Sat 3rd
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See-also: http://www.wmc.care4free.net/diary/.
Thurs 1st
Work/yoga/cb1/arj/jck talk/home. Dinner. Bath. Finally get new modem card going: its the bios settings.
Full moon. Sleep other way round.
Fri 2nd
Sleep in, & sit with coffee & paper till 9:30 while Me takes D to pgp. Autumn at last: cool & cloudy.
Pick up Naomi (I keep wanting to write niome) from N at 1.30, home. D gives her a big hug. Me go off to town after a while. Now d/n are happily playing upstairs (which he would rarely do alone).
While they are occupied, change tyre & true rear wheel.
Finish off making gingerbread & playing Maisie. Take n back 5.30.
Bath D, he lies back to 'wash my hair'.
Soir: sucked back in to model again: get it to run a coupled day, but imperfectly. Total weeks spending, M & I, over dinner. Urk.
Palm 'memo' button is going...
Sat 3rd
Hurrah says M, E only fed once last night.
Leave 8:40 (bright & early, & it is b) to swim: but pool shut for competition. Arg. Germ. Arj. Turk. Fireworks. Cb1.
Home. Yeast: my pizza for lunch. Tidy. Jeff,K,F arrive bearing gifts, inc an animatronic bat that is persuaded to fly round outside. D loves it. E is admired: she was asleep in her pram at first.
They leave 4:30 ish, about sunset.
Supper with D 6 while M feeds E. Then read ship-x-sections with D: he is fascinated by the heads: how do they work: I think the ship geom is unclear to him.
Light 3 d-chosen f-works, fun. Still night.
D to bed, us to rest, I play with the mad toy that is the model.
Sun 4th
Grey wake - have I missed chance with bees? Up with D. Build lego, end up with a successful traction engine.
Sun. Bfast. More routing bedroom boards. Cut lawns. Do bees: take out apistan. Goes well due to loadsa smoke: I am an instant convert to the rolled cardboard theory.
Lunch. Sit in sun & finish 'the miracle workers'. Pm: D gets choice of allot or orchard & chooses former. Take lawnmower, which D rides on, & slasher from Dot. Cut grass: mostly cosmetic but does help. Hack at blackberries with slasher: better than sharpened spade. Pick bbs for D. Start small fire from ashes of next door, for fun. A car comes: Ben, H & T, & a man I don't know: Tom? They set to demolishing their shed & D plays with H. They start a bonfire. I dig potatoes & J artichokes. H approaches & invites D to dinner. About 4:30. Darkening. Dig & slash a little more, then go in & find D. Tea. Take D home. Now 6.
Bath. Earlier JV leaves taste for more: select TEOTE. Do 3 more fireworks for D (err, and me).
Soir: quiet. M tired. Enimen on cd.
Mon 5th
Defeat the evil demon yaasc at last. Ha ha.
Home. Fireworks night! Do the rest (except 3 secretly held back). Discover they can be lit *within* the pumpkin. D likes it, but watches from inside: he is afeared.
Tues 6th
'sam is my friend cos we both like saying poo-poo & bum-bum'.
Swim: first for ages: 28, 30, (32.5). Hmm. Feeble.
Cb1/arj. Briefly w/s / oxfam. Home. Sam is there. He plays happily with D. If anything D is rowdier. Andrea+N arrive 3 & stop for tea. Chase D+S out into the garden. Treehouse & swings. Pick another box of apples. Penny picks S up 4:45. D plays comp. I cook. M bathes him. I egp. E is mostly quiet.
Tired soir. Pack up film for fuji.
Wed 7th
Home pm: D doesnt want to go out. But he becomes 'bored' - the first time I've seen this in him. Day is grey: not outside. Do slides: first time I've properly looked at this summer. Theory: still need hi-res from slides for record, but digital for 'events'/memories.
Soir: can over. N v cute: bouncy, happy, toddling, looking out at the world then falling back. But won't sleep.
Thurs 8th
Cold grey rain. Need gloves. Work/yoga/cb1.
Home. Sunset makes up for some of cold. 4:30 odd. Coffee & paper & Me. Bath with farmer giles of ham, M fetches D. E smiles at me, or so it seems, and holds her head up nicely.
Soir: grand photo tidy on portege.
To bed: outside snowflakes whip past in the wind.
Fri 9th
Snow mostly gone. D to pgp: bitter wind & rain turning to sleet.
Dahlias finally gone, though not fully. A record, I assert.
Back 2: mfd+j here to see us (esp guess who?) & loan rotavator. Late lunch for me, M off up sleep, mfd,d,I take rv to allot. D keen to see it & to come, but disappointed by the operation: I think he had exected digginq. And anyway we soon run out of petrol, & it is bitterly cold. So he & D home, leaving me to dig. Realise I can ask Sophie (not in) or Nikola (aha!) for more petrol, & get a bit done. Takes some getting used to.
