so far so so-so

"But I don't want to go among mad people," said Alice. "Oh, you can't help that," said the cat. "We're all mad here."

You meant well ...

Everyone's got it/ you ...

Along with their more pressing roman-candlesque economic and political problems ...

If only we had been a size 10 within spitting distance of a Primark, we might not have had to wander around looking like such sacks-of-shite when we were nobbut needy lasses ...

Where where you ...

But there you go ...

PS : I love you

Something beginning with M ...

I try to stay in touch with friends, even if it is only every 12 years or so ...

So yesterday I drove white-knuckled to Sale with Sinister and her mate listening to Fearne at mega-volume in the back (Boo-Yah !) ... to meet a mate who I haven't seen for 11 years. I don't know why, because it's only up the road and I used to do the trip easily (see a jazz band at The Malt Shovel in Altringham and drive home, pissed, every weekend no problem)...

So we went on the Manchester Eye, which is a bit like the London Eye except the carriages are smaller and they sway around a lot, and you get a view of Manchester instead of London ...

Then the grown-ups peeled off and had lunch at The Urbis, and a quick tour of the current hip-hop exhibition therein, before having a look around the medieval centre (some of it relocated because of the dreadful IRA bombing) and diving into the Cathedral ...

Tell you what though ...

I think Liverpool is the more graceful city (and considerably less mucky, which is saying something !).

And as always with very good friends, the years between just melted away.

Sometimes when you stop picking at it, it gets a bit better...

Firstborn has been provided with two pieces of kit (and considering they sent the list to the Blind Society, I'm frankly surprised they didn't turn up with a white stick)...

One is a door-beacon... you knock on the door and a light flashes. And flashes and flashes and flashes. In fact it strobes like the opening sequence in Joe-90 every time someone does a jobby let alone flushes the loo two doors away, so is probably best left to a research team studying epilepsy...

The vibrating alarm clock is guaranteed to trip off that lump of rock in Gran Canaria and start a tsunami. We just 'pop' it under his mattress and watch it sail out of the window on day-one. Well, rather it than me, and I think this might well work if we gaffer-tape it to Firstborn's head ...

And the fire-service rang again. I don't know why they changed their minds because they seemed so adamant that nothing would come of our applications for life-saving kit for Firstborn and we have a bad history of time-wasting assessments, but they assure me that this time they will wire us up so that when the smoke-alarm goes off (which is quite a lot in our house) they will scramble forthwith. Imagine ! Firemen at the door every time you burn a slice of toast... I'm living the dream.

And a prospective PA/buddy is coming round on Saturday for an interview.

If luck is after all like buses, then three don't just come at once ...

We've hit the depot !

Apparently you can preserve pumpkins for a few extra days by soaking them for 8 hours in a bleach solution before you carve them (obviously not before you eat them )...

I'd love to see some pumpkin or turnip-heads on BCUK over the next week, both before and after Halloween (well, not months after obviously)...

I tried to prepare a turnip once by microwaving it, thinking that only the insides would soften ...

One electrical fire, totally knackered microwave and burning turnip later I realised that it was mostly other people who had the heads-up on the whole living&learning thing

And once we could only find a one solitary deformed melon, so had to make do with 'the scary deformed melon-man' ...

The point is to scare the scariest things you can think of away without recourse to a Kalashnikov ...

Anyway, talk and turnips are cheap(ish) so get on with it ...

Chop-chop !

Dear oh dear oh dear ...

Beloved got his totally drilled company computer back from the vets a couple of days ago and chose to try and use it tonight while I was busy in another room watching telly (Monday's a busy night)...

So after coming in several times wide-eyed and panto-waving it's not working and getting shhhushed and short-shrifted, he calls in the cavalry, who arrive post-haste and point out that plugging it in helps ...

Juzz is a star like that ...

After Crank (good film, really enjoyed it) I find them huddled around said inert computer all dewy-eyed and shouty ...

And where's the brandy gone ?

'Dunno' they chorus (as if they could hope to fool a woman who has lost her teapot and Christmas cake that very same morning to the same dark forces)...

All I can say is ...

Have a good day at work guys !

*Mwahahahahaaa!'

My knee-jerk response to the initiative of giving primary school children careers advice was negative, but it's an idea I'm fast warming to ...

On the downside there is the danger of children being vocationally sidelined at an early age and that teaching could become close-ended, because there's nothing the education system likes better than a neat ending with a full-stop at the end of it ...

But there is a glorious possibility that children's natural strengths and enthusiasms could be stirred up in a frenzy of aspiration to live a happy and productive life doing something they enjoy and are good at.

This is after all the point and purpose of education, to nurture the whole child and help them to become fully-functioning autonomous human-beings.

It would be a balancing act, but we're already teaching Wordsworth, quadratic equations and the Napoleonic wars to kids who have fixed ideas about their futures as astronauts or burger-flippers.

The playground in school as in life, exists for the precious time in between the slog of trying to make that life turn out for the best...

We should tread carefully and hope for full employment, 'lest we step on their dreams.

I put up a post a few days back describing an incident with Firstborn, but deleted it without replying to any of your kind comments, for which I'd like to thank you now ...

I made a decision to use open Deafstar titled posts to chart our feelings and progress through the whole sorry caboodle since he lost his hearing, but his headspace and meltdowns of that magnitude should remain his own business no matter how deeply they affect us, and I felt that I'd overexposed him and overstepped a mark ...

So, thank you for listening anyway ...

It curdles on the tongue and sticks to the roof of your mouth if you're lucky ...

It tastes of fermented nappies ...

It's the anarchist and anti-christ of the food world ....

Cheeeeeeze !

The more you wince, the better it is !

See that stinky Stilton ?

That's me that is ...