Happy Birthday to me!

I seem to be a little fixated with the fact that I’m going to be 40 next year. As I turn 39, today is the first day of my 40th year on this planet. Even while I was still 38 I was saying I’ll be 40 next year if people asked me how old I was.

Rachel cooked me a full English (or should that be Italian) breakfast: Sausage, pancetta, eggs and mushrooms. Then I opened my card from Rachel (a birthday moo) and my remaining presents as I’d opened some before we came away. Two CDs (Flight of the Conchords and Eels), Seven Pounds DVD, and a complicated looking game called Ingenious! It was also really nice to get text messages from my parents, my sister Sally, and Emma a friend from my PhD days. My best present though was waking up in an Umbrian farmhouse with Rachie next to me and glorious blue skies out the window.

Another morning sunbathing, but this time we had decided we’d head out around lunchtime to drive over to Montepulciano, where our favourite red wine comes from. Turns out we’d timed it well as a little cloud came over making it just a little cooler. Conchords and Eels made it a short drive over into Tuscany, though the road over to Cortona is torturous. Another half hour drive past Cortona brought to the hillside town of Montepulciano.

As with Cortona, the roads are steep to walk up but the town is not big so it’s not too taxing. Even better that is cooler due to the cloud. We buy some nice red wine for Sandra and Keith to say thank you for looking after Freya for the week (although from the texts we’ve been receiving it sounds like they’ve all been having a great time). We also buy ourselves a cheaper bottle along with some sundried tomato, pecorino and salami sauce which is almost the same price. But we’d tasted it on the Italian bread at the front of the shop and agree we should buy some before we know how much it costs. It does taste good though. We also buy a little wooden toy as a present for Freya.

We hadn’t really had any lunch and decide we’d like to have dinner in Montepulciano but it is now 5pm and Italian restaurants tend not to open till around 7. We walk back up the hill to Café Polliziano (probably spelt wrong) as we’d walked past earlier and it looked nice and had views out across the Tuscan countryside. We kind of hoped it would be open and serving food. It was open but the only food it was serving was cake. So we have a coffee and share a piece of lemon meringue pie Italian style. Delicious.

We then decide to drive back over towards Lake Trasimeno to Castigliano Del Lago, another small town overlooking the lake. By now the cloud has drifted away and it’s another beautiful evening. A quick look round the few shops there, and a present for Lauren, before settling on the nicest looking restaurant in town which has a terrace under some trees and a view towards the lake. Another fantastic meal (well, it is my birthday). The meatballs were the best I’ve ever tasted!

If the remaining 364 days of my 40th year are as good as this one then I’ll be a happy boy.

Busy doing nothin’

An even lazier day today if that were possible. Again the morning and afternoon by/in the pool. I finished my Goats book, Rachel finished her Death in Tuscany book. She’s now reading about the Goats. I didn’t fancy the Death in Tuscany book but did try Frances Mayes’ Bella Tuscany, her follow-up to Under the Tuscan Sun, but didn’t take to it. Even though we are surrounded by the countryside she eloquently describes I’m just not interested. As I scan through I stop to read the odd few pages that mention somewhere we’ve been (i.e., Cortona) or plan to go (i.e., Montepulciano) but other than that I don’t thnk I’m her target audience. I’ve started Just a Little Run Around the World by Rosie Swale Pope. It’s a book about her 'little' run around the world, something she decided to do to raise awareness about cancer screening after her husband died of prostate cancer.

Late afternoon we jump in the car to nip down to the shop (emphasis on the shop) in San Leo Bastia to get some bread. Didn’t have much there so continued the 5 miles or so down the road to Trestina the nearest town where there is a Spar, or should I say EuroSpar. (This reminds me of the weekend of my brother’s 40th birthday last summer which a group of us spent at a collection of cottages in Anglesey. Someone asked if there was a shop nearby. “There’s a Spar just down the road,” someone else suggested. To which one of the girls present responded, “oh really, is there a spa here?” only to be immediately told, “not the kind of spa you’re thinking of luv”.)

