I've had a headache all week that won't quite die: it gets better when I'm lying in bed and worse when I'm walking around. It's nothing like my experience of migraine and it's not even particularly debilitating, though it is distracting. Neither paracetamol nor ibuprofen do a thing for it.

A very nice friendly doctor checked me out yesterday and eliminated swathes of scary things I don't have and thinks it's most likely a tension headache, caused by stresses mental and physical (e.g. having had flu 2 weeks ago and a full-time job and a small child). I am instructed to sleep more and rest more and go easy on myself. Try codeine to see if works any better than the NSAIDs (which I haven't yet but might this evening). And go back if it hasn't gone away in 10 more days.

So I have continued getting the bus where possible and walking slower-than-usual (which means I need a coat) and slacking off on the housework. I do feel much more myself this week though, which is great.

( More general health and fitness )

Charles has reached the "Why?" stage. My explanatory talents are being stretched.

Charles was offered the pandemic flu jab due to his heart defect (the one I'm supposed to be forgetting about for 5 years) putting him in a high-risk category. After some thought I decided to accept the offer: he's had a mild response to all other vaccines, flu can be very nasty and he is still small. His life is pretty social, what with his friends at J's and lots of children using the same playground, so I've been planning for 'when' not 'if' he catches flu. It would be much easier all round if he didn't though.

We picked him early from J's to take him to the surgery, and he didn't want to leave and he didn't want to ride in the buggy and he didn't want to sit nicely in the waiting area and he didn't want to take his jumper off and he didn't want to sit still for the nurse. Who said she was worried about hurting him if he couldn't be still, so I had to be a mean ol' mummy and grip his arm in place top and bottom to stop him wriggling it and then the jab itself was over before I knew it. Then we had to wait 15 minutes on the premises before leaving and he was even more manic and prone to running-off as we went back to find Louise and he didn't want to sit quietly on the bus but at least I got him to stop screaming before anyone threw us off.

So that was complete palaver and I wasn't very surprised when he fell asleep fairly soon after we got home. He then was a bit subdued for the next day or so but no other observable reaction. We have to do it all again for the booster in 3 weeks or so (not yet booked).

I'm over my own bout of flu apart from the post-viral exhaustion. My normal weekday routine involves walking a mile to work, another 1.7 miles to collect Charles and at least another 1.8 miles back home again (longer if we run any errands on the way). All this week I've just about managed the walk into work but it's been exhausting rather than the usual pick-me-up. A bus cuts about half the walking out of picking up Charles and a different one brings us most of the way home but my days have basically consisted of "go to work, get Charles, get home, flop" and Tony has continued having to do almost all my share of the housework. It is very boring and I have spent the weekend resting as much as possible in hopes of getting more back to normal. We shall see tomorrow.

Last weekend we hosted a Finch gathering. Louise had arranged to visit us for a long weekend and all of Tony's sisters came to meet up with her, with their respective husband/boyfriends in tow. We had a late celebration of Charles's birthday and a current celebration of Sarah's new job after a few months out of work. Most of the work fell on Tony and Louise because I was still getting over the flu, but it all seemed to go fairly well. Charles was delighted in the attention from "all my aunties" and it was great to see everyone and catch up a bit.

As always, the sheer quantity of food a gathering of 10 adults can eat is a bit disconcerting when you are used to catering for two-and-a-bit. The booze consumption likewise - we went through something like 20 bottles of wine, 2 bottles of fizz-for-toasting and about 20 bottles of lager among 10 adults (one of whom, me, drank about 1 glass of wine total).

Possibly as a result, Sunday was rather subdued - the two couples who'd been in the B&B got their own fryup and Simon cooked for those of us in the house. Sarah and Paul left first and the rest of us took Charles to the playground for a while and then pottered down to the Carlton for a late Sunday lunch (we tried the Ranch but they were being unhelpful about food - at 2:30pm the Sunday menu had mostly run out but they wouldn't take orders for the main menu before 3pm). Then the Sheffield contingent had to go and I got an early night.

On Monday I went back to work for a half-day before joining Tony and Louise for a Chinese lunch and a bit of Christmas shopping. We took Charles for his flu jab (which was a palaver and a half, but that's another story) and by the time we got home after that we were all tired and in need of tea. Louise made fabulous carrot soup and we enjoyed a quiet evening together. The next morning Louise's taxi came shortly before I left for work and Charles waved her off a bit sadly.

Yesterday Charles was grumpy and wanted a nap instead of going to the playground when it was daylight, and wanted to go in the dark when he'd woken up. In the spirit of solving the actual problem (it's too dark to see what you're doing) rather than just saying "no, it's too dark", I found my climber's head-torch and adjusted it to fit him. It took us two goes to get to the playground because the rain was harder than I'd realised so we had to go back to put Charles's waterproofs on.

It was great fun walking over: Charles in his lovely new Kiba dungarees and hooded jacket and wellies, and head-torch over the hood, and me with my see-through umbrella and a shopping bag for afterward. Neither of us minded the rain and Charles kept up a running commentary all the way. He figured out the torch very quickly and it worked exactly as required on the climbing frame: the torch throwing a little bubble of light for him to see what he was doing, just like grownup climbers do.

The climbing frame has two slides - a plastic spiral (which Charles calls "the windy slide") and a straight metal one with a bump. Unfortunately, the combination of rain on the slide and slippy waterproofs meant he went much faster than usual and fairly flew out of the end of the slide onto the woodchip surface with a bit of a thump. Being Charles, he had to test if both slides did this. After I'd helped him clean up the second time he very seriously told me that he'd done enough sliding and we should go home now. We went via Iceland to restock on pizzas and he carried his very favourite cheese+tomato pizza all the way home himself, carefully not dropping it in any of the puddles he sploshed through.

