Archives: paul

I’m frayed at the edges as usual – tired & so on. Back to the usual routine & it’s wearing. Jack is also adjusting his sleep patterns for the worse again. When the holiday started he was terrible. I don’t think it helped that although there were no TVs in the house, there had been one left (thought not to be working) in Jack’s attic space; he was never gong to leave that alone. It worked…. all it needed was switching on & tuning, so Jack had a telly in his room… I’m sure he’ll do his best to deny it but I’d say the temptation to watch it late at night was probably a little too much from time to time. He was verboten, but (in general with our kids) we do say, “Don’t” until we’re blue in the face with little effect. We allowed the trust though – it seemed the sensible thing to do & Jack was doing his best (& did very well) at being sensible. Toward the end of the holidays (when he was settling in) he started sleeping quite well for him. He had a light on, but didn’t have a radio, so it was quiet & if I’m not mistaken he got more used to this & was able to sleep quite soundly. It will have helped (I guess) that he banked up a good portion of tiredness to start with that he needed to work through. Back home now – it’s more usual habits. He went down to the library before tea to pick up another Terry Pratchet audio book yesterday & started listening to this (over watching telly, reading, or the Internet) & was still doing so at 10:20 after gleaming a little more time downstairs than I intended to let him have. He still wasn’t asleep when I (very very tired) went to bed at 11:10 (I’d been doing some data sifting in some spreadsheets for this ZUM! Database I’m attempting to create). Darn… Just realised I’ve forgotten to get the screen shots for the posting guide for dad off my computer to work on… never mind.

Back to the holidays… Ice Cream at St Giles… then what? I’m really not sure. Was that the day we went the the Tourist Information next & then went to Waterstones as Esme claimed she needed a poo & then didn’t & then Eve blurted about Ben10 books to Jude just after Louise had managed to calm him down from all his, “I want’s” & stress ensued so we just decided it was better to go home?

Might have been – but that might have been the next day… I don’t really recall. I shouldn’t point fingers… As I’ve said – Jack was OK for the most part on holiday but it took the younger three a while to settle into things & we do suspect that Eve was not so well at times (she’s not so quick to admit she’s unwell, but she’s harder work when she is because she’s less ‘together’ (being diplomatic).. It also seemed that Esme had an aura of excitement, giddiness & silliness that rubbed off an any youngster that came close enough to her. This tended to cause a giddiness feedback loop that was especially difficult to dissipate. I think on the third day we decided that it was foolish to leave the pushchair at home because she needed to be sat in there from time to time to allow giddiness overload to subside. When in the chair & in town she would at some point realise that she had not had an ice cream yet & holler until she was assuaged. She is only three & it is a difficult ‘boundary defying’ age for her (or rather for us).

<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/monocat/sets/72157606709144600/”>holiday snaps</a>

Back to the routines of home. Esme is a little more out of sorts than usual – Louise suspects she’s missing the attention of the others as they go off to pay with their friends. When I cam home yesterday afternoon Jude was over at Joe’s (not Jo’s) & Eve was off swimming with Amber & Jack was playing with Ethan & Aiden. Esme had been having a snooze & was a bit groggy & clingy. She remained that way most of the time until bed (distraction being the only thing that kept her happy). Lilly came over to play for a bit, but then Jude back & demanded a game of catch, so Esme wanted to join in, dropping Lily. Tears from Esme until she gets her shoes on & comes out to play & Lily has to go back over to her house.
So… In Oxford… what did we do on our first day there? As usual my memory is all fuzz. We walked into town via the canal & it was lovely. The kids were a little bored fro tie to time, but on the whole they enjoyed it as it was a good walk with plenty to look at. We headed into the Centre & tried navigate to a couple of museums with just a tourist leaflet map. That worked OK in the end & we reached the History of Science Museum – or was it just billed as The Science Museum. It’s at that very decorous part of Oxford with the round building & big wall decorated with busts of greek philosophers (in a pleasantly grotesque exaggerated style). Jut off the side of there. It’s a great place proper museum stuff with display cases full of fascinating stuff, but the kids don’t have the time of attention span for this kind of thing. They whizzed through & were bored. When I say, “The kids” I’m not including Jack – he would have quite happily stayed a lot longer & studies a lot more, but the inertia of the younger ones only allowed for skimming. Jack was not included in “The kids” quite a lot of the time. It’s funny how that is developing.

Then to the Natural History Museum (after a few false starts caused by parents being pulled in so many directions by the young & demanding. The natural History Museum in Oxford is great. There was a lot there & there was enough to keep the younger ones happy – Even Jude & Esme after Jude had managed to indulge in the calming influence of a little retail therapy…. Jude needs to satiate the ‘shop thing’ before he can relax & enjoy his surrounding – such is his need to ‘acquire’.