No bread in the Eurospar either but we did pick up some more essentials (i.e., beer, wine, and stuff for breakfast). We quickly tried another supermarket down the road, where we heard an English couple doing a shop. Aren’t English accents abroad just so grating? Again no bread but we did get some lemon ice lollies for the drive back. Very refreshing, but the stick of liquorice as the stick rather than a wooden lolly stick thew me little. Why would you want to eat liquorice after being refreshed with a lemon ice lolly? It’s political correctness gone mad!

Back home for pasta with Feta cheese, basil, and lemon (no liquorice) and a bottle of wine. We spent our first bit of time in the beautiful living room that has views over the valley. Rachel had bought me Man on Wire on DVD for my birthday (tomorrow!) and so we watched it on the enormous TV. An excellent film of an amazing story of tight-rope walker Phillipe Petit who walked on a wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center shortly after it was built in 1974. All the more poignant after what happened in 2001.

The road to nowhere

Another morning and afternoon lazing in the sun by the pool. Me reading Jon Ronson’s The Men Who Stare at Goats (birthday present from Rachie), Rachel reading A Death in Tuscany. Every so often it gets so hot you just have to dive in to the pool to cool off. It’s a hard life.

Again around 4-ish we head out in the car, this time with a view to taking the gravel road over the hill opposite us towards Lake Trasimeno. We were warned by Marianne and Andrew the day before that it would be twisty and bumpy (which it was) but it apparently cut out a 20 minute drive along this valley and back along the next so it seemed worth it.

“The only place you can go wrong,” Andrew had warned, “is where the road forks and it looks like the road continues straight ahead. But you need to bear right.”

“Just keep to the right,” Marianne had added.

We duly arrived at a fork in the road towards the top of the hill. The main road (using the word “main” and the word “road” loosely here) did look as though it continued straight ahead over the hill and down the other side. But there was a track to the right that continued up the hill. Rachel and I agreed, as we replayed Andrew’s advice in our heads, that we should bear right and continue up the hill. And so we followed the single track road through the trees that was even more bumpy and twisty. And we followed. And we followed. Until… we came across a lorry that was coming the other way! If there was one thing I wasn’t expecting to encounter along this isolated track through the forest, it was a lorry coming the other way. Somehow it managed to get past us. And we thought that the lorry must be coming from somewhere so this road must lead somewhere. And so we followed. And we followed.

Eventually we passed through an open gate. We could make out the word “privat” on the sign next to the gate. But still we continued. We’d come too far to simply turn around. Until we came to another signed that said something to the effect of “No entry to unauthorized personnel”. At this point we considered that we must have come the wrong way. We didn’t fancy carrying along the road only to be stopped by a landowner carrying a shotgun yelling the Italian equivalent of “Get orf moi land!”

Our detour meant we arrived a little later in Tuoro than we might have. Not much there. The town itself was about a mile from the edge of the lake. At the lake’s edge there was a campsite (which reminded us both of childhood camping holidays) and a manmade beach. Not much else. We considered heading back home to have some dinner back at the house, calling in to a supermarket on the way to pick up some essentials (i.e., beer). But before doing so we thought we’d look at Passignano, another small town 5 km along the edge of the lake from Tuoro. Passignano had much more going for it that Tuoro. Although it wasn’t at all busy you could see it would be more attractive to tourists with it being right at the edge of the lake, and having a number of bars and restaurants. We parked the car next to an Alimentari (grocery store) and so were able to do get our shopping (i.e., beer) before having a wander around the town.

We called home to see how Freya was. We couldn’t really hear but picked up that she had been swimming for an hour and a half and was having a lovely time. A text sent by Sandra later that evening confirmed this and added that they had gone out for dinner and Freya had had fish and a crème brulee (presumably as a main course and dessert, not mixed together in the same pot… though I wouldn’t put it past her). We, too, decided to eat out, and found a lovely trattoria hidden down a back street.

