Baby bird with a broken wing

Lois has managed to break her left leg this week, fracturing her tibia and fibular (or is it tibular and fibia? I dunno). Anyway, she’s in a pot for 4 weeks and we are officially the world’s worst parents for taking our eyes off of her for a millisecond allowing the little roamer to fall off of our bed.

The consultant said he didn’t know any Loises other than Lois Lane. Always a good sign! I feel sorry for the ‘Callums’ of today for there will be plenty of them to be confused with throughout their school and adult lives.

For now, and through necessity rather than choice, Lois has returned to her crawling method of getting about. The lounge discos will have to wait.

We have been thinking about the pros and cons of having a third child. Yes, that’s right – we’re actually talking about it this time for a change. The thing is, I think you have to talk about number 3. Number 1 is nothing but a blessing and a miracle. Number 2 is a logical next step and whilst not an essential step is not going to ruffle anyone’s feathers. Number 3 however is a whole new ball game. Like the comedy programme, to go to 3 it is to be suddenly outnumbered. However any talk of children not receiving enough love when you to 3 is quickly offset in my mind by the potential joy each will have of having sibling playmates. I am one of three and if anyone were to ask me if I’d rather not have been there’s really only one answer!

Maisie already says she loves Lois sometimes (although she does also on occasion want Lois to go and live with somebody else) and watching them play together is a lovely sight. Actually Maisie also wanted recently to swap our cat Louis for a friends’ dog, Tilly. Poor cat. He’s had a pretty rough 3 years. And actually having a number 3 would probably mean he would have to endure another 3 rough ones.

Lois is trying to say words now. She gets excited when she see Louis and she shouts “ooo-eee” at him, something which makes Maisie laugh.

They also copy each other. Up until now Lois has just watched Maisie with a undying fascination. She now tries to copy her and Maisie repays the favour too.

Today I am leaving my current position in Salford and will on Monday start work back at the University of Sheffield, It’s a strange feeling, coming back to Sheffield. It feels like home and it’s even more significant because I have worked for this institution before albeit 7 years ago. My work-life balance has been a bit derailed with commuting (4 hours+ per day and £348.71 per month!) to Salford on a daily basis over the last 8 months and it feels like it has been a very long, very cold and very dark winter.

We are getting a new garden. Work may start today. We are getting ‘a man’ to dig out and pave over the bottom bit of garden with some stone slabs, making it easier to maintain and giving the kids a nice big flat surface to run around on (and break new bones?).

Lois is still sleeping relatively well even despite the big pink pot she is forced to wear. Maisie on the other hand remains a sleep fighter, a proud leader of the bedtime rebellion group.

Our Sky HD+ box had been a sluggish recently and a man came out to look at it and replaced it with a shiny new one the other day which was nice. And as I’m typing this I’m realising how utterly uninteresting this actually is.

We have been watching Dexter. We are late starters on this fantastic series. It has gotten us completely hooked. We are on series 3 now. Can’t say enough positive things about this series. The whole ‘hero is a serial killer but you are right behind him’ sentiment is an odd one but thoroughly addictive and compelling.

I have decided to re-establish my love affair with my guitar. New strings have been bought and the will is there. All I need now is some time. I might be wrong, but I feel there is musical ability trying to ooze out of that Lois child. She can’t talk or say words yet but she sure likes to sing. She is also interested in the harmonica we have in a way Maisie never was. And when she hears music she recognise she instantly starts to a sort of rowing motion. I’m not sure about Maisie yet. I hope she will be able to bring something to the musical table. Lisa has her doubts. Innocent until proven guilty I say!

Snowtastic

We recently has some extreme snow. Extreme in the sense that I can’t remember experiencing so much of it nor the length of the prolonged heavy snow showers. Local and national news (for it hogged the headlines for days and affected many parts of the UK but in particular, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Scotland and anywhere on the East Coast) reported that this was the worst snowfall for over 20 years in Derbyshire.

It was fab.

I got to work from home for 4 days in a row. The trains were severely affected and for 2 days there were no trains running through Chesterfield, and unfortunately I rely on the trains to get to and from work.
At its deepest the snow came up to Maisie’s waist. On a couple of days I struggled to find fresh milk in the Chesterfield shops I could get to (and were actually open for business). Also, for a day or two bread got a bit scarce.

It ruined many of the gutterings on our road. The weight of a foot and half of snow weighing down on flimsy gutterings was too much for several roofs (or is it rooves? or is that just for ‘hoofs’ and ‘hooves’? I dunno).
The snow did pose logistical problems though, like how to get 2 children to nursery without the use of a buggy and since the road was difficult for even an adult to get down. Also, the cars on the road were snowed in for days.

On the Saturday morning (the snow had been around since Tuesday) a group of hardy neighbours got out on the road with shovels and picks to loosen and move the ice and snow which was holding our road hostage. We started as a 3 and by then end we had reached the end of the road (3 hours later) we were 10 strong. We managed to carve our one tyre track only though.

Incredulously, one ungrateful and grumpy man who lives about half way down the street passed our merry band of workers on returning from a shopping trip with his (presumably long-suffering and meek) wife. Rather than congratulating us all on spending all that time and effort clearing the road for all residents, started shouting at us sarcastically and angrily saying that we had done a great of blocking everyone’s cars in and how (“the hell”) would people get out.

