Attention employers!

Employers! Check your inboxes!  20 of you have received a CV from me!

Some of them were sent over 48 hours ago – why is it taking you so long to get back to me?

That is all.

“Barbie & Ken Wedding”

The Lovely Melanie has just sent me this.  I have no idea what is going on, but I’m crying with laughter.

By the way, that strange accent comes from a sort of puppet show I used to do while they were in the bath.

It featured a toy frog who called all the other bath toys “Dave”, much to their disgust.  He spoke in that accent, and Amber now uses it for any talking toys.

Millie’s 7th birthday party (Family)

I finally got round to uploading some pictures from Sunday’s party – Millie’s 7th birthday party for family (the party for friends is this Saturday).

There are some particularly great shots of people wearing my “rave” sunglasses (I almost forgot, while we were not indoor skydiving last week a pair of hipsters asked where I got them from – they were very confused when I said “Elephant & Castle“).

I’m hoping my Dad uses that picture of him in the rave glasses as his Facebook profile picture… 🙂

Also, that blue “top” hat you see throughout is mine, but it was sooooo fashionable that everyone wanted to wear it.

The party’s theme was “Harry Potter”, but as you can see there are varying degrees of commitment  to that on display – and some people (i.e., me) just went ahead and did their own thing.

My costume was a “magician” rather than a “wizard” – which actually means I got a bit carried away buying costume bits on eBay.  At one point my ensemble even included a silver and black domino mask, but that was a step too far, I was told it was decided.

But that’s just me – why be a drab old wizard when you can be a super sexy magician?! 😉

Just another vacancy

Some particularly annoying news today.

You remember I’m on the cusp of redundancy once more?  That my stint as a Chelsea copywriter comes to an ignominious end in less than six weeks?

You might also remember how there was a copywriter job coming up at the parent company of my employer, and how, after speaking to various involved people, I was given the very distinct impression that yours truly was a shoo-in for it.

Guess what?  I’m not.

I wouldn’t have minded if it had been just another vacancy. “Just another vacancy” would have been fine: just another application form, no expectations, no raised hopes.

Sigh.

So today, at work, I’m being unbelievably polite and helpful to cover up how annoyed I really am.

Letting bygones be bygones

One of the things I love about children is that they don’t hold grudges.

They might sometimes be petty and unthinking and prone to dramatic outbursts, but they make up just as quickly as they break up.

This morning, for example, Amber had a massive benny because I asked her to take a cardigan with her to nursery.  She didn’t have to wear it now and could hang it on her peg as soon as we got to nursery, but I wanted her to take a cardigan just in case it got cooler later.

Cue massive benny.  She carried on like this all the way to nursery, sitting behind myself and Millie all the time we were on the bus, glowering at us from narrowed eyes.  That’s quite a long time if you’re a four-year-old, trust me.

But two minutes later, she and Millie were doing the usual walking on the wall, falling off into my arms, and I got a big kiss as I dropped her off as though nothing had happened.

I rather like this way of letting bygones be bygones.  I wish adults could do it as effortlessly as children do.

A week of celebration begins!

Millie’s seventh birthday celebrations have begun, despite it being another week until she’s actually seven.

The Lovely Melanie did a wonderful job of making today’s family party very special for her and everyone there had a wonderful time.  No, really, it was an unashamedly great day – I hope she looks back on this party and remembers it as a great one.

The main differences this year were that, (i) Nobody got naked, (ii) It was Harry Potter themed, and (iii) there was a lot of singing, as you can see…

It was a real shame that both Uncle Rich & Uncle Trev couldn’t be there, as Millie got a guitar for a present (as you can see in the video) which she loved.  Unfortunately, no-one at the party could play guitar.  But I’m seriously thinking of paying for some lessons for Millie – unless Uncle Rich would like to try and teach her a few chords and we could see if she’s genuinely interested in learning…?

But it was a lovely day and we’d like to thank everyone for making the effort to come and for making it such a day to remember for the girls.

Millie was so very very sweet opening her presents this morning – she squealed with delight and ran round the bed to give us a kiss every time she opened one.  Even I – befuddled by sleep and the hour (6.30am) was delighted in return.

Millie even took the time to thank Amber for the card she had made specially and to compliment her on a job well done.

What a lovely little girl she’s growing up into. 😀

Exoplanets

Good old XKCD, they never fail to both amuse, educate and amaze (I’m sure Lord Reith would have approved.  Well, maybe…)

Today they’ve created this wonderful picture of every exoplanet so far discovered, all 786 of them – did you know there were that many?  Up until very recently there were NO known planets outside of our solar system and our chances of actually discovering any were thought to be very very poor indeed.

It may not be scientifically rigourous, but it says more than any spreadsheet ever could. (click on the image to see a full-size version).

I wonder how much bigger this diagram will be in a few years’ time… 🙂