Nothing much to say. No minutia to impart at the moment – nothing particularly bugging me. Louise looks to be coming down with a stinky cold. Spoke to mum & dad over the weekend & they now know Louise is expecting again. Mum’s response was, like, oh yeah – I knew she would be… (!!) Are we that transparent? How did she ‘know’? Granted she had just been working all day & was well fagged out – so it sounded more deadpan than it probably really was. She admitted the same the next morning when I called so that she could speak with Jack – that was why she was trying to last weekend at that time in the morning, but Jack was already playing on ‘the Internet’.
Went shopping yesterday for some clothes for Louise & she actually found a couple of things! Louise is even more fickle than I am when it comes to buying new stuff to wear. Me, I saw nothing… Got ‘The Avalanches’ album tho, which on the whole is jolly good. Nice indulgence. Jack & Eve were very good. Jack got a new coat, as he needs one & virtually chose a new t shirt for himself. I pointed it out to him & he was, “yes, I like that”. It’s aqua green with a big picture of a gold fish on it. He showed it to Louise & she liked it as well, so as we were buying him a coat, we thought we’d indulge in that. He was then keen to stay & buy more things for himself. I think he thought that he must be on a roll – but we had to disappoint him. I think he must like the coat as he wore it in the house that evening – professing that he was cold, when it was not really.
Feeling I’m not keeping on top of things again at the moment. There are not enough hours & I’m too tired. ZUM! is an obvious thing that I feel gets neglected – I have not been able to keep up with the administration involved.
Bah.

Not been writing a lot of recent as not really felt up to it. Been a bit ill with a fever & aches & pains, but – I can still pick up a phone & I can still talk – so – I went to work. This is most likely what Louise had last week as well. She thought it was something to do with the pregnancy, so she says she was probably suffering through it better under that illusion. Anyway – as I have been ill, I’ve not really been paying attention to what’s been going on around me as much as I might.
Perhaps Jack is not feeling that well at the moment either, as he was being a little so & so yesterday evening. Revelling in a lot of things that he knew would annoy us. Whether it’s an unfortunate attention seeking thing trying to divert us from paying attention to Eve, I dunno. It does get monumentally tiresome though… The best approach to such a situation is difficult as well, as he never quite reacts how you would expect. On the whole though – when he is like that, there is not a lot you can do or say that will deter him. sigh…
Voted yesterday. Funny – the whole electoral campaign this time has been as dull as ditchwater. Perhaps it’s due to the perceived inevitability of t all. Turnout was low as well – perhaps due to the same reason? There’s not the desperation that I’ve felt with other elections that the Tories simple must get kicked out… now it’s Labour – & well – although they are not really that great – they at least are NOT the Tories… What a disaster they would be. Oh, it did raise my spirits when i heard that Hauge had resigned this morning. Schuedenfued-thingy hehehe.

ug – still feel awful. Feel more weird today as opposed to ill, as yesterday. Have yet to decide whether this is an improvement or not. Feel OK enough to try a little typing & thinking though.
I was awake in the night – which is a novelty to a stone cold sleeper like me… I am difficult to rouse – for instance here’s an exchange that Louise told me went on, on Monday night…

Jack: Muuuuuuuummmmmeeeeeeee
Louise: I think you should go get him…
Me: mmm – that’s a good idea (thinking Louise was volunteering to get him)
[Pause]
Louise: are you going to get him then?
Me: uh?
[Pause]
Me: Could you please tell me what day it is?
Louise: Monday, I’m afraid.
[I weave off down the hall to see how he’s doing]
My recollection of this is shaky, at best. I think that the ‘what day’ query was to figure out whether indeed to take the alarm clock with me or not.