Home 4:30, via back way, & at last manage to take 'secret shortcut' out of the private dead-end field that is the shortest direct route home.
Back just in time for tea & maison blanc choc cake. Bath. Dinner. Sit with m+j till 9ish when they go. M to bed soon after. I try the old swap-the-dud-disk-into-a-spare-old-work-portable trick, & it works. But I only have floppies to xfer: pain. Play xfer job to f, then bed.
Sat 10th
Up with D. Sun. But at this time of year/day, when most needed, is obscured by tree. Solution: cut it.
Slowly into town admiring sunshine & chill. Arj. Brownes/sally A, since cb1 slow to open. W/s: read comp buyer. Hmm. Back 1:30. Coffee. Start tree cut: d joins; Me off to waitrose. Cut branches to above-my-head-height, leaving stumps for D to climb. Make D a 'hunters shelter' from branches. Cart rest to b'fire site. Whew. D wants a trip in pram. Push him up road to track-over-fields & back. Bfire: d goes inside. M returns. In.
Cook j-art, pots, sos. Good. D bath. Dances to his tune-book exuberantly. Tired at b'time.
Soir: *more* work stuff, plus the preposterous 'stowaway to mars'.
Sun 11th
Si+B for lunch, they cycle up from station on Dutch-style bikes. Enron troubles. Move swing, now that tree is trimmed.
Mon 12th
Easy at work: 'wotsup' graph.
Soir: gp stuff.
Tues 13th
Contest of wills with D again over getting coat on. A game for him, or rather an exploring boundaries. Let down, then remove, his bouncy ball. Then 1/2 his lego. That works.
Swim 27.5, 29.5, (32.25). Stamina a problem. Cb1. Arj. W/s. Home, earl y.
To c+h.
Cook: pots, onion, sos.
Soir: use new scsi card to back up pc. E sleeps.
Wed 14th
Slowly up. A lovely sunny morn: sit out with coffee & paper.
Back: ma, pat, jen+dani are visiting (b in school). Dogs out in car. J off 3. Talk to prob service people. :45 to allot & stoatavate till dark.
To wi hall for pc (bennys). On way, power fails. It gets *v* dark out here with the street lights off. Do my bit (as do N & db), result public meeting jan. Discuss floods.
Thurs 15th
Frost again. D crunches grass.
Work. Yoga. W/s to meet Me. Home. Finalise bennys doc. M bathes E, I bath me. D back, bouncy.
Soir: put up pics of new portege disk. E sleeps. M does poster for pgp.
Fri 16th
Lie in day, hooray. I'm feeling a bit tired nowadays.
Stop at N. Benny. Pick up N at school. 2 bike. N 'why'. German. Speak D.
Sat 17th
E pooey.
Cb1. To outside evil S to help foe stall on anti-gm. Giving out leaflets not my forte. S mgr comes out - inquiring, neutral - but so stereotypically stout & 3-pieced.
Home for lunch. D wants a new soap & I don't mind so to arj, via library. Bike chain keeps falling off - its the front sprocket - argh.
Sun 18th
Jklr come over for lunch. R sleeps initially: v sim L. They stay till 5: L doesnt want to leave: just like D.
Mon 19th
Soir: E sleeps while M off to yoga for 1st in ages. D poss a bit unwell/off food/fevered.
M puts E down to sleep into cot in next room as we go to bed. More space for us!
Tues 20th
To bas (argh) for i'views all day with M's forbearence. As ever, a tiring but instructive experience.
Wed 21st
Up with D, & take him to pgp. Honor will come back with him.
Swim: 28.5, 28, 29.5x2. Hmm. At least it didn't tail off too badly. Arj. Cb1.
Honor is indeed playing (quietly) with D. Brio.
Soir: Me to Coton pub for pgp meeting, D & I join a+s at Castle. Good to be out again.
Thurs 22nd
Start 'santas groovy grotto' with D.
Bees buzzing! Take D to pgp then have morning off to compensate tues. Read paper over coffee in sun. Blustery out. On way in photo x too many beech by church.
Yoga. Home - not town for once. More coffee.
Try box-puzzle-for fete making. Hmm. Slow. I *must* get a vac.
M expresses desire to see HP.
Bath. D to bed & plays with my foam.
Dinner: cabbage by M.
Pick up irda again. Closer.
Attempt cmas lists. Fail.
Fri 23rd
Work: convert node3 to dual. Harder than it should be: removing the heatsink; finding the fan connector. Then rebootinq.
