28 March, 2011

A Little Adventure...

435 to Redhill
So on Sunday, Thomas and I got kicked out of the house by Flyingpops (for simplicity reasons due to extensive cleaning requirements) and decided to pop over to Horsham to see Nanny and Granddad (And "Cat!", And "Dog!", as Thomas pointed out)...

In what should have been a relatively simple exercise - we set off for our exciting adventure, well - just as soon as we had finished watching the F1, anyway - (Thomas practically running out to the pram, ten minutes too early, when he was offered the prospect of seeing a train - reacting like we had just had to explain to him that Santa Claus didn't really exist and he was going to have to sleep in the shed from now on when we asked him to come back inside for just "one minute", requiring we both wrestle him back into the house, fending off flying limbs and Toddler language that would have been unprintable, even had it been comprehensible)...

It all went a bit downhill from there...

First, we discovered that the next available train to Horsham from the train station that we could easily walk to (naturally) was at 6am the following day, so we shrugged and pushed our way to the hospital to try and catch a bus (which was 22 minutes late, and almost completely full by the time it finally wobbled around the roundabout)...then we learned that the fare had gone up by 10 pence so we didn't have the correct change (which was greeted with very little enthusiasm by the designated driver), despite this, Thomas clutched my ticket (apparently for dear life) as I desperately tried to stop his pram falling over while we screeched around the corners nervously singing "The Wheels on the Bus", during which Thomas continuously frowned with ill concealed concern at the peculiar and precarious position in which I had apparently decided to place him (which admittedly bore very little resemblance to the words coming out of my mouth)...
Redhill Bus Station #5
More by luck than anything else, we arrived, slightly ruffled, in Redhill and spent 10 minutes standing behind an elderly gentleman who clearly didn't know how to use the ticket machine (but was trying very hard anyway) he finally gave up, after several rejected offers of help, and walked straight through the open barriers without one (which he could have just done in the first place) we followed suit (with our long-awaited ticket) and then realised that it was going to be impossible to get up to the correct platform from that direction due to the enormous quantity of stairs...so we went back the way we came, crossed back across the road and puffed half way up Redstone Hill to the other entrance, banging noisily on the locked gate to Platform three for five minutes until a sleepy guard appeared to let us in...
Redhill Station Platform
We spent a very happy twenty minutes waiting for our first (and as it happened, only) train, Thomas pointing and shrieking as all the trains we didn't want zoomed merrily past, saying "Train, Useful!" - which, in my experience (at least) they often aren't, however Rev. W. Awdry (and his son, Christopher) appear to have already successfully convinced Thomas otherwise...I'll leave Southern Trains to complete his education on the matter when he is older...

At Gatwick Airport the train absolutely filled up with French people, who all appeared to need the toilet (which we, of course, were blocking with the pushchair), but at least that stopped me managing to change Thomas' nappy in the tiny cubical (I was terribly sad not to be able to avail myself of that opportunity, as you can imagine) and then we disembarked at Three Bridges, only requiring the assistance of three foreigners not to tip Thomas down between the train and the platform, as we hopped lightly out...after we had both calmed down (with the help of a box of sultanas), Thomas politely exclaimed "Bye bye train, bye bye peoples", and gave them all a little wave...

Finding, to my very great relief, after peering down a very long flight of rather dark stairs, that Three Bridges many platforms are accessible via elevator (thanks to a kindly guard), we then discovered (to some, not inconsiderable, dismay) that the reason 40 men in high visibility jackets were standing around supervising one person with a laser spirit level (up above us), was that our onward journey to Horsham was not to be by another train, but by a replacement bus service...to this piece of news, Thomas promptly fell fast asleep, my phone battery died and I spent the rest of the 40 minute journey wishing I had brought any book with me other than "My First Animal Words" (which Thomas hadn't even glanced at)...

It probably would have been easier to QWOP into Mordor (I'll let you Google it)...Lunch was delicious though... ;)

25 March, 2011

Finks Links #131

Friday again, second set of links of the week! Wow! Lucky you... ;)

Let's kick things off with an *excellent* radiation dose chart...

Following the theme - playing with an X-Ray machine built in 1896...

Tomtom HD traffic service for free!

How to drill a square (or hexagonal) hole...

Supermarkets, the next step - light up packaging...

