INFLATABLE WORLD CUP

Charlotte quite fancies a large inflatable world cup. If she happens to find this page, she'll be wanting even more pocket money.

SUMMER SOLSTICE

It is currently 10 degrees celsius outside, pouring with rain and the wind is gusting at 20mph, the height of the Scottish summer - the summer solstice. I have just got drenched standing outside the school gate for less than 5 minutes waiting to pick up my kids and had to switch on my central heating when I got in. See the attached summery shots!

Remind me why I live in this country???

Also I should say Happy Birthday Sorrel! Sorrel is my friend Karen's little girl. She's 6 today. I will never forget her birthday. Karen rang me 6 years ago to say she'd had her baby on June 21st. Congratulations, I said, and on the shortest night...It bloody wasn't!!!, she replied ;-)

MY CLEVER SPECIAL BOY

I've been teaching Léon to dance for the last fortnight by playing the same cd every night as I cook and dancing around the kitchen. Last night he finally understood and when I stuck on 'Kodachrome' by Paul Simon he started bouncing on his bum and waving his chubby hands in the air in time to the music. This alone had me well-impressed but later that evening he stunned me. Charlotte walked in wearing headphones, listening to her ipod. Once, on the 30 of May, Charlotte stuck the headphones on Léon for approximately 10 seconds and he looked puzzled but yesterday as soon as he saw her wearing them he stuck up his little hands dancing and swaying and pointing at the headphones - so even a month on he remembers they too produce music, even when he can't hear it for himself! That's my clever sweetie pie.

GUINNESS ADVERTS

Just saw that backwards evolution Guinness advert... Wonder how Guinness manage to consistently make some of the best adverts on the screen and have done for years? Remember the guy dancing around the pint of Guinness years ago? Well done them! ...Pity I don't actually like the stuff, the adverts almost make me think I should try to make myself like it! ;-)

FILE CORRUPTION

Anyone who knows me has probably spent the past year listening to me moaning about file, and in particular photo corruption. For a long time I assumed hotmail was corrupting my files as people kept receiving my photos, which I had emailed using hotmail, in a corrupted state.

Since starting this Blog and using Flickr, however everything I try to upload to these two sites also corrupts. No one else I know using these two sites has this problem. The magnitude is as great as an 80% corruption rate :-(

It has been suggested it is my Norton antivirus system, however even disabling that I get the odd very slightly corrupt photo. Does anyone out there know how I can fix this problem completely, or why it occurs?

THE FINAL STRAW

I have tried to be pc, adult, modern, and all the rest over the past couple of weeks. That is to say as a Scottish UK citizen, I have listened to the English tell me during every football match in Germany how wonderful they are, how 1966 was a recent event (come on, I'm pushing 40 and it wasn't in my lifetime - in fact is there anyone below pensionable age old enough to remember seeing that match???) and so on without wincing but tonight that final straw, the one that breaks the camel's back, reared its ugly head. It was a prematch studio discussion called 'England's route to glory', or maybe 'England's path to glory' - I was too busy being sick in a bucket to hear correctly! ;-) It was a flowchart, complete with country flags explaining who England would meet in the last 16, the quarter final, the semi and of course the final if they came top of their group, sorry, wash my mouth out with soap, when England came top of their group. This was followed by the 2nd, unthinkable scenario, ie who they would meet if the only came second in their qualifying group. So for anyone who missed it, apparently the most likely scenario is that England will beat Argentina in the final but should their form slip, they will have to beat Brazil in the final. Of course bringing home the WorldCup is an inevitability. Please, don't make us listen to any more of this nonsense...

Wonder how long it would take to dig a large trench along the border and wait for it to fill with water so we could become an independent island???? Hmmmm might take the kids and their buckets and spades to the Borders this weekend.

TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT

Derek and Amanda, my brother and his wife, have just gone on holiday to Italy for a few days. Think they are going to get a shock though when they come back and see what their next door neighbours have been up to in their absence :-(

A SUDDEN REALISATION I'M AGING

Marcel, like all other 8 year old boys in Scotland, is collecting Panini World Cup Football Stickers. Do you want to see my stickers mum? he asked me for the hundredth time tonight. Feigning enthusiasm, I said of course and started to leaf through his album. Now, I have been watching the football with him now for what feels like weeks, but I guess it has only been days. On the pitch I see 22 men running about; men, not children, people I felt subconsciously to be around the age I feel myself to be! In the sticker book are personal details: height, date of birth etc. To my horror, I find most of these men seem to have been born in the 1980s! I thought people born in the 80s were still at high school! Are they old enough to be in Germany alone, I mean without their parents???

How did I get so old all of a sudden?! :-(

NERDS ARE GETTING YOUNGER

I am old enough to still remember gazing on the first ever zx81s in awe of what they could do. I remember when computer games were a line at either side of a screen between which a square was batted back and forth. I went through the whole of university handwriting all my dissertations, without the www, google or anything more than paper books as a reference, and with no need for an email address, I know anyone even five years younger will find that hard to believe. (Yes my hair is its natural colour and I still have all my own teeth!)

Somehow I don't think the next generation, however, will get through life without the life-support system known as the computer.

And, of course, even I now can't get through the day without checking my email.

ONE DAY HEAT WAVE

Yesterday the thermometer reached 30 degrees in my back garden in Scotland! I don't ever remember a temperature starting with a 3 in my lifetime - well not in celsius anyway. It was so hot we had to get out the pool which took 2 hours to fill. The kids had the time of their lives. We left it out to carry on where we left off yesterday. How naive, this is Scotland. Despite the 20 degrees overnight which made sleeping hard and sporadic, we seem to be back to our usual breezy, grey sky and a threat of rain today and our swimming pool looks just a little silly suddenly. I think the neighbours are probably hiding behind their curtains giggling at us :-(

WEST END FESTIVAL

Tomorrow is the big Byres road street party - the highlight of the West End Festival. It should be even bigger than normal as it is the 10th anniversary carnival parade, mind you with the World Cup now on it could be completely deserted, or more likely overwhelmingly female in its participation this year!

BENDINESS

Léon has finally agreed to bend in the middle! Hooray! Unfortunately his new favourite game is to smile, chuckle and then launch himself backwards and bang into your knees if you are sitting behind him. The problem being he doesn't always check you are behind him before doing it and the patio is a very hard place to bang you head. I guess he'll learn soon enough.

CYCLING

Charlotte learnt to cycle on Saturday. With her usual stubbornness, she didn't accept any help, but contented herself with throwing her bike to the ground periodically, kicking it and bursting into floods of tears!

ENOUGH TO MAKE EVEN GRAMPS TEETOTAL

Found an amusing French news and information site. Not sure it is very serious, but quite amusing!