Archives: hamish

Holiday starts today! I’m still going to work; mind. It was supposed to start tomorrow (& I would still have been working) but my dad, who is giving us a lift down to Somerset (for it is with my parents we are staying) opted for today. Uh, OK then.
Had a good ‘clear out’ day yesterday. I gave the council a big list of the junk with which time has encumbered us & they are going to come & collect it. I guess if we had a car I would have been rid of most of it already – but we don’t – so we have to get them to come & collect it occasionally. Has to be strictly ‘household’ though – so the 2 bit of chipboard & a bag of plaster that got left behind when they did the attic will have to stay… I don’t quite get the ‘chipboard’ denial… hey – we used it as… um… why the hell did we have that chipboard anyway?!
I got all the lugging of junk done while Jack was off playing with Hamish. They were apparently drawing animals together; I got as a passing report from Hamish’s dad – Andy. He had taken Jack off that morning to a big aquarium shop quite a few miles away. I think they’ve bought a new fish tank. I was junking a couple of very redundant PCs & mentioned that I’d whipped the hard drive out. Andy had recently replaced a wonky hard drive for someone, so he had the faulty model. He came over, & like a couple of wee kids we opened it up. Nice shiny platter therein. One of the computers I was junking had a very old hard drive in, so we whipped that out & pried that one open too. It was a full bay size hard drive with an inspection date from 1989. Cor antique! Nicely brutish in it’s internal mechanics compared to a modern day one

I got Jack home from school quite quickly yesterday. William was there (his friend who moved to Spain). Don’t know if he had been there for the day, but I think Jack was pleased he was there. It’s always so difficult to judge Jack’s mood as he leaves school with how his day went, as he’s onto the next angle already – how to get me to pick him up & carry him, or something like that. Anyway – I told him that I had already taken the stabalisers off his bike. That got him home in a good mood. He was off as soon as he got home. The street full of kids : Hamish & Amber, Jill’s Tara & Maraid. & Kristen – who had just had stabalisers taken off her bike by looks of things. Hamish got his bike out as well – he’s been off stabalisers for a good while, but his transition was a little shakey. I think because Jack has got so adept with the scooter he’s got good balance & he made the transition quite easily really. Pedaling along with ease after a while.

What’s been happening of recent? Hmmm
The weather has been uncommonly pleasant – We’ve been playing out (the kids & I). Been enjoying the evenings. Jack has had the scooter out again. My parents gave him for his birthday last year, but Hamish fell off it & split his lip (falling on the wall?) so badly that he had to go to hospital to have a stitch or 2 in. Louise finally relented & let him play with it again. Initially in the front garden, as the space is limited to up & down the path. He then managed to bargain venturing out onto the street a little. He’s now tearing up & down the back street – with its moderately steep incline. He’s quite confident on it, & doesn’t fall off it much. Still – with one thing & another his shins are rather bruised at the moment. Dalmatian.
I did not go to work yesterday, as it was Good Friday. We went to Bradford & it was quiet; not a frantic push past the shoppers day. Nerves stayed intact. Rather enjoyed that.
Manchester arrives at the train again – darn it -sometimes I wish it would not keep running into this train. Perhaps the train will find somewhere more fun for me one of these days?

Hmmm – it was a fine week last week (weather was good for roof mending – but no-one came).
Louise was quite content with last week. Jack was off school for half term & she was a little worried that he might play up a bit. He did not. He’s been very good in fact. He slept through the night last night. He woke at about 6:05 this morning, but I was near to hand & went to him (breakfast bowl in hand) & he lay down again & drifted off to sleep. I sneezed, which roused him slightly, so I said I needed to blow my nose & I’d be back. I went back to him & his eyes opened slightly to check I was there & he drifted off to sleep while I sat next to him eating my cereal very (slurp) very quietly.
Louise had shower, Jude stirred, filled his nappy, so I took him downstairs whereupon he contributed more to nappidom. I started changing him but Louise took over as it was one of those poohs that escapes the nappy up the back, so he his clothes changing as well, & I needed to be off to catch my morning train.
A quick weekend as I was working on Saturday. Louise has been entertaining in my absence. On Saturday it was her mum & Auntie Alice, who Louise reports as being in fine confident mood – which is heartening. On Friday while I was at work it was her sister & hubby. They bought along a few pressies for the kids: some of their granddaughter’s baby toys (play arch, rattles, soft toys). Yes, there is a significant gap between Louise & her elder sister & they started a family a long time before we did.
Jack has spent a lot of time with Hamish these last couple of days.
On Saturday he went with them to Hebden Bridge to participate in a ‘Green Weekend’ event that was being hosted there. They did some workshop things & Jack came home with some energy saving light bulbs & a shadow puppet he’d made.

