All that comes with it

The internet is a wonderful thing. For example it allowed us to make some rather nice oatmeal and raisin cookies the other day by providing an easy recipe that even I could follow. Unfortunately due to the fact I have the organizational skills of a dead ferret I just scrawled it on a piece of paper and didn’t bookmark the site – reasoning that if I could google it once I’d be able to google it again.

Fat chance.

Never mind, this fleeting glimpse of a near perfect cookie recipe is perhaps even more enriched by it’s transience. Wish I hadn’t eaten them all in one go though.

Bryn ended up eating nearly half a pack of butter that I’d left out on the kitchen table (what? You expect me to create Culinary masterpiece and tidy up afterwards?). He’s getting much more daring in his food raids these days.

It’s mine and Amy’s day tomorrow again and I’ve not yet made any decisions what we’re doing. It’s a bit miserable to be doing much outside, but I’ve just about exhausted the inside activities. I’m vaguely tempted to try giving the dogs a bath, that should provide us with some amusement. I’ll see what whim comes over me I suppose.

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My new 20 meter hedge was delivered by the postman this morning. I was hoping that it would come in some sort of roll that I could just unfurl and prop up in the garden somehow, but no apparently i have to dig a load of holes. 20 meters worth in fact.

Which is annoying really as it’s snowing at the moment so not really hole digging weather. The hedge will have to stay in it’s box for now:

The hedge I’ve gone for is a mix of native shrubs – hawthorn, hazel, dogwood, blackthorn, and dog rose. The plan is to encircle my chicken run with it, hopefully eventually obscuring the rather ugly chicken wire and also providing food and housing for a wide range of wildlife.

Something I’ve been thinking about recently is how small decisions can add up to big consequences. Like my hedge. I could have easily gone with some generic evergreen hedging which would have looked fine and been completely serviceable. But with a little bit of thought about environmental factors i’m hopefully going to play a tiny little part in helping to support my local ecosystem.

It’s the same when choosing things like our next car or our energy supplier. By going with someone who provides green energy or choosing a more fuel efficient car we hopefully do a tiny bit towards lessening our damage to the earth.

Not that I believe that by using renewable energy and planting a native we somehow negates our entire enviromental footprint. The hughes household still does a significant amount of damage, and ultimately things are going to have to change dramatically if I want my great grandkids to grow up in a world that looks anything like this one.

But these little changes should never be thought of as insignificant either. They may be small steps forward, but at least they aren’t going backwards.

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With the new baby pretty imminent on the horizon Kerry and I have been looking at new cars.

Time was you could seat two adults and six or seven kids in the average family car. The grown ups sat in the font seats, three kids on the back seats, another child in the boot, and then whatever children you had left over could be strapped to the roof rack and left to flap in the wind.

These days however with so called “health and safety” such things are frowned upon. “No!” the government says “You can’t do that any more because your children are very likely to die painful and horrible deaths should you crash”.

Bah. Stupid Nanny state! I never died in a car crash so that’s absolute proof that no other child did either! Don’t these people understand how statistics work or something?

Anyhow, Kerry and I have been looking for a new car recently.

Fortunatly we don’t have to spend time looking for car deals or finance options because the lease on my current work car will be up in March and so the NHS are going to kindly subsidise our shiny new car rather than make me pay the whole cost of it. Ha! take THAT Daily Mail readers! Your tax money at work!

In an ideal world we’d go for as environmentally friendly (and fuel efficient) car as we could, perhaps a hybrid or maybe even an electric car….

(sorry, had to be done)

However in reality a seven seat car that’s also environmentally friendly is pretty hard to come by so I think we’ll probably just stick to petrol.

Saying that however,I wonder if they make tandems big enough for a family of five…..

