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See-also: http://www.wmc.care4free.net/diary/.

February 2000

Tues 1st

All sleep late - past 8 - because D does. Take M's old casiotone piano down for him & he dances happily to the demo mode.

D to fly 'come here fly' said very earnestly & rept. Then 'keep going fly' when it started to climb.

Nearly to the shop now: D is playing on the school seats under the tree. On the way he has stopped to exclaim over the red spots on every drain cover: M+J warned he would [the sun has come out].

On way back: D rather contrary. Disgraces himself by weeing in church.

P.m. Swim. Manage 1-and-2/3 l under water. Cb1: play go with 'jean' win 120 pts!

Wed 2nd

D is still fascinated by red dots on drain covers. But even better is the jcb which is road-widening at the corner of s'dale av where the dustcarts drive up onto the green & make it muddy. Will a wider road be better than a muddy patch? They make no effort to reuse the edge stones. Oops - quick panic as jcb shifts position. Alright now. Another lorry delivers some soak-away caissions via an interesting crane & we watch.

Home. D plays a little then to bed but unquiet & comes down after 1.5 h. Then we eat 4 oranges together & are now learning our letters by colouring them in.

To pub ('big pub' says D, not the black lion we went to at w'end. Then 'green door' which turns out to be true - we'd never noticed) where good turnout & D lasts till 11 - just.

Thurs 3rd

work: etadot=0 stuff but fails -ve theta.

Lunch Basils with M. W'stones briefly to digest then swim 20 in 29 & 30 in 31 (i think). Lane chaos - bad signing.

Cb1 where I discover the said -ve theta.

Now grad pad for dinner, read acw paper, & go.

Fri 4th

Work: -ve theta is due to not reconverting, so half fix.

p.m. watch digger back from m's & eventually entice him away. D sleeps not but M home early.

Cook potatoes & aubergines (yes me, quite enjoy it).

Finish (normal) civ game - its been quick: only a week. Score 290, my best. And didn't cheat, I think. Only challenge left: large board. Promise not to play again until next paper finished.

Then lego: make proto 4-output device - eventually by rotation,having tried 2 different linear ways . Now it needs to do something.

Sat 5th

Up with D at 7.30 according to new rules.

M takes over at 9. Swim 4x10 in 27, 28, 29, 30.

Buy mobile connectivity kit - a new world dawns! Later: it actually works.

D says 'open doors, inside, made the fire, toasted buns' while playing with a carrymat as a house. Its from his 'little monster' book.

Make bread. D interested but wants to touch. Likes eating the (live) yeast, but its good for him so ok.

A call from cambs police: any kids in the house who might have made a 999 call..? Oops.

P.m. Lego. Frustrations with rotating-selector for motor output. M riven.

Sun 6th

D will say 'fine' if asked 'how are you' - I guess M'a must have taught him. I teach him 'two & a quarter' to 'how old are you' but then he answers this to h a y too. In fact he can't distinguish the two questions even if 'old' is very distinct. Both get the same answer but you can change which one he gives.

D has rediscovered his block cart which is unfortuneate because his approach to obstacles is to push straight over them.

Mon 7th

Spring is a-coming: I had to draw the office blinds this pm to prevent glare: before the sun has been set by now.

'hello car Hello man in car Hello lots of cars' - D this evening.

Tues 8th

D is reduced to kissing his own hurt feet when I fail to show enough sympathy.

Tell D we are going to the dentist later. He remembers what the d does & his big chair.

All ok at the d. D behaves well & gets examined at the end & enjoys it & lying in the chair which reclines is fun. Then to work but portable still not there :-( Arrange times for tomorrows trip to ukmo. Home. D v tired & becomes tearful so bed.

Pm: swim 50 in 31 & still can't do 2 l under water. Cb1 & beat ?anwar? on 9 & see Paul S.

Soir: M off for swim (new!) & I download pocketC for palm! Fun!

Wed 9th

Up early for seaice meeting at Bracknell. See meeting notes. Back - grim - m25 blocked so long diversion via chesham, berkhamsted (show everyone my old school, the castle), potton end, markyate...

Then straight to pub (M at home vainly trying to phone santa c) & then curry. Oh my head (& bottom!).

Thurs 10th

Copy 5anal paper for rmg. Etadot with jck. Improve metlog pages with src. Miss rmg since his train delayed by o/head lines - he arrives as I leave.

Now g cafe vainly awaiting M... She is only 20 mins late but is quite busy at work nowadays. Btw: vrta are up to 80$.

Swim: 4x10 in about 1/2 sec more than is proper.

Going home. Parkers piece: suns set, blue sky, 1/4 moon, flocks of ?starling? swarm together & make loose patterns. Needs video.

Home. Discover sms/email. Cool.

D is now old enough for negotiation. Example: 'would you like to eat your eggy toast?' 'no' 'if you e y e t you can have some grapefruit' & we end up alternating pieces. This only works because he really likes e t but had randomly taken against it. Example 2: at bedtime, when he brushes his teeth: 'shall we b our t?' 'no' 's w go to bed?' 'no' 'D, if you don't want to b y t its time for b' 'brush a teeth'. #2 is perhaps more false dichotomy or just trickery...