The drive home was somewhat less treacherous.

This is the life

Wrote yesterday’s diary entry early this morning sat out on the upper balcony overlooking the hills. A cloudless sky. A croissant for breakfast and then 10 minutes meditation. Wanting to do more meditation this week to kickstart me in to meditating when we get back home.

Down to the pool for a morning’s sunbathing and a swim. Rachel even went topless for the first time ever!

“Hello team!” called an Englishman’s voice from above us. “Is everybody decent?”

“I am”, I called back. Dripping wet, I walked up the steps to meet Andrew who, with his wife Marianne, are caretakers for Scopeto. I’m guessing they are probably in their 60's and discover they moved out to Umbria a little over 20 years ago to a house the renovated just down the road. Their friendly dog, Oscar, takes a rest in the shade as Andrew and Marianne make sure we’re settling in.

“Everything OK?” Andrew asks.

“Fantastic. The place is beautiful!” I reply, "I think I've heard Rachel say 'this is the life' about five times this morning already". Andrew and Marianne proceed to suggest places we could visit during our stay such as the lake (Lake Trasimeno) which is just over the hill opposite us, a great local wine-tasting place, the town of Citta del Castello, and of course Cortona which is about half an hour’s drive over the hills along the valley. Cortona is a hillside town just over the county border in Tuscany made famous by the books Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes in which she recounts her experiences of renovating a Tuscan farmhouse and how she falls in love with the surrounding area. The book was made into a film and much of the location filming was done in Cortona.

“The irony is,” Marianne tells us, “Frances Mayes has now moved over the county border from Tuscany to Umbria to get away from the American tourists that descend on Cortona! American tourists that come to visit the town she describes she fell in love with in her books.” Ironic indeed. Andrew and Marianne bid us farewell and wish us an enjoyable stay. I don’t think that will be hard.

A few more hours sunbathing and swimming, broken only by a home-made lunch of Italian meats, mozarella, baguette, and a rocket salad with oil and balsamic. And an ice-cold beer. Eventually, around 4-ish, we decide we would take a short drive down to the nearest village, San Leo Bastia, to see if the shop was open and just see what was down there. The shop was closed, and so we drove a little further along the road to find a café open but again no shop. Now we were out, we thought we’d take a little drive further along the road to explore a little. Before long we were driving along the high and windy road that would take us over the Tuscan border toward Cortona.

Cortona is, as Marianne described, very beautiful but full of tourists. Not in an overly bad way compared to say Spain but I imagine it is the one town around here that attracts the tourists. It is a fairly small Etruscan walled town set on the hillside with fantastic views across Tuscany. We weren't able to take any photographs of Cortona as we'd left the camera at home (listen to me, I'm calling it 'home' already) thinking we were only popping out to the shop.

There are a few shops there to browse and a number of restaurants and trattoria and so we decided to kick around till 7pm, which is when the restaurants tend to begin serving dinner and eat there. An excellent meal at La Locunda overlooking Piazza della Republica as the birds darted around above our heads. Rachel even reserved the table in Italian. Show-off.

Under the Umbrian Sun

When Sandra and Keith, Rachel’s parents, asked if they could take Freya on holiday for a week this year, it wasn’t long before Rachel was poring through holiday brochures and browsing the web looking for places to go. Not, you understand, places to take Freya. No, no no. Rachel was looking for places we could go. Without Freya.

And so it is that we are sat outside Scopeto, a glorious stone-built cottage tucked away in the Umbrian hills. Rachel’s internet searches have really come up trumps this time. A week of relaxation should be pretty easy here, with only the sounds of birds, and the occasional lizard to distract you. Our own private pool catches the sun* all day, there are three different terraces on which to sunbathe, and the view across what feels like our own private valley is a delight.

