Monthly Archives: April 2007

Wikipedia meme – Chris

Passed on From Making it Up among other places. Type your birth day and date only into wikipedia
From February 24th

3 Events?

1582Pope Gregory XIII announces the Gregorian calendar.

1831 – The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, the first removal treaty in accordance with the Indian Removal Act, is proclaimed. The Choctaws in Mississippi cede land east of the river in exchange for payment and land in the West.

1938 – A nylon-bristle toothbrush becomes the first commercial product (DuPont) to be made with nylon yarn.

2 Births

1304Ibn Battuta, explorer

1786Wilhelm Grimm, German philologist and folklorist (d. 1859)

1 Death

1810Henry Cavendish, English scientist (b. 1756)

Holiday or Observance?

Dragobete in Romania.

Problem with Birth and deaths is that the lists in more recent dates is dominated by Americans.

easter

well, we had a lovely time with all the family. little Nanny was here as well, so felt like it should be. SHe’s getting much better, more mobile and more positive.

lots of chocolate was eaten, there was lots of fun outside. Generally a nice family time. SB and M had fun, and BB and E mostly did [when not doing the 'mine' thing]

i had a few major wobbles – hadn’t realised quite how low i was really. have some time off to recharge a bit now though. Took some nice photo’s – hidden amongst the masses on flickr!

IMG_4817?IMG_4803

wiki meme [from making it up]

3 events

193Septimius Severus is proclaimed Roman Emperor by the army in Illyricum (in the Balkans)

1413Henry V is crowned King of England.

1865American Civil War: Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia (26,765 troops) to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, effectively ending the war.

2 births

1 death

1492Lorenzo de’ Medici, Italian statesmen (b. 1449)

[though edward 4th a contender!]

holiday and observances
Feast for Three Days – Second Day (Thelema)

38

but will blog the weekend tomorrow

fun in the sun

easter saturday has mostly been spent outside. we have the same houseful as for xmas, and with little nanny.

SB did her easter egg hunt that she bought the bits for very successfuly – and was very happy!

I planted up all the broad beans, SB and cousin M planted some in her veg patch, and BB and cousin E helped me plant some peas there too. Lots o the sweetcorn have now germinated, and some of the squashes.
They have also cbeebied , NASA-ed and done some reading amongst all the playing.

We adults have watched indulgently, run around a bit and drunk mostly coffee and tea and wine.

Quick blog

OK, so once the journey was done, the conference in birmingham was inspirational and depressing. Many of my colleagues are now starting to find some of the pressure that we in my unit have felt for the last 2 years. The government seem on a path to remove specialists and replace with cheap and quality free – fine for poundshop, but for health? So lots of debate.

An excellent speaker was incited for one of the keynote sessions. Prof Carl Chin – may I just thank the organisers for such a great talk. It was on why Birmingham is there.

So, I got home late on wed, played with SB for a bit – we had a bash at Spanish edu city and did some games and read books together. thurs was a long day at work but – FINDUS! [success on a plate!] my job plan has finally been agreed [well I await final confirmation so shouldn't get too excited] which will mean some ‘annualisation’ of my hours – I work v hard while there, but have more free time – some of which I will need to spend on courses and prof devel, but its up to me – woo hoo!

I am on call, but its good friday [when Jesus was crossed apparently] my parents arrived yesterday, my sister and family and little nanny today. Raucous and happy – just as I like it. SB happy reading a felicity wishes book, and lots of playing in the garden. BB seems a month older than on monday somehow. How does that happen?
garden stuff - my broad beans in modules need to go in the ground – as do the onion sets [late I know!] and potatoes [ditto]. SOme of the peas are ready to harden off. one of the modules is teaming with spider babies – tiny and yellow and black – prob deadly!! They run up and down the web presumably left by parent and then hide in 2 lumps under some leaves. The courgette have germinated, but not the other cucurbits yet. one sweetcorn germinated!! kirsty’s peas germinated. Must pot up toms.

yes chef

mmm. gordon ramsey! I am back home – with great relief, as not the best time away, and potentially financially disastrous due to a coffee accident…

Anyway, went to a restaurant called Bank in Birmingham [never been to birmingham properly before, and I loved it!] and you could see the kitchen and them working in it. As I commented at the time, i could have done with GR effing about.

At least I can watch him on TV!

‘Well, that’s smelly bonfire…’

is what I was thinking as I closed the doors and windows open downstairs. There was a little bit of smoke drifting across the back garden, with a bit of? ‘burning rubber’ smell to it. About 10 or so minutes later, I remembered that the some upstairs windows were open, went up to close them and noticed the smoke was coming from ttowards the front of the house, along with a couple of popping/cracking noises.

It turned out to be this across the road from us:

IMG_4614

Realized that our car was parked on the road almost opposite, so although I thought it’d be ok, I got it back on the drive pronto.

Soon put out by the firebrigade off course:

IMG_4621?? IMG_4632

From what I gather so far – I’ll probably get the full story in the bakers tomorrow, the occupants (an elderly couple by the looks of it) were just driving along and it caught fire.

A bit dramatic for round here.

Ahead

Because the meeting I am supposed to be having I’m not [this afternoon in birmingham] though i do need to be there for the evening!

SO having a realxed morning at home, catching a later train.

Joanna and girls here. Merry expected. All the girls [bar BB!!] had a VERY late night. they have poisson rouged a lot, and I think BB has shown Jade zoombinis.

Joanna brought with her the usbourne science book [will find a link] and its fab, and SB loves it – it was bedtime book last night.

Behind or Ahead?

Behind. Had a nearly 4 hour phone call yesterday eve, which although lovely to speak to my friend, made me 2 hours late for bed, and also a fair number of tasks unfinished – including blogging!!

Yesterday was a fairly relaxed day. We spent lots of it in the garden, looking at the seeds sprouting, the flowers, and organising SB’s flower and veg beds by the playhouse. Hide and seek and lots of swinging! We need more of Merry’s cardboard boxes for the veg patch! I did some weeding though.
We also sowed some more seeds – our cucurbits [butternut squash, another squash, pumpkin and courgette], finished the packet of mangetout and also the fennel [which might not germinate as such an old packet! All the last lot of peas sown have germinated, and the spring onions. The broad beans are outside in open greenhouse to acclimatise before being painted.

SB’s new 1/4 violin arrived – in purple with flowers. It was fairly cheap [and sounds it compared to her stentor 1/10] but the size is much better for her, and she loves the girliness. We couldn’t actually play it, as the bow needs way more rosin to make a sound! It also came not set up, so I had to fiddle with bridge etc – a while since I did that. It was fine for me, and I was happy with purchase, but someone else may not have been so happy with setting it up. We had a grand violin session anyway – BB on the 1/10th, SB on 1/4 [plucking] and me on mine [which has a fabulous sound, but an additional 00 on price tag!!]

SB also has done lots of reading, playing with the pattern blocks, geography jigsaws, and I have read lots of barefoot stories. BB has been an adorable pickle! She has also done lots of playing with pattern blocks, singing and dancing and playing with kids k’nex. We all watched some usbourne first fun with french as well.

Today, we have sowed the sweetcorn? – including some bicolour from kirsty and some self supporting peas. i need to pot up the toms – anyone needing toms passing this way…

Most of today was spent enjoyably at Chris’s parents, who have nearly finished the doing up of their house – new carpets and all [so BB in a nappy!!] A cut throat game of ludo took all afternoon – though Grandad kept threatening to go home! A bit of Nick Jr fix [hideous adverts!]

The girls are playing at the mo with both pattern blocks and k’nex, and we re expecting Joanna and family soon-ish for an overnight stay.