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Part of Amy’s bedtime routine is Maggie and the Ferocious Beast. At 7 o’clock and we switch on Nick-Jr. Then gentle tales from Nowhere-Land sedate our own ferocious beast enough to get her pyjama’s on. Recently she’s started to demand to see the program after too (Max and Ruby in case you are wondering). We’re doing quite well in the whole TV watching thing, she generally only has it on for about 2 hours a day. Cbeebies is usually the drug of choice though as it doesn’t have any adverts.

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We made crowns this morning. My phone camera can’t truly capture the glittery glory of our masterpieces. I underestimated the size of my head slightly so the back is held together with strips of paper which detracts slightly from the majestic feel but what can you do. We’ve also made a pizza for lunch although I put feta cheese on it instead of mozzarella so it was a bit runny. Amy seemed to enjoy putting all the toppings on it though so we’re going to make it again for Kerry when she comes home tonight.

Amy had another tantrum yesterday evening. For some reason she didn’t want to come back from nursery. She made such a fuss that I’m convinced that the staff were on the phone to child services as soon as we left. It reminded me of when I used to work with a woman with downs syndrome. I went with her to her job at a florist once and as soon as we walked through the door she said “You’re not going to hit me again are you Dan?”. Obviously I’d never laid a finger on her – in fact I think it was my first week there. The professional way of describing her behaviour would be that she was testing the boundaries of our relationship, but I prefer to think of it as her being a cowbag.

Anyway, this is only the second major tantrum Amy’s had. It took her about an hour to calm down. Both times it’s been when I’ve taken her away from a situation where she was enjoying the company of others her age. Maybe this is the start of the terrible twos, I hope not. She’s been lovely today though.

I’m back to work again on Thursday, and I’m doing five days in a row which is going to be a bit draining. At least I’m not going to be triage for a few more months. I still don’t understand why they won’t let me retire on full pension – after all I’m 30 tomorrow.

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As part of my ongoing campaign to act like a grown up I’ve been looking at finding a better place to keep my savings

The only problem is that, due to the state of the economy at the moment, most savings accounts are paying pittance in interest. Sure, using price comparison sites like the one I linked to above you can make sure you’re getting the best return for your investment – but the days of 5% interest savings accounts are long gone.

So I got to thinking – what other ways could I make some decent money from my savings?

* Invest in starting up a online business selling pictures of giant robot dinosaurs that make out of pencil crayons, milk bottle tops, and bits of dried spaghetti.
* Use it to go back to uni and train to be a dentist. They get paid a load of cash right? And how hard can it be? You only need to learn about one tiny bit of the body and I have most of the tools already in my shed.
* Spend it all on 10p packets of Space Raiders, then sneak them into the cinema and sell them at a vastly inflated profit to all the patrons.
* Send it to this Nigerian king I’ve been emailing recently.

Everyone of those ideas is solid gold. In fact I should set up some sort of internet “I can make you rich” course!

*Set up some sort of internet “I can make you rich!” course.

Of course the other slight drawback is that I don’t actually have any money to save. Damnit.

Back to the drawing board.

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I have a hankering for a corduroy jacket. A brown corduroy jacking with elbow patches on it. I wish i was joking, but I’m not – I really fancy one. I think they are cool.

I don’t know why i think they are cool – I just do. I mean Dr Who wears one! (well nearly, his one is tweed)

It’s not cool though is it? In actual fact it’s the sort of thing a middle age man with a beard and a wishy washy liberal do-gooder job would wear.

Hmmm.

Other signs and symptoms of my pathetic middle ageness include trying to get a hold on my finances. There was a time when I lived my life as an impetuous ball of whirling irresponsibility. If I wanted something i bought it.

After kids this obviously changed of course. But I still never paid much thought to the intricacies of my finances. I too no notice of interest rates I was being charged or was receiving. and I never shopped around.

But recently I’ve noticed that the Money section has become my favourite supplement in the Guardian, and I’ve been looking online to compare credit cards and even mortgage rates.

It’s scary stuff I tell you.

Of course I still have no idea at all what I’m doing. I still require Kerry to carefully steer me round like a three year old in a broken glass factory. But I’m making an effort, and that’s the main thing.

