So, when the Rainbow Slider said that she needed a holiday apparently that included the blog. Last week she caught me at a weak moment and it seems that I agreed to share the writing of the page. It wasn't so much of a weak moment actually and more of a 'should have asked the pertinent question concerning why she wanted me to go and sign in to the account' type of moment. You really would think that I'd have learned my lesson by now. She has the uncanny skill of getting me to agree to doing things like putting my boys on the site without me noticing what she's up too. In my defence I've been a bit distracted what with moving house and trying to get to the year end in work without killing someone.

Just so you're aware what you'll be getting when I'm the one on the keyboard. There'll be no photos I'm afraid - I leave that skill to other members of this page. They can look through view finders and take pretties. I cut off peoples heads or feet and sometimes even both at once and before the digital revolution developed lots of pictures of my thumb. The family called a halt to my David Bailey career the day I made the littlest child fall into a trough of water in a theme park. The older children have got a lot of mileage out of this story in a variation of the common 'You were an accident - the rest of us were planned' torture that siblings do to each other. I was determined that I was going to take a picture of the child that could be put into an album. We were visiting one of those model village parks in the Loire and I got him to stand in front of one of the Chateau which were all surrounded by water in an attempt, I suppose, to stop people going in and pinching the little people. Baring in mind he was only two at the time so hadn't yet got to the stage of 'Clear off Mum' he posed smiling cheesily at me. Only I couldn't see all of him and started doing the ' Move back a bit honey, a bit more, a bit more, wee bit more' juggling to get both his head and his feet and the chateau in the picture. Unfortunately I was paying more attention to the composition and less to the proximity of the shuck. And he being a good child was doing what Mummy asked and kept moving back and yes, then there was a splash and a wail and then I was glared at by lots of other tourists and was made to surrender my responsible mummy card. Look, I bought him whatever he wanted in the gift shop. Even at two he could do guilt. So there will be no photos.


There will be moaning and pontificating though and quotes - I like a good quote. We could play quote wars but that won't work because none of you use the comment box so it would be one sided and that's no fun.

Today's moan concerns moving house. Much as I love the new house the process of getting here, as those of you who have either read the comment box or have been the recipient of emails you were afraid to open in case they started shouting like the Howlers sent to the students of Hogwarts know, has been just a tad stressful. I've got fingernails which wouldn't be out of place on the hands of a navvy, so many bruises that i could play human dot to dot, and can't find anything. It's this not being able to find anything that is the real subject of today's gripe. The men in my life don't seem to be able to grasp the concept that Mum's/wife's radar has been switched off during the move. I swear that men/children think that part of the bodily structure of a woman has a 'finder of everything you've lost' included with all the other organs. Himself this morning ' Where's my PDA?', youngest child, ' Where's my tracksuit for PE?' Eldest child, 'Mum where's the lead of my Ipod?' They all at various times this morning did that gormless look expecting the 'font of all finders' to spring into action. And all were disappointed. I have enough problems at the moment finding the cooker without bothering about incidentals. I shocked them all into silence with the well known phrase of 'Well it's not hanging from my lip.' Middle son entered kitchen to me telling the cats that the next person to ask me the whereabouts of articles that were not my responsibility would be shot at dawn. He looked at me , looked at the cats and decided that discretion was the better part of valour and left to look for his own school shoes. Unfortunately. It was only as he left the car to go into school where they're anal about the correct attire that I noticed the bright red Converse on his feet. I'm obviously scarier than his Head of Year.

Finishing with a quote in honour of my writing partner who has bolstered me through this week with jokes, advice and chocolate trying to get me to see sense and not to try to unpack all the boxes at once,
'The only thing that has to be finished by next Tuesday is next Monday.'

Oh and thanks to Scally who directed us to the new images - ain't they purdy?