Tony_S

I am sure people of my age only know the lyrics as approved by Uncle Mac on Children’s Favourites as broadcast on the BBC Light Programme on Saturday mornings.

I have no idea about baby bears though…

Babies first poo are usually green…

Always happy to help. Sometimes has my solar powered Citizen watch on the other ear.

My watch is on its charging station…

Were they there to open all her birthday presents?

I was a bit worried that the grass might now be a bit short even for the sheep.

The first ice cream cone we bought for Matthew was on the Norfolk Broads and it was from an ice cream boat.

Is that what you were told as a child? When Matthew was little, he asked why the ice cream van played music. I said it was so all the children whose parents couldn’t afford ice cream in their freezers could have some. Perhaps it was a bit cruel to tease a four year old but I assumed he would know I wasn’t being serious. A couple of days later he said his friend Sam always went to the ice cream van and Sam’s family had loads of money! Matthew had dyspraxia andn as well as the coordination problems, and difficulty following instructions we later discovered that not recognising untruths was another “symptom “. The more fiction he read really helped with that, learning to distinguish what was true and fiction. Before that he seriously believed his “friend” had a great white shark in his garden pond. We worked through it. Do you know how big one of those sharks is.? “Yes”. How big is Gary’s pond? “about 2 metres long “ .So how would it fit? Matthew said “but Gary is my friend, why would he lie to me?”

Two of the three routes out of Benfleet were scheduled to be closed or significantly restricted over the last two weeks. Fortunately the local council managed to persuade the people digging up the A13 to delay until today. If the nearby boot sale runs this weekend there is not a lot of point going anywhere.

Round here, it is usually a few bars of “o sole mio” played so loud it penetrates quite good double glazing.

Aditi was on a course once, it must have been for Adult Education. She was partnered by a colleague from the Careers Service. They had to continue working after dinner on the Saturday evening, writing proposals for courses that would widen community participation in Adult Ed. and other worthy aims. As they had been made to work (this wasn’t paid, just a professional expectation to attend),Aditi and her colleague’s submission went quite well until the course organisers realised it was something of a spoof. They had put together a course to attract people from the Italian community in Southend, noting that mobile confectionery retailers were very under represented on Adult Ed College courses. I think it may have been the “music appreciation” module that gave it away.

The dermatologist I saw recently was very impressed that I had been to the Med in summer and had come back as pale as when I set out. I was,very good with the factor 50 and wearing my hat. Though the lump she wanted removed and sent for biopsy wasn’t anywhere that had been exposed to the sun.

We still have a lot of children’s books that feature bears.

If you are prepared to have a resin strap the cheap Casio (pictures on Argos website) are tough. They do slightly more expensive ones with expanding straps but I don’t like those (hairy wrists!). They keep time really well. When I broke the one I had used at work for years I did replace it with one of the Casio G shock which is solar powered and gets gps time signals. But the £9.99 one is fine!

Matthew said he always felt we were fairly strict parents. However after he returned from Canada he said he had changed strict to “caring”. It just so happened he had met various people that year who had really dysfunctional parenting. I remember one discussion we had after a rather traumatic parent teacher evening at secondary school. I said something like I was rather disappointed he hadn’t told us about the problems with certain subjects (we had asked). Years later he said he felt bad that I was disappointed and would have preferred to be shouted at. It was quite hard when he was in his mid teens trying to give him some opportunity to follow his own interests but his epilepsy wasn’t that well controlled then so we would take him places rather than get a bus. Later he then realised we’re not controlling or strict , just concerned.

I did wonder if being exposed to anything that could increase blood pressure would be detrimental when I noticed you had visited the Hippodrome. I am glad the lump isn’t as worrying as thought. Modelling while taking anticoagulants can be interesting, I could write “Weathering with Blood”.

I was being questioned prior to having my ankle and hips dexa scanned when the technician asked if I had artificial limbs or implants. I reassured her I hadn’t and asked if many people with artificial legs were sent for DEXA scans. She said yes and on her her first solo scan she had a man who said he hadn’t got one and had!

Is there a “ not” missing from your sentence about children being given the MMR vaccine and getting measles?

The gavel is the “not English “ item.

You will be appearing with Uncle Roger soon, critiquing British rice cooking?

I wonder where Bear sits in judgement. That isn’t an English court scene.

Some of the small supermarkets seem to have security in the evening. Though some of them don’t look very “secure”. There was one at the small Sainsbury once who clearly decided to tail me. It was so funny I went up and down the grocery aisle a few times while he attempted to be be stealthy. Do they get set exercises in following on security NVQ courses?

We had just returned home from Ireland and the bill from the funeral director who had organised Matthew’s funeral arrived. So I completed all the online stuff for an international payment. Then I got a call from the bank saying they had blocked the payment as it didn’t match our “account profile”. I said hopefully paying for a son’s funeral didn’t match too many profiles. She wouldn’t send a code to our registered phone either. She seemed keen on freezing the account. Then another call came in on my mobile from the banks security department who also said we had a payment halted. She said to end the other call and proceeded to clear everything and was very helpful and apologised for her colleague. I had been getting rather angry with the intransigence of the first person.

I had quite a faff getting an export contract but even though my smart meter transmits the export data I have to send a photo of the reading to an email address at eonnext! Adding an extra battery recently has of course reduced our export but has significantly reduced even our cheap rate consumption. We had decided we needed an extra battery and by coincidence our supplier contacted us to say they thought we would benefit from more storage. It must have been the easiest sales call ever, as I just asked when they could come and fit it.