home and away
Well, we’ve been busy! Lets see, what’s happened….
Thursday we all went out for a bike ride in the evening and Aprilia’s stabiliser broke and proved that it was still needed as she wobbled in scary fashion when Duke pretended to fix it and we tried to carry on. Hmph. We have "off road" ones for her seeing as we ride in the forrest so much but I’m not replacing them at ££££ so she will have to make do with cheepo ones from now and hope they don’t clog up too badly in the mud!
Then on Friday we set off for Jax and Tim’s house. Now, me ,being my normal somewhat distracted self, always leaves something I need at home. Usually it’s something like toothbrushes or sometimes a book I’ve promised etc however, this time I excelled myself arriving there without any overnight things (w hadn’t arranged to stop over but we hadn’t said we wern’t either!) or my phone or my specs or my mooncup, which I could be excused for as I was definitely not due til Tuesday at the earliest (Never mind hey, at least with a 9 day post ovulatory period I didn’t get much time to be premenstrual) and all I can say is that I really don’t understand how people think that Tampax are more convenient or nicer to use than my wonderful mooncup which was the first thing I reached for when I walked through the door this afternoon…..
Anyway, we had a lovely weekend for which I would like to publicly say thank you! Whilst small people played with varying degrees of co-operation ranging from the very good to the decidedly shady (how exactly *do* you keep a straight face when faced with your own dear but very bossy child informing you that another child is being bossy exactly????
) Jax and I discussed and pored over yarns and patterns and a sewing machine. There was also detailed financial discussions with Tim about what I need to do to keep Duke from needing to work until he is 80 to pay off our mortgage now that it’s become very aparent that the endowments were a total waste of time. So i shall be dealing with taht over the next week! And there was food, lots of it, and all very good. And there was alcohol which was very pleasant especially as I was sleeping in the living room so didn’t need to worry about staggering up the stairs 
Since getting home I have installed the newest release of Ubuntu on my PC. Everything is very rosy, everything is working better, quicker etc. Teh games are just as good except it specifically said that it needed to delete a particular bit of something that makes a chess game work so I let it and now I need to reinstall the same thing to get the chess game working again….. irritating but not life threatening! What is lifethreatening though is that I can no longer dock my PDA to it. No way, no how. So how exactly am I supposed to function???????
Lovely to have you over. I thought the small people did rather well, all in all.
Comment by Tim — April 22, 2007 @ 10:56 pm
Well I am not getting on very well at all with my Mooncup - tempted to send it back!
Comment by Joanna — April 23, 2007 @ 11:42 am
Okay Joanna, what is it doing (or not doing)? There are ways round most of the teething troubles you get with the mooncup which is why they give you a few cycles to try it before you have to decide to send it back or not. I chopped the stem totally off mine which made all the difference.
Comment by Administrator — April 23, 2007 @ 1:17 pm
BTW, It might be worth your while to sign up for the free trial at Which and having a look at their Endowment Action bit (not sure but you might even be able to get at all that without signing up).
Comment by Tim — April 23, 2007 @ 3:27 pm
Thanks Tim, I shall give taht a go for both mine and his policies. Duke definitely has a case - his policy doesn’t finish til he’s 75 ffs! Mine should do as I was single, young and railroaded (alas can’t prove that bit!)
Comment by Administrator — April 23, 2007 @ 5:04 pm
One thing I noticed is that they say your chances of getting a result are no higher if you pay someone to do it for you than if you do it yourself.
Comment by Tim — April 23, 2007 @ 5:17 pm
I know we used them, but I don’t really like stabilisers, there is a good argument for not using them at all - esp. if child starts to ride a bike a bit later on. The problem with stabilisers is that they actively encourage a child not to learn to balance the bike, there is no need to, since it can’t fall over.I’d suggest dumping the stabilisers and biting the bullet. The fact that she wobbled a lot without it, doesn’t mean she isn’t ready to learn to balance, it just means that with stabilisers on she hasn’t needed to, you still need to go through the learning to balance properly process. Does she have scooter? They are very good for learning how to balance (assuming it is two wheeler)
A gentle slope is probably easiest to start on, as they can get a little momentum up without having to worry about pedaling so much. Grass is softer to fall on, but the unevenness of the surface makes pedaling and balance harder, a smooth tarmac surface is easier to control the bike on. Cycle mits, knee pads/elbow pads are much more useful for likley injury protection than a helmet.
Comment by DaddyBean — April 24, 2007 @ 7:37 am