http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eVD53uKgsc

Road workers have bling on their STOP GO signs, where have I been? (er, OK 7 years abroad). I just passed a small gang with diggies by the forest and the workmen were holding one of these up like a kind of giant diamante lollipop, flashing lights in the form of STOP. It was plugged into his quad thingy. Well well. Now I can see how this would be useful at night..but they don’t work at this sort of thing at night…..so….perplexed. Men at work in modern Britain. In contrast the Pakistani workmen on Jeddah’s building sites wore flip-flops sometimes.

‘Ealth and safety sandals mate innit.

I get surprised all the time I find. Like when the council workers were out trimming the verges in the autumn when the grass was already sporting a short back and sides, or when I received the most enormous encyclopaedic well-meaning tome about having a child from my midwife even though friends had given me almost a library already. Unable to balance book on bump or knees before the birth and on four hours sleep after, any time or energy for light reading was reserved for the fabulous Baby Centre. On my mobile, succinct, tiny and able to operate with one hand free.

Yey, light is right.

All this talk of recycling…can’t we get around giving out unnecessary forests in the form of books? Funny thing was too, I was quite chilled out about the birth in Saudi Arabia, it was only when I got back here that people started freaking me out with warnings of this and that. Well I did look particularly fetching, legs like Nelson’s column, after the flight back. Just glimpsed hubbie sliding some latex gloves into the hand baggage and discretely swotting up on obstetrics the night before. Mopping brow with relief after touching down in Manchester, apart from observing whale-type expansion in wifely bi-ped, nothing to get soaped up for.

Which brings me neatly onto the subject of wind. It’s kind of blowing wild enough to be a blizzard, but no snow just wind, so please can I call it a wizzard? I’ve pulled up in a layby so BB can snore in peace and the car is rocking from side to side in quite an alarming way. I guess there’s not a lot between us and Ireland, except some really mammoth waves today.

The sheep in front of me are facing it with their bottoms (if you get my meaning), as am I with the boot of the Renault, and they’re not rocking at all – the sheep that is. I guess hooves are more cling-on than wheels. I may be a general idiot but I’m very glad I wasn’t born a sheep. What long tails they’ve got, and they’re swinging in the wind like bell-pulls. Realise I sound like the wolf in Red Riding Hood.

Moving on.

The new Miss Romania arrived yesterday so nights out as parents beckon in the near future, which is groovy. Stayed up too late Twittering again and think I’m beginning to get the hang of it. Though still can’t work out why I don’t get all replies to my tweets, as I accidentally discovered them on the writer’s page…hmmm. Works a lot better for me if I forget about being serious, so decided to throw in my hat and be a committed moron in this domain. Teaching was better when you could be a creative idiot in the classroom (in an intelligent way, naturally), but not often possible unfortunately, even with stealth operatic clownings dispersed amongst the collage materials.

BTW why do they always say “gloopy glue” on CBeebies?

The mist is coming in now. Awake at 5.00am again. Feel my brain turning into sponge.

BB put the potatoes in the washing machine yesterday, exploring new ways to make mash. Just one of his adorable qualities is his desire to help.

Dirty clothes meet
The veggies ooh, meet the veggies! Lala lalala lalala!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfhCUFAeg1Y

Dr Egypt just passed his British driving test this morning, and this fact should help his car insurance to plummet to merely exhorbitant levels like the rest of us. And it was helpful that a mechanic stopped the driver door from sticking long enough to enable Dr E to get in gracefully via the normal route rather than clambering head first through the passenger door again, maybe the first clambering consultant to be spotted at local health venues in recent days.

Oh and Valentine’s Day was celebrated with an argument about Valentine’s Day (‘I don’t understand it and it has nothing to do with Valentine and none of the nurses know anything about Valentine anyway and I can’t do something I don’t understand’). Damp squib doesn’t quite cover it, but near enough.  I guess I’m more than happy to do something like that – I don’t really need much of an excuse for a romantic knees-up and I don’t remember being strewn with flowers for quite some time. I think the last time was as an exhibition opening in Jeddah, c2010,and it was some other fella doing the strewning as I recall, platonically enough.(Got a great bunch of weirdo exotic flowers later on however, shaped like frozen flames and the texture of wax, arrived in a mystery box with giant helium heart.  Well done Dr E, even the most cynical girls love this stuff, right?)