gnnn
Went to sleep with a ‘tired’ headache & woke up with it as well. I’m losing this game of endurance at the moment. I am going to have to give up & go to bed after I’ve got the kids asleep without going downstairs & pissing about on the computer at …um… some point. Tonight would not be a bad option.
Egads! – I think – for the fun of it I will sleep on the train.

Train home

Nice sleep on the train this morning.
Train home & the weather is beautiful. Crisp air, blue skies. The only occlusion is the fact I have to go to work tomorrow.
I stayed on the train home yesterday. The family got on the train as well; a planned trip to New Pudsey (Owlcoats shopping centre) to get Jack a new coat. We could have gone elsewhere – but hey, why not? Problem is I hit my wakefulness trough at about 3:00 to 3:30 at the moment – so I had the kids excited at joining me on the train just at the time my brain was trying to give up on me. Other than that – it all went rather well. We got a coat, but did not get to shop around. Got back home & picked Hamish up from Jessie’s house as Hamish was staying with us overnight. All quite exciting for Jack – but he settled down to sleep eventually. All awake as I left this morning. I’m scant on detail, as I really, really should be getting more sleep at the moment.
Neil (brother) called last night as well to invite me to his stag party. They’re doing paintball & all sorts. I confirmed my status as on old fart by declining due to the travel involved. Was good to hear from him though. I waffled at him a bit & enjoyed the chat. Louise & I were upstairs when he called & Jack answered the phone. Don’t know how long he was chatting, but Hamish came upstairs to tell us that Jack was on the phone.

Well – not much to say today as we all were a bit tired yesterday & fell asleep putting Jack to bed. He’d spent most of the day round at Hamish’s house. Louise’s mum had come over, but I’m really sure he will have seen her much. She does lavish a lot of attention on Eve anyway, so I’m not sure that the day would have been that different. Apparently Andy (Hamish’s dad) came round early (well – before Jack was dressed) & asked if he wanted to go into town with them. Eve was kinda keen as well, but she did not go, much to her disappointment. She was apparently brought round with well-buttered toast. She likes butter. When she has been sitting on the work surfaces in the kitchen & the butter or marge is in site, she has been known to dip her hand in for a lump. She tried similar with the Marmite jar & managed to stuff a good lump in her mouth once. She did to spit it out (as we would normally expect) but did say to Louise, “Hot…”.

Noted an interesting development from apple – picked up from a newsgroup – a rumour of a successor to the Newton. I use an eMate – newton – an apple made pda – to type this lot. The eMate is the sort of sub-noteboook-pda thing they made – interesting hybrid… Anyway – It seems that a mac ‘rumours’ site has posted up pictures & little quicktime movies of an apple pda prototype called iWalk on their site.
Dunno if it will ever see the light of day as a production model, & I certainly won’t be able to afford such a toy, but, ah, it created a little bit of a techno flutter in me. That said – it also could all be fake – elaborate fake, but fake…

Another false alarm last night – this time at 1:40. Louise was woken by strong Braxton Hicks contractions & was worried for a bit. Not the panic of last time. She left me dozing in bed wondering what was going on & went to get a hot water bottle for her back (I did offer to go & get it.. I did!). She says the baby started wriggling about & the contractions abated & she fell asleep again.