The box was all soggy when we got home, but when I'd unwrapped Charles from his waterproofs and hung them to drip-dry in the utility room, the pizza inside wasn't affected. He ate more than half of it once cooked, which is practically a record. Tony ate the rest some hours later, when Charles was fast asleep.

This morning I found a USB key that I'd been vaguely worried about for a few weeks. It's one of a pair which I use to do backups of my main data at home (which reminds me: back up your data!), and I was wondering if I'd left it somewhere silly. No, just the bottom of my rucksack.

Unfortunately the hunt which found this was triggered by the discovery that my 3G dongle isn't in its usual home (the netbook bag). Due to flu and other excitements I haven't used it for a couple of weeks so I'm struggling to remember where I last had it. Maybe Borders or the pub. Any ideas?

It's like a big switch flipped and suddenly yum please lots of food now please. Also my head is clearer and I haven't ached since this morning; also I can do rather more before needing to sit down and rest. If this continues I may try leaving the house for a short walk tomorrow.

I have had flu several times before and I have never gone from as awful as I felt on Tuesday night to as not-bad-actually as I feel tonight in 3 days. So either it was really wimpy flu, or I am susceptible to the placebo effect, or there is something to taking antivirals after all.

I'll sleep on it.

Temperature has come down some more. Aches are still there but not as bad; ditto general cold/"flu-like" symptoms. Exhaustion remains, as does lack-of-appetite - I managed a small amount of porridge for breakfast to take my tamiflu with. So far none of the common side-effects are manifesting, hurrah. I managed to have a shower before completely running out of steam, which is a big improvement on yesterday (perhaps for everyone else too!).

No-one else has anything more than mild cold symptoms, which makes me happy. First family visitor arrives today - I shall be a somewhat distant and reserved hostess but I know she'll forgive me.

Charles and I both had mild coughs on Monday evening. Yesterday morning I was a bit borderline as the cough was worse but went to work as I had a presentation to give. Felt fine while doing presentation, felt much worse as soon as it was over, left work a little early as a result. Charles apparently fine all day with J.

Yesterday evening I developed high temperature, shivering and all-over muscle aches along with the rest of the cold. The online assessment says hello flu, here is an antiviral code for you. I will send Tony or Jonny for them today.

Charles coughed a bit last night and then spent most of the night feeding. Now he is full of beans with very mild cold symptoms. Meanwhile I still ache all over, plus the rest but the temp has dropped a little. Ironically Charles is due a flu jab next week because his heart murmur makes him "high risk" for catching flu. When I can cope with phone calls again I may ring up and check whether we should postpone/cancel.

Everyone else in the house is fine and we are following basic hygiene precautions to keep it that way. Half the family are visiting this weekend; as long as Tony and Charles don't succumb I think it's not worth cancelling, but I will have to be antisocial until I'm asymptomatic. It's not a completely disastrous time to be off work, but fairly inconvenient. Bah bah bah. I want my brain back; also to stop aching now please.

I don't like the phrase "potty training" as it implies to me all sorts of systems and regimes and reward charts and so on, none of which we are doing. We're just teaching him stuff when he's interested and trying to remove barriers in the way of him feeling comfortable using what he knows.

Anyway, whatever it is we call it, here's how it's going.
( Read more... )

Charles has fairly recently got the idea of phone calls, just in time for all his relatives ringing to wish him happy birthday. "Hello auntie Lucy! Yes, we did and we saw a teeny tiny railway and I didn't want to get off and I cried." I am in awe listening to his side of the conversation sometimes. He likes to make pretend phone calls to people too which can be even more awesome.

He loves Thomas the tank engine and all things trains (both books and tv shows) and was very impressed with the children's area of the new central library because it has a big low bookcase in the form of a long train. He approves of going to the library and likes helping me use the self checkout/return facilities.

When he wants to he can be very lovely indeed. When he is feeling defiant or wants to push boundaries he can be infuriating. My temper control is being tested quite strongly.

We had his 3-year health check from the health visitor this week, for which he fell asleep 10 minutes before she arrived. I did all the answering questions part of it and then tried to wake him up so he could be weighed and measured and observed playing: instead he threw a massive tantrum and was only partially mollified by a feed and some Timmy Time - he sat clingily on my lap and refused to even look at the health visitor. She didn't seem to mind too much anyway.



His favourite hat is this one that j4 made for him ages ago and still going strong. (A much earlier photo is here for comparison.)

I enjoyed reading this article in the Irish Independent, featuring a home-educating mother I know. For values of 'know' that mean 'have met on the internet' :)

I still think we are going to send Charles to the local primary school in 2 years' time, but it's really interesting reading about alternatives, and bearing them in mind. My cousin was home-educated for some time too, I should probably talk to my aunt and uncle more about that.

About a month ago I stepped into Oxfam to check if they sold donated VHS tapes, and came out with:

* a box set of 9 Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little House" books
* the latest Marian Keyes paperback
* the latest Sue Grafton paperback (T)
* a book by a Fellow of my old College set in a fictional but similar women-only College

A month later I have read one, count it, one of these (the Sue Grafton). My to-read pile is measured in triple-stacked shelves, and yet I still struggle to not buy books I like the look of if they are in front of me. My buying habits were formed in the teenage years where my local bookshops were WHSmith and the charity shops. Then my disposable income roughly matched the incidence of finding books I wanted to buy and the rate at which I read them. My disposable income has grown and my spare time to read has shrunk but I don't seem to have adjusted.