I’m a bit horrified about this 15% of the world’s children being malnourished announcement today, and it really puts any tiffs about missing bouquets into perspective. Food prices are mad compared to two years ago and it must be hell in poorer places. I’m very turned off food programmes on TV generally with folks fussing about this and that. It’s already enough to stifle my feelings when I have to throw rejected toddler nosh away, I’m getting to be intolerant of fuss-pottery and the old idea of a grace to be thankful for whatever food we have seems to me not only courteous but generous to the planet.

“Neiiiiiiigh” That’ll be the High Horse galloping away now.

BB is snoring in the back seat and now the car is getting cold. Man I miss the sunshine. After a week of head colds in succession we finally got togged up to visit the neighbour’s baby and walked out to an immediate rainstorm so bailed it into the car. Now we’re parked up overlooking the sea next to a sign saying Dim Parcio (No Parking), but it’s OK, any approaching tractor will be deftly accommodated and BB will have the rush of seeing more mechanical action – bliss on wheels for him. Quite fancy seeing a sign that reads ‘Nice But Dim’ or ‘Dim Wit Only’.

Oooh look, a slither of blue sky. Ooooh look, it’s gone again.

I love Aldis, can I say that? I mean their cucumbers taste like cucumbers for one thing – which is quite a big thing in our house btw. Dr E and me eating pretty much a daily salad in Saudi meant that in the first six years of our marriage and eating a minimum of 2kg of mini Egyptian cucumber per week, we consumed say 48 weeks x 2kg = 96Kg, and since each kg contained around 15 c’s, that rounds off to about 1,440 per year of the things, or 8,640 in 6 years and yet surprisingly, we haven’t turned green or dissolved into mush. I tell you, if this had been part of the deal in the marriage vows it would make you pause a little wouldn’t it?. It’s retrospectively horrific. As it was, my Arabic was fluent enough during that particular ceremony for me to inform all of those present that I promised to be a good potato….but enough of that for now.

In the meantime, back to Aldis, where I got the best Xmas pudding outside of childhood there – even after the event (hugely discounted), so I made a small pyramid of the articles on top of the fridge. Yeah well in our little cottage there’s about zero storage space and pyramids kind of run in the family, I even met Dr E in one, a steel and chrome one I should add, not the original. Done that actually, more than a bit creepy to feel you’re in the middle of all that stone brrrrrrrrr.

Am feeling pretty grey today on account of being summoned to provide fodder by BB at 5.45am this morning with accompanying trampolining and decibels. Most insistent and tummy rumbling noisily to prove it. Bechod (‘what a shame’ – my English speaking friends). Not a big deal really, only I stayed up on the groovy side of midnight tweeting and couldn’t leave it alone. Hash tag Mundanefilms seemed to drive my brain nuts and kept on thinking them up and enjoying everyone else’s. Surprisingly therapeutic. But now I feel hungover – odd indeed considering it was a dry night.

Don’t you think it’s a shame we can’t use all this rainwater for something – I mean all the stuff that’s not falling on plants that need it? A little of it gives you a pretty amazing facial I discovered out running in the drizzle, but that’s not very marketable, granted.

Ooh BB’s woken up. Time to buy biscuits and bananas, 27p for custard creams here, coming near the top of Dr E’s British favourites list, I ask you.

