keeping up...

it's pretty hard to keep up with everything, i'm finding... especially when your kids are obviously colluding to keep you awake practically all night every night... our two-year-old, who never stirs, was up nearly the whole night last night... it was a laugh a minute, i can tell you. i've also got a nasty cold that is manifesting itself in one big hacking cough and constantly blocked sinuses. adding to the joy of being alive.

the office is moving from 'still' to 'stone cold silence'. even pins being dropped has been banned. there's the ubiqituous key-tapping hum - maybe that'll be the tinnitus of the future.

it was valentines yesterday, and we exchanged cards. poll out-classed me by making hers. but both of us failed to get the heart-felt message written - but i guess recognizing that is pretty much the same as having written it in the first place. we cooked together - poll made a chorizo and butter bean bake and i made pudding - aunt sally, a 'deconstructed apple charlotte', the recipe said. our oven is basically a nuclear installation in disguise, so when i checked it ten minutes early it was obviously burnt across the top, and looking like it had self-deconstructed in the cooking process... tasted alright with enough cream though.

moved on to Louis Sachar's 'Holes' now. finished 'The Vesusius Club' about a week ago. it was ok - a simply entwined Edwardian adventure tale. i thought it might develop the humour, but it stayed at pretty much the same level it reached from the first few pages. i've actually just finished 'Holes' today. it was a quick, kids-book read - along the same lines as Paul Coehlo's 'The Alchemist', but more down-to-earth and readable. i actually thought it might be going along the same lines as Magnus Mills' 'The Restraint of Beasts' initially, but no.

back to it...

so i spent the weekend mostly away from the computer, apart from a quick check on sunday morning - which is good for me, and i guess good for the kids too. it means i spend less time sat at the screen and more time with them. took no. 1 swimming on sunday morning - she's pretty good at making it clear she has no fear whatsoever, launching herself off the side at any opportunity; and no. 2 has learnt to get himself across the floor without anyone watching. we think it's a combination of rolling and twisting, but neither of us have actually caught him in the act yet. you just find him somewhere new each time you turn around.

we're beta testing our new content website today for the first time: there'll be quite a bit of feedback before we're on the money.

noticed the RSC's Project Prospect this morning - rather nice solution to a problem I think we're all having.

also been google alerting myself to see whether these blogs are getting picked up... and it's all rather sluggish, to say the least.

big thinking at the weekend - admittedly it was my mind wandering while i watched top gear last night, but all the same. been considering what's important when it all comes down to it... seems like a little bit of personal finance instruction and some basic car mechanics might have stood me in much better stead than my two degrees in earth sciences have done. i guess the piece-of-paper factor is important in the long run, but all the same there's a fair few of life's practicalities i fall short on. then again, i guess if i took a bit more interest in those things i'd be on track a little better.

but when you think about your own kids' education, and what they've got in store - all this testing at seven and get-your-kids-in-the-right-school-or-your-life's-over stuff - is just a knock on from the baby olympics we're in right now... the fact that your kid doesn't reach his or her milestones for their age or whatever cannot have ever counted for more. where are we going with all this stuff? what does it all mean? i can't keep up and i can't really get too moved by it either...