Train home

Brain was not working this morning. Dull head, not from having been awake in the night, I’m sure, (I was not awake that long) but probably just a general thing. Curiously, with Louise ranging about in the night, the kids slept through again.
When I got home Hamish & Amber were playing as well. Then Hamish wanted to go home (I think he perceived a slight when we asked him not to do something). He suggested that Jack come over to his house, as Jack did not want to go, so I went to check this was OK (it was) & then Eve wanted to follow Amber as well. So Louise & I had the house to herself for a little while… weird. Queue mad bout of tidying up after finishing of a crossword.
Further weird was that Jack decided he wanted to come home, but Eve wanted to stay there a little longer. Jack & I hoovered the stairs & then hoovered the stairs to the attic with the Lazarus dyson, & then washed the filters for it when I realised that they were so clogged that the suction it was giving was minimal. I went to get Eve when tea was ready. Was initially greeted with a couple of defiant “No!”s, but she trotted back to ours without any further encouragement. She really does like plying with Amber. Before they went off to her house Amber & Eve were pushing dollies in pushchairs, (actually amber’s pushchair was the baby walker with the dolly asleep in a toy shopping basket, but hey). “Bye-bye!… Catch a bus.” they say & stroll off to the back room” No doubt similar play at Amber’s house. It’s all quite encouraging if they need to spend some time there while Louise & I dash off to the hospital in the next few days due to new baby arrival. Called Louise from work & she does not think the baby will be long waiting now.
Jack was ‘naughty’ last night before bed. He’d had a good day in general & we were playing with building bricks in their room before we got round to running the bath. I popped downstairs for something or other & Jack was rolling about on his bed. Louise took his shoes off because he was in danger of knocking the wall & marking the wallpaper. He was resistant to the idea & Louise explained that it was to stop the wallpaper being damaged. He immediately decided to pay too much attention to the wallpaper. Louise warned him against messing about with things & came downstairs to get the milk for their bath time drink… That might have been what I went down for, as the bath must have been running. Anyway on returning upstairs we found him picking a little hole in the wallpaper! Louise was upset with him, I remained calm (no point in both of us raging). He was in tears quickly as he really dislikes being told off by Louise. They were only tiny bit of paper he took off, but it looked bad. Eve starts to get upset that Louise is upset, (“Mummy fed up!”) Jack is crying & I walk off downstairs… Time to get some glue. Stick on the bits taken off with PVA glue – which I think will be sufficient. I’ll need to paint over it again to ‘hide’ it better though. Louise is immediately regretful that she lost her temper… she almost never does with them even under extreme provocation. I think she was so shocked that he would do such a thing after he has been so responsible & generally good of late. Jack has a cuddle a calm down with me & a few words as to why it was such a silly thing to do – for which he makes no attempt to try to make excuses for, & conceded that it was wrong (which I take as encouraging).

Hmm yes well – all this box in room juggling feels a bit like a perpetual motion machine. We got the back room sorted. We thanked Caroline for helping out keeping an eye on Jack. It was not something that was intended – Jack just slipped off – but she said it was a pleasure & she enjoyed it. Jack enjoys the idea of gardening. He has a little area in our garden where he digs & plants things – like – um – twigs & plants he & Hamish have uprooted, & paintbrushes… Hamish even buried some money in there once! Buried treasure. Jack & Hamish sometimes go off searching for treasures, & come back with all sorts of things – like – um – wood & um – bits of metal – shiny things. They had a horde of it once in a little area where someone parks their car (at the front of their house) at the bottom of the street. I have even (horror of horrors) thrown away a pile of treasure that they left on the back street just outside our gate. Meany daddy.
Yes, anyway – a good start has been made on clearing out the back room. Perhaps it is a good thing that we are forced to do this every so often as it makes us throw away a lot of accumulated, but possibly useful – um, things … ok – rubbish. Perhaps adult treasures, then.
I worry that I still have not heard in regard to my taking a holiday. It is supposed to start this week & it would be… a tad frustrating (GRRRR) if it was lost due to me not having been got back to on the matter.