It will be our longest time away from Freya. She is spending the week with her grandparents in a cottage in Northumbria. They are joined by Alice, the 17-year old daughter of friends Lynn and Ron. I’ve got a feeling that Alice is going to become Freya’s new best friend. On the flight from Gatwick to Bologna, we seemed to be the only couple who weren’t accompanied by a young child or two, which initially made us miss Freya even more but by the time we were waiting in line at Bologna airport to collect our hire-car, we were simply grateful we weren’t one of the couples having to chase after and/or manhandle a fractious toddler who was getting bored/hungry/tired etc.

The convertible (“cabrio”) Mini that Rachel had hired for the week didn’t materialize. We had imagined ourselves cruising down the Italian highways with the top down with the sun on our heads and the wind in our hair.

“No cabrio” the surly man behind the Eurpocar desk informed us, “I can offer you CinqueCento”. I looked to Rachel, “that’s one of those crappy little Fiats isn’t it?”. Rachel was already letting Signor Surly that she wasn’t best pleased with being offered a CinqueCento when she had booked and paid for a cabrio. None of the other car-hire companies had cabrios either but the one next door did at least offer us an Alfa Romeo which has to be better than a CinqueCento, so we cancelled the Europcar booking and went with the Alfa Romeo.

A few hours later, after a drive through some beautiful countryside, we arrived at Scopeto. Nearest village San Leo Bastia, nearest town Trestina. We’re about half an hour away from Cortona. It’s beautiful.

*Note for readers in the UK. The “sun” is a large firey ball in the sky that sits behind that grey blanket we call cloud. In other countries, it is seen on more than one or two afternoons of the year.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Yesterday was quite an auspicious day. At least it was for me. I finally decided to hand my notice in at the University where I have been employed for the last 10 years! Back in January, I indicated that I was contemplating taking a career break, but after much deliberation (including several sessions with an occupational health counsellor!) I realised that it was time to move on. Anyway, I'd have to apply for a career break and I was told it would be unlikely to be approved by the head honcho, so I thought I'd bite the bullet and give my notice.

Gulp!

Comic genius

I think I might have had a sense of humour bypass without realising it. Last weekend I caught the result of Britain's Got Talent having managed to skilfully avoid the whole thing until that point. It wasn't so much the shock defeat for Susan Boyle that caught my attention, rather the phenomenon that is Stavros Flatley. YouTube won't let me embed the better quality clips of their Final act (which you can view here), so apologies for the poor quality of the clip:



Each time I watch this clip, my sides ache with pain as I guffaw at the sheer comedy genius that this father and son display with their moves in time to the Riverdance music. You read that right folks, they dance to the Riverdance music! And they're a fat father and son! It's funnier than a whole weekend of The Vicar of Dibley crammed into a minute and a half.

More weird science

The book on anomalous experiences I mentioned in an earlier post will hopefully be published later this year or early next year. In the meantime I thought I'd draw your attention to a book editted by a former colleague of mine, and himself a contributor to the Anomalous Experiences book, Dr Craig Murray.

This book has the rather wordy title of Psychological Scientific Perspectives on Out of Body and Near Death Experiences and is published by Nova. More details can be found here. With chapters written by the leading researchers on OBEs and NDEs, it looks set to become a leading text dealing with these unusual, though not uncommon, experiences. Perhaps these experiences tell us something about consciousness, how our brains construct conscious experience, or even shed light on what happens after we die!

All done by mirrors (or is it?)

My mistake. The camera trick linked to in the previous blog was more than likely inspired by this Dr Wiseman trick (not the colour changing card trick):

Camera trick

I came across this today quite by accident and just love it:



I actually discovered it when I stumbled upon a blog that linked to it. The blogger even made reference to the fact that it reminded her of a Dr Wiseman trick (don't worry Richard, I'm sure she meant to say Professor Wiseman). She was no doubt referring to his superb colour-changing card trick. Remember the effect is achieved with no editting. Have a think about how it might have been done before you watch the clip below that reveals the wonderful secret:



Great piece of marketing.. who knows I might even consider buying a Samsung if I didn't already have my eye on an iPhone.

(Just for now, I have stretched the template for the blog so that the full screens from the YouTube clips above are shown. The usual template rather annoyingly cuts off the right hand side of the clips.)

