A busy weekend as yesterday saw Bethany turn 2 and some preparations and the actual party on Sunday filled our time in readily enough. An expensive week started with me being issued with a parking ticket after dropping Alison and Bethany off outside the library on my way to work. Rather than use the lift Alison needed a hand carrying the pushchair up he steps at the front of the building and I waited inside with Bethany whilst Alison got her books. After 5 minutes I came down the steps to see the traffic warden filling in the ticket as I was in a disabled area. My entreaties to her were fruitless as was the appeal to the council whose paraphrased reply was basically "We sympathise, but tough shit".
   I accept that I was in the wrong but the lack of parking and the extortionate prices charged for doing so does put me off using the town. Thanks to the internet I avoid it as much as I can and I'm surely not alone when people also have the option of using retail parks where the parking is free. As a result the town centre, along with many others, is suffering and I wondered if instead of halving the £70 fine if paid within a fortnight, they issued some sort of high street voucher for an equivalent discount that could then be used in local shops. I stress local shops as it defeats the object of helping small retailers if some large chain store is boosted by the scheme or even if it was spent on the weekly shop at the supermarket.
   As it happened we had to go into town on Saturday for a few items including some party balloons for Bethany. Alison had seen and was after some helium balloons with Happy Birthday on it and some princesses and one with the number 2 on. The first was no problem but that number was missing from those available but they did have one in the shape of a 2 which we handed over to be inflated, musing that it was twice the price due to the design.

It was actually bigger than Bethany but thankfully we still managed to fit it in the car along with all her presents the following day when we took them to the pub.
   I had hoped to have her birthday off at work but unfortunately that had already been taken so in a bit of a grump I took the rest of the week as a holiday. This meant that on the Sunday I still had to get up early for work so after returning home with Helen in tow I made my packed lunch and started assembling the toy kitchen that she had received from Helen. I managed to complete it in time for Bethany to have play with it before she went to bed and I gave Helen a lift home. When I got back home Alison was in the bath so I hung my coat up and prepared to go to bed. That was when I heard a tapping noise, but could not place it until I looked up and saw the big bulge in the ceiling, below the bath, where water was starting to drip down onto the plastic sheet by the front door. Slightly panicked I grabbed a bucket and phoned my dad who sensibly instructed me to turn the water off and said he would call round in the morning.
   I went to work but Alison phoned to keep me updated and said that my dad had taken the side panel off and there was a plumber coming at 2pm. I managed to put a half day in at work and got back to:

Apparently the waste pipe had been cross threaded and filled in with a load of silicone. The plumber fitted a new one and charged £40 which I was pleasantly relieved about especially as the damage was limited to that one area as well and should only need one piece of plasterboard to cover.
   I was going to go and spend more money whilst Alison and Bethany are out by making a start on some Christmas shopping but my cheque book and savings account book are no longer in my bedside drawer. Alison did mention a while back that given Bethany's penchant for opening them drawers and removing items from them, she thought it best to move them to a safe place. Unfortunately I do not know where that safe place is and after looking in the obvious and some not so obvious places I've given up on the shopping idea especially as I haven't received an answer back from the text enquiry I sent Alison. Easily dissuaded at the best of times I think I'll put the kettle on.

Small victories. The smug part of me had a mini ego massage this last week with various positive responses on Twitter. I had a couple of top 5 entries on the word game artwiculate indicated that some people thought my tweets were worthy enough to vote for and not just the sympathy vote generated for new players or the mutual retweet swap that can happen between some groups who follow each other. There is nothing wrong with that and I suppose it is simply repaying a compliment although I try to avoid it as much as I can but do occasionally fall into that trap. I feel that if I retweet because someone retweets me then that diminishes it's purpose and the recipient may feel (perhaps rightly) that there's is a guilt retweet. However, by only retweeting what I consider worthy then hopefully the recipient appreciates how much I rated their tweet. No doubt they probably think me rude for not wanting to vote for other's tweets so my own rate higher!
   The other pleasure comes from the general positive reaction I get from the #ffs I send. Rather than list a load of names that I recommend people follow I like to craft individual rhymes. These started as a general rhyme but has now progressed that I rhyme the actual account name with varying degrees of success. Those with a lot of numbers in their name are more problematic simply for the fact that there are only a few things you can rhyme 71 with without becoming repetitive. Rhyming the whole name also means that the end result may become somewhat clunky, or if a short two syllabled name, too obvious. A number of people have answered back to say how much they appreciated them, however, which is always a  nice reward and that someone glowed about theirs cheered me up no end. Again I fear if some think I may be fishing for compliments but the whole nature of ffs would make all who participate equally guilty and I like to think that I put a little more thought into them. As it happens, I sometimes give a little groan when I receive one myself as I feel obliged to come up with another rhyme in response - only more generic to thank them and offer them the compliment back in return. This I do as generally I may have sent them a rhyme previously and they are now responding in later weeks. If I have not sent them one previously then I will either do so if composed or simply thank them and add them to the to do list for the following week.
   To receive a glowing personal ff myself slightly embarrassed me but with a self indulgent bit of pride that someone took the trouble to write such nice things about me, no matter that not having met me had allowed them to overestimate my abilities. I do have a secret fear that certain people who are following me think I am  some sort of creative type who can actually write. Others participating in artwiculate are writing proper poetry in styles I have never heard of whilst I'm scribbling doggerel down with the odd classical reference I've picked up from reading Livy and Ovid. It surely can't be long before I am found out to be the fraud that I have always claimed I am, although being polite they will simply unfollow and quietly forget about me.
   I think it's safe to say that I have not found my target audience yet as it so far consists of people far too wordy themselves to require my services or simply not interested, preferring to use Twitter to flirt and repeat crap jokes. Still it's fun and not worrying about the whole poem thing means I can just mess around on there like everyone else.
  
