If EldestGirl has inherited anything from me, it is her winning combination of extreme, insane competitiveness around anything she’s good at – and her complete refusal to engage in competition at anything she won’t win. At school, I would have to come top in any English homework, spelling tests and so on. Sports’ Day, however, you … [Read more…]
“Have you ever done any extreme sports?” my skydiving instructor asked. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d type. Well, it was my indoor skydiving instructor, but still, never something I thought I’d do. “Yes,” I said confidently. “I have been on Nemesis at Alton Towers. Twice. It was terrifying.” “Hmm, that’s more of a … [Read more…]
Our start to healthy eating has been rocky to say the least. On New Year’s Eve, a brand new pair of scales arrived, which promised to measure not only our weight, but our body fat, bone mass, muscle mass and about twenty other metrics that I didn’t even know about. On New Year’s Eve, the … [Read more…]
Like most people, I sort my recycling out each week. Unlike most people, I don’t separate out plastics and paper, so much as “aspirational” and “embarrassing”. EldestGirl’s school often asks parents for empty packets and bottles for junk modelling. As most weeks our recycling bin is bulgingly-full of Amazon packaging, I am more than happy … [Read more…]
I am not very ashamed to admit that since the shops started stocking mince pies in October, TheBloke (TM) and I have nibbled our way through at least ten packets of them (this is a very conservative estimate). This is excluding the two batches of 12 homemade mince pies I made. At a rough conservative … [Read more…]
Before we had children, a night out was incredibly simple, the most complex part being remembering to feed the cat before we left. A leisurely shower, a lick of make-up, a fresh pair of jeans and we were ready to hit the town. Nowadays we never go out. Never. Except our lovely neighbours had invited … [Read more…]
EldestGirl took part in her first school play this week. It was a nativity, which our budding atheist was not delighted by. However, the lure of the spotlight proved too much; after the nine millionth time that she moaned about the vicar’s assembly, we asked her if she wanted to be withdrawn from religious activities, … [Read more…]
“I am not happy about this.” TheBloke (TM)’s tone was less than dulcet. “Who is Mark?” “Huh?” I said, intelligently. “Who is this Mark?” I mentally ran through every Mark I had ever met: three gas engineers (they are all called Mark; it’s a requirement of the job. So much so that I call the … [Read more…]
YoungestGirl had her two-year development check today. Second time around I’m a lot more laid back that she can’t walk up or down the stairs by herself yet, nor retrieve a raisin dropped into a bottle. (To be fair, she did retrieve the raisin, but not by tipping the bottle upside down like she was supposed to … [Read more…]
We all have conversational tics. We had a university lecturer who said, “um”, so much that we used to take bets at the start of the lecture if he would crack 200. They are one of those things that most people just don’t notice, unless it’s pointed out. We all “um”, “ah” and “er” our … [Read more…]
