Ouch!

Frodo tripped in the corridor at school on Friday, bashing the first joint of his thumb against the wall. Brave little chap was in agony with a badly swollen hand, but according to the school wasn't crying much - just giving one word answers. A visit to the local NHS children's walk-in centre and an X-Ray revealed a fractured thumb.
He was made up about seeing the bones in his hand on the X-Ray. His thumb has been bandaged up, and he needs to visit the fracture clinic at Alder Hey on Monday.
They gave us a CD with the X-Ray on it. It's viewed through some sort of Kodak image viewing software - I've taken a copy and exported the image, so he can show his friends when he goes back to school.

Tonight's Cult TV

Family viewing tonight was Dr Who: The Waters of Mars. Two small boys were watching it by peering from behind cushions, which they were holding onto for extra safety.
This episode was right on form for us - and a family Cheer! was raised when we saw who's going to be in the next one.

Later After the kids had gone to bed, the latest episode of Fringe showed Dr Walter Bishop and his lab assistant wearing tinfoil hats to protect themselves from mind control. This is a running joke at work, whenever over zealous Security measures are being discussed - great to see the equipment in operation!

Remember Remember...

Bonfire Night again. This probably should be renamed "Fireworks Night" as I've seen very few bonfires in recent years.

Took Frodo and Samwise to the display in Sefton Park. There was supposedly a 'space' theme to the event, which turned out to be the choice of musical accompaniment, with loose connections e.g. "Whole of the Moon", "Dark Side of the Moon", "Walking on the Moon", "All the time in the World", "Space Oddity", "Star Trek Theme" etc.

The rain which had been pouring down all day, held off in time for the fireworks, which were as good as ever, and lasted about 20 minutes.

We chose our favourites. Frodo liked the red starbursts. Samwise liked the multi-coloured ones. I liked the blue and silver ones. We all liked the 'screamers'.

Hallowe'en 2009

Spent some of this years Hallowe'en face first in a bowl of water trying to grab an apple between my teeth. Competitive Dad lost to Samwise, who's gnashers had a much better grip on the fruit - once we'd quartered them, since whole apples were proving to be impossible.
Good healthy lad then ate three of the quarters.
Pumpkin lanterns were carved and lit, cakes and biscuits were decorated and scoffed.
We'll wait until after bonfire night to take down the luminous skeletons, ghosts and assorted paper creepy-crawlies.
So that should keep the evil spirits away for another year (only good spirits are allowed in our house - hic!).

Spaced

Spaced is being shown again on Dave - so we've got the boxed set out and started watching the lot again (series 1 and 2).
It's still one of the best things that Simon Pegg has ever done.

http://www.spaced-out.org.uk/

H.M.S. Illustrious

Queen Mary 2 left the same night. HMS Illustrious is in today - bristling with Helicopters.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/liverpool/hi/things_to_do/newsid_8315000/8315111.stm

Queen Mary 2

A bunch of us have just nipped out of work to wave at the passengers coming in on this huge vessel, that's blocking our view of the Mersey.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8315670.stm

The stats say that it's 200 feet high from the waterline. Very impressive.
When they blast the ships horn it's shaking the building.

No Obligation

Had to take a day off work today to deal with a family crisis.
Whilst buzzing around in the car like a blue-arsed fly I got a call from work asking if I could volunteer for 6 hours of overtime tonight, under no obligation of course! Naturally I declined to oblige.

Dusk Till Dawn 2

It's another all-nighter planned at work for tomorrow night. Might get out before sunrise if I'm lucky.

Small boys in the park...

It was a fine windy autumn day on Saturday. I took Frodo and Samwise up to the local Park and showed them the location of the "secret" Horse Chestnut trees that I know about. We collected a huge bag of conkers. Next I need to show them how to play - might have to invest in some safety goggles and hard hats - since this highly dangerous pastime is banned in their school.

Mini Stonehenge

I saw this and immediately thought that Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap did have the correct dimensions after all :)

Flesh Detectors

I've had to stop forwarding emails to work. Novelist Supermum's book covers are bouncing with "inappropriate content" messages.

Too much flesh I guess. e.g. (shameless plug) Ruthless Beauty

More Legoland Photos

Legoland

We went to Legoland, Windsor for Frodo's Birthday treat this year. We had a 3 night stay at the Windsor Marriot, with a 2 day pass into Legoland.

The hotel was good for kids (we booked it through the Legoland website, which gave it a '5 brick' rating. This meant that small boys running around the corridors were reasonably tolerated. The hotel provided a swimming pool, soft play room and small outdoor play area. Also the restaurant did a children's buffet.

It was a short drive to Legoland - 1 junction along the M4.
The boys would have had a great time just staying at the hotel. We didn't tell them where we were going until we set off for the first day, and they started reading the signs.

Legoland itself was great fun, and everything that we expected it to be. There was a good range of rides and plenty of other activities. The stunt show was fun to watch, with jet-ski action, slapstick fights and people throwing themselves off a tower time and again into the water below.

Bit of a fast-food zone foodwise, but plenty of variety.

