.... random rants and rambles. no agenda. yet.

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Posted by j at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I know, I know. I haven't blogged since like, forever. There's even snow on the header photo! But anyway, I'm not going to sit here and write excuses. Who cares, anyway? I know you all care much more about the transformation of our garden. Well, you can always see the transformation of The Boy here.

So, yeah, here it is as it used to be - kind of without agenda and not very practical:

And then we got a landscaper and his Assistant Youth to come and drill through 12 inches of concrete (though the youth also spent a considerable amount of time asleep in their wheelbarrow. For real.) ...

They also put up a fence and railway sleepers, and we faffed around planting things...

Which have grown, and grown, although unfortunately, the fence still hasn't painted itself.

... so if anyone would like to come and paint it, you would be MOST WELCOME.

In other Before And After News, my Dad had the genius idea of having Harrythedog's hair cut, because the poor hound has never had it cut and has always been hot. It was one of those things we wished we'd thought of before. Years ago.

So today, lovely Harrythedog was transformed from this:

To this (much too excited to pose for a photo now):

Instead of looking older and fatter as we predicted, he looks about 5 years younger and 5 pounds slimmer. Ahhh!

And in OTHER Before And After News - wait! there is more! - in a week's time, C, The Boy and I have the very good fortune to be going to Canada. Part work, part play; all exciting and quite unbelieveable.

So, because when we toured Scotland a few years ago (before blogging and Twitter and stuff) I wasted all the photos I took and the notes that I WROTE ON PAPER! WITH A PEN! ...I am not making the same mistake again. If you click here you'll see where I'll be blogging to in Canada, and maybe after. Who knows? I don't.

Why there? For various technical reasons - all of which are boring.

Well, there you go. I blogged. I'm off to lie down now.

Posted by j at 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Posted in Photos | Rambles | Random | The Dog

4 days and 9 hours ago (around noon on saturday 13th february) ...

well, yeah. you could say that twitter has eaten this blog. let's face it; typing 140 character tweets is really quite undemanding, so when i get round to blogging, i'm totally overwhelmed at the vast amount of SPACE available and the vast amount of THINGS that i could/should/would have said.

youl'll have to forgive my typing - the boy is asleep under my right arm at the mo, which is mostly* a wondrous thing that we never thought possible during the crazy, sleep deprived time we had last night.

* except i need a wee, but we won't dwell on that.

so anyway.

we've all been ill in our house - the boy still is, poor love, which means lots of grumpy and several breathtakingly full nappies - and have descended into a state of utter disarray as a result (which is why i'm blogging; there's not a lot else i can do while trapped on the sofa with only my left arm free).

... and in the present moment ...

Woo, I feel like Dr Who. Yup, the tardis called me so I could not finish the above. I'm not quite sure what happened, except it involved The Boy being diagnosed with gastroenteritis (he's finally recovering, but not QUITE there yet), and lots of rushing around looking after him and doing lots of washing, and working, and quite a few other things in between.

I owe lots of people emails and need to tidy my desk. I have, however, managed to Tweet several times. Of course I've managed to Tweet! Twitter ate my blog.

More soon, maybe. You know where I am in the meantime...

Posted by j at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Posted in Rambles | Random | The Boy

Happy 2010!

Hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and new year... me, C and The Boy did, although sadly we have yet to make it up to Berwick, which is covered in knee deep snow; perhaps the third time we try will be the lucky time? It had better be! We'll see.

So anyway, I don't have many words today because I am officially a Crap Blogger. However, I do have photos, so feast your eyes below (of course, The Boy can always be seen here. I'm not THAT crap!):

Unsurprisingly, it's snowed a lot here.

Many times!

And our back garden looked pristine and perfect (until Harrythedog and the window cleaner stomped all over it - YES! THE WINDOW CLEANER! No shorts, thankfully).

We've seen loads and loads of geese; flying in the air (as seen in my new 2010 header!); camping behind our house, where the grass is, apparently, tastier...

... and clustered in the canal.

Yes, I am a geese geek. So what?

Oh, and our good old car reached 100,000 miles. Hooray!

Posted by j at 6:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Posted in Photos

1) Decide your TV stand is far too dangerous because your child is just starting to crawl, and therefore is likely to stick his fingers inside the DVD player and throw DVDs all over the floor.

2) Ignore the fact that you also have two freestanding bookshelves in your living room.

3) Claim TV stand WITH DOORS from nice Freecycler.

4) Pick up TV stand WITH DOORS and decide it needs sanding down.

5) Try in vain to obtain sanding machine from Freecycle.

6) Successfully borrow friend's sander.

7) Realise friend's sander needs sanding pads.

8) Google sanding pads.

9) Drive to local hardware shop, which does not stock correct sanding pads.

10) Drive to another local hardware shop, which also does not stock correct sanding pads, but employs a creative man who sells you two long strips of sandpaper instead.

11) Arrive home. Stick sandpaper in sander.

12) Attempt sanding. Lose interest.

13) Decide TV stand WITH DOORS is OK as it is; move into living room.

14) Realise the shelf inside TV stand WITH DOORS is broken.

15) Sulk while wife fixes shelf.

16) Sulk again, upon realising DVD player is TOO BIG for shelf.

17) Move TV stand WITH DOORS into hallway while wife re-assembles original TV/DVD/Freesat set up.

