Archive for January, 2009
Contact Point.
January 31st, 2009 | 
Author: There is much discussion going on about contact point at the moment, and i have been digging around trying to work out why we are actually getting this rather idiotic data base foisted on our children.. Other than the Big Brother state control idea…
Well i have the answer, and it wont surprise you.. Guess what it will save money.. in fact £88 million a year according the a pdf from the dept of http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/_files/ContactPoint_QA_Jan_09.pdf
How much does ContactPoint cost?
Set up costs for ContactPoint are £224m. Operating costs are estimated to be £41m per year. We have conservatively estimated that ContactPoint will save at least £88m per year.
Now just in case they decide to alter the pdf, please down load it to your desktop!
pdf contact point
Popularity: 23% [?]
Book Sellers
Book Sellers
From – “A City of Bells” by Elizabeth Goudge – the hero is opening a book shop the next morning, and his grandfather,a lovable elderly Anglican priest, stops shelving books to deliver a homily on the profession of a bookseller:
“A bookseller is the link between mind and mind, the feeder of the hungry, very often the binder up of wounds. There he sits, your bookseller, surrounded by a thousand minds all done up neatly in cardboard cases; beautiful minds, courageous minds, strong minds, wise minds, all sorts and conditions. And there come into him other minds, hungry for beauty, for knowledge, for truth, for love, and to the best of his ability he satisfies them all…Yes…It’s a great vocation.”
“Greater than a writer’s?” … “Immeasurably,” said Grandfather. “A writer has to spin his work out of himself and the effect upon the character is often disastrous. It inflates the ego. Now your bookseller sinks his own ego in the thousand different egos that he introduces one to the other…He deals in the stuff of eternity and there’s no death in a bookseller’s shop. Plato and Jane Austen and Keats sit side by side behind his back, Shakespeare on his right hand and Shelley on his left…Yes, writers, from what I’ve seen of them, are a very queer lot, but booksellers are the salt of the earth.”
One of my all time favourite quotes 
Popularity: 21% [?]
Friends to play.
Asha had a friend A around to play today. She had a lovely time and was thoroughly exhausted by bed time. She also wrote two new word today. “Hot and Cold”
Her writing and reading skills are developing well, and more importantly she is happy.
Popularity: 20% [?]
Form 696 – London Music Scene.. are you aware?
“How Form 696 could pull the plug on the capital’s music scene”;
Warning sounded over new piece of bureaucracy that forces licensees to reveal a mass of information about performers
Friday, 21 November 2008
Teenage kicks will be harder to get if publicans and managers of other small venues are forced to comply with a new piece of bureaucracy called Form 696, a former punk rock star has warned.
The form demands that licensees give police a mass of detail, including the names, aliases, private addresses and phone numbers of all musicians and other performers appearing at their venue, and the ethnic background of the likely audience. Failure to comply could mean the loss of a licence or even a fine and imprisonment.
It applies in 21 London boroughs, but professionals in the music business fear that if it becomes accepted, it will be copied in other cities. Martin Rawlings, director of the Pub and Beer Association, said: “I know of licensees faced with this saying they are just not going to put live music on. Form 696 is being used only in London so far, but there are similar things going on around the country, where the police are asking publicans to sign various protocols. It has gone too far, frankly.”
Mr Sharkey has also complained to the Equality and Human Rights Commission that the police appear to be focusing on the music enjoyed by black and Asian teenagers. One of the questions on the form requires the licensee to specify the type of music that will be performed, giving as possible examples “Bashment, R’n'B, Garage”. Another question asks, “Is there a particular ethnic group attending?”
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/how-form-696-could-pull-the-plug-on-the-capitals-music-scene-1028240.html
Now i know this is last years news.. BUT were you aware???
Popularity: 21% [?]
Gluten-Free Play Dough
Ingredients:
½ cup rice flour
½ cup cornstarch
½ cup salt
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 cup water
1 teaspoon cooking oil
Food coloring, if desired
Directions:
Mix ingredients. Cook and stir on low heat for 3 minutes or until it
forms a ball. Cool completely before storing in a sealable plastic bag.
Popularity: 24% [?]
Rice Cripsy Cakes.