Innate Knowledge?

The engine that will take us to Mars (in only 5 short months)!

Wow - Time Tunnel got a 2002 makeover, watch the full (unfortunately not recommissioned) pilot episode here... ;)

Wow, must have missed these back in the day! Would have been the top of my Christmas list!

Welcome to the Dagobah System Louisana...

Dancing Ninja Assasin...

...and finally a DANGER K-9 Fail and a Magazine headline fail...

Hope you enjoyed those! Have a great weekend! ;)

24 March, 2011

Hello and Bye Bye!

Thomas
Thomas is going through a severe affirmation stage for two phrases at the moment..."Hello" and "Bye Bye"...Every morning (while he and I are still in bed) it's "Hello Daddy...Hello Daddy...Hello Daddy" (getting frustrated) "Uh oh..." (pause) "Hello Daddy...Hello Mummy?"...until I eventually appear at the door (rubbing my eyes and yawning) to a triumphant "HELLO DADDY!!!!! UP!!! UP!!! BILK!!!" (the current word for Milk), it's then (as we stumble together around the house) "Hello Shower, Hello Bathoom", "Bye Bye Shower", "Hello Stairs", "Hello Door", "Bye Bye Stairs", "Hello Window", "Hello Gaaarden", "Hello Cwouds" (if it's cloudy) -or- "Hello Ducks" (if it's not, as he knows ducks live in the pond at the end of the garden), then while I'm warming up his milk "Hello thats-mummies-laptop" (prompting a panicked dash to put it up out of danger), we then get five minutes of silence (apart from the sound of milk vanishing), followed by "Bye Bye Daddy - Work - Train - Toot Toot!!", which is usually very sweet, "Yes that's right I'll be off in a little while, probably better get dressed first though", but actually really quite sad when he does it on a Saturday or Sunday morning, as he's obviously expecting me to vanish any minute...

"It's okay Thomas, Daddy isn't going to work today, it's the weekend, we can play all day"..."Daddy HUG!"... ;)

23 March, 2011

Lewisham in the sunshine...

Lewisham DLR - Signal Failure
Lewisham in the sunshine
Lewisham in the sunshine
Lewisham in the sunshine
Lewisham in the sunshine
Lewisham in the sunshine
Had a bit more of a chance to walk around this morning, thanks to the DLR breaking down...doesn't look half as bad on a nice sunny day, does it? Well, apart from the fuming commuters, the two bikers who crashed right in front of me on the roundabout (didn't take any pictures, of course), the beggar in the underpass near the DLR entrance (who knew more about where the buses went than the members of staff) and the guy that stands directly opposite the Metro newspaper stand trying to flog copies of the Sun (but whose accent means that he is in fact asking everyone very clearly to purchase some "Sandpaper" rather than a "Sun Paper")...they, of course, just look at him slightly strangely and pick up the free alternative...did (eventually) make it to work in the end...pfff... >:S

22 March, 2011

Urm...really office?

Urm...really office?
I go away for a few days and *this* happens *right* in front of my desk?

So now I don't work in Little Chef, I seem to now work in a fair ground...or maybe anti-grav Lightsaber storage...or how about 2001 Odyssey...?

I even went and asked the guys who (so far) have taken 6 hours installing the 8 lights if there was going to be a bit of frosted glass or anything put up to moderate the display, the answer - shrugs and apologies... :S

Hurray... :(

Finks Links #130

Sorry, missed Friday links last week thanks to being a bit poorly, feeling a bit better now, so let's try and get things rolling again (starting with a few nice free things)-

2100 free to watch lectures/educational videos from Algebra to Venture Capital (so go and learn something new today)!

Interface lift - a really nice (free) desktop wallpaper site...

An awful lot of free ebooks...

Find some nice music to listen to based on your mood (or intended mood)...free...

A *brilliant* online file format converter (doesn't cost anything)... ;)

...and now just a couple of useful things - Jimmyr (a very nice, simply laid out aggregator of the good bits of the internets)...

...and is it just me?...

...and you can finish up with a bit of a muck around on some models (or build your own)... ;)

Hope you enjoyed those and had a better weekend than I did! ;)

17 March, 2011

Thomas learns about headphones...