Home late just as Med return from w/rose.
Then town, all, by p+r: D wants to swim, so we do: for the 1st time he learns to float on his back (with armbands of course). Rs have no el-cheapo vacs in stock but argos do: £29.50. Meet Me at w/s. While she drinks tea & gives suck D & I read Dr Seuss.
Soir: try to check n3, but BAS is incommunicado, it seems. Odd.
Sat 24th
I still owe M 2 hours from tuesday. So skip visit to town, which I had no real reason to go to anyway, really. Until we run out of food later...
After sitting drinking coffee for a fair while, head off to the allotment and dig then stoatovate around the back near the shed. Remove a tree/sapling and end up with a satisfying area of bare earth. The nice thing about the RV (where it beats digging) is that you can quickly cruise over a dug area and make it "nice and even" which looks jolly good. Have a lonmg chat to Ivan (not under the Brixton sun) who tells me about his trubles with X, and offers me some parsnips, which I take back for M.
pm: take D out for a walk to put up M's pre-school posters on various lamposts, while D hares around at great speed on his bike. He's now good at riding it fast. Go to the bazaar/jumble sale; get various things (two nice owls-objects; a toy for D; 3 books for him; a cake for tea) all on international no-shop day. But I'm sure they didn't mean village bazaars. After, on to the Orchard, arriving as darkness falls at 4-ish. Do little except have tea and look around; they are rebuilding the playground in a more sensible place.
Soir: n3 is fine. Splendid.
Sun 25th
First sun under low clouds. Even a rainbow, & D does the colours in to out. Double, briefly, patchily. Then rain. Now - 9 - I by fire; D with Winnie the witch; Me upstairs abed. E gurgled happily during ch; smiley.
Pm: to visit Simon, J & new G. Find S in new house doing lights. G snoozes. Look around (show D chicken house) & discuss building with S. See composting toilets! D plays in sand. Back to their house to tea & hand over gift of vintage '97 honey.
Do some sugar-wrappers: mostly Nice 2000 and the like.
Ella+Georgia round to play. Towards end: D: 'e has pushed my car aside. Can you have a word with her?'.
EG leave with father at 6. While they've been here, I've been woodworking... well puzzlemaking I suppose, for the "fayre" [ugh]. I have copied the cube-puzzle from Sennen, and made a 4x4x4 version (difficult, even with choice of pieces; I photoed it as I disassembled it).
Paint S's Goovy Grotto white with D's enthusiastic help. Now we need to wallpaper the iside, once its dry.
M takes D to bed; I to bath, pausing on the way to try (and fail) to rock E back to sleep. It worked earlier in the day...
M cooks: aubergines and beans, and Si+B's chilli, which is hot. Soir: I write tis; M mails; E sleeps.
Mon 26th
Work - systems all awry.
Soir: M cooks kedgeree & off to yoga. E sleeps (as does D). I discover asteroids.
Tues 27th
Cold. Frost.
Swim: 27.5, 29, 28, 29.5. Arj. Cb1 shut! W/s, ox, borders (get linux wank mag), home.
Pm: fly kite.
6.30: in D-generated darkness, listening to Patw. D sees the moon: 'I'd like to go to there'. Std-moon-explanation. 'Oww... but I really want to go there' 'unlikely' 'oww... and I didn't get to do halloween either'. Then it turns out he had wanted to t-or-t. Decide that next year he can be a skeleton.
Wed 28th
Ma visits. Picks up D from pgp, & have lunch with Me. I get back 2.30 just as they are finishing cooking 'nothing' as D insists: secret cheese twists.
Then they all drive to town (why is M going?) to get cloth for D's curtains. I finish coffee & play squasteroids then rush off to allot before its dark. Need to fudge rv clutch cable then dig at rear: quite a decent clear area now.
Back: sort out vacuum arangements for router. Others return, late, & M tired, because, oddly, the traffic was heavy.
Photos (Innsbruck) arrive so do some slides. Find the oz toilet for D, but he is not interested in the details of the mountains.
Ma stays till 9.30 post dinner.
Thurs 29th
Grey. E slept in crib with only one feed, again.
Work. Systems still shite. Yoga: breathinq. More wk: new web. Cb1.
Soir: not letters with H+T. Instead, re-bottle 6 1/2 jars honey & make nice labels. Use cold pressed: some of the warm was over-warm toffee.
Fri 30th
Work then town. All go in on p+r bus; Me bring car back & D+I (swim; w/s) get sole (6pm) bus that goes via Coton, but I have to direct the driver because the evil stagecoach have not troubled themselves with teaching the route.
Night: bright outside thouqh the moon is nearly obscured by thin cloud.
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