Unbelievable! And rude! One of the more volatile members of our group started walking towards him with shovel in hand shouting back. I was happy for him to speak on our behalf. The language rapidly went downhill. The peacemaker of the road quickly stepped in and calmed the situation.

8 days and some milder temperatures later, there are still small piles of stubborn, icy slush lingering around, refusing to melt completely.

There is a second wave of snow to come starting tomorrow night according to the weather reports. Surely it can’t be as severe as last time. Or can it? :)

Bloody Students

Long time no blog? Well, fasten your seatbelts folks, for two things have irked me.

The first is less serious and merely in relation to the thoroughly inappropriate clothing some are wearing currently. Whilst the nation lies under a layer of snow and ice the severity of which has not seen by most parts for over twenty years, gormless students continue to wander about the campus in footwear resembling thin slippers. Some of them even seem to think this is the right weather for pulling on a pair of shorts. Honestly. This brainlessness was particularly evident when our building had a fire drill (sorry, that was the toaster in our kitchen’s fault although I wasn’t using it at the time I might add) the other day. Sensible staff congregated outside the building in the designated area (far enough away from the potentially incendiary building) in an orderly fashion wrapped in coats, scarves, hats and gloves, waddling like penguins whilst those wearing bright yellow tabards decided on whether or not it was to return inside. The students on the other hand flocked around, smoking, chatting (shouting) in disrespectfully blue tongues and reminiscing about ‘last night’ in their assorted items of flimsy beachwear. Flip flops? In November?? I felt immensely righteous trotting back in through the main doors as staff were (eventually) recalled to enter the building. Righteous because we were prioritised to return back inside over the students. Felt like saying “excuse me, important staff member coming through”. I shouldn’t really moan. They pay our wages so we’d be stuffed without them, but come on, isn’t it time some of those wardrobes were re-evaluated?

The second thing is seeing these bunches of idiots ‘trashing London’ in what was supposed to be a string of peaceful demonstrations. Student fees were always going to rise and these so-called demonstrations were never going to change a thing (in my mind anyway). The Lib Dems have no backbone. That much is now official. I do wonder if those young individuals pictured on the news shoving things in the faces of police officers really ARE students themselves or just there for the rumble? I pity the officers drafted in to supervise these protests. And whilst I am pretty indifferent about our Royal Family and am amongst those who question their modern relevance (other than bringing in a bit of tourism) I really don’t think they need to be exposed to anarchic mobs as happened to Prince Charles and ‘Camill’ last night. Shameful. How do we ever prevent these VIPs from being assassinated I wonder if they can be driven like lambs to the slaughter straight into a street full of volatile protestors? Wonder never cease.

Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant there. Don’t worry. I’m already over it :)

It’s ‘texted’ if in the past tense, period.

Working at University means you are inevitably exposed to the rambling, excitable though often inane conversations between students. This is ok though and I am often entertained by some of the grammar and slang I hear. Things like “OMG” or “my bad” are endearing I find.

However, this is not always the case and I have come to take particular exception to one verb misuse and sadly it has become prevalent. I am of course referring to conversation such as this:

Student 1: So anyways, I text her right, and she text me straight back

Student: Yeah, she text me as well

I’M SORRY! IT’S “TEXTED”. It’s the past tense and therefore it is texted. Or even better, it’s “she sent me a text message”.

This has made me realise something. Language is always evolving. That’s something we cannot (nor should we) stop. And besides, it’s a good thing. Languages which do not evolve tend to die out. And technology is one of many areas which help to shape the changes. However, I think there are certain grammatical ground rules which should not be interfered with and verb tenses are one of them. Messing with these is tantamount to messing with the space-time continuum. However will be ever know whether we are referring to something which happened, is happening or will happen? The world might well go a bit Salvador Dali.

new ‘Rabid dog on the loose’ game

Yes, we have a new game. It’s called ‘rabid dog on the loose’. It’s quite simply but highly entertaining. I crawl about on my hands and knees panting, sniffing and barking. Maisie and Lois think it is a bit hilarious although their participation (patting me like a dog and jumping on top) is hindered by a small amount of fear and mistrust. Maisie feels the need to keep reminding me that I’m not really a dog. I think those words may be for her own reassurance more than anything else. Anyway it’s fun and judging my his face, it certainly gives Louis one or two things to think about.

Graceland

I was listening to Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ album on the train the other day. Well, I was listening to the mp3s which I’d ripped from a time back when I used to own the CD. I have since sold ALL my CDs after deciding that I didn’t need them. I had them all digitised and backed up on a hard drive. The CD cases were really just taking up space and besides, we love to de-clutter these days, oh yes. Anyway, it is still a very listenable album, beautifully produced, a rare mix of instrumentation, some pretty virtuosic performances (that bass riff in the middle of ‘You can call me Al’ never loses its appeal) and some really clever lyrics and vocal choruses etc.

However, I was aware whilst listening to it that I must have ripped it with some stingy compression settings. The quality could be better. The volume is lower than most of the other music on my ipod (and I hate that I am a slave to Apple these days).

So I thought that maybe I could buy the CD again so I could re-rip. I looked on amazon and discovered there was actually a remastered version of the album too. Cool! Unfortunately and to my amazement both the original CD and the remastered version are now very hard to get hold of and people are selling them for silly money used on amazon marketplace. Wow.

I now wish I hadn’t sold my original copy because it was potentially worth as much as the entire collection went for on ebay. In fact I’m wondering whether selling the entire collection was such a wise move after all. Oh well. I’m lying in the musical bed which I made.