Friday, November 30, 2007

Highly skilled workforce

Don Taylor's post on the our highly skilled workforce made me laugh. Which one are you?

Feed the fish

They follow your mouse. Lots more at abowman. I like the spider!

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Love is...

"If we were to win the lottery," dreamed B the evening before last, "I'd still want you to be around."

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Christmas play costumes are not good for my elf

"H has been given a leading role in the nursery Christmas play!" announced B, reading a letter she'd recently found at the bottom of his school bag. At last, someone to give Robert Powell some competition, I mused.

"He is to play the part of a Christmas tree," she beamed, overflowing with pride. Even Robert Powell had to start somewhere I reflected; uncredited in a 1967 film called Robbery apparently. "Oh, and we have to make his costume" continued B aloud, looking slightly less enamoured.

Not one to shy away from a challenge, over the next few days B got stuck into some serious research on the design and creation of said Christmas tree costume. Hours were spent trawling the Internet. Extended family, long lost friends and even complete strangers in Waitrose were consulted. In the end, she settled on a poncho design; a large circle of green felt with a hole in the middle for H's head. The outer edge was cut into V shapes, a similarly fashioned ruff was added to the collar and further boughs (made of green felt rings) were attached. The finishing touches would include tree decorations, some brown trousers and a conical green felt hat with a star on top.

"What do you think then?" asked B eagerly yesterday evening. "Does H like it?" I replied, temporarily delaying my feedback. "He won't go near it, but that will change when he sees the other children in their costumes," she said confidently.

"You don't think it makes him look like a leprechaun or a tree imp?" I enquired insensitively. "No!" she said unamused. B spent the next ten minutes helping me see the wood for the trees.

Friday, November 09, 2007

Come Alive

Grohl's glorious Foo Fighters are back. H loves Come Alive, the fifth track on the new album. Truth be told, he won't listen to anything else at the moment, least of all his parents. I suspected we'd lose him to rock music and loud guitars at some stage (he developed a marked penchant for No One Knows by Queens of the Stone Age whilst still in utero) but not at the age of 2.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

A balanced view

Ask any hypochondriac to determine the cause of a series of dizzy spells, and your next step will be to start thinking about life cover, appropriate eulogy material and who is most deserving of your CD collection. Such was my predicament over the weekend, blessed with a tendency towards over zealous self diagnosis and having experienced regular bouts of vertigo over the previous ten days.

B tried to reassure me. "Don't worry, you probably have a cold," she suggested. "Or maybe you need your eyesight checked?" she added. Clearly a second opinion was required.

The optician yesterday confirmed that my sight is fine. Armed with this evidence, I went to see the doctor, preparing myself for the worst. Then, fate showed her true colours. My GP was unavailable. I saw a very earnest medical student instead who took me on a journey through all the neurological possibilities that I had identified, in darker moments, over the previous week. He then relayed the steps he'd followed in making his diagnosis to the partner GP who was covering his work who, after what seemed an eternity asked, "What do you think it is then?"

"He has a cold," said the medical student, proudly.