Spent last Friday night knocking up a new page on my website that would host all my mental meanderings I type on my morning commute. I did actually finish it as well (this is what you are reading!). Was the last of my BBEdit demo application tho. Back to the basics of the ‘lite’ free version… sigh…
Oh, & the pipes sprung a new leak for us… joy. This time’s where the pipes used to go to the old boiler – the stopped end of that bit of piping. Fortunately it’s an easy spot to get to, so a margarine tub has been strategically placed so that any drips can be caught. There is further damage to the ceiling, but as they are coming to repaper it at the end of the month because of the previous damage (work to be paid for by the insurance) then… who cares… I have been turning the water on & off at the stop tap all weekend to minimise the emptying of the margarine tub. Hattie comes today to fix again.
Jack was a ‘coiled spring’ yesterday – ready to go off… He was playing on the computer for the most part, but any provocation & he resorted to slapping. I think I only have myself to blame as he was hitting me earlier in the day as I had told him not to do something (probably as it was either dangerous or silly – I forget now what) & he hit me, so I said don’t (as is annoying) or I’ll have to hit you back. He did not, so I did – & thus the ‘game’ starts there. Sigh.
–Train stops at just past Walsden today – evident why as I look out at some dumb sheep who have got out of the field & are on the line. The driver has to get out of the train to report them. (Bad sheep-naughty sheep – we’ll tell your farmer on you.) Off we go – bye-bye sheep–
Jack & I had a good days work in general though. He woke well, & was in a good mood. He played some kiddie stuff on the Internet (roaming the BBC ‘small kids’ section).
Oog – this is an old train & I don’t think I can type anymore as aside from all the movement making it difficult, it’s making me queasy.
Train home – ‘1st class’ section – nice table to put the eMate on. Yes, well – Jack broke off from the Internet without to any probs so we could go for the seemingly traditional excursion for the supermarket. No histrionics at the cafe :) The afternoon was spent up in the attic – tidying up. It’s still rather a mess. Dust everywhere. The Dyson hoover got a good workout & Both Jack & I got splinters cleaning the floorboards with a damp cloth; he somehow in his leg, me, more normally, in my finger.
Jack like cleaning up – it’s a good game to him.. who are we to argue – heh. He kept going for a good while – essentially as long as I did, & did nothing really untoward or foolish. There was that point when we butted heads re hitting me, but that was out of the attic, & we managed to calm down & get on with things. It was only later, after tea, that the ‘coiled spring’ arose.
Eve spent a lot of the afternoon asleep. She slipped into slumber in the pushchair on the way home. Louise was not feeling great either – sleepy & raging headache – so she took the chance to have a little snooze – leaving Jack & i to get on with things… As I said, a good afternoon’s work. Got a lot cleaned up, but a frightening amount still to clean…
Then cometh the decorating…
After work today I set out for B&Q to get a new set of taps for the bathroom as one of the bath taps is falling to bits (the one I tried to stop dripping last month or so & made matters worse). So, got a chrome set instead of a gold set, as before. Gold bathroom fittings – yuk… They look ‘dirty’ to start with – what a dead (tasteless) loss. All I have to do now is worry about fitting these new ones, dither, put off & call Hattie to ask her nicely if she can fit us in some time to do it.

hehehehehe I got the eMate to collect email this morning… very gratifying… It didn’t work before, as I did not have the time to properly check over the internet setup on the machine to check that it was all sorted proper. worra laff… now then, what shall I do with it… dur….

Jack was more his normal self on Tuesday… Louise, Jack & Eve went to Leila’s house up the valley a little (I do not recall Leila’s mum’s name..) for the day. Leila goes to the same school as Jack. It’s half term, so they’re both off school. She’s a bright engaging kid, but sometimes the other kids seem to find her a little too loud. She had a spell at Hamish’s school, & Hamish confessed he did not like her, as she was “too loud”. Hamish can be ‘sensitive’ like that. Anyway they all had a very good day. They went playing in the fields & a stream near the house. All sounded very idyllic & I forget the details that Louise told me… bah. Jack was in fine spirits on his return. The only area of contention that he was not wanting to get into the bath & he got mad at me for insisting that he did… but as he was in a better mood in general the tizzy was soon diffused.
The attic may be done, but we’ve not really moved anything back up there & I’m started to get ‘itchy’ to start sorting things out again… I have not even had the chance to clean up the room. It is still dusty from the builder’s finishing, but I cannot hoover in the evening for fear of disturbing the kids, & it is difficult to do in the day as the kids are still about & will want to go up there (& will end up well dusty… sigh). Now we have the eves sorted out for storage we can but hope that they will swallow the majority of the stuff that was otherwise all over the place up there before & keep the room itself a lot more tidy. That’s the theory. In the meantime, our bedroom – which need to be decorated so that the kids can move in there when we move upstairs – is still chocka full of boxes & stuff… bah. We seem to enforce a state of living in flux sometimes.
I think, for the last 3 days, Eve has not had a snooze during the day. She copes well as she must be tired in the evening. She did have a good cry last night when she fell over & Louise was not there. All she did was trip over a toy – something she does many times a day without any fuss – so it was the tiredness that took over – poor thing. Sometimes only mummy will do. Jack was tired as well. He had a full day. Even went off with Hamish (& his mum) to feed the ducks at the canal in town. This was about our teatime &… well, we had tea without him. We made sure that there was tea for his return, but when he came home, he said he wanted to have tea at Hamish’s, & dashed off round there again. I followed to see what all this was about as he said that they were having ‘pies’. Ruth, Hamish’s mum was just getting tea ready for her youngest, Amber, & all was a bit up in the air, but altho I sheepishly felt I was imposing on them, it was said to be OK. They had bought some cheese & onion pies at the supermarket when they were out, & were going to eat out, but the weather having turned a little less pleasant, had just come home. So Jack stayed for tea there. I went round to pick him up a little later (as he was having some chocolate dessert lucky boy). He eats much better at Hamish’s. I think he gets bored eating with us. He ate beans – he never normally eats beans. Although later, as the bath was running he said “I didn’t really want to have tea at Hamish’s…” …sigh.