I am hoping the reopened central library will help here. It is 5 minutes at my pace and 10 at Charles's from where I pick him up each evening, so we should be able to pop in once a week or so to change books. I can take out my quota of New Shiny Books (and at the moment it looks like every book is new and shiny in there) without costing myself money and more space than 10 books at a time. I am hoping this will displace at least a little the urge to buy up "everything good" in the Oxfam bookshop every few weeks.

It's 6 weeks since we came back from holiday. I have nearly filled a notebook page with notes of things coming in and out, though I confess to hanging on until the numbers might look better.

( Read more... )

The biggest help has been decluttering Tony's clothes (with his permission!), which account for over 50 items all by themselves. And as a bonus putting away the laundry has got much easier thanks to the extra space.

Today was the first day I breathed steam on the way to work. Cars had frosted windows, making it really easy to spot the non-residents (the local streets are popular with commuters who park and ride/walk the rest of the way into town).

It will be dark when I drag Charles out of the bookshop and away from the toy trains. Soon it will be dark before we get home even if we don't stop to play or do errands on the way.

The shops are stocking up with Newtonmas supplies already. Mince pies have been around for weeks: in fact I've decided that mince pies are not actually Christmassy at all but merely herald the approach of winter and Charles's birthday. He doesn't like them very much, or we could make mince pies his official birthday cakes.

Charles is 3 today. This is probably his first birthday that he has understood to be A Special Day For Charles.

On Saturday we had a family gathering at Belton House near Grantham, which I picked for being a plausible day trip by public transport for most of the outposts of the extended family. We had a bring+share picnic and spent rather more time in the adventure playground and rather less time in the lovely grounds than a non-child-party would have done. It was a Coleman party as various Finch relatives were unavailable, but we will catch up with his Finch relatives before too long.

Annoyingly I left Charles's rucksack of toys and books and present-from-granny on the bus on the way home. The bus company located it but want retrieval in person from their base in Lincoln. I have appealed to a nearby aunt to see if she can get it; if not Jonny gets to have an Exciting Day Out at my expense.

Today we opened cards that had arrived, and a special present from me and Tony to Charles (a toy Ninky Nonk), and made a fuss of him. And he knows that his childminder has bought a special present from him that he chose, and today is the day he can bring it home.

Yesterday evening I went around and moved all the ground floor windows that were locked in 'slightly open' to the 'fully closed' position. The heating is not yet on though I am beginning to wear jumpers in the evening. It will be interesting to see how our gas consumption changes this winter compared to last year, with the double-glazing in everywhere.

Today I've been playing around with figures from my accounting program (Accountz), partly prompted by coming surprisingly high in the IFS "Where do you fit in" income distribution, and yet still having to juggle money more than I'm happy with. The obvious answer is "we're spending it all" but I wanted to get a better idea of how and on what. Unsurprisingly, the huge mortgage is the main culprit, but after that our biggest spending is on food, followed by travel (primarily train), general household stuff (including some recent purchases of new things), and power.

There aren't many obvious targets for big reductions in spending. We can save a bit by switching energy supplier as I've not done that in a while. I was going to say that this was frustrating but perhaps it's something to be pleased about, that I've already done all the easy stuff and we're not being obviously wasteful.

Almost all our food, travel and household spending (i.e. the top 3 after the mortgage) is done on the shared credit card, and although I set a nominal budget for that in Accountz, we've exceeded it most months this year. I haven't been doing any kind of enforcement on that budget and it's probably time to start. For now, I'm going to start making sure both Tony and I know each week where we are, and hopefully just being kept informed will be enough to bring us back into line. I really don't want to get into setting detailed targets if I can avoid it, especially not on food as I already have to think about food more than I want to.

From the time Calum was four months old until he was three years old, wherever I went, I heard the same thing over and over again: "Breastfeeding is the best thing for your baby, the best thing for you." The constant approval made me feel that I was doing something important that mattered to everyone - exactly the kind of public applause every new mother needs.

As my son approaches 3, I can only dream of getting that kind of support for still allowing him to breastfeed. I enjoyed reading the whole post very much, laughing out loud in places. A lovely example of real cultural differences.

I took a half-day today, last of the academic year. It was lovely. I cycled into town to lunch with Tony and colleagues; halfway there I ran into an old friend who I see about once every few years. I love Cambridge for those kinds of coincidences.

After lunch I went up to Advance Performance on Huntingdon Road to get some proper running shoes for powerwalking in. They do gait analysis, filming my feet on the treadmill. The first nice thing was that my feet are naturally neutral - they don't roll in or out, though they do point outward a little. However my natural walking pace is spread evenly over the heel, rolls cleanly forward and is even across the toe coming out of it.

We tried a number of different shoes, all of which got the gait analysis. One of the supposedly neutral shoes managed to cause my feet to roll inward, so they were discarded and different ones brought. Eventually I tried each of the 3 "shortlist" pairs on for a quick powerwalk up and down the carpark, and settled on the pair that felt comfiest. Then I coughed up the large sum for possession of them.

I also asked about running shorts in my size - most running shops stop at about the equivalent of a size 16, and it's been a very long time since I was that small. Apparently wanting shorts at this time of year is strange, but I get hot when exercising. There was one pair of leggings in my size in the shop, and they fit ok but the "straight-cut for a slimming look" causes the ends to flap annoyingly below my knees, so I declined. At least I know that these things do exist if I'm prepared to spend time hunting them on the internet.

The whole time I was in the shop, one of the staff was being trained in how to fit MBT shoes - in a strange coincidence the back specialists from whom I bought my Stokke kneeling/rocking chair were pushing their MBT fitting service in an email last week. I think the name is annoying but the shoes look interesting, for when I can next squeeze a large sum of money out of my monthly spending-on-me budget.