Flowery Twats

After their recent attempt to kill off the nation's brain cells by broadcasting back-to-back episodes of The Vicar of Dibley, G.O.L.D., the nation's favourite comedy channel (apparently), have redeemed themselves. I just caught the repeat of Fawlty Towers Re-Opened, a two-hour documentary about the truly classic sitcom in which John Cleese, Connie Booth, and others from the show talk about why it was so successful, how it was written, what inspired it, and so on. Excellent stuff.

Fans of the show will remember that at the end of the opening credits of each episode, the letters on the hotel sign were re-arranged by the paper boy to spell out different words like 'Fatty Owls', 'Farty Towels', etc. In fact only one of these was an actual anagram of Fawlty Towers...

Israeli bender (of spoons)

Talking of psychics, when I was a kid Uri Geller was a bit of a hero of mine. I guess I have to use the word 'psychic' loosely as nowadays he refers to himself as a 'paranormalist', whatever that is.

I also use the word 'hero' fairly loosely, but he was a big influence on me. In fact he was probably one of the reasons I became interested in the idea of paranormal phenomena as I already an unhealthy interest in magic and conjuring. Geller seemed to be able to bend metal (more often than not in the form of spoons) with the power of his mind as well as start broken watches and reproduce hidden drawings. What Geller did looked an awful lot like magic tricks but he claimed he was doing it for real. And it started me wondering whether any of this stuff could be done for real. I still wonder.

I was hoping that YouTube might provide a clip from the Dimbleby Show on which Geller shot to fame in the UK in the 1970s, but all I can find on YouTube are clips seeming to show Geller bending spoons in less impressive ways. Either that or clips from the various versions of his recent TV shows in which he leads the search for the Next Uri Geller (this is the title of the German version of the show; in the US it went by the name of Phenomenon, and in Israel it was called The Successor). The show hasn't made it to the UK. Yet.

Psychic Unfair

I have long been interested in the possibility that some of us, or indeed all of us, possess some kind of psychic ability. In fact, the vast majority of my academic research over the 15 years or so has examined this question in one way or another.

It was therefore with interest that we paid a visit last weekend to a psychic fair that was being held in a village hall just a few miles down the road from our home. As we paid the £3 each entry fee to the girl on the desk, I looked over the girl's shoulder to glance at the room we were paying six quid to enter (Freya was free). Down one side of the room stood five or six tables selling a little jewelry, a few crystals, and not a lot else. On the other side of the room were a handful of smaller tables at which were sat the psychics giving their readings.

Call me old fashioned but having been to one or two psychic fairs before I was expecting a few more stalls, and perhaps even a few more psychics. Still, we thought we'd enter into the spirit of things and get a reading each (me and Rachel that is, I don't think Freya was that arsed...). To get a reading we were required to put our name down with the girl on the front desk for the psychic (or indeed medium) of our choice. We opted for a reading from a medium so put our name down for someone called Annabel. I would go first and then Rachel, and we'd take turns to look after Freya. While waiting for Annabel to become available we thought we'd wait outside as it was such a beautiful sunny afternoon, and surprisingly Freya found it rather boring inside the hall with absolutely nothing to do.

A few minutes later I wandered back inside to see if Annabel had become free, only to find she was now giving a reading to someone else! What an effective queuing system... It's good that the girl on the front desk was taking people's names so as to avoid just this.

Oh well, perhaps it wasn't to be. Rather than wait another half hour for Annabel to become free (and perhaps be gazumped again) we decided instead to take Freya to a park and enjoy the Saturday afternoon sunshine. We quickly saw the positive side... we'd just saved ourselves £40 and we could be back home to catch the remaining hours of the Dibley-a-thon on G.O.L.D. Yay!

Goose, Moose and Apple Juice

As I've mentioned before, I'm a bit of a fan of Derren Brown. So it was a treat last night to see the man himself in his touring show, Enigma, at the Lowry Theatre in Salford. This was the second time Rachel and I had seen DB in a live show, having seen his An Evening of Wonders show in the West End last summer.