Well, the Plaid album did not arrive… perhaps today. The Serial converter did tho! woo! I am rather pleased at this – I can transfer data – all these mumblings (previously I had to print out text, then scan it into my mac & OCR it to convert it to text again – not especially useful…). I now can plug them into each other & away I go! I’ve installed the ‘Internet Assistant’ thing as well – so hopefully I’ll get onto the net with it… altho that’s not really the intention. The intention is to use it for collecting emails when away from home. Difficult to really convey the delight of such a simple (& geeky) thing, but this is one of the reasons for using this in the 1st place – to be able to type on the train & feed it to my mac at home.
To realise this ability after a couple of months of use… ahhhh. Spent a bit too long last night messing about doing data transfers, & went to bed late… & then could not get the brain to turn off & stop little fits of glee that it was all working… silly.

A bank holiday over. Nice to have a long weekend!
Not so pleasant to be butting heads with Jack. He’s a whirls of ‘wants’ at the moment. Grumpy with it too. It must all seem so unfair to him as he perceives constant disappointment. Well, it was more Sunday & Monday that were like this. Saturday we went to Elaine’s – Louise’s sisters. Not something we especially like to do, but family & duty & all that. The kids enjoy it… but I’m not really sure that I had a conversation that lasted for more than a few non-sequiters. Did have a chat in the car going to the house about Mac techy stuff with Louise’s (&, I guess my — eep!) brother in-law Kyle, but Jack suddenly took a turn & wanted to get out for a moment. He gets car sick. Odd, but he doesn’t seem to get car sick in my Mum & Dad’s car, even with their at times erratic driving, but there you go… he must be distracted enough then, or something.
Kirk & his missus & kid were there. Louise was not overjoyed at the prospect of socialising with them due to the knock on’s she had the other week from her mum due to the problems that Kirk has with money… Still – the babe was there. 10 months (i think – not really sure). Amelia – she is just standing – so it won’t be long before she’s away & walking. Cute kid. Big cheeks make her look very square faced. They all seem besotted with her (heh – that’s babies for you). She seemed to like Jack, so Jack responded with charm & gave her a few hugs. They have a pond with fish, & Jack & Eve went out to ‘look’ at it. 1st time that Eve has had the chance to get close to it. It’s raised a little so that it’s just the right height for her to look over into. She can reach her hand in too – as she did – & started splashing the water about! Something that had never really occurred to Jack before, but as Eve was Jack did. It started off innocently enough, as Kyle encouraged them to put their hands into the water as the fish come up to your hand with the thought that there might be food. Degenerated soon enough though. Fish must have been having a great time as they disappeared to the bottom of the pond. Kyle didn’t seem to mind this, so it was lt to continue a little, until Eve was noticed to have gotten herself quite wet… then we went back inside. Fortunately we always carry a spare set of clothes for such emergencies.
Much chocolate (as always). Jack was running about a fair bit, came up to me, said he needed to go out & promptly threw up. Fortunately, although just next to me, he managed to miss me entirely! We managed to get away at s sensible hour. Being careless, we are dependent on they for transport too & from the train station in Bradford. I sat in the back with Jack this time & he curled up on my lap & hid himself away for the journey home. This worked well for him & he nearly drifted off to sleep. Eve certainly did… she was not awake will we were off the train at home. All in all relatively painless expedition. A little socially uncomfortable, but nothing that served to twist the knife (as was feared).
I’m trying to think if there were any warning signs that Jack was going to have a bad day on Sunday morning, but I cannot recall anything specific. The supermarket was the 1st flash point. We were going to the cafe there after shopping (as we often do on a Sunday) & Louise was getting some things & Jack wanted a tray as he usually does, except today he had it in his mind to have about 6 trays…., no, put them back… he did not – he wanted to take a heavy load of trays & presumably load them with something. Shouting on his part ensued, so we left – we did not go to the cafe – even though Louise was hungry & Jack must have been (as he had decided that he did not want any breakfast). He was very tearful at having left, but as we tried to tell him, if he does not listen to us he does not get what he wants. This could be considered one of his shortcomings – not listening, but then, I’m sure this is a common thing, not just at this age. He is wanting to push boundaries again, it seems – try to get away with more than we would like, & is finding that we do not make idle threats when it comes to getting ‘our’ way. Shame, as I really do not like the whole process. Having said that, he came in on his own last night for a bath when Hamish came round just as the bath was being run. Louise said he could go out for “2 minutes” & he was back in just as everything was ready. He did not go to sleep until 10 o’clock, but that’s another matter. He confessed that he “did not want to go to sleep”. No seeming reason, not really sure why. Don’t really think it’s bad dreams, but it’s all rather difficult to say. He woke up upset in the night, but that was perhaps as we had put him back into his own bed after finding that the only way to get him to go to sleep was to put him in our bed. He could well have been a bit disorientated due to that.
Heh… Saturday night Eve got herself well over exited before bedtime & had a difficult time getting to sleep. She (as said before) fell asleep on the train home, so we were wary of setting them to bed to early, but thinking about it, she must have got overtired. Jack was reading a counting book with Louise & as there were some good pictures in it, Eve was joining in looking at it as well. She was told that the pictures of fish were ‘fishes’ & she picked up that new word – recognising them, perhaps from earlier in the day? She was joyous to learn this new word & ran to me to exclaim it… then… got over exited in general. Rushing back & forth – trying to wrench the book of Jack & myself when we were looking at it later, indulging in hugs with Jack & falling over the floor with him in an embrace – laughing & giggling. Even more full of life than she usually is. Running about like a thing possessed, she was. Sweet with it though… shame it all ended in tired frustration as she did not want to sleep even though too tired. When calmed down she fell asleep in seconds flat.
Now on the train home – wondering if the post has bought anything good. After my fruitless treks across Manchester the other day I decided to try to but a usb to serial adapter. I’m waiting for that to arrive, as well as the new Plaid album – which I ordered from the Warp website…
We shall see – patience of a boy on Xmas eve, has I.
I really want to get the link with this emate machine & my mac at home working…