We spent a good long while there & as it’s not too big we could let Jack go off & explore as he wanted – and he did . In the end, when the others had finally exhausted all that we could initially provide (they were getting hungry & irritable) one of us had to go back inside to locate Jack & bring him out. I failed then Louise succeeded.

Then off down a side street to St Giles & into town but unable to get past a strategically placed kiosk with ice cream for sale.

From that day on Esme wanted ice cream every day . There came a point during the day when she would start whingeing for ice cream & carry on until properly distracted (difficult when she’s been placed in the pushchair) or satiated.

One of the tasks on the holiday for us was to not spend too much money as, (to be quite frank) we don’t have a lot of it. This meant some limitations & it meant some occasional frustration for the kids when they could not exceed the agreed budget. Jack was very moderate in his spending as he recognised he could accumulate some money & get something ‘larger’.

Annnnd back to work

….meh…

As is the way of things – we were getting more into the swing of things, but it was time to come home. I don’t get long holidays; not had one for a few years now, but it was good to give the kids a break from the norm, I just with that period of adjustment & excitement that causes then to be that bit harder to manage was a little shorter. Esme has definitely come out of this the wildest, but her spell also works on whomever is nearest to her. She has an infectious joy & mania that she passes onto Jude, Eve & even Jack… maybe me as well.

It’s been a good break. Not looking forward to work today – not just because it’s work, but because there are the problems on the sale (a little cloud that would occasionally follow me around when I let myself think about it (though balloon that goes dark, rains & follows you about – 6 panel comics idea if ever there was one) but there looks to have been some system problems from the weekend that were only cleared up yesterday (oh, joy – a grumpy phone to deal with all day.

So – what happened on our holiday to Oxford. Well, we didn’t take coats – not for ourselves – the kids had coats… So the rather heavy rain that greeted us leaving the station was a bit of a bad stay. We called Dr Susie (who so kindly let us stay at the house) & she said that she could pick some of us up., so we set out to a meeting point to do the ‘pick up’. Louise had the brolly I initially, but passed it to me as I took Jack & Esme (in buggy with raincover) up the ‘canal walk’ way & Louise took Jude & Eve on a theoretically easy jaunt to the pick up point. My passed on instruction on where to meet must have confused matters as Louise then went the wrong way, & it took a couple of calls & consultations on the soggy map printout to get her to the right point. All OK in the end – Louise arrived at the house before me – I came off the canal path a bit early – but it all worked out in the end. Dr Susie had even gone to the trouble of supplying us with a pasta meal & raspberries from her garden – treats!

She has a big house & we had the top (2nd) floor (floors?) with 3 rooms & another attic room. Jude & Esme had the largest room, Eve had her own room (as did Louise & I for the most part – nocturnal visits from Esme) & Jack had the attic room which was up a steep narrow staircase (no door) from Jude & Esme’s room. Plenty of space for our sizey family. Would be nice to have a house on this sort of scale as it could actually divvy up into a room for all (daydreaming beyond my means again).

How to describe the house? It’s seizable enough, but it’s stuffed to the gills. I think that she puts up students some of the year round – but I’m not quite sure… The rooms are still her kids rooms in some cases (Eve was in Polly’s old room & we were in one of her sons old rooms). It may be that she’s running more ‘open house’ for her friends & family’s friends & friends of friends. Her children are all grown up & she has a lot of … (for want of a better word) clutter. Lots of photos & cards hanging up & pictures/paintings & Asian puppets & …well… it creates a friendly atmosphere.

Setting off to work & setting out on holiday (I’ve a bigger bag with me that I usually take).

I’m ambivalent as to whether I am prepared of not. I’ve probably got everything, but I can’t be sure & do I need to be sure? We’ll get by. My biggest worry is how Louise will do with her aching back carrying large bag? She also has the difficult job of closing up the house before leaving and making sure the kids are ready & not running off to play at the last minute… this might prove harder.

Jude cut his toe – that might make things for troublesome for him… He was awake as I left this morning (I left later because I deemed it necessary) and he was in a sweet mood. He was nursing his toe when I went up to brush my teeth & I told him we had some plasters downstairs (don’t worry). He seemed reluctant to actually go downstairs though (it was just before the ‘magic’ 7 o’clock) so he started tidying up some Mr Men books. He was quiet & he was sweet.

Esme slept through the night on her bed again – stumbling up to Louise after I’d had a shower & actually staying asleep, (“Where’s daddy?” “He’ll be here in minute” “…”) She was still asleep when I left – hopefully she’ll sleep in a little – it’ll do her good today. I’m not convinced that she’ll be able to maintain wakefulness over a long train journey… mind you that could all pose problems later this evening when we’re trying to settle them all again.