Not todays work, but from a few days ago. Whilst really not very well at all. I dont think we got a picture of todays materpiece, but Asha loves her baking.
and a smile!
Popularity: 22% [?]
Asha learning to clean or??
Yesterday, at about 5 pm, whilst we were all sat exhausted, asha asked me if she could do the kitchen floor.
Who was I to argue with a 4.5 year old?
Brush brush.. Mop Mop!
Popularity: 20% [?]
Kitchen Science.
Yesterday, Asha had a go at kitchen science.
Science
The material just goes softer and wetter... it swashy mummy and drippy!
We got some items out and watched what hapend to them in tepid water overnight
milk bottle plastic – no change.
Kitchen paper erm.. where did that go mummy!
cardboard toilet roll, strip off.. came apart.
mummy!
Oil, food colouring, water and
Food colouring.. well it change the colour of the water.. oil added.. the oil floated and the oil sank.. Why mummy?
Bicarb of soda .. just went.
xanthan gum and oil in water – well daddy can write this bit up but.. Look at the pics!
xanthan gum , with oil and water..
Asha had a great time. Considering we are all still coughing our guts out, it went really very well indeed!
Popularity: 25% [?]
didnt we have a lovely time the day we went to bangor – for debbie
Didn’t we have a lovely time the day we went to Bangor
A beautiful day, we had lunch on the way and all for under a pound you know
But on the way back I cuddled with Jack and we opened a bottle of cider
Singing a few of our favourite songs as the wheels went around
Do you recall the thrill of it all as we walked along the sea grand
Then on the sand we heard a brass band that played the Diddlely-Bump-Terrara
Elsie and me had one cup of tea then we took a Paddler boat out
Splashing away as we sat on the bay and the wheels went ’round
Didn’t we have a lovely time the day we went to Bangor
A beautiful day, we had lunch on the way and all for under a pound you know
But on the way back I cuddled with Jack and we opened a bottle of cider
Singing a few of our favourite songs as the wheels went around
Wasn’t it nice, eating chocolate ice as we strolled around the fun-fair
Then we ate eels in big ferris wheels as we sailed around the ground but then
We had to be quick ’cause Elsie felt sick and we had to find somewhere to take her
I said to her lad, what made her feel bad was the wheel going ’round
Didn’t we have a lovely time the day we went to Bangor
A beautiful day, we had lunch on the way and all for under a pound you know
But on the way back I cuddled with Jack and we opened a bottle of cider
Singing a few of our favourite songs as the wheels went around
Elsie and me, we finished our tea and said goodbye to the seaside
Got on the bus, Flo said to us, oh isn’t it a shame to go
Wouldn’t it be grand to have cash on demand and to live like this for always
Oh it makes me feel ill, when I think of the mill and the wheels goin’ ’round
Didn’t we have a lovely time the day we went to Bangor
A beautiful day, we had lunch on the way and all for under a pound you know
But on the way back I cuddled with Jack and we opened a bottle of cider
Singing a few of our favourite songs as the wheels went around
Da-da-da-dee, da-da-da-da-dee, da-da-da-dah-dah-dah
Popularity: 38% [?]
The lurgy.
We have all been quite ill since last Wednesday. Asha started antibiotics on Thursday, and is still coughing like an old woman. Steve and I have taken it in turns to stay awake, but at times, both of us have so wanted to just sleeeep.
Asha has spent some time watching films, listened to some audio books in welsh and english, done some arts and craft stuff, and used the computer for her educational games, which she continues to enjoy.
We have also made silver mugs as in “Little Bear”
little bear mugs
Two on the box.
and she can now tell the difference between a blue tit and a great tit. She knows the three types of Swan, and there differences, Not sure if she can tell them apart yet.. We dont get Swans in our garden, to test her with
She has loved reading some of my ladybird books, and enjoyed us reading to her. She is particully fond of “beauty and the beast” i find this bizzare, as it scared me witless as a child. 
– it is good to know, i am doing well in not passing on my own fears tooo much!