I spent the rest of my afternoon off gently breaking in my new shoes on a spot of shopping with fanf. It was great. I should take an afternoon off more often.

Afterwards Charles and I investigated the long-awaited new central library, and it was quite fun right up until he started seriously misbehaving due to a badly-needed nappy change. I need to get better at spotting the nappy-induced naughtiness really. We didn't get any books this time but I will be back to try again tomorrow.

Today in the office, we were getting incensed over this issue, where apparently if children are being looked after by non-family members, then the looking-after adult needs to have the full Ofsted inspection applied to childminders and nurseries and other childcare-for-pay arrangements.

A quick survey of the office reveals that most of the parents are now or have broken the law as laid out by the BBC article - and one person who couldn't actually tell from the news coverage whether he was or not. Most of us are caught by the "after school play date" - more than 2 hours before 6pm on a regular basis. I have definitely done this in the past; some of my colleagues do this on a swap basis with another family once or twice a week. As the BBC article says, "Ofsted would not be likely or able to pursue such arrangements, but nevertheless .... that is what the law sets out." If the law isn't likely to be used, then it shouldn't be in force - it should be better-written to avoid criminalising perfectly normal and common behaviour.

I also sputter a bit at the exemption of immediate family: I can think of at least some cases where the homes of near relatives are far less suitable for caring for a child than the home of a friend-of-the-family with a child of similar age. There's nothing magic about being related to a child that makes them safe with you, and parental judgement ought to be trusted a lot more than this law allows.

Overbearing, interfering, badly-written legislation leaving no room for parents to find alternatives that suit their families - and totally undermining of parents and communities. There's a petition (isn't there always) for us to register discontent and get a patronising response from the government when it closes.

Since we came back from holiday I've been coming home from work tired each day and shattered by Friday. It's one of the peak times of the year, and my holiday was slightly mistimed really, catching up from being away colliding with the workload ramping up.

This too will pass.

But anyway, I've had a very quiet weekend hanging out at home, reading a favourite book or two, faffing on the internet, and having a couple of bursts of decluttering. Charles has mostly been co-operative, and Tony and I have had nice hanging-out-together time. I was a bit full of cold this morning so I have been even quieter today and hopefully I'll be ok for work tomorrow.

Charles was conveniently asleep for long enough today that I was able to watch the first two episodes of Torchwood: Earth's Children. All 5 episodes have been lurking on the electric monk since early July, but I've not often been in the mood to watch them when awake and Charles is asleep. There are usually so many other competing calls on my time, but actually sitting quietly watching fun tv was exactly what I needed today. I've enjoyed the first two episodes even more than series 2, itself a massive improvement on series 1.

I have new blue velvet pyjamas. They were made for Sunday lounging around.

Before I haul these videos down to the charity shop, or offer them on freecycle, does anyone want them? Note that these are available on DVD and I've replaced them where I care rather than purchase a working VHS player:

The three original Star Wars films, special widescreen editions released in 1994 (Han shoots first, no slug by the Millennium Falcon). Now claimed

Animated Batman series:
Batman The Animated Series, vols 1-6
The adventures of Batman & Robin: Bumper Collection
The adventures of Batman & Robin: A Fight to the Finish
The Batman & Superman Movie
(in Italian) La Maschere del Fantasam/Subzero

I'm happy to deliver/be in for collection in Cambridge, and to hang on to them for next-visit-to people out of town.

Back in the first week of September, we were visited by Eelco and Freyk. I had booked the day off to take Charles for an appointment, so met them in town around lunchtime. We had a nice wander around touristy Cambridge, tried out the new milkshake bar near Lion Yard (omg, I had ferret-shock at the number of choices), and then took a wander around the Fitzwilliam Museum, punctuated by late lunch in its Courtyard Cafe.

We found a Roman multitool in a basement, with its modern-made replica displayed alongside. That was so cool. I found a postcard of it in the gift shoppe, along with a whole load of pretty notecards to go in my writing box. I only just resisted buying a cuddly Darwin, though it was a close-run thing.

We then headed back along King's Parade, admired the Corpus clock and had a coffee before picking up Charles from his childminder. That was the first day we had tried using his bike and he did very well getting up to the Castle, and (later on) from there to home again. We had a good meal and gossip in the Castle pub, joined by Tony and a few others, and finished up the evening dozing over whisky at home. I had to head out to work the next day before they woke up and biked off, but it was a really lovely day, a little island in the middle of the daily grind.

...

The appointment for Charles was with the cardiologist at Addenbrooke's. We arrived only-just-in-time and then had a long wait because the child before him on the list was in for ages and ages. I just hope it wasn't something too awful. While we were waiting, Charles had his first ever blood pressure test and was unimpressed by it: the nurse said "this is going to give your arm a hug" and he told it to stop hugging him. He was quite fascinated by the oxygen saturation monitor on his finger though.

When we were finally seen, he got checked over by the consultant and two medical students, one of whom tried to patronise him and got a Hard Stare. The result is that although he still has an audible heart murmur, he doesn't need any more regular monitoring and is now discharged. We're to be referred back in 5 years. I got the official letter today, which made me very happy:

"Charles should be regarded as having a normal heart ... Under the new recommendations from NICE he does not require antibiotic prophylaxis for dental or surgical procedures."

So I have a note in my 43 folders to chase up a referral in 5 years time, but for now I can completely forget about the murmur. There are a whole list of complications he doesn't have in this letter. It is fabulous.

I had the first migraine in a while this morning - of course this happened while my boss was away and I had workload that could not be postponed. Yay for drugs that work. Instead of being unable to work I was merely somewhat scatty.

