Headtorch

Last year we took a day trip to the snow with friends, and because it was a long day we wound up coming down the mountain when it was well and truly dark, which meant that when we got to the bottom of the snow fields and had to take the chains off the tyres we were working almost blind.

Our friend opened up the glovebox of his car, pulled out his headtorch and got straight to work. We looked over and Supernerd said "Man, that's a good idea. Why don't I have one of those?"

So for his recent birthday we gave him a headtorch, and although he seemed pleased I don't think he saw an immediate application for it.

Within a fortnight of his birthday one of the loungeroom light globes blew, and it just so happened to be the light that shines on the television and the cabinet underneath it that contains all the tech gear. What it somewhat fails to illuminate is the area behind the cabinet, where lies what I can only describe as a snake pit of cables from each device to the television and seemingly every other device.

On the weekend Supernerd did some testing which resulted in the PVR being unplugged, so the next time he sat down to watch a recording he had to then get up again to dive into the snake pit and reconnect the PVR. Of course it was good and dark back there so he reached into a nearby box, turned briefly to me and said "I love my headtorch", put it on his head, turned on the light and headed on in to the pit.

I should've known he'd find a tech problem for which the solution was his new headtorch.

Don't say you weren't warned

X-Man's mum is having a baby and she's due in about three months.

When we get together we seem to spend a lot of time laughing, which is great for the moment, but closer to her due date I'm going to have to be careful about what I say.

Why is that? Well, I'm glad you asked.

It starts with my Gran. She had a wickedly dry sense of humour that she passed on to my Dad, and he passed it on to me. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, this is the kind of sense of humour that can get you into a lot of trouble, particularly at those potentially disastrous moments when your mouth is faster than your brain.

I don't know how many times my Dad was nearly suspended from school because of his sense of humour, but I do know that he's always been able to put people at ease and make them laugh.

In one of his more famous moments he made a grown man wet his pants, but what really concerns me is that he has reportedly sent three heavily pregnant women into labour just by making them laugh, and herein lies the problem.

As my dear friend gets closer to her due date and grows more and more tired she will no doubt want more support, but can I spend more time with her knowing that I might wind up driving her to the hospital as a result of some feeble joke that I blurt out before I've even thought of it?

So you see my conundrum. I've done all I can do. I told her about my Dad and his superpower and I've cautioned her that I don't know what I'm capable of.

She can't say she wasn't warned.

Lost without Lost

I've come to the conclusion that Supernerd, myself, and three of our friends are the only people left in this country, maybe even the world, still watching Lost.

The last episode will screen here later this week and it has been such a long and drawn out saga that I'm wondering what it will be like to not have to wonder about it any more, which is based on the assumption that all our questions will be answered in the final 50ish minutes of the program, and that seems somewhat unlikely.

So that leaves me wondering about which of the unanswered questions I will wonder about.

Silly, really.

But it's so kind of the producers to go to all the trouble of making the final series, just for the five of us still watching. I must send J.J. Abrams a nice email to thank him.

A source of information

Last year Mars' class went on a school excursion to the Botanic Gardens where they learned about many things including bamboo.

Mars can now explain to you that bamboo is not a tree or a bush, but a grass. Not only that, it's the fastest growing grass in the world and can grow up to a metre within a day of germination.

I've just been sitting at the kitchen table doing not much on my computer, and Mars has been sitting across from me working on a puzzle that Supernerd got for his birthday.

As is so often the way with children, a question comes at me from left field.

"Mum, why does bamboo grow so fast?"

"I don't know Mars, what do you think?"

"I think You need to go and ask your Dad."

Give it a new name

Something we've learned from the television program Charlie and Lola is that sometimes, if you're very lucky, by giving a food a funny name you can get your child to try it, maybe even eat it.

I can't remember having to do this kind of thing very much when Mars was little, but Venus likes to randomly give up whole food groups for periods of time ranging from one meal to two months, so some nights we try everything we can to get her to eat.

Anyway we started off by using the names that Charlie uses to get Lola to eat certain foods. He calls fish fingers ocean nibbles, carrots become orange twiglets from the planet Jupiter, peas are green drops, cherry tomatoes are moon squirters and mashed potato is cloud fluff from the top of Mount Fuji.

We've taken to calling various shapes of pasta by new and interesting names. Penne are tubes, macaroni are rainbows, gnocchi are pillows and tortellini are belly buttons. Broccoli has become green trees and cauliflower is white trees (although my children won't eat it no matter what I call it), and potato gems (or pommes as they are sometimes called) are now known as dinosaur eggs.

Recently X-Man's mum made some fantastically delicious apple and raspberry crumble and very kindly brought some over to our house. So that night when we were all finished with dinner and were waiting for Venus to finish so we could have dessert, I heard myself say the words "Venus, if you eat all of your dinosaur eggs you can have some gruffalo crumble."

Sadly, she didn't eat her gruffalo crumble. Happily, I got to eat it for her.