Time to trolley dolly, toodleloo

Happy to say that Romania found grey drizzly dank days exotic and highly pleasurable, whilst I was waiting for the bright crispy frosty ones with the only glee I seem to get in this winter climate – anything with sunshine will do me. We have been a little United Nations in our Welsh nook and since we expect to have a new helper zooming over soon, (can bus it from Romania to Bangor…….is I kidding?) sure she’ll be delighted to find us basking on Anglesey in -5 degrees after the tad-more-nippy -25 to -30 or so of Eastern Europe. We may have to go off to Beaumaris’ bonnie parlour for a bit of celebratory pash fruit ice cream –  ice cream eating in winter being such an underrated activity. My best experience of eating ice cream ever was in -20 January day in St Petersburg as a student. I walked around all afternoon holding the same ice cream which, as a novelty, quite refused to melt of course. At that time of year, the whole city looked pretty much like a wedding cake so it seemed fitting enough to carry a chunk of snow-type decor myself, intermittently self-giggling at the billowing steam coming out of my mouth – first great dragon impersonation of my life so far. Fnarr Fnarr. Not quite so icily challenging here, and alright, Beaumaris Castle isn’t quite the Winter Palace, but ice cream in winter is so nice anyhoo, especially in this toasty parlour.

http://www.redboatgelato.com/

I wonder if we’ll get more dietary challenges? (hubbie not eating pork or duck or turkey….Romania not eating lamb or beef or seafood), though there was a celebratory “Ah haaa!” for chicken farmers at the time. In the meantime of course young Bobbie Bryn bach (that’s ‘little’ in Welsh my English friends) is getting introduced to whatever we have with less spices and in what I’m told is typical toddler style, LOVE LOVE LOVING the  beef/chicken/whatever stew one day and SHOO SHOO SHOOING it away with disgust a few days later. All attempts at gorgeous arrangements of smiling vegetables have been thrown passionately across the room. Though of all the dips presented I never expected taramasalata to be the hot favourite (well cold really of course). Good enough to rub the hands in and lick all over, with cream cheese coming a slightly less surprising second. And who is this person who keeps telling us that kids love carrot sticks? Cucumber maybe, as BB always makes a lunge for the articles as soon as Tesco-man has set them down in the kitchen, hauling them up and biting right through the plastic covering (yeah why do they put THAT on??) with glee and baseball bat-style flailing about.  But carrots, forget it in all formations of al dente to totally raw. What has been even more successful is making instant crumbles with smashed up rusk biscuits. Whoever invented that biscuit (Mr Rusk?) really cleaned up, I mean wow, does anything compete with this product?

Am loving also, Cambridge Baby’s woolly jumpers and trousers this winter mmm mmmm, yeah, we don’t want hoods with everything folks, and we are living in a freezer up here. Forget cotton man for now, it’s blinkin’ cold. And just as it said on the tin, BB fell about in the long wet grass and sprung up quite happily with the water bouncing right off, duck stylie – which is about as scientific as we get over here to prove that sheep…..and therefore wool….are waterproof (as if the thousands stoically bearing the constant rain without bronchitis wasn’t proof enough).

http://www.cambridgebaby.co.uk/catalog/

So am I turning into a ‘raving about’ mum? There’s a lot of passion in products I’ve discovered, when they really solve practical issues, never thought I’d get woolly trouser passionate though. Life if full of surprises, thank God. And do they make them in adult sizes?, I was asked at toddler group this week, ideas for you at CB. Though they may be cosy I don’t think they will quite cut it in the island fashion stakes for mums, even it we are just a tweak away from Oxford Street.

And thanks to Martina for running the ‘living up to it’s reputation’ Baby Gym in Bangor and putting smiles on so many kids’ faces. Wow, BB is mad for it, and so are all the other scores of toddlers tearing around, leaping off vaults, dangling from rope ladders and charging down the runways with giant bouncing balls. I pretty much enjoyed throwing myself onto crash mats too – in the interest of demonstrating the possibilities to BB. Therapeutic all round.

Meanwhile he still has the donkey dance to maintain his fitness at home. A five times daily workout is his current average, reckon donkey has the most pliant neck in the neighbourhood too.

Yowser.