   This last week has also seen Bethany continue to participate in domestic chores as she copies our behaviour and wants to take part. Aside from helping to empty the washing machine and carry the clothes to the airer, she has taken a liking to polishing the dining room and kitchen floor with the electrostatic mop which is light enough for her to push around the laminate. She did attempt to continue into the hall and living room but soon noticed the friction from the carpet stopped her in her tracks. She has also got into the habit of getting a tea towel out of the bottom drawer (which she can now open) when we start to wash the dishes and wants wet pots passing so that she can dry them. I try to restrict her to teaspoons although she fancies the look of the more breakable items. This often means washing an item, drying it and passing it to Bethany to 'dry' again before I open the cupboard door for her to put the item on the shelf, where I then stack it properly and close the door again to wash the next item. The dishes now take twice as long to clean.
   As a thought, this whole helping with the housework does last forever doesn't it?

I feel slightly shame faced to return to this blog after a couple of weeks of ignoring it after spending my limited spare time on Twitter. Here I am though, tail between my legs, slightly drunk with a feeling of obligation that I should write something. It was was never the intention of this blog to become a chore and I certainly don't mean to sound like it is only my own feeling of necessity to write something on a regular basis. What i should realise is that an informal blog is precisely that and I should post entries as and when I feel I have something to say, not because it's been a few days since my last post.
   For all that when I was regimentally keeping the 3 blogs going  was posting something every other day whereas now it is more like once a week. The quality is no doubt as crap as ever but I think if I have a point to make Twitter does offer the opportunity to express myself succinctly and timely on a subject after which I don't always feel the need to expand upon that point.
   Actual news, as always, centres around Bethany (that almost sounds resentful and it certainly is not meant to). Her climbing and vocabulary skills continue to progress apace with her keen to repeat as best she can phrases she has just heard. Returning to the ever popular 'Shuttle & Loom' yesterday, Bethany not only managed to climb to the top of the play area but had no difficulty negotiating the tube and climbed back down herself on a number of occasions. The added bonus came as I was leading her outside to play on the slide when the woman at the table stopped me to question whether I lived opposite. As it turned out they do live over the road from us and we were only just meeting after they had been where they are for 11 years and we have been here for 8. Alison, noticing something afoot, came over to establish more formal contact whilst I took Bethany outside. When we returned they were just leaving with their daughter (who Bethany had been playing with) and Alison filled me on what little she had gleaned. A commitment to go over with wine seemed to have been vaguely arranged with us happy to have met friendly neighbours in our age group. From what Alison related they remain sober during the week only to let their hair down at the weekend when job constraints are no longer pressing. This may mean me having to perfect another non-specific greeting suitable for acknowledging people I know and am on friendly terms with but don't quite yet consider a friend. The friend is easy as you say hello and talk as normal depending on how close a friend they are. Familiar faces that you don't know but see regular can be greeted with a simple nod of the head. This was taken to that uncomfortable middle ground at work the other day when passing a contractor who has been doing various bits of work for several months. As well as nodding as we passed we both opened our mouths as if to say hello but without actually saying anything, so that it appeared as if two goldfish were passing each other.
   I like to think that the air of polite detachment I use works so I shall stick with that until the situation deems it unnecessary and due for an upgrade.