Thomas learns about headphones...
Well this is potentially quite useful for the holiday flights - over the weekend Thomas almost mastered the art (apart from the odd suck) of wearing a tiny pair of earbud headphones to listen to his baby Einstein...annoyance factor for other passengers -95% if we can get this nailed... ;)
Bug Jam 24
Although, he has (admittedly) had some practice in this area at the drag racing... ;)

16 March, 2011

Thomas counting!

Thomas Playing
Heheh, just had to post this after Flyingpops sent me an SMS earlier - apparently this morning, for the first time ever, she caught Thomas counting (all by himself), picking up and stacking his little stacking cups he said (after each cup was successfully placed) - "One!"..."Two!"..."Three!"..."Nine!"... ;)

At least he has managed to master the general idea... :)

14 March, 2011

Roasting a chicken with Thomas...

Roast Chicken
...on Sunday morning -

Daddy - "What's this Thomas?" (pointing at chicken stock waiting to go into the gravy)
Thomas (thinks for a minute) "Chicken Juice!"... ;)

11 March, 2011

Finks Links #129

Happy Friday! It's link time again, so let's kick things off with Cuddy-wincing MRI mishaps (i.e. millions upon millions of dollars of damage in every frame)!

Rodney Mullen - A fairly good skateboarder... ;)

A real laser pistol...

Woah! That's a BIG...oh. Okay... ;)

Lag.

Eh? What's wrong with 'Torch'?

Formation flying (WOW - skip to about 0:40 if you are impatient)...

The incredible invasion of Sark!

It's good to encourage higher education...

Playing with shadows...

Landmine stickers...

Take a spin in a Google auto-driving car...

...and finally RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's all for this week, but I hope you enjoyed them! Have a great weekend!! ;)

10 March, 2011

Baby Einstein

It's about now...18-19 months, all of a sudden, Baby Einstein (the Disney DVDs designed to stimulate kids in an "edutainment" way) suddenly come into their own...when Thomas was *very* new we tried them out (using them predominantly for animal drill - "That's a CAT Thomas, the CAT says 'Meow', can you point to the CAT?" to which Thomas would look confused and suck his fingers)...now if I spin up the "Shapes" movie there is an awful lot of jumping around and pointing "Dadn, a tiangle!", "Dadn circles!" "Dadn lellow sqare!" (although, admittedly, most colours seem to be called "lellow" and "a" ends up on the front of words slightly at random but at least plurals seem to be fairly regularly correctly employed)...this has the potential to be very, very useful on the flight on holiday (assuming it doesn't annoy the other passengers too much)... ;)

09 March, 2011

Made it...

...but I had to go all the way back to London Bridge and get the horrible tube...18 minutes late... :(

DLR is broken

...great...
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08 March, 2011

Freezing C.C.COLD!!!

New Earlswood Allotments
Oh Boy...it has been *freezing* the last few mornings, wouldn't be so bad apart from the fact that (patting myself on the head) I'm still walking to the station in the mornings (got my time down to about 21 minutes now, front door to platform bench) but that is certainly more than enough time to both work up a bit of a sweat stomping over the hill and to get freezing cold extremities (which is an annoyingly uncomfortable combination), I'm sure when I got to the station and fumbled to unzip (with numb fingers) my coat a cloud of steam emerged from my skiing jacket...Anyway, there are a few positives, as of yesterday I'm not having to do the trudge in the pitch black, two weeks ago I had a particularly eventful walk - both a fox and I scared each other half to death in the middle of the woods, and then two minutes later I almost squashed a huge toad (sat right in the middle of the path) into strawberry jam...it's just such a relief for the wildlife and I to have fair warning of each others approach... ;)
New Earlswood Allotments
Oh and of course, it's nice to be able to take the odd picture again, these shots I took on the other side of the hill, not sure how long it's been going on (as it's been too dark to see) but it looks like someone is busy converting the old horse field next to the railway line into vegetable allotments, which is nice, it's been sat there doing absolutely nothing for *years*... ;)

07 March, 2011

Double take and Office decor...