We have made her spare bed up, and changed her curtains, made paper swans, and beautiful spring scenes. In fact considering the fact that all steve and i really want to do is sit and fester, we have done loads… Asha is a lot brighter today, but still not at all right.
asha on her teddy bed 1
this almost gives you an indication of her dolls and teddys!
Oh we have also rang granny up. Asha was keen to phone Granny to speak to her. Asha had a great laugh with grandad though. The last few times Granny and Grandad have rung, Asha has been busy and not wanted to speak to them. It is great she wanted to ring them yesterday.
Tonight Asha wanted me to read a specific book, and at the end of the book, there is a picture of an ark. Tomorrow she wants me to make an ark with her!
Popularity: 23% [?]
Farewell Tony Hart, you will be remembered.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7836142.stm
Farewell the man who told me I could do Art.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Reflection on how we have done it..so far.
When Asha was tiny, we had a kitchen which was even tinyier. So untill
she was about 3, she never was allowed in the kitchen. But we always
made sure we gave her stuff to do just by the kitchen door, if we had
to be in there, when we were on our own. ( i used to bluetak different
shaped sheets of paper onto the walls, and provide her with different
art materials to decorate the paper with.) Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 23% [?]
Wednesday…..
Asha has been sleeping in our bed, for part of the night for a few weeks now. Steve and I have decided that as long as she is in the middle, and we have enough bed each, this seems to be o.k.
As such, when our clock Alarm goes off in the morning, it normally wakes me and steve up, and if Asha isnt awake her as well. Well today, she slept through it. About 3/4 of an hour later she was awake and trying to get me up.. Grrrr.
I eventually got up at 9.40, and we got ready for CLAS. Asha still has a bad cough, but i informed her, that if she stays inside the hall, she could go. She did this, and played happily all day. Wrapped up, and content.
She made some bird feed balls, and the craft activity this week was hama beads, she still struggles a bit with these, but was soon on her way with it all, and enjoyed the socialisation.
After CLAS we returned to Gwerin, after our break. She was SOOOooo pleased to see her friends.
Popularity: 20% [?]
Ice Skating.
Asha has been, conquored, enjoyed and wants to go back.
What else can i say really????
Popularity: 23% [?]
It isnt that we havent done anything…
We just seem so busy, that nothing is getting done!
Steve and I sat down last night and decided on a daily schedule. Lets see if we can keep to it!
One of our problems is that we are out soo often, and when we are in, jobs such as chopping wood, cooking food, and getting ready for the next day, all need to be done. As well as finding time to spend with Asha. This means some days, it can be 10 pm, before we get to breath. Combined with the cfs, its no wonder i am currently exhausted.
Anyway, what has Asha done since last wednesday then?
Popularity: 30% [?]
Just pottering along.
Its Saturday. Steve and I had uni this morning, Asha went on a play date to J. She loves playing with A , E and K. Asha is one of these children, who when she is content, and feels safe somewhere, she will just get on with playing. Like me, Asha feels safe at J’s house.
After our rather successfull, but demading tutorial, for our welsh course, Steve and I both took it in turns to fall asleep at home. I needed it. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 33% [?]
A comment at T Time.
We had a lovely day today, catching up with a friend, who asha loves, and doing a few rather boring jobs to be honest. But througout it all Asha seemed content.
Tonight at T Time asha said “she likes after christmas, because she gets to see all her friends again”.
So there you go.
Popularity: 18% [?]
BT has today cut the cost of calling 0845 and 0870 to zero for many of its customer
BT has today cut the cost of calling 0845 and 0870 to zero for many of its customers, following a consumer campaign against companies profiting from premium rate lines.
Subscribers to BT’s Anytime package will get free 0845 and 0870 calls at all times, while Evening and Weekend customers’ calls will be free after 6pm Monday-Friday, and all weekend. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 18% [?]
Play date.
Asha had a new friend round today. She had a lovely time playing with N and his little brother.
I enjoyed the time to sit and chat as well. Thursdays often end up quite slow and sluggish for Asha, as we are all exhausted after a Wednesday, so for someone to come around, for a few hours, was good. I wouldnt have managed to get her out the house, as she needs her home on a Thursday time.
During the play date, asha dressed up.. into this!
Asha... the red indian.
smile
Popularity: 20% [?]