Because of the migraine, I decided to take the bus in and out of town, and of course the bus was late, and Charles was very patient but after about 20 minutes started saying things like "come on bus, don't be naughty, come here". Shortly thereafter two came along at once, and he then went to sleep within 3 minutes of getting on, which makes this evening ten times easier.

I spent a lot of the weekend being a BSD wife: while fanf and dwmalone attended EuroBSDCon, I hung out with sm2005 on a series of playdates for our sons (who were very cute). I went to the conference dinner, which showed the usual catastrophic open source demographics (I counted 4 other women among at least 100 men - and that's assuming none of them were WAGs like me). Just to underline this, the developer conference tshirt had a very amusing cartoon, printed on a white tshirt that showed my bra incredibly clearly when I tried to borrow Tony's. Not Meant For Women. By contrast, the Hacking at Random tshirt James gave to Tony is high-quality dark colour that will not go semi-transparent at the slightest provocation.

I feel a bit silly for being so sensitive to these things. Even if I had a spare 5 hours a week and decided to spend it on open source development rather than one of the many other "wants" I have (e.g. resuming climbing, learning to be a breastfeeding counsellor, doing more home improvements), I wouldn't be working on BSD anyway, or any OS, I'd be finding some interesting user application to work on. But I can't help noticing them, and they stack up in my mind as reasons to resume climbing instead.

But anyway, the dinner was lovely. It was in Clare College, where I never managed to dine as a student, and the food was great, and I made friends with the person sitting next to me on the other side from Tony, and had a great conversation which only rarely touched on student records systems or children. I also may have had rather more alcohol than I normally drink in a month these days, and was a bit fragile on Sunday as a result.

uitlander took me to the tip so I could dispose of the elderly microwave and then we had a spot of putting the world to rights over coffee, but the rest of the afternoon was mostly spent approving freecycle posts (rather more than usual because the lead moderator threw a Wanted weekend) and occasionally spotting Wanteds I could respond to - two were complete "I forgot I had one of those gathering dust", which were handy reminders of the usefulness of Wanted posts.

About a month ago, Charles had a sudden leap in his attention span and we were able to bring out a whole pile of books previously stashed away as "too long". As children do, he wants the same few over and over for a while before trying something new. I think Tony and I can now recite the whole of The Gruffalo, but not quite as correctly as Charles.

At Louise's in August we discovered he would sit still for the whole of an original Railway Stories (Thomas) book. I did some hunting around once we got back and eventually managed to get a second-hand box set of all the original books for a bearable price. We are now slowly working our way through them and admiring the faithfulness of the tv adaptations narrated by Ringo Starr.

Charles has also started "reading" his favourite books to himself, turning the pages and reciting the appropriate bits at each stage. It is terribly cute.

The microwave in our kitchen was built in; we assume it was fitted at the time the house was built, nearly 20 years ago. About 2 years ago the timer dial went a bit wrong and started zeroing on 7 minutes rather than 0 minutes. We adapted and kept using it. About a month ago the turntable stopped turning, which was rather harder to cope with.

Unrelatedly, we had our annual gas safety check and the device that checks the oven is lit when the gas is flowing is beginning to fail (and spare parts are hard to obtain, naturally).

As we can't afford a whole new oven yet, and probably don't want to get one until we're ready to redo the kitchen (ahahaha), I decided to replace the microwave with a combi microwave, so we have an oven alternative at the point we no longer have a working safety device and the gas oven gets condemned.

It was only when I started to remove the built-in microwave that I discovered the power lead was plugged in at the back of the cupboard above, and the lead goes through a small hole in the back of the unit. Luckily I was able to unwire the plug and pull the cable out to get rid of the old and busted microwave. I temporarily rearranged the kitchen counters to fit the shiny replacement on for the first night, and then the next day Jonny took a small saw to the built-in unit and made a neat hole big enough to put a plug through. Then we could install the new hotness in the same space.

The new microwave is smaller and lighter and more power efficient and has reliable controls and a turntable that turns. It has auto-cook and auto-defrost programs for common food types and weights. Our lodger approved the defrost as being a great improvement over the old one. Sadly it lacks a potato button, but the instructions have recommendations for jacket spuds that I intend to try out this weekend.

(I now need to get the old microwave to Milton HWRC, if any Cambridge drivers are planning a tip run soon and would like to offer it a lift.)

Yesterday we had a nice wander around Bristol city centre in mild drizzle, looking at things, letting Charles chase birds, being amused by Charles watching some Parkour perpetrators and trying to emulate them on a much smaller scale.

This morning while I stumped around a race track, Tony took Charles to "Explore @Bristol", what used to be the Exploratorium when Tony and I were young (er). Apparently it was fabulous and Tony "had nearly as much fun as Charles". I think some visits to the South Kensington museums are making their way onto my to-do list ...

We bought Charles a balance bike at the end of July: a small bike without pedals or stabilisers, designed to teach small children about the balance that goes with bike riding. Within a month he has got quite proficient at propelling himself along on it, and can now go fast enough that I now insist he wears his helmet. This week we experimented with taking him to his childminder on his bike rather than his buggy and so far it seems successful: when he's fast we have to run to keep up, and even when he's slow, it's usually for less time and less irritating than when he was entirely on foot. The downside is we can't load everything on the buggy, but the upside is faster journeys, less distraction, more exercise for Charles and less temptation for me to catch the bus home (so more exercise for me).

I dropped out of the half-marathon after 10 miles. More here.

I am very overweight. My initial attempts to lose my pregnancy weight just sputtered out after a while: regular hard exercise has been a hard thing to make time for in the post-baby world. Since last October I have been slowly trying to "get my act together" generally: eating better, sleeping better, and exercising.