It was so fantastic to feel our neck of the woods coming alive last Sunday as the Anglesey Sandman Triathlon 2011 set up shop in Newborough Forest. Despite a ghastly morning outlook of downpours and whipping winds, around 11-ish the sky brightened and beautiful zippy September sunshine lit us all up. Deep broad chasms of awe and respect to all these competitors who challenge themselves with this kind of toil. And OK, the sea, for once, looked like an ironing board with a bit of a frill at the edges for waves – but all the swimmers would have been just as game to face a hoolie (the kind that had the kitesurfers at Rhosneigr breaking speed limits the previous Sunday), so RESPECT and big time congratulations to everyone. (http://angleseysandman.com/)

Living as we do in walking distance of all of this and frankly wishing there was a bit more going on, it was great to have an event like this bringing folks here. Purists may baulk, but we’d love to see a nice café down by the beach offering hot chocolate and sticky buns on wintry Sunday afternoons to help the dog-walkers defrost, or a chilled glass and a Greek Salad in July. How about a shop selling beautiful locally made woodwork and other skilled crafts? How about a bookshop with tales of the forests? Or a dog walkers emporium to support the sartorial requirements of what the best dressed terriers are wearing this autumn? And their owners? Hot soup, an open fire and new bandanas for kitesurfers, a pocket guidebook or ipod app suggesting 100 ways to make good use of this amazing beach in foul weather – I can think of a few:

Play Spanish bats with your dog (kind of wooden tennis will drive your pooch nuts with excitement).

Jump the waves in wellies with your toddlers.

Collect fragments of jasper in a toy bucket, then throw them all back where you found them.

Spin giant fronds of seaweeds in a twizzle and see your collie go wild trying to snap at it.

Jog through the forest’s fragrant paths and harmonize with your inner yang or yong or something.

Collect cowry shells in a bucket, then throw them all back where you found them.

Try to stop thinking about the Red Sea.

Practise trying to say Llanfairpwllgwyngyll in a loud voice on the top of a sand dune.

Treasure hunt the most giant stranded jellyfish, but certainly don’t put them in a bucket or throw them anywhere.

Tickle the sea amemones in rock pools (but only for a minute to be fair).

Bury your boyfriend in sand up to his elbows, facebook this image.

Collect muscles when the tide is low, spend idle hours back at home scraping the little blighters and wishing that barnacles would just stick to boats.

Try not to think about buying seafood in Jeddah.

Experiment with natural energy generated turbines.

Make a sand sculpture and then decorate it with pebbles.

Fish for mackerel, fly a kite, kitesurf.

Pretend to everyone nearby that you can see a shoal of seals, “ooh-aah” a lot with your hand up to your forehead and pointing.

Try not to think about Greek tavernas and warm olives.

Can’t stop thinking about Greek tavernas and warm olives.

Give up and go to the Greek Taverna in Bangor, ………eat olives.

Luvvinit….See ya soon.

Seemed like we were going to get an Indian Summer yesterday so we tootled off to Llanberis  to watch our friend sell Zorb rides on the lake. False alarm on the weather mind you, it was blinkin’ chilly in the hills. But that’s the mainland for you, always a different climate to over here. Anyways, I guess it was sheltered in the Zorbs – which are basically big bubbles you rotate on water by running non-stop inside like a hamster, and then crashing into your mates in theirs like a sort of intergalactic dodgem. Looks more fun that way. Bit advanced for our laddo though, so we just stared for a while, sure he’d enjoy it when he’s seven. There was no enticing the doctor in one…….not today anyway.

Meanwhile we’ve got decorating going on, and we’ve managed to panic all the secret spiders in the house into putting in surprise drop-in’s in unlikely and frankly disturbing places. One the size of my palm, sprawled out by the kettle made me jump skywards with a squawk.   Seems to be a rash of them about, and it’s so weird that you can’t hear their footsteps isn’t it? OK so I know their feet are tiny, but their legs look so big it’s like a proportion thing, honestly looks like they should be clumping about. Made me think of that one about the dating spider who says to his girlfriend “Can i hold your hand your hand your hand your hand your hand your hand?”

Anyhow, managed to scramble the over-sized monster into a jam jar and whizz it out across the bushes in the front garden, so it lives to freak out some other neighbours, which at least is a better fate than that of the squished toads who bought it under the wheels of our dog-walking fraternity estates this week. Living as we do in the midst of the biggest amphibian metropolis in North Wales. Our lane at this time of year is the veritable M25 of our shiny squatting friends. After three days though, the remains have totally disappeared off the tarmac which seems a bit odd. Do toad bits vaporise after a limited time? Or was someone out their real early with a Dyson?

