Sleep Interrupted

Whilst looking for a recipe for pumpkin soup, I came across this website. Understandably it is the first hit on Google, but what made me smile was that it appears the site originally was not a lot to do with pumpkin soup at all, but after frequent visitors looking for soup recipes, there are now some on there. How cool is that?

It also made me chuckle that that the busiest time of year for site traffic is around Halloween, and with people looking for recipes. I hate being predictable.

With the change in the clocks my drive home from work has coincided with sunset for the last few days. I love the palette of sunsets, starting at pale sky blue, running through that almost-green blue and on into the sort of orangey yellows generally only available by selecting something out of the E100 to E119 range. The tree-line is reduced to a black-green silhouette. Mushroom coloured clouds become edged with brilliant magenta and add a sense of scale to the scene.

Sunsets experienced while driving on the M4 are a mixed blessing. You get some spectacular views unfolding over the course of the journey but the road runs east-west on my homeward journey, so at sunset you often find yourself coming over the brow of a hill or a round a corner to find the orange ball of the sun sitting on the horizon. People naturally slow as their vision becomes impaired but I’m surprised there aren’t more accidents cause by this.

Of course, this experience is repeated for a spell in the mornings where sunrise hits you as you travel west-east. I really should take a camera with me one of these days…

Over two afternoons this past week, Ben has successfully learnt to ride his bike without the stabilisers. He got his bike for his third birthday, and by the end of that day was riding it like a natural. Since then he tears around on his bike and really enjoys riding it. It is getting slightly too small though, and the bikes that are of a suitable size for him, don’t come with stabilisers. So the challenge was to get him to ride it without, so that a new bike could be bought for Christmas.

I envisaged it taking a long time, but Ben proved me wrong. Wednesday afternoon we spent about an hour outside, and progressed from him having a rolling start with me pushing him, to just rolling down the hill and attempting a few pedals. He ended up on the floor quite a lot - luckily wearing his helmet, knee and elbow pads. We called it a day before he got too bored.

Unbeknownst to us he had been watched by his friend from accross the road, a little girl who is 3 months older than him. Friday afternoon she had got her dad outside and had taken the stabilisers off her bike. For the next hour or so the two of them just seemed to grasp how it was done, and were quite happily pushing off with one foot and riding around like they had always been doing it. There were a few crashes - apparantly it was the bikes, and not them.

I think the competition helped, neither of them likes being left behind. But the end result was, that Ben can now cycle around without stabilisers, and is rightly proud of himself.

And so, with the arrival of autumn I catch a cold. I’ve spent most of the day with my head wrapped in cotton wool while I attempt to navigate the usual comedy of errors at work. I’m having a wee dram o’ the ol’ 12 year Highland Park for medicinal purposes.

Despite operating with a mental handicap of about 17 today I managed to save the day at least once with a reasonably high level of hackery. I like to think I’ve just about attained the level of tech “hero” at work now, although I’m a little way short of my boss, who is a most persistent and cunning individual.

I think I’ve been fortunate with my bosses over the years because I feel I’ve learned things from each one. Perhaps the most valuable lesson I’ve learned — and continue to learn — is to judge what is worth spending time on and what is not. Tonight, through the mental fog, this finally tuned capability is telling me I should spend more time enjoying my whisky and less time sitting in front of a damn computer. Good night!

Louise has recently lead a change in Ben’s bedtime reading towards longer stories that take more than a single night to read. In particular, we’ve been working through a lot of Roald Dahl stories: Fantastic Mr Fox, The Twits, James And The Giant Peach and so on.

Now, I’m sure we’ll revisit these because there are certainly levels to the stories and humour that are beyond Ben at the moment. However, they are still entertaining stories for a four year old and his parents, and are certainly not overrated (Dick Bruna, I’m looking at you).

What prompted this post, though, was Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. This book is a positive joy to read as a parent — a rarity in children’s book — and I actively looked forward to reading it each night. The point at which… oh, hang on…

Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert!

Where was I? Oh yes… the point at which Charlie finds the golden ticket had me genuinely ecstatic and at the end when Charlie wins the factory I had a lump in my throat. Neither was this enjoyment one-sided; Ben couldn’t go to bed that night before he’d got Louise to come in and tell her all about what had happened.

So, parents of little(ish) ones, pop down the library, pick up a copy and have fun reading it out loud.

Jessica - I’m going swimming in that pool.

Ben - That’s not a swimming pool, that’s Optimus Parrot.

Jessica - It’s rubbish.

Ben - It is absolutely not rubbish.

Tim, the inconvenient truth is that the film has some factual errors. That does not mean it has been robbed of its purpose.

If its core arguments are sound then the message will survive. The arguments’ scientific basis is sound. The High Court ruling only requires nine errors to be highlighted and for teachers to explain the political context — hardly a bad thing in itself.

Do we have to accept messages entirely without question because someone influential says they are important? I’m glad that important ideas such as climate change are held up to scrutiny because it makes it that much harder for self interested, short sighted politicians like Bush to deny.

Louise and I are really enjoying Flight Of The Conchords on BBC4. I was going to try and describe the program but I think I’ll use the power of YouTube to do my work for me.

• You’re So Beautiful
• The Humans Are Dead
• She’s So Hot — Boom
• Inner City Pressure
• Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros
• Think About It

It’s dark when I get up. The floors are cold. It’s raining outside. Everything is turned orange by the street lights. It’s autumn.

I have a large list of posts stuck in my head currently but first some breaking news!

Today saw an important victory in the War On Laundry. For the first time in this long campaign, which started some seven years ago, there is no ironing in the Ironing Basket and there is insufficient laundry across the region’s laundry baskets to justify a wash. Truly a momentous day!

The commanders of the Parental Coalition have been struggling to keep up in this unpleasant war of attrition, particularly since the disastrous Infant Offensives of 2003 and 2005. However, observers say that since the reclassification of certain items such as pyjamas as “non combatants” in 2006, the tide has turned in favour of the PC. Not since the successful “Pre-Holiday Blitz” earlier this year have the PC commanders sounded so confident.