Category: Uncategorized
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A hole in the copper water pipe
The leak was finally fixed fairly late last night. Here it is: There’s a nail hole in the copper pipe which supplies hot water to our kitchen sink and dishwasher. The plumbers never showed up yesterday morning; only the gas engineer who fixed the problem the first time but as you can see, he didn’t…
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Sex education in schools
I was rather surprised to read yesterday that there’s no sex education in British schools. I think this should be a compulsory part of the curriculum. I went through school more than 20 years ago now and it was a part of my schooling way back then. And that was 20 years ago and before…
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Can you lick your foot?
Elizabeth has a wart on her foot, probably picked up at the swimming pool. Last night we caught her licking it in the bath. Grossness of licking one’s wart aside, Ben said, “If only we could still lick our feet”. To which I said, “Speak for yourself. I can still lick mine,” and then I…
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Surviving a haircut and learning to swim
I took Daniel to get a haircut today at the first barber’s I came to on our way to swimming. The hairdresser was a short and muscular middle-eastern-looking man with tattoos up and down each arm. It all seemed to be going fairly well except that Daniel kept moving his head. He’s not the easiest customer and indeed for…
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I met and an Automattician and one year in support
I met one of my co-workers today for the first time. Richard, who also works for Automattic, will be moving to Aberdeen with his lovely wife and daughter later this year. They have been in Aberdeen scoping out places to live and so they came over for a visit this morning. It’ll be so nice…
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Pedal boats at Duthie Park
The kids have been nagging me to take them on the pedal boats at Duthie Park for some time now. We finally did it this afternoon and it was really nice. The tiny bit of walking we did to get there and back was fraught with difficulty for Daniel who is engaged in an ongoing…
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My work space
I just got one of those sit/stand desks. I was planning to get myself a desk after moving into our new home because the rental already has a desk and with all of our furniture here + rental house furniture it feels a bit like we’re living in a furniture store. However it’s school holidays at the moment…
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Allan Park and Newton Dee
Ben is away in Germany doing some maths at a maths institute in the Black Forest and so the three of us caught up with some friends today and went cycling. We cycled out to Newton Dee which is about 5 miles from Duthie Park along the Deeside Cycleway. Newton Dee is a village for adults with…
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An old photo
I came across this old photo of Elizabeth and Ben, taken by Ben’s mum just after Elizabeth had turned 2. It’s such a great photo that I wanted to share it again. Elizabeth is wearing a washable nappy. I thought she was fully toilet trained by the time she was 2 but my memory must…
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A Christmas dinner in Keswick
One of the benefits of living in the UK is that I’m not the only Automattician in the country. Why is this good? Because it means I get to go to a work Christmas dinner and that’s exactly what I did last night. The dinner was in Keswick in the Lakes District, at a fabulous…
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Testing mistake again
Sorry, I was just testing the reblog feature in the WordPress app and the post went to this site instead of my test site. So please ignore the last email notification if you got one.
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Scottish schooling
Perhaps it’s too soon to give my impressions of Scottish schooling as the kids have only been at school for about a month but I’m going to do it anyway. My first impressions are wonderful. I can’t fault anything about education Scotland. Daniel has joined a composite year 4/5 class which worried us a little…
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Guy Fawkes night
We went to a terrific Guy Fawkes night celebration recently. It was organised by our local community who used it as an opportunity to fundraise for a community garden in the area. They took donations and sold mulled wine and glow sticks and put on a fantastic fireworks display and bonfire. The atmosphere was wonderful…
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Science is not a pick and mix
Potholer54 has a another brilliant YouTube video called How to Argue with Assholes. It’s entertaining and clever and provides some good advice when faced with arguments that, in his words, make you want to chew off your own leg. Some of the main points are: * Don’t treat your adversary like an asshole * Don’t…
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People’s Climate March
Originally posted on …and Then There's Physics: I thought I’d temporarily hijack AndThen’s blog to write a quick guest post about the upcoming people’s climate march. There are going to be a series of climate marches around the world on the 21st of September which is this Sunday. Every significant social movement in history…
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Scotland, here we come!
A couple of weeks ago we sent off our visa applications for the UK. They had to be sent to Manilla for processing along with all our passports, including old ones, and original birth certificates for the kids, and our marriage certificate. We also had to have fingerprints and mug shots taken. The applications themselves took…
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The stay-at-home parent and the working parent
I love my job. It’s so fulfilling being able to help people with their websites and most users are profoundly grateful for the support. I also feel privileged to have this little window into their lives: to see what they’re writing about and what their interests are. I feel extraordinarily lucky to have this job.…
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Happy Easter everyone!
My Dad is visiting us for the weekend. Whenever he comes, we seem to end up visiting Bunnings – a mega hardware store – numerous times. Bunnings is Dad’s temple and since I’ve always got a list of jobs for him to do, we end up making numerous trips there. Although so far this weekend…
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