Toads………..warts….

Did you know that if you get a wart in Egypt they tell you you got sneezed on by a horse? Not the doctors I mean, but folk tell you. I mean that’s pretty specific isn’t it? And to treat warts, the general method involves reciting something to a raw egg, and then making a hole inside it, inserting grains of corn (to the number of your warts) into the egg………..wait a few days and Bingo, silky smooth skin once more. Not the doctors treatment I mean, btw, but specialist wart healers. Try that for a job description. Not too sure about the science here, but I’m certainly thinking of standing well back next time I take BB down to feed Dobbin, and there won’t be any nostril tickling from us, no siree. Mind you if you think this is strange, I haven’t told you the one about how to get pregnant by stuffing an onion up your privates – as advised by senior country ladies in northern Egypt. But much more about that in the book (the one in the offing).

Folklore comes in handy sometimes, like when BB got his first nettle sting last week. No tears, just stared at his left hand a bit and rubbed it on his little leg as I pranced off into the undergrowth to get a doc leaf. A few mins later and the little lumps had vanished. Must be more local scary/weird folklore tales to tell though – send yours in to my comments and we can review them afresh with a bit of 21st century zest…….or soy sauce if you prefer.

Toodlepip.

Here we are by Malltraeth bay and the tide is right in, one lone swan floating effortlessly on the water like an ice cube – only with a reeeeally long neck so not actually like an ice cube at all. But hey, BB woke me up at 4.30am and decided to head bang the early hours of the morning away, so any chance of an analogy by 10.30am, sitting in the wee Renault with my Mac perched precariously on one knee in the drivers seat, is frankly, a bit of a wonder. I drove down here to ensure he got some kind of a morning nap, enticing him into the car seat with a baby apple off the tree and a puffed corn ring chaser. And I’ve got to hand it to the Renault manufacturers, they sure do make a soporific engine noise, only takes 4.5 minutes before he’s snoring at the sunroof, mouth open, dreaming of his next banana custard and dysonning the living room, Gigglebiz chirruping in the background – toddler Heaven.

This little village is the place where that bird draughtsman genius Tunnicliffe used to conjure up his magic on paper – but you wouldn’t know that to visit here. Strange to me that there’s no kind of ‘Tunnicliffe Experience’ going on here to promote the area a bit. But then again that’s very much the Western side of Anglesey for you – p & q (peace and quiet) in spades, usually with a dash of a rainstorm or a sustained flash of afternoon sunshine. But today it’s one of those garden-badminton-opportunity days. Not a breath of wind, and just the swan gliding in the vast margarita of the bay, hiding her giant flapping feet below the surface and wondering why the blonde in the Renault is staring at her and tapping.

I love my Mac, (thanks Apple) and that’s much more of a wonder than a bad analogy. And every day I wake up positively goggling with delight to be in a digital world so even if you’re as cut off as we presently are, you kind of aren’t at the same time. Last night I posted my latest entry on the blog and got responses in a few minutes from all over, from Saudi to Brazil and from Scotland to America just for starters. I totally love that, you get to feel global from a little kitchen in this Celtic outpost of Britain (kind of like the window-sill of Wales).

Which brings me neatly on to blankets – is there anything I can do in my own small way to promote the amazing woollen tapestry industry of north wales? There’s a beautiful, authentic and precious craft hanging on by it’s fingertips and again strangely the big local shop which is the regular pit-stop for tourist coaches passing through Anglesey at Llanfairpwllgwyngyll (yes, really folks and that’s just the beginning of the name), well they sell Scottish wool products. Not that the Scottish woollen industry isn’t fantastic in it’s own right – but consarnit, this is Wales, an area of high unemployment and out on the limb of UK investment  (though with money for squirrel sign-posts, bizarrely). We visited Brynkir woollen mill last week, got a really snugly baby blanket, and admired the GORGEOUS products in their deserted mill shop, employs only 2 workers and you would hardly know the place was there. Can there be a place for apprentice weavers in the modern age to revitalise a dying craft? Surely with a bit of a will, some design and marketing flair, there’s a chance of a Phoenix moment. Makes me get all passionate for some reason, and I’m not even Welsh. Hate to see beautiful crafts die out, I guess. Adding some pictures on this one today so you can see what I’m blethering on about. Rant over…..moving on…

