Here's a summary of my "Tweets" from today. You can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/artoo_uk

• 08:15 Just discovered www.yukata.de thanks to Nick @shiregames - online play for a selection of board games :) #
• 18:03 Just noticed I gave the link wrong earlier today. To play excellent board games online go to www.yucata.de #
• 18:05 Came home to the Marie Celeste again this evening. Husband and daughter missing, presumed shopping ;) #

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This is what I've been up to today...

• 08:45 Was reading Twilight in the bath last night... next thing I knew 2 hours had passed and the water was cold :-) I recommend it, great read! #

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Here's a summary of my "Tweets" from today. You can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/artoo_uk

• 18:11 Applied for two jobs today, and sewed seeds for a potential third. Let's hope something works out #

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This is what I've been up to today...

• 14:07 just had a mammoth session sorting out and packing up baby clothes for the loft or passing on. Now amazed at the crap on Sky1. Why's it on? #
• 14:08 In other news, the tree two doors down has been cut down. Hooray! We now have Sky reception again :-) #
• 16:15 @R2UK Certainly - when are you free then? :-) #
• 18:14 @R2UK Hmmmm. Well, two birds, one stone - do you want show tickets? #

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As the world and its souse are doing retrospectives about the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago today I feel I should add mine.

I had no idea what had happened. I had no idea for days. In fact I didn't find out until the weekend. In fact I had little inkling that there was any sort of widespread unrest in Eastern Europe.

Now you might think this sounds quite unlike me and wonder what on earth I could be doing to be so uniformly ignorant of world events. You'd be right.

In November 1989 I was working as an au pair in Bergamo in Italy. I had been working there since September and had little access to any sort of media. the family did not leave newspapers lying araound and besides my Italian wasn't up to much, MTV Europe was my only source of English language media and the NME the only regular English language paper I could afford. So whie my knowledge of popular music in the Uk was improving, I had little idea what else was going on.

On Armstice weekend, having been given the weekend off, I stepped off a train at Florence and walked past a newstand which had a display English language paper one of which had the headline 'Berlin Wall Falls'. I walked by putting it down as an April Fool's.

It was several minutes later that it suddenly dawned on me that despite the weather being reminiscent of a British Spring it was in fact an Italian autumn and it couldn't be an April Fool's.

Needless to say when I returned to Bergamo I became more assiduous at finding out when the news headlines were on MTV, saved up to get the previous week's Observer at the vastly over-inflated prices from the train station newsagent and asked my employer about getting a radio. Once I had a radio which had shortwave and I had the World Service I was never cut off again. Plus I got to listen to John Peel once a week so I could finally hear the songs I read reviews of in the NME.

Saturday I went to Winchester to meet up with an old friend and his 88-year-old ex-trapeze artist grandmother to watch the awesome free fireworks. Came out of the station to be confronted by the torchlit procession on its way to the bonfire. A virtually impenetrable tide of people with burning torches surged towards me, it was rather like being the only gill-less person in Innsmouth...



(This is the only photo I could find from this year's procession, it's not mine... my camera shamefully ran out of batteries. This one from 2006 also gives a good flavour of the flaming torches marching through the mediaeval town).

Nana brought a flask of red-hot Gluhweihn and hot chocolate, and the nephews turned up with sparklers. My torch now lies, soggy and crumbly, in my back garden... it still smells of hot paraffin and soot. I do love the smell of trumped-up treason charges in the morning!

Here's a summary of my "Tweets" from today. You can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/artoo_uk

• 08:30 We all coped brilliantly with our first night together in the same hotel room, although I don't think @floyduk appreciated the early wake up #
• 20:46 Safely home after a lovely weekend away. Catherine was an angel, and somehow slept right through the party happening down the hall :) #
• 21:02 I finished Catherine's "homework" from nursery. We were lent "Humpty Dumpty" and had to write down all the adventures he had this weekend! #
• 21:03 I think a four page essay might be more than they were expecting, but I enjoyed writing it :) #

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This is what I've been up to today...

• 01:23 Lovely evening at a bonfire party, then watched Strictly - feel it was the right result tonight. Now off to bed, much too late... #

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Here's a summary of my "Tweets" from today. You can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/artoo_uk

• 13:53 Despite having her own drink, Catherine decided she'd rather have mine. Leaving me thirsty... #

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Since we had our loft boarded and smartened up a few years back, we've been merrily using it to store away the things that we don't need from day to day, or which don't belong in the library. Unfortunately, it's starting to get a bit full in there (what with ias's sewing stuff, my tools, Xmas decorations, the garklet's baby clothes, our suitcases, and so on), so we've been planning on putting some of Mr Kamprad's fine modular shelving solutions up there (specifically the GORM range).