Fri 11th

Trapped by the road-widening again... 'a bit more'.

At the doctors waiting for D to be seen. Only 25 mins late so far... I suppose I must be patient, fortunately, D is. Michaela suspects conjunctivitis but I don't. The doctor (Alexander) doesn't seem too convinced.

Sat12th

Swim 2x20. W'stones - buy second palm prog book.

Soir: pocketC - get db's to work & download 2x guis.

Sun 13th

Bees active.

D is declared daytime potty trained. That was on the way to the pool (29 & ?29.5?). Afterwards cb1 then drop M off at work (hmm...) then to Octopus (which is becoming Great Mills, whatever that is) where buy a shelf just to get the rubberwood for yet another project: a box for the portable, then to Lammas land playground where we have been for the past hour or so. And so we come back to the start because his trousers are slightly wet... But only because he was having such fun climbing. Still here, now on the rope frames. D needs a little help getting over the top. But even kids a year older find that hard. He has about 6 goes & is better each time but still can't quite get over the top. Then slide. Then walk by stream & see ducks. Sunny-but-cold. Lovely. 1/2 moon.

Home about 1/2 hour before sunset. I read paper, D has some food & plays by himself - he is tired - then we play with brio together & build a high circuit.

M back 7, I grib, M cooks seaweed (hijiki) - fishy if eaten alone but nice with mushroom & spinach mixture.

Mon 14th

M gives me card & marzipan :-)

Day: work quite hard (isoclim in background, pum, new tosh) & eventually discover (read the doc, in this case umdp 10 eqn 35) that etadot... term has to be used in advective form so jck was right all along; also discover that ssts seem to be zero in our start dumps so thats why we have excess ice.

D comes back singing 'row row' (your boat).

Soir: play with palm & read palm n/g's. Discover 'nokitest' which will talk to our mobile (hurrah!) but no real functionality available yet. Put sellotape over graf area (n/g advice) & that seems good.

Get GRIB.pm working - eventually realise that b not B does h-to-l packing (or was it the other way round?).

Phone Janet.

Tues 15th

8.30 byfire, sun not yet into l'room. D upstairs waking M up. Change to our routine - swap tues am/pm so that M can talk to americs. D came into bed at seven and burbled nursery rhymes to himself. Now sewing up his pygamas.

Swim: 50 in 30.75. W'stones (poo at the mizzen) & home to lie before the fire.

Pm: with D strip wallpaper from section of l'ing room between door & fire. D is actually helpful. Bonfire after to burn paper which D enjoys.

Ma phones (back from ski with rnl) she broke her wrist but sounds ok.

Wed 16th

Work: pick up tosh from ab: he has put n'work on + repartitioned but not linux: the old won't-boot-from-cd problem.

D has great fun running round a tree until he falls over. And again. And... Meanwhile, its cold. And again, saying 'bit more' on each circuit.

Wallpaper stripping again between door & bookcase. Eve paint it. Try to put rh on portege but fail. Something crashes in xconfigurator.

Thurs 17th

Wake to snow outside & clear sky. D up at 7 but is persuaded to play in his room happily. On way to Michaela's I show him how to eat snow.

Rh n'work install fails ~ same as from disk [later note: this is very odd, given that I discover eventually that the problem is the name of the disk directory]. Heatbud paper with jck now in good shape.

Swim 4x10 in 27..30.

Lunch with M in g cafe.

Visit jr in hospital: ok.

Cb1.

W'stones (batm). Book (not batm!) says: to boot from cd, boot as dos, cd cd-rom, type 'redhat'. Fine, but from dos I can't *see* the cd. Kde gives same err as gnome. Try text mode. Same. Try expert. Same.

For n in os.listdir(path) - harddrive.py
line 32
todo.py 930

Fri 18th

Work: zero sst frustration.

Pickup D. He has an evil mc d's flag & balloon & wants to fly the former on my bicycle.

Bees active. D & I look & teach him 'beehive'. Feed bees another lidful. D v distressed by v low flying raf (harrier?) fool. He cries & runs to me to be comforted.

The ducks are having a picnic on D's blanket, eating toilet paper it seems.

Sat 19th

am town: swim 2x20 in 29.5 & (horror) 31.1. Felt, not tired, but not energetic. Home via cb1, r. Sayle (digital cameras, that weird sony 505) the link (v. brief), church hall books, oxfam, w'stones. Home just as rain starts.

Paint fire-to-end-wall 2nd coat so that when we come back I can put up shelves. M off to town.

At 3, to bas for childrens party, bizarrely postponed from c'mas. There is a pro entertainer - mr marvel - who is quite good & has the kids shrieking but its too loud for D. Possibly because he is quite tired. So go into canteen with jck & lucy & others. After food, dancing - but although at home the slightest hint of music makes him dance, now he prefers to stay with me. Perhaps he is his fathers son (so to speak).

Then: octopus for shelving, then b+q when o don't have the right size wood, then bq don't either (big yellow full moon on the way - I point it out to D), but I could cut a 2350 in half (realising only later that 118.5 x 2 > 235...), then realise that bq are more expensive & don't have it in 30 wide & its to late to return to o. Argh. Home..