Both shows were excellent. Members of the audience needed on stage are chosen by frisbies thrown out into the audience. At the London show I was lucky enough to be one of about eight on stage at one point for a segment involving pendulums, each made of a large nut tied to the end of a piece of string. Through the power of suggestion the pendulum swings from left to right or in a circle no matter how much you feel you're keeping your arm still.

The best part of the Enigma show comes right at the end which, of course, I can't reveal. Suffice to say, the the title of this post might seem random but it isn't. It seems that DB is in agreement with Spiritual Junkie in so far as nothing is random.

Death by Dibley

This weekend the TV channel G.O.L.D. (which apparently stands for Go On Laugh Daily...) is showing back-to-back episodes of The Vicar of Dibley. Sadly I won't be able to watch these as I'll be too busy sticking forks in my eyes.

The man with the never-ending surname

Yesterday, the video about our research into coincidences that Hannah liked so much made it on to the website of the Liverpool Daily Post. So up yours Hannah!

Speaking of coincidences, while looking for the link to the video on the Daily Post, I just took a look at the Daily Post's main page as that was where the video appeared yesterday. The video that appeared in its place today was about a launch event for something called CAUSE (Children's Aid Using Soccer Events) and featured former Liverpool and England footballer Steve McMananam. The coincidence? Somewhat bizarrely, when Rachel and I were enjoying a meal out on Monday this week, for Rachel's birthday, we recognised one of the large party at a nearby table as a famous footballer. Neither of us were able to remember his name at the time, but when we got home we did a bit of internet searching to discover it was none other than Steve McMananam.

Somewhat of a coincidence that Mr McManaman turns up twice in one week, once in person and once in an indirect link to this project via the Daily Post, don't you think?

Everyone's a critic

As you know, I absolutely love Facebook. Can't get enough of it. So just as I posted about our horse-riding lesson last night, I was delighted to receive an email via Facebook informing me that Hannah Mowl had made a comment on a video of me on Facebook!

If you remember, the University's PR agency suggested we set up a group on Facebook (called 'Do you believe in destiny or chance?' in case you're interested) to help recruit people for a survey on meaningful coincidences that one of my students was conducting. Well they also suggested that a short video on the Facebook page might for some reason attract people. So they did an interview with me a couple of weeks ago, and posted the short video on the site at the beginning of this week.

And now Hannah Mowl had seen fit to post a comment about the video on the Facebook group page. How exciting! I immediately clicked the link that took me to the page to find out what insightful comments Hannah had made. Imagine, then, my surprise as I scrolled down the page to discover Hannah's one word review. The solitary word she had chosen to post to convey her innermost thoughts about the short film about our research project? "fanny".

Thanks Hannah! And I don't even know who Hannah Mowl is! That's what I love about Facebook. Now I can get the insults of complete strangers dropped straight into by email inbox. Cool, eh? I suppose I could be grateful that this is a fairly tame insult (and a step up from insults like "tosser" or "wanker" that I'm used to...) but who knows what future comments might bring?

If you're really keen to watch the offending video then you need to do no more than click here. I was going to say you could also read Hannah's scathing review but it seems as though it's been removed, but you can always leave your own insults!

Why the long face?

The last time I sat on a horse, I cried. I was probably about 9 years old at the time. My sister, Sally, went to horse-riding lessons and so my mum took me and my brother, Anthony, along too. The first few times Anthony and I would just play around while we waited for Sally to have her lesson, but eventually my mum thought it might be a good idea if me and my brother had a lesson at the same time. I don't really remember if we had a choice in the matter, but before we knew it we wearing hats and boots and were lined up next to each other on our respective horses. Sally was on her quite respectable looking mottled grey steed whose name I don't remember, Anthony was on a smaller, hairier, horse I think called Snip, while I was rested upon an animal that went by the name of Jason.