Yasser speaks a few words of Welsh now with an amazingly accurate pronunciation – on account of the Arabs having a fair sprinkling of the throaty “ccCChhh” sounds in their own tongue. He’s enjoying the surprise of throwing in a phrase or two at work, unexpected coming from Dr Egypt. I think he’ll pick it up quickly, and be spared the hell of 13 verb conjugations in the present tense alone of standard Arabic grammar horror (more of that in my forthcoming book which is in the offing, or inning or something). We’re so lucky that English is simples. I go, we go, they go, etc etc..…lucky old us, easy-peasy lemon squeezy. One of the things I like about speaking other languages is that it gives you the chance to uncover and express other parts of your personality and let rip according to the emotional inclinations of that nationality. I mean I think language classes at school kind of missed this important point. If you think about it, how much more fun is it to speak Italian if you can do authentic and feeling Godfather impersonations and let out the macho side of your nature play out? (yeah, and I’m a girl, so how’s that for an uncovering huh?). Pretty hard to do that with the monotone of your English English. And in Arabic I’ve discovered for one thing that you can give a terrifically extended and warm welcome hello to everyone by saying it about 7 times in different ways upon meeting your host or guest depending on the circs. (should take the first 5-8 minutes of the conversation). Kind of hard to be THAT hospitable in English English. Mind you, after hubbie’s question about why we raise our tone with such enthusiasm to say ‘Byeee!’ with flourish at the end of meeting or conversation in our culture, I’m kind of left wondering myself what that one’s all about. Happy to end the contact? Relieved to scurry off to attend to pruning the lettuces or something? Add to comments on this please.

And talking of countries, have decided not to exhibit in Romania this autumn (actually northern R, bordering Moldova and kind of off the beaten track – what the heck IS a beaten track by the way, who beat it and why?). Maybe Bucharest another time.  Getting ready for a little bit of exhibiting in London in October. Kind of weird to be showing in a place I could actually drive to for once, and not having to negotiate with any of my alternate or additional personalities is making it eerily simples. Now if I pretend to be Ukrainian I could add in a bit of that exotic pzazz galleries seem to love. Maybe I should go to Moldova and negotiate from there just for fun. Phewie….young one in bed and not woken up for over an hour…must be getting delirious.

Chin chin.

New Mum’s get run down, especially since they don’t have house maids popping up everywhere to help out as we saw in Saudi, alas alas.  I leapt at the ceiling when Dr Husband came home and put his hand on my shoulder and tweaked it, so realising I was a bit of a wreck. When I rub my eyes they feel like kangaroo pouches. And then today I’m perfecting the art of talking out of the side of my mouth like a bad ventriloquist on account of a mouth ulcer the size of a peanut and a sting to go with (not that peanuts sting, obviously, but you get the idea). Helpful Doc said to put tahina on it, in the Egyptian way, so I did, and folks, it does feel better already – or it did until he offered me some marzipan cake which we had to celebrate our son’s first birthday. Arrghgghghg… chewing no good. Re-tahinered come bedtime though and it works, yes Siree Bob, can’t talk at the same time though. Nuff said.

Meantime back in ‘royal Anglesey’ Holyhead harbour was bulging with pirates today at the Gaffers Day which we stumbled on. A sparkly sunlit sort of a day and the marina looking ever so pwitty with some old schooners bobbing up and down. Since Yasser has reached the pinnacle of Ramadan and is therefore fasting for 2 more long days he got VERY excited when the scent of kippers reached his nostrils – apparently on account of the intense salted fish-scoffing that goes on in Egypt once fasting has finished. So he made a bee-line for the kipper-house (eh?), and we got a bag full of bloaters which turn out to be the same as kippers only all zipped up, looking shiny and orange, straight out of the smoke-box. Quite a pong it was too. And once we got the blighters, sorry, bloaters, home, the honk was still transmitting through 4 layers of plastic bags and determined to convert the rest of the fridge contents to smoked morsels at first gasp. Anyhow in a couple more days we’ll scoff them down….bet they give amazing smoked burps (smurps), and we’ll get back to you on that,  in the interest of research (sure you’re glad we live on an island). Didn’t get the name of the band playing near the jetty though, they were really good, thanks guys for lifting those bank holiday spirits.