D & I sit quietly by the fire on our respective chairs (he told me to get off his!) & he rests his legs on mine. Sweet.

M back at 7. I sit down with a pot of coffee & feel tired. Later: put up shelf brackets & cut 2 shelves. But! I have bought 17cm hangers not 22. Argh. Tomorrow... M plays riven. I install stuff on my tosh since M is getting v. properterial about ours. Now downloading piccies.

Sunday 20th

M comes downstairs to the rather unusual request from D 'mummy make a stoat' but with lego this is possible.

Such a lovely still sunny morning I go outside to read the paper. Birds sing. Wander down garden. A few bees out - I had expected more - but out of the sun it is still chill. Ice on the pond. Mark emerging bluebells. Pleased to see J's garlic coming up - only 3 of 20 not up yet.

At Lammas land playground, D & I, having a picnic, eating marmite sandwiches. Slides, roundabout (D still not quite happy on that) see-saw, etc. Octopus (change 17cm brackets for 22's) & home at last - nearly 4. M takes D & I sit outside reading with a pot of coffee. Now sunset & chills rapidly - time to go in.

Mon 21st

Walking home: D is worried becaue the grass does'nt look green by streetlights.

To 'free the cambridge 2' benefit gig at the junction. Good. Better when I go near the front, more involved. An observation from then, when ec/nw sang 'muddy black river': "Contrast between platitudes gf the gratetul dead & the simplicity of 'folk'.". This isn't quite what I meant - more that folk has worn smooth with time.

Observation from ah: whenever any protest/politics like this comes up its always the old folkies out first.

Tues 22nd

Wake rather slowly. Swim 2x20 in 29.5 & what probably be 31 except some bozo cut me up then had the gall to pretend it was my fault. More irritated by failure to provide an instant rejoinder. Expect this to annoy me all day but in fact it seems to have dissolved in cb1's coffee.

Soir: finish off linux install with cpan stuff & get (ext) modem to work with wvdial.

Wed 23rd

Arrange times with Michaela for next week when M away. D's syntax improves: 'that rubbish bin over there' was quite good. Now he is burbling in the bus shelter. Just before the T-juntion at the top of silverdale av, are 2 sets of flats, either side of the road, with grass & bushes in front. D is playing in a pile of leave & runninq round the bushes. On the playground horse I ask D where we are goinq: 'to the pub' he says.

Thurs 24th

Having a sit outside Mr Bicycle Bells while he deals with someone: waiting to pick up my bike which had yet another puncture (ok, 4th or 6th of the winter).

Get linux sync to palm working but not ir.

Fri 25th

First frog of the year! See one swimming down when I disturbed it, & later another sits at the bottom as I watch (water is clear now).

Lovely a'noon but D doesn't want to go out - he is playing with playdough & his phone. So, I've come outside to sit in the sun & read the economist. D is inside reading 'the secret thoughts of babies'.

Sat 26th

M+J here & looking after D so M & I town where we separate - I to swim, M to w'stones. Swim 29, 30 then cb1 (beat Richard on 9) & continue with carpe jugulum. Arjuna and new rear cateye makes me late for our 'rendezvous' ar ws at one, so settle down to coffee & batm.

Home by three - M, J and D only just back ftom Wimpole where D has had fun and ran around a lot. Diggers.

Last fragments of fine day - sit outside with a pot and read Neil Gaimans latst - retelling a Japanese fox legend. Fair enough, but... why?

M'fred makes lentils for supper - good. M & I out late for a rare chance to see a film, 'Rosetta' about the bleak belgian life of a would-be waffle vendor living in a trailer park. But, just like 'a taste of cherry', it was worth seeing. Just after the film I threw up - hmm - not quite sure why.

Sun 27th

Grey and windy. M+J get D up & we lie in for which we are grateful as we weren't back till m'night. Lunch at 3 h'shoes is good & D behaves.

After I go back via brief stint at bas & dig some potatoes.

Soir: surf dig cam pages but can't quite psych myself up to buying a 950. Shares up to 124! good grief.

Mon 28th

M off at 6 & I go back to sleep but not for long - D wakes early, comes in with me, then back to his room to play..

Rain. D slow. Wants to watch water falling down drains.

Soir: grib.pm till midnight!

Tues 29th

Rain. D spots the green woodpecker.

Work: sst frustration cont: is it aicemizfry?

Pm: w'stones - building work. F cafe. Actionsports for running shoes but it is now 'two seasons' so no hope. To a watchmakers who is currently taking a look at my (Peters) watch. Says it needs a clean inside, which is quite likely, it hasn't been since I've had it. S F Gautry. 55-60; 2-3 weeks, he says.

Loop & swirls in flocks of ?blackbirds? More cohesive than smoke. Like frogspawn?

Home: brief relax by fire & login; no word from M.

Pick up D. Michaela has bought him a book (rusty) for being good. & he is. D obliges us to eat well: 2 oranges & a pear. D to bed happily.

Soir: frustrations with isps & linux dial. At least aardvaak does not fail me! grib again. Phone Ma to check re tomorrow.

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