My weekday routine includes 4 miles a day of walking, but I kept being tempted to take the bus some of the time, and the walking was not a very challenging pace. Other activities (ballet, swimming) were hard habits to establish and tended to unestablish very easily. When we went on holiday in June, I had time to think out clearly what I'd been feeling fuzzily for a while: I needed a challenge, and I needed exercise I could do when it suited me.

I thought about running for a while but I'm very paranoid about my knees, and my ankles like to twist at the mildest provocation. Then I was reminded of the "London MoonWalk" and I've always enjoyed walking, so I decided to give power-walking a go.

I realised that next year's MoonWalk was too far away to effectively get me moving right now, so I settled on the Bristol half-marathon, which gave me 10 weeks to train. I've followed a power-walking training plan more-or-less faithfully, apart from 3 weeks in the middle when I kept getting summer colds. Until this week I wasn't really sure I could do the walk in the time required (the race is primarily for runners, and timed accordingly), but checking over the final information this week, I reckon I can complete the race before they stop guaranteeing support. So we're off to Bristol tomorrow and I'm racing on Sunday. Hopefully Tony will manage to take some photographic evidence which I can upload on our way home.

In the mean time, I've lost no weight at all (if anything, I've gained 0.5-1kg), but I've had to start wearing belts with some of my trousers, and I'm keeping up with Tony much more easily when out and about. I've mostly-established a habit of regular high-heart-rate exercise, and will be working towards the full marathon next year.

(And if you want to sponsor me for Sunday, you're very welcome.)

10 days in France, staying with Tony's mother Louise, accompanied by:
my mother Ruth & stepfather Mick
my youngest brother Matt
my stepbrother Daniel and his daughter Sophie (for 7 of the 10 days)
my stepsister Rebecca (for 7 of the 10 days)

Jonny was supposed to come too but backed out at the last minute in hopes of a job interview.

Me, Tony, Charles & Sophie stayed in the house, everyone else was housed in two of Louise's gites. james_r stopped by for the last couple of days but had to camp on a spare bit of lawn (camping is not usually offered by Louise, but we'd run out of beds).

The weather was warm through to dangerously hot and back to warm again: we swam almost every day and ate outside together every evening. Charles and his step-cousin were adorable together, and Charles learned to cope with two excitable young dogs very well indeed (from abject terror on the first evening, to chasing them around by the time we left).

We got back yesterday evening and today we had a new lodger arrive (another Microsoft intern) and the gasman cameth to do the annual safety check (everything passed, but the oven is wearing out, as well as the boiler).

I am not as rested by the holiday as I'd hoped for: large-group holidays are a bit too stressful for me I think. Luckily I have the long weekend so I can potter around at home and be an antisocial hermit before going back to work next week.

Had a really good week this week - there is visible floor space in the junk room and growing space on the shelves.
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Simon asked if I'd factored in power, which obviously I should have done. Our power meter has just broken (now I can find out if Maplin will honour the instructions on the back to return it to them for WEEE disposal) so I am forced to fall back on the manual and some rough calculation. I know I did measure the power consumption at one point but if I wrote down the numbers I don't know where.

The manual says it uses 505-550W, so for a 5-hour loaf that will be 2.75kWh. It uses little power on timer (this I do remember from when I had it on the meter) so if we round it up to 3kWh a loaf, that makes the sums easier and probably more than covers the on-timer usage.

The number of weeks of use in the last 18 months has been 72.5 (calculated as the number of weeks of not-paying the milkman £3 per week for bread - 18 months is actually 78 weeks and the difference is from when we've been away).

A guess at our typical usage is 3 loaves a week on weekdays (overnight) and a fourth over the weekend (daytime). Checking with our power supplier, Economy 7 units are approx 6.2p and daytime units are approx 17.1p

3 kWh x (3 x 6.2 + 17.1) = 61p per week on electricity.
72.5 weeks x 61p = £44.17.

The initial cost of the breadmaker was £90, and it's taken 72.5 weeks to clear that with the difference between the money we spend on bread ingredients and the money we used to spend on bread, which means a saving of about 124p a week. But factor in the power, and that becomes a mere 63p per week saved, and another 70 weeks or so (another 18 months) to really break even.

Still worth it.

Edit James supplies some data in the comments below from the same model of breadmaker, using 0.4kWh for a 5-hour bake (the one we usually do). Rounding up to 0.5kWh means I can divide the costs above by 6:
10p per week on electricity, reducing the weekly saving to 134p per week
£7.36 on electricity in the last 72.5 weeks, which takes 5.5 weeks to clear and therefore we will "really" have broken even by mid-September.

Just my own little list of reasons to be grateful for the NHS (and in particular, for not having to let "can we afford it" come into decisions of going to see the doctor).

My mother's breast cancer was found on a regular checkup and swiftly diagnosed and treated: she went through chemo while I went through pregnancy and now my son can grow up knowing his grandmother.

The midwife care I received in pregnancy and birth, and the c-section to deliver a huge-headed Charles.

The surgery on Charles's finger 2 years ago and the followup checks.

In a few weeks we go for a checkup on Charles's little heart murmur, as we have at increasing intervals since his birth, hopefully to find out that it is still nothing to worry about and to come back in a few more years. But if not, to discuss the next steps to keep him healthy.

My youngest brother spent a week in hospital with a serious chest infection at 3 months old, and lived to grow into a strapping teen about to head for university.

I use the contraception best suited to me, not the cheapest, at no cost.

The NHS is not perfect, but it has done really well by me and mine. NICE is an favourite target for complaints, but I think it does an admirable job of bringing the hard decisions about how much to pay for treatment into the open, rather than taking place behind closed doors in hospital administrations, or in countless arguments between individuals and insurance companies. One way or another, healthcare is rationed in any system because there is never infinite money to pay for it. I prefer the system where you can see how the rationing gets decided.