Big news of our 1 year old, Bobby Bryn has not only learned to use a baby Dyson (most useful), but also he’s been learning to dance, with a freezer amongst other articles. Actually it’s a bit rich to say ‘learning’….he just boogies naturally. Also he’s discovered how to break into a run, particularly near our gate or anywhere in the vicinity of horses. Terribly excited about the nags in general and seems to be a natural equestrian since he starts trying to trot on me every time I put him in the Ergo-baby carrier. Oh yes and THANKS to all my friends for recommending that product by the way.  New mum says ‘YES I CAN’ to American pouch;… comfy, handy, and an excellent surprise training ground for miniature jockeys. Pushchair smushchair, the boy likes to bounce.

GIDDYUP.

Do you think it will be long before we have to have a user name and password to get into our homes rather than use keys? Heck, I’ve got so many user names on various websites now I’ve almost forgotten who I am. And what I thought was a simple system of registering fruit for my passwords in various formats such as  TENMANGO, MANGO007, MANGOTASTIC etc, I’ve recently realised that I’ve sunk myself into a swamp of password pulp confusion and now I’m reduced to automatically hitting “YES” to the question: FORGOTTEN YOUR PASSWORD?” every time I go anywhere and leaping to my mail to reset it yet again (only to forget it later on that evening).

Cyberspace is an addiction and love affair, so does it matter that we are all being turned into little secret agents with this password obsession? And don’t get me started on Profiles. How many identities do you have now and how many more will you create in the next year alone?

Create Profile…I haven’t fabricated a full-on fiction one of these yet from the full range of my imagination, but it’s tempting. I mean I could be anyone but I haven’t really tapped into that potential so far. Here I am in 2 paras…..Like anything in life, by the tenth time you do it, you should be snappier at it, even though in terms of content you might not have gotten any more exciting, though I suppose if you write it well you might seem to be.

Amongst his other presents, we bought a mini-Dyson for our son’s first birthday next week. This is due to it being his main goal every morning to root out the adult version from the utility room and haul it into the kitchen and blow down the tubing like he’s on the plains of the outback. No mean achievement since it’s a lot bigger than he is, and we won’t stop him doing that since it means so much to him – in fact he’s actively in training for vacuum duties, sucking up his first piece of discarded crust and half a trouser leg just this morning.  So passionate is he about this procedure that it takes precedence over breakfast. Now I’ve heard that Virgos are creatures of habit, nevertheless it’s a surprising one to set at this time of the morning. But what do I know? I’ve never been a 1 year old boy.  And anyway, I’m a Pisces, person astrologically LEAST likely to form a habit — except for Neutrogena soap—have to splash that on my mug every night, as nothing else makes my skin squeak so good. Maybe it makes my complexion more fish-like or something.

Funny thing about his birth and being a Virgo. Nearly everyone in my husband’s family is born in the same week. So once BB’s due date of August 14th came and went without a tweak last year, (even despite lively and extensive daily coastal walks round Anglesey) and we’d got ourselves all psyched up for a swaggering Leo,  we began to figure that he was holding out to be part of the big Egyptian Virgo gang and so twoz.  I continue to stand (or rather swim) alone with the fishes. That’s OK though, we’re all in need of a party come March I reckon.

It’s not easy being an Egyptian on a sparsely populated Welsh island. Going from a population density of 35 thousand per km squared in the Egyptian cities to er…95.8 folks per km squared here on Anglesey, it’s not surprising that he’s a little bemused about the amount of fresh air circulating between one individual and another. Even the sheep have plenty of room to stretch out without bumping into each other. Just for info, the population density of central London is less than 5,000 per km. So on our beautiful Welsh outpost, it’s eerily quiet, but plenty of flower-filled space for jogging as mentioned earlier – I guess that accounts for the rapaciousness of the local bluebottle population who must have gotten pretty adept at sniffing out humans at a thousand paces. But it’s funny how the cultures differ…my mother used to run a mile to get away from people on the amazing stretch of Newborough beach…but I love a busy beach…guess my time in the middle east made me love company more.

