Philip Norton

We have had our bikes sat in our shed for a good number of months now complete with rust and punctures.  So this weekend we decided to go and get our bikes repaired.  We phoned up a shop in Congleton that does bike repairs, but the guy was rude on the phone and not really all that helpful so we took them to Halfords.  I can’t fault Halfords for their service.  We had originally booked the bikes in for the 29th, but we got a call yesterday saying that things had been quiet there so the girl had done them herself.

We had to walk in order to pick them up, which is about 4 miles, but we needed to take Matthew with us.  He enjoyed riding on my bike (although he is a little small for it).  After getting home we put them back in the shed with the plan to go for a bike ride today.

However, when I got the bike out of the shed I found it had a puncture in the front tyre.  After getting quite angry, but still being able to repair it I then attached a bike seat so that Matthew could ride on the back of my bike.

Our little trip nearly started out as a disaster as as soon as I picked my bike off of the wall (with Matthew attached) it fell sideways and I had to struggle to bring the bike back up again from a funny angle.  I’m not certain that the seat is entirely safe as it makes the bike very top heavy and when I slowed down (for the hills) I ended up falling sideways.

Still, it was a plesant bike ride.  We went up to the cannal at the end of a lane near our house.  I didn’ remember, the last time I took that lane, just how hilly it was.  Plus, I am quite out of shape and so I wasn’t able to peddle all the way up in one go.  I just need to get more practice in!

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I’m not from the USA, nor do I live in their country, and therefore not eligible to vote in their election. However, I still have an opinion and I think that a potted plant is a definite step UP from the current idiot.

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Today is my 29th birthday and I’m celebrating it by doing house work.

Last night I was out celebrating my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary with the rest of the family.  As usual we went to the Beefeater, where the food is borderline microwave-tastic!  Matthew was as good as gold.

Mandy and Matthew made me a cake.  Here is a picture.

I think it is an exceptional cake!  It is an exact copy of a book which I spent many hours reading and thinking about and is well thumbed.  I suppose that this is my first geek cake.

My dad got me a book called God is Not Great: The Case Against Religion, which I will be reading with relish.  Not literally of course, I mean that I will just be eagerly willing to read the book because I’m sure I loath religion as much as the author (Christopher Hitchens) does.

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I walked into the kitchen tonight and spotted a fox picking at the bread we had left out for the birds.  I think I scared him off to start with, but he was soon back for the rest.  We threw another slice out for him so we could take a couple of photos.  Here is a picture.

I think it is fantastic.  The garden to our house is a bit of an oddity really.  It was left overgrown for about 10 years and was used as a builders yard for a bit.  We still have a large circular saw in a cast iron base hidden behind a hedge.  I have been working on clearing it up for months, although I’m not making much headway.  However, one good thing about the garden is all the wildlife I see.  We have multiple species of birds, squirrels and I even saw a mouse the other day, but having a fox living nearby is just great.

The fox kept coming into the garden, cramming as much bread as he could into his mouth, and then leaving again.  So I can only assume that there are little foxes about somewhere.  I went upstairs to get a better view and Matthew was awake so I pointed the fox out to him.  He straight away identified it as a fox.  He must have learnt something from us reading him Beatrix Potter books.

This connects something I was thinking about the other day.  We usually put out some bread at night (try getting a 3 year old to eat crusts) and they are always gone by morning.  I just thought we had hungry birds!

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We are teaching Matthew the alphabet at the moment, and he is comming along nicely.  Even though he is 3, he can count to 13 on his own (which is apparently very good) and is getting there with the alphabet.  Although he isn’t able to recite it much, he can spot the letters and tell us what they are.

Apart from two letters that is.  These letters are W and U.

When I say U he repeats back “me!” and when I say W, which I pronounce as “double-u” that is exactly what he hears and repeats back “double me!”.

How on earth do you get through to a 3 year old that it isn’t double you, but two letter U’s put together?  I’m sure he will work it out eventually!

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Weed apparently….

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Today I finally got to cleaning the outside of the tent after our camping trip last week.  After finishing I had this large wobbly bowl of dirty water, which I decided to pour over our wilting rhubarb plant.

However, when I poured the water out over the rhubarb this grey blob shot out from underneath and hid in the hedge.

Turns out that there was a rabbit hiding underneath it (now wet), and it must have been there since I had come outside about an hour before.  I think we had better harvest the rhubarb before it is eaten up!

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Matthew currently has chicken pox.  For those of you who don’t know what this is (and I assume that this is only a few) is a disease caused by a virus that causes little spots or blisters to appear all over your body, which then scab over and heal.  Once you have had the disease you don’t get again, accept in rare cases.

It only lasts a week, but he isn’t allowed back to nursery for two weeks until the last of the scabs are coming off.  Mandy and I have both had it as children so we won’t catch it again.  Although Mandy might go spare being stuck at home with a sick Matthew for two weeks.

I’m glad he has it now as it is the best time for him really.  If you have this disease as an adult it is called shingles and is very painful apparently.

I’m quite sure he will be fine in a few days, although it does explain why he has been a bit naughty recently.

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Not many people need to remember Pi to more than 4-5 digits, but if you do here is a limerick I found that will help you.

First, the number:

3.14159265358979323846

Next, the limerick:

The ratio of C over D,
Where they’re parts of a circle, is three
Point one four one five
Nine two six five three five
Eight nine seven nine three two three.

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I saw this great site the other day called Proud To Be Apple Free. Naturally it is all about annoying Mac users are. Actually that should be iUser as they seem to have this fixation about putting the letter i in front of every product they produce.  Which is intensely irritating!

Personally I wouldn’t buy a Mac, not unless I won the lottery and wanted something pretty to play with. I have used a Mac at work and as a development platform it I can’t imagine a system that is more annoying to use than a Mac. Most of what you need to do with anything is hidden behind several layers of crap, the idea being that most people don’t want to use it. Well I do want to use it, but after messing about with the very strange file manager for a couple of hours I found out I had to use the command line to get more access to the system, but even then everything is hidden!

It just works huh? Only if you want to paint pictures all day long. I want to write code!

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