secret - that sort of thing.

But a good night, strange, surreal at times, but fun. We just have to accept that we've moved from inner city Birmingham to a rural version of Yorkshire circa 1975!

Sunday morning in the Bruton household....Children and staples just don't mix

The peace and tranquility of a lovely sunny Sunday morning was shattered this morning by the piercing screams of Molly running into the room, hands held high, covered in blood. Somehow she'd managed to put a staple into her thumb.
Just one small staple, but ever such a lot of blood. Poor little thing!

Then off to the garden centre to spend a small fortune on Christmassy stuff to put round the house. Or maybe just a Poinsettia, Vase, few baubles and a Santa for the fireplace.
While Louise was off trying to find nice things to drape from the fireplace (no luck I'm afraid) Molly and I amused ourselves by smelling all the scented candles to try and find the most disgusting one. Our personal favourite was the Mulled Wine candle. Nothing like wine, mulled or otherwise, but it did have a lingering odour that I recognised from a while ago - last time I was cleaning out Timmy's poo corner (our ex-cat). Bloody horrible smell of poo and soil mixed together.
So in the end we opted for 5 different ones; Mistletoe, Lemon, Cherry, Melon and my personal favourite - Ginger cookie. No really, this was the smell of a Ginger cookie. We put it on as soon as we got home. It lasted 3 minutes before the hideous stench was found by all three of us to be just too much to bear. Oh well. The Mistletoe is a lot nicer. But trust me - if you ever have the choice, put the Mulled Wine and the cookie scented candles back on the shelf.

Home in time for a cuddle up on the sofa and the chance to see 2005's Christmas Dr Who for Molly and I. What a great day it's turned out to be. We even managed to get the bloodstains out of the nice beige carpets!

Advent in Bruton mansions......

It's the 1st of December in Bruton mansions (or at least it was but I'm up late writing this so to me it still is). For us this means getting the Christmas tree ready and decking the house out in fun stuff for Molly. The advent calenders have all been opened - Auntie Sharon even sent her a Cadbury's chocolate a day advent calender - she loves that! Although she was a bit put off this morning when the first chocolate was a Turkish delight. Better luck tomorrow darling.

Although both Louise and I would quite cheerfully wait until later in the month to put the tree up, we decided a while ago that we wanted to put it up at the start of December for Molly. It's partly selfish - we realise that we only have a limited number of magical, fully believes in Father Christmas, years and we wanted to make the most of them. Because the absolute joy of Christmas is all the wonderful things you see when you look with a young child's eyes. It's a glorious time, full of magic, full of unwaivering belief that this strange man comes into your house and gives you stuff. It's also wonderful to partake in all the other stuff, Christmas lists, letters to Santa, making presents for family, going to Christmas things and generally making the most of the Christmas season.

It also means the continuation of a tradition we started as soon as she was old enough to grasp the concept of Christmas - Father Christmas' early visit to drop off the advent bag.

What happens is this:

In early January Father Christmas comes back and takes away all the Christmas books, dvds, cds and other stuff lying around the house. This includes Molly's favourite Christmas thing; Reindeer with the big bum (her description, not ours and it's just stuck).

But on December the 1st Father Christmas nips round with a bag of goodies, including the stuff he picked up in January. There's a knock on the door and when she opens it, all that's there is the bag and occasionally, if she listens hard enough she can just make out the sound of jingling bells.

Today was even better; we had a special treat up in her room - her own tree. It's a little fibre optic tree in vivid girly pink and she's been desperate to have something like this for years. After getting the main tree ready Louise and Molly tidied up and I popped into the garage. I grabbed the pink tree, to which I had lovingly added baubles and fairy earlier in the day, and dashed upstairs with it. Then back to the garage, grab the Christmas bag, out the garage door, round to the front door, jingle the bells, knock the door, run like mad into the garage and back into the house, jingling as I go.

Lots of excitement at getting all her gear back and a mad dash upstairs to find out what Santa had left (he put a note in the bag this year about a surprise in her new room).

Even more excitement upstairs.

A lovely night, full of that wonderful and totally innocent joy that only a child can bring to Christmas.

But there are a few signs that this might be one of the last proper Christmases we're going to get.

After getting over the excitement of the advent bag, reindeer with the big bu and the new tree she did come out and ask me if I'd put the tree in her room. And seemed to be questioning whether it's us doing the advent bag. But she was obviously not willing to believe her own doubts because she quickly dismissed them almost as soon as she'd asked the questions.

I think she's coming into that difficult time when some of her friends have started to ask questions about Christmas and naturally they start to talk to friends about it. She''s in that very cute time when she obviously doesn't want to not believe in father Christmas because that might mean no presents, but she's beginning to question the process.

I reckon this year is safe, but I think we may have trouble next year.

Which is terribly sad. It's more evidence that my little girl is going to do the unthinkable and grow up one day. She's going to have her own life, her own things to do, she's going to leave us.

Which is why it's nice to be able to put these sort of things down here.

Because she's going to read them one day and wonder how soppy I really was.

Because these little things are the things too easily forgotten and often are the most important things to remember.

Because eventually my memory will cease to exist and this will be the only way I can recall lovely things like this.

Today - my life as a disaster movie or some difficult theatre of the absurd thing......you decide

Woke up as normal, took Molly to school as normal.
Builder bloke came round (see post).
Then got ready to go out. Today I was going to York college to see about getting onto a course for either childcare or teaching assistants. Thought I might as well do it right and put proper trousers, jacket and shirt on (no, not a tie, why the hell would I do that? Grandad shirts for weddings (including my own), funerals and job interviews have served me well, why would I wear a tie now?).
Also put the good shoes on.

Then drove to York.
Popped into the Tesco immediately next to York College to pick up stuff.
Walked over the road and started to wonder what was stuck to my left heel. The shoe just didn't feel right.
Unfortunately, nothing was stuck to the heel. But then again, the heel wasn't stuck to the shoe either. Arse.
So, looking like the best dressed tramp in the world not being the image I wanted, I decided to rely on the old "plumbing emergency" excuse and drove home.

Got home in time to head out the door for the computer course.
Rushed round, got everything ready, picked up all my stuff, slipped on my trusty heel in the right place (bottom of the shoe, towards the rear) converse and left the house, shut the door and reached into my pocket for my keys.
Which, I immediately realised, were sitting exactly where I left them - on the coffee table.

So, heel breaks, no interview, locked out of the house.
But surprisingly to many of you who know me, I actually smiled at this. Haven't I changed? Old me may well have started kicking the front door, but I just spent a pleasant walk up to the computer course smiling to myself at the insanity of the day.

Then computers was just silly. Three practice tests and three actual module tests done in an hour (and that includes the sitting around waiting for the tutor to check everything is okay in between times). According to the tutor, that's a record. One week left, two modules to go. No problem.

Then Molly and I amused ourselves round Pocklington for an hour and a half waiting for Lou to come home and let us in the house.
Tomorrow, I go shoe shopping. Probably a good thing, interviews in converse not the best impression i think.