Now, I could just have gone up there with a tape measure and an old envelope to note down how many of each item we needed, but the space is confined enough (and our need for storage great enough) that I am going to have to cut shelves down to fit. Version 1 of the plan was on the back of an envelope, but didn't have accurate measurements. Version 2 was in Illustrator - great for the plan view, not so good for working out whether it will all fit under the roof.

Version 3 is in Google SketchUp, complete with models of the shelves (rather than just bounding boxes). Fortunately, I stopped short of modelling everything in the loft so that I could plan how to fit things on the shelves.

In other news, we took the garklet to the cinema this morning - Harbour Lights (and some other cinemas in the Picture House chain) are screening episodes of In the Night Garden to get the little ones used to sitting quietly in a darkened room. He liked it greatly, and was so well-behaved that I'm toying with the idea of taking him to see Up.

Finally, I've also managed to get around to reading Brundibar to the lad - a Sendak-illustrated version of the Czech children's opera that was first performed in Theresienstadt in 1943. The story itself is charming, but Sendak's illustrations add another layer on top of this (Brundibar is pictured with a toothbrush moustache and side parting, for example) which make this more than just a children's book. I'm still quite surprised that Portswood library had a copy. Highly recommended.

Here's a summary of my "Tweets" from today. You can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/artoo_uk

• 09:54 Today is turning out to be an emotional day. Have just cried all over one work colleague, and I don't feel that it's all out of my system :( #
• 21:58 Frustrating day. Didn't manage to get form finished, still feel like there is so much to do. Also didn't manage to get any housework done. #

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This is what I've been up to today...

• 18:30 @R2UK Oh dear. How did the rest of the day turn out? Hugs xx #
• 20:53 @TheLloydClan Poor you - look after yourself. My sister in law had a quinsy after tonsillitis - is that what they're worried about? #
• 20:54 @TheLloydClan PS just looked up quinsy in the dictionary to check I was right and found it comes from the Greek for "to throttle a dog"!! #

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So, this morning I paid the deposit.
It's official, we're going to the Falkland Islands in January / February 2010.

We'll be flying across on the RAF flight from Brize Norton. And we'll have 26 nights there, in various different locations.

Accommodation is mostly more basic than we usually go to with shared bathrooms in the majority of places and even bunk beds in one. Most meals will be taken with the host families, though in one place we'll be completely on our own for 5 days, self-catering from provided mealpacks.

Can't wait!

Here's a summary of my "Tweets" from today. You can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/artoo_uk

• 07:22 RT @superkathoid: I'm glad I can't type "/played" in FarmVille. I feel like I am spending more time with it than WoW these days. -- Me too! #
• 16:36 Just collected my Bounty "Mum to be" pack, including a free newborn nappy. I'd forgotten how tiny they were! #

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This is what I've been up to today...

• 22:12 @KaveyF @ahnlak There are some links you wish you'd never clicked on.... #
• 22:14 Coming to you from my new Tosh Satellite L500-1DT. Today's been the first real chance I've had this week to start sorting it out. #

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Here's a summary of my "Tweets" from today. You can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/artoo_uk

• 14:15 At the hospital for my booking on appointment with the midwife #
• 17:08 Safely home, and all "booked in" :) #
• 21:51 #WoW Maybe I'm a sucker, but I've just bought the two Blizzard pets. i love my pets :) #

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This is what I've been up to today...

• 09:05 got home from committee meeting at midnight last night. No time to play with new laptop, just to unpack and plug it in to charge :-) #
• 19:15 Feeling depressed. Urgh. I think it's just because I'm really tired though. #

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This is what I've been up to today...

• 10:15 has the usual Monday morning bleughs. Where to start? #
• 15:09 has actually done some Christmas shopping. And some non-Christmas shopping too :-) #

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Hauling my PC out into the open and listening for where the Horrible Grinding Noise is coming from has revealed that the power supply fan has not long to live. Here's hoping that it doesn't fry the motherboard when it finally succumbs.

New beetle was intended to be Halloween-themed, though the Other Half proclaimed it "Christmassy". I'm not entirely sure that it's finished yet: it looks rather like it's marooned above a snow-field at present. Mr Green is from last week, more proof that I still suck at colour.



Today is going to be trying to finish inputting this week's batch of psychology scripts, backing up my thesis (again) and breaking the news to Mr Wide that we will not be putting in an offer on the house we've been viewing exhaustively on the grounds that it appears to be about to down itself (+/- weedy trophies) in the weeping brook at the bottom of the garden.

Ho hum.

This is what I've been up to today...

• 13:47 Had a show anxiety dream last night - it was first night and I didn't know the dances - and I hadn't paid the sound guy! #

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