18) Stick TV stand WITH DOORS on Freecycle. Decide no one will want it.

19) Buy Christmas tree.

20) Decide TV stand WITH DOORS will make an excellent Christmas tree holder.

21) Receive emails from Freecyclers wanting TV stand WITH DOORS.

22) Give up. Blog.

Posted by j at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Posted in Random

Sorry, Kathy.

I guess I just don't feel much like blogging at the moment - blame Twitter and its social-ness; blame work and the pre-Christmas rush, which sucks up time like there's no tomorrow; blame The Boy and his extreme cuteness; blame something else - c'est la vie.

At least I've been updating The Boy's blog regularly, and have just uploaded his first subtitled video (subtitled by C, of course!)... if you're in search of cuteness, click here!

Happy weekends, all!

Posted by j at 5:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Posted in Random | The Boy

... please leave a comment after the pretendy beep.

Otherwise - there's nothing to see here, so move along nicely, now.

Posted by j at 8:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Posted in Random

I've never been one of those people who like following celebrities on Twitter. Nothing against celebs; I just prefer to follow those who I know. (I'm sure Stephen Fry et al would be fantastic people to get to know, but that isn't the point.)

And this week, somehow, I stumbled upon Douglas Coupland and almost fainted in excitement. For those not in the know, Mr Coupland is my favouritest author ever - I, who rarely read books, have read almost all of his (the one or two I haven't read have been avoided for REASONS), and I usually buy his latest novel as soon as it's published.

So, I immediately became one of DC's religious Twitter followers, coming over all star struck when I got my first DC Tweet, which was something about coffee; "OH MY GOD! DOUGLAS COUPLAND TWEETED ABOUT COFFEE!" etc.

Of course, he is a good value Tweeter, posting links to brilliant videos like this, which was made entirely out of Lego, and saying gloomy stuff like "Life is like homework." which instantly becomes quotable. And I know this because I searched. Yes.

See? Even grumpy old me has idols too.

For now, I am trying to persuade C to watch the scary gory DVD which I bought because it was only £2.50. I don't even like gore...

Posted by j at 8:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Posted in Random

For of course, it has been quite an emotional day today. In no particular order, today I have been:

1) Triumphant: My PGDip British Sign Language/English Interpreting and Translation portfolio PASSED, which means I am now a qualified BSL/English Interpreter/Translator. Hooray!

2) Disgusted: Bloody BBC. Allowing freedom of speech is not the same as allowing a racist to try and brainwash the nation. Non-biased, my arse.

3) Relieved: Bloody Nick Griffin. Glad he showed his true colours. Don't think he's clever enough not to. The KKK are non-violent?! Please!

4) Annoyed: Bloody Sainsbury's swanned into Hebden this afternoon to spray the town square with fake snow and film an advert with Jamie Oliver, spurring the area's hetero females to surround him in glee, and me to try not to grumble about male chefs too much (purely for C's benefit).

5) Amused: C occasionally wishes I was hearing, but only for practical reasons. Like today, for example, when she and The Boy were in a different room from me and he threw up... she managed to catch it in his bib, but was powerless to do anything or move because she had him in one hand, and his puke-filled bib in the other. Got that? And what did The Boy do? He leaned forward and started lapping up the puke, just like Harrythedog loves to do.*

* C says I have to make it clear that the puke consisted of fresh breastmilk. Yeah.

Posted by j at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Posted in Random | The Boy

You know it's time to update your blog when you get an irate comment from your (lovely) mother-in-law. Oops. So here goes, T!

I'm writing this on the playmat in the living room, with, of course, The Boy sitting in front of me, playing with the mounds of brightly coloured plastic that Every Baby Must Own - you can avoid it, but it will find you in the end - occasionally shouting his favourite new word; "AAAAH!" Because that's what The Boy loves to do; shout. Without warning. I think he may have got that one from his Mummy J.

I do have a good reason for not blogging, however. We've all had colds, which has meant The Boy's sleeping pattern has been downright weird, which, coupled with the fact we have a lot of work on at the moment, has been knackering. I salute the inventor of the snot sucker, however. Yes, there has been screaming, but without it, there would have been more screaming and more blockages than we knew what to do with - and all the mummies we've told about it agree. One said that when she asked for one in a chemist, the bloke who worked there looked at her funny and said, "Ooh, I don't think you should be using one of those. They sound dangerous!" Please.

BUT *I* know where you can get one, and when I told another mummy, she rushed off immediately with a determined look in her eye, declaring that she was going to get one "straight away." I felt like some kind of illegal arms dealer or something, not a mummy from Mytholmroyd who feels sorry for babies because they can't blow their own noses yet.

In other news, yesterday we went to The Evil That Is IKEA, where we rushed around frantically trying to find things to buy before The Boy had a meltdown (he didn't, as it happened, and we only didn't find one item, which is probably a record - and that was because it only exists in my imagination and not in real life). This frantic rushing involved using those shortcuts that IKEA helpfully lays out between "zones" - but my excellent spatial memory does not work properly in IKEA because everything looks the same, so we kept running around in circles, with C pushing The Boy in his buggy and me purposefully leading them through corridors and secret doors, only for C to look confused and ask me, "Haven't we been here already?"

It was kind of like groundhog day, except we were surrounded by sofas.

Afterwards, I realised that I've never been to IKEA without getting lost.

Posted by j at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Posted in Random | The Boy