We broke even on the breadmaker last month, at which point we had spent £215.72 on the breadmaker and ingredients and saved up £217.50 by not paying the milkman £3 per week for bread.

It is still a source of daily pleasure.

I still love collecting data.

For the second time in two weeks I've spent the weekend feeling mildly ill and resting as much as possible; unfortunately this time I continued feeling ill into Monday. I'm just fine - unless you ask me to sit upright for very long, or walk anywhere. Then all ability to concentrate falls out of my head. It's just a summer cold but catching every cold going is a bad sign.
( whinge )

I have been learning the importance of writing things down before I forget ... the below is mostly reconstructed from emails and statements and vague guesses.
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More cheering than the boring numbers is actually clearing entire shelves in the junk room. If I can clear enough of them, I can take down the wobbliest of the shelving units and start feeling like I might one day actually empty the room.

My default setting for photos on Flickr is Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike.

So I was very pleased when the publishers of a web guide to Cambridge contacted me in advance to ask my permission for one of my photos to be used in their next edition. They made it really easy for me to select the way I wanted my name to show, they link through the original version of the photo on Flickr, and in general they were clear and open about what they were asking for.

It's really nice when people do things right, so here's a shout to the publishers of the Cambridge Schmap Guide.

The photo concerned is this one from a trip to Shepreth Wildlife Park last year, it's tucked away with about 10 others of the park in the guide. I don't think it's anything special, nor do I have much photographic ambition beyond "family snaps and memories", but that doesn't change the point that I reserve rights over my photos and these people respected that.

Yesterday I read a Mills & Boon with a scene where the woman is a bit nervous about sex, and the man picks up on it and says "you know what, if you're not sure, let's not" ... (and they still end up happy together, married and with a great sex life)

This morning I watched an episode of an American sitcom Jonny likes, where two sidekicks of the 'main' character are a happy stable couple who remain happy and stable throughout the episode (and according to Jonny, throughout the series).

On the one hand I am cheered.

On the other I am depressed that these are both noteworthy.

Yesterday Charles spontaneously went to sleep in the evening without being cuddled or fed, which is a very rare thing. This coincided with me being about halfway through the NCT book on sleep I picked up on holiday in June, from which I'd already decided I wanted to do more to get him falling asleep by himself, so I thought it was time to seize the opportunity to establish a new habit.

( Notes for future reference )

Charles is beginning to roleplay a lot: the teddy is chilly, or needs a nappy or a cuddle, or is going to bed. Or the lorry is tired, etc.

Yesterday the underbed box-on-wheels got brought out from Charles's bed and taken into my and Tony's room. "It's looking for its daddy. It's very sad, because it wants its daddy. It's crying, poor trolley." I can take a hint so I rang Tony up to ask how much later he was going to be.

Today Charles methodically threw all his colouring pencils on the floor and asked for tv. I said "let's tidy up the pencils first" and got told no, I had to do it, no it wasn't Charles's mess it was mummy's mess, mummy threw it on the floor, mummy had to tidy it up or go to bed. After I stopped laughing, I managed to make it a game doing it together, with Charles happily putting the last few back in the box while I fired up the electronics.

http://www.constitution-con.org.uk/

My items are:
Sat 11am: Workshop: World Domination - Getting Things Done
What's stopping you achieving your goals? This training session will look at some useful tools and skills for addressing blockages on the road to power, using a number of case studies. The facilitator welcomes user-submitted cases for inclusion in the training session. If you wish, please submit a short description to the front desk no later than 2 hours before the start of the session. Cases studied will be at the facilitator's discretion. (Limited to 20 places, please sign up at the front desk.) {Led by Rachel}

Sat 9pm: Writers to watch out for
Recommendations for new or little-known authors you might not have heard of. Come and find out who's the next big thing! {Duncan MacGregor, Rachel, Ian Whates}

Sun noon: Sex and drugs and rock'n'roll
Indulgence, hedonism and addiction. How do you write about excess without going over the top? {Steph Swainston, Rachel, Ian Whates, Chaz Brenchley}

Sun 2pm: Book discussion: A Companion to Wolves
Discussion of A Companion to Wolves by Sarah Monette & Elizabeth Bear, a fantasy heroic quest novel with a really interesting take on the telepathic companion animal. (Warning: book contains explicit sex scenes.) {Led by Rachel}

So excited, and there's loads of other good stuff on the programme. Tomorrow afternoon ruthcoleman and my brother Matt arrive to join in the fun. More company and extra toddler-wranglers!

Can't wait.

Nearly 2 years ago, Ingi asked me some questions which I blithely promised to answer within 12 months. I failed to do so, but that comment notification has been lurking at the bottom of my Gmail inbox for all that time ...

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I couldn't resist taking this photo this morning and making a rare effort to get it online quickly:



He's wearing the shirt he chose himself in Boots about a month ago, a pair of velvet trousers my aunt Alison gave us when we went to Borth in April (they were a bit too long then, but he's been sneaking on a few cm in the last month or so), and a pair of stripy socks that Tony chose, but he loves. We had a bit of negotiation over the socks, as the first pair I picked up were apparently "too big" and the next pair wasn't blue enough. Normally Tony dresses him, so today was a bit of a treat for me. I enjoyed his definite opinions, just as I've enjoyed letting him choose an occasional new item of clothing recently. (His taste is similar to mine, which probably helps.)

Sartorial negotiations over, he ran off to sit on the sofa and play with his toy cars. Actually the one in his right hand belongs to J, but she is fairly relaxed at letting toys come for overnight visits. Charles was keen that the cars were photographed too.