Now Sally, of course, was a more than willing participant in the lesson (indeed she was the reason we were there in the first place) and so no doubt found the whole thing rather enjoyable. Perhaps even fun. But my brother and I were more reluctant riders and so found it less enjoyable. Traumatic even. Anthony probably had the tougher horse as Snip seemed to have trouble seeing through his shaggy mane that fell over his eyes and would often stop half way round the ring to graze on the grass over the fence. My horse, Jason, seemed to be more up for it but paid little attention to what I was doing with the reins or my heels and decided to do whatever he fancied doing in whatever direction he fancied doing it. Which I personally think is fair enough. But you try telling the horse-riding teacher that. (I use the word 'teacher' but I think fascist cow is nearer the mark.) From the beginning to the end of each lesson she would shout her instructions from the centre of the ring, telling me that I was doing it all wrong. Hence the tears. (Hey, I was a sensitive kid.)

These memories re-surfaced today as I agreed to join Rachel for a horse-riding lesson. Yes folks, a horse-riding lesson. I've been reading Susan Jeffers' book Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, so I thought what the heck! (And the fascist cow/teacher of 30 years ago must be retired, or even dead, by now right?)

When we arrived, the smell brought it all back to me. I could almost feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I actually felt a little nervous. And the pair of crutches beside the door of the reception office didn't help my confidence too much either. Still, Ms Jeffers would have been proud of me, as I followed Rachel into the office and found a suitably sized pair of riding boots and hat.

"Rachel, you're on Rosie", the woman behind the desk informed us. "Matthew, you've got Ed". She pointed across the stable yard to a black horse with a white streak down his face. I liked the look of Ed. As we led our horses out to the ring, Ed seemed very laid back, almost not caring. Did he not realise the demons I was exorcising?

Our teacher today was Geena. She was neither a fascist nor a cow. In fact she was really nice. She told us both (me and Rachel that is, not me and Ed...) how good we were doing and she was "very impressed" (her actual words mind) with my rising trot!

The entire lesson passed without a single tear. In fact, I had a smile on my face the whole time.

Men who...

I was looking for information about Jon Ronson's book The Men Who Stare at Goats, and so started to type the title of the book into Google. I got as far as typing "Men who" and of course Google, being Google, suggested the various ways in which this phrase might end. The first surprise was that the phrase I was actually wanting to search for "Men who stare at goats" came up as the first suggestion (with around 298,000 hits)! But I was more intrigued with the other suggested endings to the phrase. Google's second suggestion was "Men who cheat" with 14.7 million hits. Further down the list were the suggstions "Men who can't love" (100 million hits) "Men who have walked on the moon" (4.7 million hits) and "Men who knit"(968,000 hits). What stuck out, though, with 950,000 hits was the suggested phrase "Men who look like Kenny Rogers"!

It would seem that basically having a white beard is enough to count as looking like Kenny.

Blind leading the blind

What do you find yourself thinking about on those occasions when you wake up at 3am and can't get back to sleep? Sometimes it's the strangest things. Freya is teething at the moment and so tends to wake in the night crying. After getting up to settle her, I found I couldn't get back to sleep as my mind starts to ponder some of life's questions. Tonight my mind decided to mull over this little engima...

Those of you who also have young children will more than likely be familiar with the BBC channel CBeebies. One of the more recent additions to the fine range of programmes on CBeebies is called Me too! set in the fictional city of Riverseafingal which is a kind of composite city made up of bits of cities from around the UK. Amongst the array of characters is Rudi who runs a fruit and veg stall on the market. Now the first time I saw Rudi, I thought "he's not a very good actor! He's not even looking at the woman he's supposed to be talking to...". I then I realised there was a good reason for that. He's blind. But what confused me is that at no point do they refer to him being blind. He goes about his business, selling fruit and veg and exploring the confusing hybrid town that is Riversea Fingal as if he can see perfectly well. This confuses me (it's even keeping me awake at night!) so surely it's going to confuse pre-schoolers.

I wish I could get back to sleep.