It’s not easy being foreign either…new regulation just made it a lot harder for people driving on a foreign license to get insurance. So the amount paid last year suddenly got multiplied SIX times. Phoo. Seems like all the utilities want to grab more of your money in the current UK…after more than six years living in Saudi, you notice the changes. And it’s really weird having seen people living in poor conditions abroad to see the over-burden of bureaucratic expenses in this society that doesn’t have anything to do with the fundamentals that people need to have, shelter, food, warmth. I guess there is no such thing as a simple life here. Feel really sorry for those people struggling in the inner cities.

So anyway, insurance…and wheels…so having got the insurance, the doctor has bought a wee senior Mazda convertible- er well a Eunos (no I’d never heard of that either) and will be zipping off to the hospital soon, which will have a much better population density than here, so that’s good. Was a long period without hospitals hiring, so it’s a relief. And Bobbie Bryn and me may go and feed the wild ponies again tomorrow, who will gallop across the fields at a screech pace at the first whiff of a polo mint. BB loves this and laughs at their flapping upper lips as they grope for the sweet. The nursing mums dash forward first and hog the gate, lips gyrating, bless ‘em, shifting their backsides to stop the non-mums getting their necks in first. Have to be a bit in sympathy here, nothing like feeding your young one to bring on the hunger of a post-burnt-out-food-storage camel…..  have to thank my husband for this analogy, though not absolutely scientific.

Bobbie Bryn got his feet measured in Bangor this afternoon for his first pair of proper shoes. When he got them on he stomped about with a wobble and happy strong sounds which my husband and I think may come from his Albanian ancestry …….”uuuuuuuuuuuuuunCHHCT!!” since it’s neither English or Arabic, either that or he’s been swotting up on Star Trek and learnt some basic Vulcan.

Are we looking to invest? The kid’s shoe trade is HOT. Maybe this a regular feature but they were queuing up in the kids’ section and it’s nowhere near term-time. Loved the shoe designs we got, though where are the brighter colours for boys? The obsession with blue boy’s clothes usually sends me shooting back to the Scandinavian websites – nothing wrong with the many shades of this colour, but there is a whole rainbow to choose from, so it’s kind of surprising. He’d love something in zebra stripes I’m sure. He also considers the taste potential important since one of his favourite activities is sitting in the middle of the cloakroom, trawling through the shoe stack and gnawing on a bit of boot.

It’s been raining now for three days solid, and I swore to myself that having experienced Saudi Arabia I would never complain about rain again. So it’s great, and the ten thousand plus miniature frogs (? toads…?) we have jumping about in the garden and the surrounding fields are pretty ecstatic about it too. Funny how the wasps stay indoors when the sun goes in and all the frogs emerge with the rain. I do wonder what the wasps are up to in the meantime. I can imagine them peeping out of the hole in the wall first thing and shaking their heads, “shucks Bruno, another stinker of a day…who’s up for a game of poker?”, or maybe they’re all playing on-line, which might account for the slower broadband speed of the last few days (wouldn’t it?).

Living on the edge of a nature reserve as we do, wildlife forms most of our daily company, and it’s quite a different mob from the weaver birds with their upside down houses and golden-bottomed giant ants of Jeddah.  Flies of all forms have gone nuts this year and it’s kind of comic to take a run in the nearby forest and find yourself getting followed by a buzzing cloud of them. My husband got a little upset about this the last time it happened since he looked to the holiday makers round about as though he must have been smelling particularly ripe, sprinting doctor whizzing past, a throbbing swarm of bluebottles hot on his heels. Not quite up to clinical standards. Good for fitness mind you, reckon he added at least a couple of km per hour to his pace. Almost worth applying a stink specially to guarantee it, come to think of it……