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I am not an organized man. In fact, it’s pretty fair to say I am an exceptionally disorganised man.

I am also someone who never puts off to tomorrow anything that could feasibly be put off until next week, or even next month/year/decade.

These two delightful character traits combine to make my existence a non stop rollercoaster ride of ulcer inducing stress and panic. It’s so bad that I suspect that if I didn’t have my wife to act as my custodian I’d be living naked and shivering in a ditch somewhere.

One of my biggest mental blocks is gas and electricity meter readings. Every time I get one of those little slips asking to do one I absentmindedly throw it on the to-do heap and go back to whatever vitally important task I was doing previously (probably watching Batman cartoons if I’m honest).

This wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact my slackness in not supplying a meter reading invariably leads to an estimated bill – which is either too high or, even more scarily, too low; meaning I eventually end up having to pay a whopping great big backpayment.

However British Gas recently emailed me to let me know that they’re coming to my rescue. Hurrah!

Over the next few years British Gas are providing all their customers with new “smart meters”. These meters will take readings every 30 minutes, and then once a day transmit them magically to British Gas. This means that never again will I have to rummage around under the sink with a torch trying to read the tiny numbers, or have to feel mortified at the state of the house when a meter reader unexpectedly turns up at the door.

It also means an end to estimated bills, which is very nice indeed.

Also, with the new smart meters I’ll be able to monitor my energy use via the internet, or even my smartphone, which will make reducing our energy consumption a lot easier and reduce our carbon footprint – again, very nice indeed.

Here’s a short video to show you what I mean.

What’s more in the future British Gas plan to provide itemised bills showing how various domestic appliances add to costs, as well as information on the size of household’s carbon footprint and how usage compares with community and national averages.

British gas plan to contact their customers when their homes are ready for upgrade and arrange for an expert to change the meter, explain how to use the smart energy monitor, and even give their customers tips on how to save on bills. Marvolous.

If you want to know more about the smart meters from British Gas then you can join their facebook group or visit their website.

This is a sponsored post on behalf of British Gas

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We came back from Center Parcs early. Only a day early but for some reason it felt like a bit of a failure. Amy was ill, some sort of virus that gave her a temperature and a rash that, judging by her occasional proclamations of “I’m scratching!”, was a bit itchy.

I’m sure given different circumstances it would have been an ok holiday, certainly worth the £200 we paid for four nights. However I wouldn’t want to pay the full price summer rates, it’s just not that nice. The cabins were the main let down – all grey breezeblocks and you could tell the interiors were ten years old. The toilets interested me though (ass oddly they always do) they were a strange shelf design so you could see your turd laid out for you before flushing it away. I should have taken a photo (minus turd obviously). Even for one as predisposed to turd examination as myself it was a bit disconcerting.

Anyhow, we came back yesterday. Amy had the biggest tantrum I’d ever seen when we made her come away from the play gym into the car. Mainly due to a combination of her extreme tiredness and her really enjoying herself and not wanting to go. She made a friend that was very sweet to see, but a little poignant at the same time. One of the blogs I regularly read (in fact the main inspiration that made me start this blog) once said something about the sadness that goes along with the knowledge that walking along with her Daddy wont be the most important thing in a little girls life forever. That’s why I’m doing this I suppose, to try and record the time when it was.

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Hi.

In case anyone is interested I have a new blog. Sort of.

If anyone is interested in community news and events in Slaithwaite and the Colne Valley then they could do worse than go visit my new community hyperlocal site Slawit.org

It bears very little similarity to what I did here – I’m using it more as a method of engaging with and providing a service to my local community than a form of self expression, but it’s there if you’re interested.

If anyone fancies throwing a link it’s way in order to push it up the google search lists I’d be eternally grateful. However I apreciate it’s not exactly on topic for many people :)

This isn’t a commercial venture, but if by any freak of fate I ever make any money from it then it will go to the Joseph Salmon Trust.

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