Funky sunflower clock

Well another weekend has passed and no baby goblin has emerged. This may be a good thing since it's been so cold that the baby is possibly better off where he is. Global warming my dimpled arse! There was bloody snow on the ground yesterday morning again and there was snow on the hills as I drove to work this morning. Seriously, it's got no business being this cold this time of year.

It's been a good weekend in general however. We didn't do a lot, it was almost relaxing. I finally found my drill which meant I could at last attach the bookcase to the wall in the nursery. I also hung the cute baby clock on the wall. It has a sunflower pendulum and a floating butterfly. We also cooked a chicken, a devasting bolognese sause, and a very passable pasta salad. Oh, oh, and a great risotto yesterday with the leftover chicken.



We also rented a TENS machine on Saturday which has been the source of much amusement.



For those who don't know, a TENS machine is a device designed to ease pain during labour. TENS stands for Transcutanious Electrical Nerve Stimulation, according to the instruction manual. It works by administering mild electrical stimulation through pads attached to the skin, and appears to deliver everything from comfortable tingling, to really quite frightening shocks depending on how you set it up. I have no idea if this will work, but the dragon has some faith in it and I think a positive attitude is probably half the battle. Big Pete came round and played with it for quite some time.

I am relaibly informed that 15 March is "Eat an animal for PETA" day, and events are being held at various steak houses and barbeque joints around the world. Check out the PETA is full of crap website to find a venue near you. I can't find one in my area sadly, but I will be chucking something dead under the grill on wednesday and maybe I'll even bring you pictures on this very page. I would really like to eat something that day that I have hunted down and slaughtered myself, but that may be difficult. I was thinking of heaving a brick at a pheasant that often visits my parents' garden, but pheasant is out of season now and I can't get over there before Wednesday anyway.

I knew pushchair was called something different in American parlance, now I know it's stroller. Do you guys have "prams"? I did a trial car seat fitting on Friday, and it seems to go in quite easily incidentally, though we can't use it in the front passenger seat because there is an airbag.

I was told this weekend that Operation Ore, the police operation to track down sex offenders, has decended on my home town and two people I know were convicted on child porn charges. I worked with both of these people and One of them I knew quite well. I don't really approve of operation ore, which I think is more of a witch hunt than a legitimate operation, but I don't approve of child abuse either of course. I was shocked when I heard about these two people. Apparently neither of them was jailed, but at least one of them got a probationary sentence, was ordered to go on a sex offenders' course, and was ordered to sign the sex offenders' register. People caught by operation Ore for child porn offences were all tracked down when they used credit cards to pay for internet access to pay sites. My initial reaction when I heard about this was that neither of my aquaintences would be stupid enough to use a credit card to obtain illegal material. It seems however that I was wrong, at least, according to the report I read.

There was a story all over the British news this weekend about a runaway BMW. The guy claims his throttle stuck open, his gear selecter stuck in drive, and his brakes burnt out. He ended up crashing at 130 MPH but was able to walk away from the wreck. I have to say, this doesn't ring true to me. And while I can understand that turning off the engine would result in no power steering, I would be prepared to give it a go when I realised the other option was to keep going until I crashed or run out of fuel. The driver called the AA and the police from the car while driving and a police helicopter was sent out as well as a number of patrol cars. The car is being examined by BMW and the police and I am interested to know what they find.