Katiehopper

In true Blue Peter style “Here’s one I made earlier”….5:30 in the morning earlier!

I’m a bad mother and very nearly forgot to make Katie a costume for “The ugly bug ball” they were having at school one day. There was no excuse, I had seen the invite in Katie’s bag two weeks ago. But it wasn’t until Katie kindly reminded me the night before, that I sighed “oh bollocks!” and then spent the whole night tossing and turning in bed fretting about having not made anything, and how she would feel being the only child at school with no costume. So in the end I had to get up do something about it.

I tip-toed like a baby elephant down the creaky stairs,* gathered up some materials and set to work on a master piece. I actually surprised myself with the result – It’s amazing what you can do with a bit of brown paper, a newspaper, a paper plate**, some green clothes and some green paint!

When Katie woke later in the morning she was delighted and couldn’t get into the costume fast enough. Sarah on the other hand was terrified of the grasshopper shaped Katie in the kitchen...and so…the mask stayed off until we reached school.

As all the children gathered in their costumes at the school entrance I smiled with relief as Katie’s was by far one of the better ones there and I’m not just being biased! After waving her off and dropping Becky to Pre-School I went home and crawled back to bed…yawn!

* I sometimes wonder why I bother trying to creep around this old house when I make just as much noise when walking normally!

**Lucky for us it wasn’t raining that day or there would have been a green paper machete Katie turning up to school instead!

Melt Down

SORRY!

But I can't respond to any emails today. Something has crashed on my computer and the mouse is missing.

It was a day like any other day; I had dropped the girls off at school, come home, made a cup of tea, and sat down in front of the computer to check the emails and latest news events. Five minutes into a web search and POP! There was an eerie silence where the whirling of the computer’s fan had once been and I was starring mid sip into a black screen.

I slowly set down my tea thinking “That’s odd?” but brushed it off as an odd occurrence and reached down to switch on the computer again.

Later in the day I continued working on my assignment and had just finished checking the spelling and grammar of page 3 of 5 when POP! That awful silence fell over the room again, and it wasn’t until what felt like minutes that I finally shook myself out of astonishment and disbelief and groaned a painful “NOOOOO!” Before hurriedly leaning down and switching on the computer yet again!

“Please no, please don’t do this to me!” I whispered to the thing as if it were living, and may just laugh off this mean joke and start up again giving me my coursework right where I had been interrupted. But alas it was not to be and not even auto recovery could bring back my hours work! In frustrating I stormed out of the lounge and into the kitchen to make another cup of tea and sulk.

Eventually I stopped sulking and started again, only for the computer to go POP! Once more! This time I had saved 2 minutes before it had crashed so the pain of re-writing everything wasn’t so harsh. But this battle went on for some time, until I eventually finished my work 5 hours longer than expected and gently tapped the computer with my foot in a “Hah I did it anyway you piece of S**t!”

I opened Outlook express and composed a new message in preparation of emailing my assignment to my tutor and guess what…POP! That was it...the final straw! My calm nature was turning into an incredible hulk persona and I was only moments away from turning into the green raging giant! The computer obviously sensed my temper and choose not to start at all this time. That way saving itself from a beating next time it crashed on me.

It wasn’t until two weeks later when Dan arrived back home and dissected the computer that he discovered the cause of the sudden crashes…DUST! Of all the stupid things to be it was dust…it could have been a melted wire or something more meaningful but no, dust in the fan was overheating the system and causing it to crash. I should be thankful I suppose that it wasn’t something more serious, but I suppose I was still angry and ready to throw the damn thing on the tip!

So eventually I was back online and saved all my coursework to a USB stick just in case. Surprisingly it’s still alive! Unsurprisingly I have been reluctant to spend any length of time on it in the last month for fear of it picking on me again. And I have only just braved a post today which has gone without a hitch...yay!

So apologies folks, but fingers crossed the computer will stay alive and I will be able to update you on the last two months (in no particular order) as soon as possible.