Home again, Home again, Jiggety -jig

Hm

Well big hurdle hurdled today was the fact that I go Eeebuntu to recognise the SD card & the USB drives… Sheesh – what a silly thing. Not having these working really messed me up for a bit. That sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach that this was all for naught; the feeling that control will never be in my reach – it will forever be slipping me by… drowning… drowning… drowning…

Sort of.

A bit of searching on the we instructed to check over the etc/fstab file (File System Table (?) – apparently used by the Operating system to glean information about the set up drives it is to expect. This has a line in by default to look for the CD/DVD drive. Now I’d imagine because the Operating System cannot locate a CD/DVD drive on an Eepc it goes for whatever the first drive to become available is – this being a SD card not a CD/DVD it can’t get over this anomaly, assuming it is a D/DVD & there’s some weird problem accessing it as it would a CD/DVD. It advises if this in an unhelpful way (basically: can’t do that) & that’s it. So – commenting out the reference in the ‘fstab’ for the non-existent CD/DVD allows the OS to understand it’s not to be looking for the mythical CD/DVD & it should jolly well get along with opening the S drive…. & it does… & it works… & I’m no longer drowning.

OK & the external Hard drive on the MAC at home was playing silly buggers. The MAC has a penchant for playing silly buggers at the moment. I’m not best pleased with it – but it’s the family workhorse – it needs to work – I need it working…

Louise called back 5 minutes later jolly pleased that she had got it working – so this is good.

All good.

Stress levels are higher than I would normally credit myself with having. There’s the impending holiday & the fact that we do not have the funds that we thought we would have for this (one thing and another: messed about by Working Family Tax Credit & let down elsewhere, although we did scrape some funds for travel – so that has been valuable). All this means that the planned for jaunt to London is probably not going to happen – which is a shame as I was looking forward to that… never mind. Hopefully our finances will scrape through the break relatively intact, but it sure does dampen the ‘holiday spirit’ to be penny pinching. This & some rough waters at work…

click through for bigger version (it’s a bit tight, this page)

I’m a bit narked. Open Office didn’t close down cleanly after I saved a … rather large spreadsheet I’d been working on the other day (ZUM! catalogue data normalisation) & corrupted the data in the file. With (the much appreciated) help of Paul at work I’ve managed to recover A to K, but L to Z plus some sundries are gone – lost – kaput – GAH!* I’m not what you might call happy. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad but I’d nearly got to this stage of Data sifting before when I lost the memory stick I was storing it on.

At least I have a portion of information to go from thanks to Paul & I realise that I did make back up a week or so back which s going to have a bit of useful raw data on it (so I don’t have to compile the rest of the spreadsheet from). A lot of time saved, but a lot of time lost. It’s going to take me long enough to figure out what I’m supposed to do to get ZUM! running from a database & have a CMS allowing contributions…

*For the record the .ods file format that Openoffice uses is basically XML data, but it seems that the file format is a compressed container file which can be opened (change file extension to .zip & open in decompression utility) there you see the .xml files. The ‘content.xml’ (which contains the raw data from the spreadsheet cells) was corrupted in this case, It was too difficult for me to spot where – I did note corruption but as the xml file is all one long line (to safe file size) but couldn’t get a grip. Paul could get the data separated out into something readable (using Perl) & then chop out the bad data leaving recoverable data, dropping the recovered context.xml into a new blank ods file.

Rain awoke me this morning – a tremendous downpour at 05:20 or so. Peeped out the velux before closing it & the world was a pale orange – the sunrise through the dense rain. By the time I was out of bed 15 minutes later the glow had gone (the rain slightly less intense)

As we’re stuck prior to summit tunnel this morning it seems likely that there’s a certain amount of flooding in there, but as a train has just come through from Manchester I’d say it’s just causing signaling problems (train proceeding with a toot of horn).

Forgot to mention yesterday that Esme slept through the night in her bed (well, the futon). She woke up as I came back upstairs to rouse Louise for the day. I tried taking Esme upstairs to see she might settle to sleep again (it being a bit early, really) but she was too happy to be awake & therefore gave up & took her downstairs to let her play. Louise likes to have a little peace in the mornings before the kids wake up but Esme couldn’t allow that yesterday.

More den building for me yesterday – more Jack pestering from Jack, rather than Jude. I hung out for quite a while before popping over when I got home, because Louise wanted some adult company & I needed a rest. This frustrated Jack a little as I was ‘professionally fence sitting’, “I refer the [honorable] gentleman to the reply I made earlier”. Still – Jack had me over there before & after tea – bashing big 6″ nails into wood & working up a sweat (sweaty sweaty work). I’ve given him hints on how best to progress today – using some twine rather than just nails. That should help with strength in some areas (I have no building skills, but it seems i have reasonable bodging instincts).