On day 1 we did a fair amount of queueing for rides. We gave in and spent an extra 40 quid on a "Q-bot" on day 2. This is a virtual queueing device, which means that you select your next ride and are given a time. You can then go off and do something else at which point you can go to your ride and get on it pretty well straight away. This certainly took the stress out of waiting for the next thrill, and meant we could shop, have coffee and cake or wander about in between.

I'll post our own snaps on another day. We paid for 5 shots of us on the rides - so here's the other 4:

View from the 30th Floor

These views are from the 30th floor of Beetham Tower West.
One of my workmates invited us to his flat earlier this week for some real home-cooked Indian food and a few beers.
He says you get used to it after a while, but I found the view spectacularly distracting.

Sheffield

My best friend from school, who I haven't seen for a number of years, contacted me via a networking site.

He's living with his family in Sheffield, and invited us to come and visit last weekend. We went across on Friday night. Frodo and Samwise always enjoy 'sleepovers'. They were a little unsure beforehand about having to play with girls - but were fine with this when they got there.

A weekend of good food, wine and catching up.

We took the children swimming at Ponds Forge Leisure Pool on Saturday afternoon. This has a wave machine, and a "Lazy River" i.e. a current that circles the pool, where you can grab a float and go round and round. Both of these were new experiences for Frodo and Samwise. Frodo who had been swimming in a real river on Tuesday, particularly enjoyed being carried away by the current.

Frodo and Samwise were introduced to Club Penguin. I had to give parental authorisation to two accounts that were created for them.

Some more old friends came over from Leeds and joined us on Saturday evening, so more food, wine and gossiping into the early hours.

We had a barbecue on Sunday, and finished off with chilling out to the third Pirates of the Caribbean film.

My younger Sister lives a few streets from where we were staying, so we popped over to her house for a cup of tea, before we headed back home across Snake Pass.

So a great Summer weekend that came out of the blue thanks to the interweb - we'd almost lost touch. It's been a good year for reunions.

Camping by the River

Or to be more accurate Llan Gwynant campsite, at the foot of Snowdon in Wales.

Took a couple of days off work, and met up with some old friends and their family yesterday. They were on their way to Scotland, travelling up from Cornwall, and were camping for a few days in Snowdonia. We'd arranged to meet up and spend a night camping with them. No need for our tent, as they have a 14 man tent, so plenty of room. We took some food, and the rest of our camping gear, so there was plenty of stools and chairs for everyone to sit on, and a table to sit round.

It was a brilliantly sunny day yesterday. Just right for a plunge into an icy cold mountain stream. Our pals had wet suits, but Frodo and I are made of stronger stuff. Samwise had more sense - put his toe into the water and asked where the warm parts of the river were?

Had a great time last night, drinking, reminiscing and swapping stories. Frodo spent his time collecting quartz from the lake shore and stream, whilst Samwise enjoyed making friends with the other children, and trying out one of their Isla Bikes.

The rain pelted down all night, and we woke up to find that the clouds had come down from the mountains. It stayed damp for most of today, with a dry spell for a few hours in the afternoon. There was still plenty to do round the campsite, and enthusiastic children braved the river again.

We'd like to have stayed longer, but I can't afford the time off work. So packed up and goodbyes to everyone at teatime today. Our friends should be travelling back from Scotland at the end of August, so we've invited them to break up their journey with a visit to our house around the Bank Holiday.

How Far Can Too Far Go?

Spoke too soon... Did a Dusk 'til Dawn and beyond shift last night / this morning. I was just tucking into a Chinese meal when the phone went at 9pm. Saw the sun setting on the Mersey as I arrived at work. Saw it rising again around 4am. Finally got out at 11:30 am after much sweat and nail-biting sorting out a major problem with the computer system. If I'm supposed to be learning on the job, then I guess that this is what's known as a "crash" course :)

Thinking of spending my hard earned overtime cash on a Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, so at least some housework gets done when I'm not at home. Need to do a bit of research to find out how good they are.

Work Hokey Cokey (in, out, in out...)

Late shift/on-call at work this week.
It's only Wednesday, and already I feel like I've been in for a fortnight.

Monday - finished at 18:30, back in for 20:00, phone rang half way there to tell me planned job had been cancelled, but I still needed to go back in to re-enable a backup.

Tuesday - finished at 18:30, back in at 20:00, job took 2.5 hours. Home at 23:00. Just about to go back to bed at midnight when the phone rang, called in for 2 hours to fix a problem.

Phone rang tonight at 21:00. Luckily this time just for info.

Roll on next week, when I get a couple of days off. Couple of family meet-ups with some old friends planned.

At least the kids are being entertained whilst I'm at work. Frodo and Samwise are both attending a Summer activity camp at a local P.E. college - they appear to be enjoying it. When they're not doing this it's either a cinema trip, or playing De Blob on the Wii.

Morrissey Fox

Relaxing tonight with a bottle of Morrissey Fox Blonde Ale.

Verdict - more of a bitter taste than I thought it was going to have. Tastes like one of the stronger summer ales that the Firkin chain used to sell, or the stuff that's sold in a Seattle microbrewery.

There's a great quote, and a challenge in the rogues gallery section of their website.