No dizziness at all today, and not much tiredness either. I tidied the kitchen, wiped and reinstalled my old PC, took out the INCREDIBLY NOISY and probably faulty giant cooling fan, caught up on my Google Reader backlog, fixed the Electrisave and reinstated the receiver in the living room where we can see it, listed the PC on Freecycle and then got dressed to go for a pub lunch and drop in at a 40th wedding anniversary party.

Tony and I will be around 70 when we reach our 40th wedding anniversary. I hope we are still as happy together as this couple seem to be.

Charles got cross when I wouldn't let him play with bits of the computer: "Mummy, you have to share, you know the rule". He was reconciled a bit by helping me with the screwdriver putting the case back on.

My PC offer is bringing all the freecycling Ubuntu fans out of the woodwork. I realise I never did measure how much power its replacement uses, so should go do that shortly and work out how long it will take to pay for itself in electricity savings. I should also measure charging up the netbook. The electrisave says the house is currently using 250-350W - I tested it earlier by switching on the kettle and watching it zoom up to nearly 3kW.

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In other news, I am less dizzy but still really easily tired. It turns out I have just the right level of concentration to not be bored by systematic tidying jobs, like bagging up everything I could find in the junk room to return to Keith, and sorting out Charles's latest crop of outgrown/outworn clothes. Tony worries he doesn't have enough clothes now; I think we'll be fine once the current laundry is dry and put away. There's also the "too big" clothes to check through too. And as a last resort, I will go shopping. Interesting to note when I was sorting through clothes - the vast majority of clothes I consider "keepers" are from Boots, and they're having a bit of a promotion on at the moment. Also the Woolworths children's clothing brand has been revived, on the web at least.

Charles's childminder J has an adult daughter E living at home with her. Yesterday J let me know that E was ill with a mild fever. We discussed hygiene precautions, the fact that E is not coming into contact with the children (remaining in her room when they are in, and J routinely takes them out anyway) and the likelihood it wasn't actually flu (mild fever, but slow onset) and after discussion Tony agreed with me that it was premature to hold Charles back from going to J.

I reviewed our flu preparation: we have plenty of easy food in the house (suitable for preparation by tired invalids), good stocks of paracetamol in adult and child versions, plus rehydration salts and other pain relief/cold relief drugs. We could probably do with a bit more long-life fruit juice, the thermometer needs a new battery, and we haven't given out our spare keys to the people who should have them. I took the dead battery out of the thermometer this morning so I could take it with me to get a replacement.

Ironically I then started feeling dizzy and thickheaded at work in the late morning. No fever though, and no cough, and I can think about easy things and sit upright, so it is probably Some Other Bug. Anyway, I decided that I was definitely ill and should take myself and my germs home. Jonny kindly collected Charles for me, and I emailed the spec of the battery to Tony.

I need some advice, especially from women with experience of buying and caring for expensive bras for the fuller figure.

I am currently renewing my stock of bras, having worn out the second set of nursing bras since Charles was born. This time I decided to try out alternatives to the reliable-but-a-bit-dull Bravado, and have found an amazing bra from Hotmilk that is beautiful and lacy and supportive and comfortable, and in which I can still breastfeed. The holy grail of bras. But it is handwash only and I really am not good at doing handwashes.

Those of you who buy expensive lacy bras that are labelled handwash only - do you actually handwash them? Or do they survive the washing machine if done on a delicate cycle in a mesh bag? It will really annoy me if I splash out on a few of these gorgeous bras and then destroy them; it will also annoy me if I splash out and then never wear them because I never get around to washing them.

Or shall I just admit that I am too lazy for lace, and stick with machine-washable reliable slightly-dull bras?

As you may know, I'm a moderator on the local Freecycle group, which has just over 20,000 messages and nearly 1000 messages a week. Probably the biggest cause of complaints, both direct to moderators and on the Cafe group is How Rude All These People Are who respond to offers.

I've been decluttering again (yes, one of those posts is lurking in the to-write buffer) and I've been freecycling stuff, and just this weekend I got a high percentage of badly-written responses that didn't do the minimum I asked by way of suggestion collection times, didn't use please or thank you[1], and generally implied it was my duty to feel grateful for their generosity in taking this stuff off my hands.

[1] The person who managed to use both please and thank you and still seem rude was quite impressive!

That last bit is a bit tricky because one of my motivations for freecycle is that I do generally feel grateful that someone is going to use my stuff rather than me add to landfill. But until I actually hand it over it is my stuff and it is up to me whether it gets binned or given to someone to be useful, and actually a "please" or a "thank you" or a "I would be grateful if you would consider me" would be nice. Please. Thank you.

Now, I have a rule of never giving anything to rude people, but it occurred to me today that it's not really very good feedback. If I get 5 really polite emails for 1 item I still have to disappoint 4 polite people. Anyway, I've decided to start giving some explicit feedback when I mail to tell people they can't have something. If people say "I'll have this if it hasn't gone" they are getting replies like "It has gone to someone who gave me a collection time as I asked in my offer email." And I am following Ian's suggestion and excising my usual "Sorry" from replies: I am no longer apologising to rude people for not giving them something. And I am thanking those people who are polite, and making a point of doing so when I am turning them down anyway.

It's quite hard phrasing my replies so I expect I will probably trigger some angry responses, but my experience moderating the group is that repeated specific feedback does change people's behaviour more often than not. Here's hoping, anyway.

We aren't potty training, in that I've not read up on any method of doing so and we're not putting much effort into it. What we have been doing is taking his nappy off at home a lot, especially evenings and weekends.

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