Categories
Parenting

Cute things that Bernard does right now that he probably won’t do forever

He is still at the crawling stage (he stands, and very occasionally takes a step or two, but crawling is still his primary means of transportation). No terrain is too challenging for him – he can crawl up and down stairs, he can climb down from sofas and beds, and I’ve even seen him climbing onto the sofa once or twice. He also climbs out of the front door if you leave it open.

He’s aware that to climb down from something, you need to do it backwards. So he’ll turn round and reverse into position. Sometimes, he gets into reverse a little early. So you’ll see him crawling backwards across the sitting room towards an open front door that’s about twelve feet away. This gives you plenty of time to close the front door, before tousling his hair and saying “You are so *cute!*”

Another cute thing that he will do is to bring me a book, and then climb up onto my knee to read it with me. Rarely do we read the entire book – generally, he cherry-picks a page or two, and then goes off to find another book or do something else entirely.

Categories
Photos

Sunset

sunset

Just a very ordinary sunset. Of course, we won’t get sunsets like this once the sun has burned out and the earth is plunged into darkness, so I figured that I should preserve an image of it while I still have the chance.

Categories
Gardening

I am a failure, and I can’t deny it any longer

All winter long, I yearned for summer. For all the usual reasons, but also because we’d just moved into a new house and I was looking forward to getting out there and spending lots of time tending our fantastic new garden.

Things didn’t exactly turn out as planned. I was doing okay for a little while, and I even did a bit of fence maintenance, but on the whole, things haven’t progressed perfectly smoothly. Let’s compare what I have and haven’t done, shall we?

Have done

* Dead-headed all the roses (mostly)
* Repaired a couple of fences
* Kept the place clear of Japanese Knotweed (mostly)
* Kept the paths clear of overhanging branches (mostly)

Haven’t done

* Replaced the rotten planks in the gazebo
* Severed the thick trunk of the wisteria that is currently prising my gazebo apart
* Kept the gravel free of weeds
* Kept the borders free of weeds
* Fixed the water feature
* Removed lots of dead branches ((there are lots of places where plants have been cut off at the base as a drastic pruning method, but the dead stems have not yet been removed. It is not a trivial task, as they are tangled up with the roses etc))
* Pruned the wisteria properly (should have done that in July)
* Replaced the rotten garden chair
* Disposed of an old fence post

In summary, my garden terrifies me. It is an oppressive force in my life which I try to forget about whenever possible.

The problem is that it used to be such a nice garden 12 months ago, before we moved in. I was really looking forward to maintaining it at the same level. But I have been unable to, and I have found myself in a downward spiral where my fear of “ruining” it has prevented me from being as assertive as I should have been. Plus, I’m also quite lazy, when all is said and done.

As I see it, I have a couple of options.

1. Hire someone to come in and do the work. A gardener, if you will.
2. Cut everything back down to ground level with a chainsaw and see what survives.
3. Napalm.
4. Combination of chainsaw and napalm, because they’re both awesome, and I can’t choose between them.

What are your thoughts? Graybo, you must be around here somewhere. Tell me what to do.

Categories
Computing TITGIG

Spam-proofing my contact form with Akismet

For a while, I’ve used a contact form (written in PHP) instead of publishing my email address on this site, to thwart spammers. However, recently I’ve noticed an increasing number of spam messages being submitted through the contact form.

My first thought was to add a drop-down box where the user can select what their query is regarding – the default selected option is “My desire to sell you discount pharmaceuticals” and any messages submitted with this option would not be sent. However, the spammers (or the scripts that they use) would generally submit the form with a random selection from this box, so the majority of spam was still coming through.

I didn’t want to make the contact form difficult to use, so I looked into ways of filtering out spam using Akismet, the same application that protects the comments forms on this site (and a very good job it does, I might add).

You will need to download akismet.class.php and upload it to your web server. Rather than rewrite all the instructions here, I’ll point you to the perfectly adequate documentation that already exists.

Categories
Food Photos

Latte

latte

This was the best latte in the world. It’s such a shame that you didn’t get to taste it.

Categories
About Me Photos

My new mountain bike

Today, I bought a mountain bike. It’s nothing special, just a very cheap, second-hand, lowest common denominator mountain bike. Never been ridden on the road, apparently. The guy that I bought it off had gone into hospital for a knee op soon after buying it, and was now unable to use it.

I was somewhat surprised that the rear gear dérailleur did not work at all, but figured that it was probably just a configuration issue, so didn’t let this stop me from forking out £30. When I got the bike home, I got my tools out and flipped the bike upside down. I was most impressed to discover that whoever had installed the kick stand had managed to trap the gear cable, and so the problem was easily fixed. There was also a lot of configuration required, but this enabled me to learn how bike gears work, and it was an educational experience.

I haven’t ridden a bike for about ten years, and I haven’t had much exercise for the last year, so you can imagine how exhausted I was after just a four mile round trip. I’m looking forward to getting my form back.

I also wore one of my brand new t-shirts.

Puppy-driven kiwinaut

This shirt, and many others like it, are available from Dr Pockless on Bountee. Truth be told, I’m not a huge fan of Bountee, but if you want Pockless on your chest, it must be endured.

Categories
Critters

Starfish

starfish

My new mini-tripod at work here, allowing me to take pictures that I would not otherwise have been able to take.

Categories
Top Photos

Weir

weir

Categories
Critters Gardening

Pirates and Ninjas

Cryptolaemus

*Cryptolaemus* are hefty, slow, but unstoppably brutal. They devour mealybugs in vast quantities, plowing through dense egg masses like tanks. Each individual may consume up to 250 mealybugs during its 2-3 week larval stage, and each adult female may lay up to 400 eggs in her lifetime. Do the Maths yourself.

*Cryptolaemus* are cool for the same reasons that pirates are cool.

Leptomastix

*Leptomastix* are small, nimble, and move faster than the eye can see. The female pounces upon the fully-grown mealybug, delivering an attack that will irreversibly lead to a slow, agonising death, before disappearing into the night without a trace. Within two weeks, up to 100 mealybugs will be the victim of this fearful assassin. No matter where her enemies hide, she will find them.

And what is this mysterious poison that she uses? *Her own offspring*, who will devour her target from the inside out.

*Leptomastix* are cool for the same reason that ninjas are cool.

Categories
Parenting Peril

A horror story

This story is disgusting and should only be read by those who have nerves of steel.

Continue reading “A horror story”