The bloke came yesterday as stated to look at the ceiling to check as to what needed doing. As suspected, it just needs repairing. Louise had fun. He rang a couple of times, as he did not know where it was? Left garbled messages, only blurting out what his mobile number was on one message left. As Louise was finally deciphered it & was about to call, he turned up. He did his schpiel, told us it would need to be repaired, got the camera out to take some pictures, proclaiming that is what he was about to do, & then promptly asked where <his next destination> was… Louise having said she didn’t know he left in a fluster, leaving his camera & having taken no pictures. Louise had to then call him on his mobile to tell him that he’s lest his camera, so that he could bring it back… Sounded a right droid.
Glad to be sat down. I’ve been running over Manchester trying to find a ‘null modem connector’. No Joy. I figured that this is what I needed as I have both the Ethernet card & the modem card for this eMate I have now. Succeeded in the end in getting them from ebay… didn’t pay too much; could have paid less for the Ethernet card, but that’s the way it goes… The problem now is to install the software so that the Ethernet card works. It’s an old chicken & egg. The Ethernet card will work well as a connection thing – but I need to establish a connection to download the software to make the Ethernet card work… Bah. The modem, I thought, would be the key… but I’m now thining, perhaps not. I thought I might be able to establish something called a ‘null modem’ connection. Getting the modem on this eMate to talk to the modem on the iMac… in theory possible… but then I need some form of cable for the modems. It seems I may have misinterpreted the term ‘null modem’ in that respect, perhaps… as there seems to be no such thing that will connect the socket that the modem plugs into the phone line for each modem… sigh. I foolishly thought such a thing might be easy enough to find, but no. Having thought about it, I may still be able to work round the modem thing. Considering making a cable, but worried it might bugger things up. May be able to use the phone system to connect them up, rather that via the cables themselves.
Did eventually end up in a specialist Mac shop. Saw a new flowery iMac. Pretty – better than the pictures of them might indicate, as the translucence of the plastic does not come over.
Louise has been feeling a little icky in the early days of pregnancy.