22nd Floor Lifts
Got to the Wharf this morning, enjoying the bright sunshine (although not the wind-chill, my ears almost frozen off twice on the way in), beep my RFID enabled ID card at the tiny perspex security barriers in reception at One Canada Square, waited patiently for one of the lifts to come and get me, crowded in with a bunch of other skyscrape-o-naughts and prepared for takeoff (16 floors of Express Zone - a literally ear-popping journey)...when the doors opened I took one step outside and decided I must have (daftly) got off on completely the wrong floor (and *almost* got straight back in again, until I confusedly noted the number 22 on the wall - basically when I left on Friday night, this hall was completely devoid of subtle squares), the second thing my brain did is decide that all the pillar-box red I could see through the doors (at each end) was some variation on that plastic netting you see erected around roadside excavations and there had been some sort of construction incident I was being protected from (it used to be an elegant clear glass curved wall beyond the doors)...

As it turned out, our area (as it had been since the move) was not complete after all and the decorators had been busy over the weekend finishing everything off...I'm not sure I'm terribly fond of it (not that I'm pretending to be any sort of Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen figure, it's just that) when it comes to decorating choices at *home* (at any least) I tend to shy away from massive blocks of primary colours, preferring a simple white (or off white)...anyway, that was not all, we now have a functioning hot desk next to us (only used so far for cake storage) -
22nd Floor
- complete with chairs and giant plasma screens (which show Sky Sports/News all day long), and also a tiny little meeting area with banks of brightly coloured chairs and glass tables, which I haven't seen anyone use yet, but I'm sure will be very useful when important visitors are being kept waiting by people... ;)
22nd Floor
I guess you could say we've gone sort of "Popham Little Chef"-themed... ;)

04 March, 2011

Finks Links #128

Friday! So let's kick things off this week with an *enormous* ejection...

Some Pigeon Shadows...

A Gallium Spoon...

The Anne Frank Timeline...

A nice new addition to tanks - the IDF system...

Famous objects from classic movies!

How many people are in space right now?

Take a peep around the Grand Staircase in Buckingham Palace...

Sniper check...(yep, we can stop moaning about how bad the commute was now)...

Teeny tiny tractor beam!

Windows from start to finish (missing a couple of steps, but I'll let it off)... ;)

...and following the theme - Magic Windows!

Street view tricycles!

Mountain biking, Chilean style...

Sorry you missed the Daleks...

...and finally a nasty Skiing whoopsie (sure he was fine) and BATMAN! ;)

Hope you enjoyed those! Have a brilliant weekend!! ;)

03 March, 2011

Yay! Holiday!

Yes! We are now looking forward to our first overseas break in, urm...(*scream* --waaaaaay-- too long, not that we haven't had loads of excellent breaks in the UK, but this is going to seem like a bit of a treat in comparison) going to the (extremely child-friendly) Holiday Village on the Costa Del Sol towards the end of April (meaning we will miss the Royal Wedding - sure we can catch a re-run), but the happy timing also means ten nights away for a very tiny investment of precious holiday days thanks to all the bank holidays...it was also a total bargain, working out at about £27 per person per night (cheaper than booking a travelodge beside the motorway!) for all inclusive food/drink/flights/accommodation/transfers, and I have absolutely no doubt that even *Thomas* can manage to eat that much food per day...hehehe...they won't know what's hit them... ;)

02 March, 2011

CONGRATULATIONS!

Congratulations!
Hrm... ಠ_ಠ

Thomas' first hair cut...

Thomas' First Hair cut
If you can believe it, this is the first time Thomas has needed a hair cut (Saturday morning last), and that only because his fringe was starting to get in his eyes (don't know what the problem is there, I seem to cope with it fairly well ;), but Flyingpops seemed to think it needed doing, and so it was done...His face was an absolute picture while it was being cut, starting with very, very confused (above) -
Thomas' First Hair cut
- turning quickly to slightly annoyed...dispite this he sat very still throughout the process...first cut of *many* - Done... ;)

01 March, 2011

Very Important Milk update...

Milk Test
Well, it looks like the 22nd floor isn't full of milk robbers! Although it could be something to do with the fact that the fridge up here (yes, just one fridge, rather than two in our last little kitchen) instead of being filled with a higgledy-piggledy avalanche of half empty milk bottles and hundreds of ready meals/floppy sandwiches, just contains about five half-drunk bottles of wine, several interesting looking pork pies and a packet of Tesco finest nectarines...So I know what the existing residents of this floor drink (the important bit being -not my milk-), I wonder what they eat? ;)

Anyway, for now at least, it seems my hot beverages are safe from plunder... ;)