Rob's Ego Trip!

Whomever said that someone with flu must be bed-ridden clearly didn't have children. Not that I know that I have flu, but I have most of the symptoms. With Ben and Jon both getting over similar symptoms and so not sleeping well, both Georgina and I are also really tired. Georgina hasn't yet got ill, and we are really hoping she doesnt!

Anyway, back to the thrust of this post. No matter that I feel really ill, I have children, so I still helped to feed them, change Ben's nappy, entertain them, etc. when I could yesterday. Going to bed for 24 hours just wasn't an option. Nurofen is great stuff when it kicks in. It takes about an hour after taking the pills to get the relief and that lasts for about 2 hours. It's just unfortunate that you then have to wait a bit until you can have some more :( My current strategy is to do the family stuff during the nurofen times and sleep when it's not providing relief. Seems to work anyway.

It does annoy me a little that it's taken as a given that mothers are not allowed time off when they are ill whereas fathers are considered to be able to forget about their family whilst ill. I'm not convinced this is the case.

This current Government has to count as the most right wing Government we've ever had! Labour panned the Tories when they introduced the right to buy council houses. Now we find that they want to extend the system to allow more people to buy "a stake" in their homes.

It's sad really. With a Government this right wing, there really is no difference in our main political parties. Not suprising really as most people vote with their wallets and so right wing Governments get into power and stay there longerer. Labour wanted power so badly that they gave up all their distinguishing policies and became a clone of the Thatcher Government. Now the only significant difference between our two main parties is the personality of the leader. From where I'm sitting, neither is compelling. Tony Blair's arrogance and distain for the public depresses me too much to vote for him and Michael Howard's attempts to distinguish himself just aren't working.

Ben's still not well :( His temperature from earlier in the week abated, but then last night came back with a vengeance. We don't know if it's related or not. I'm still betting it's teeth. He had a really bad night, last night and was very unsettled all the way to about 2am. (Of course, Jon woke up about that time, so I was even later getting to sleep!) Been really really tired today though and hoping for a quiet night tonight! Tomorrow's my turn for a lie-in; it couldn't come at a better time!

The badge on the back of the Almera has been ripped off and stolen. Why?! It's really annoying and we'll have to get a new one fitted by the dealer :(

What really really annoys me about the current Government is the arrogance. If they were a bit more humble like the servants they are, then maybe their successes would be more noticable.

Ben's been pretty miserable over the last few days with new teeth coming along. We had hoped that the one that's just arrived would mean a cheerful Ben again, but no such luck; it seems another is one it's way too! At this rate, he's going to gain 3 new teeth within a fortnight.

We've accepted a quote to build our extension! It's a bit more than we would have liked, but that's the way it is. The builder is the guy who did next door's extension and comes highly recommended. We've also got the mortgage in place, so went out this weekend to look at kitchens. So far it's it's looking like a straight shootout between MFI and Wickes.

Gordon Brown is cancelling the UK's debt with Tanzania. What a bloody good idea. It's only going to cost £1bn too.

Google's Usenet History is fascinating if you've ever used usenet.

Ben's learnt how to sit up! Last weekend he definitely couldn't do it and this weekend he can. He's also worked out how to get onto his hands and knees, but hasn't managed to move them yet, so crawling is probably only a month or so away!

From Zend!

We've just watched Shattered Glass from Love Film. What a good film! Interestingly the lead is Hayden Christensen (aka Anakin in Attack of The Clones) . Shattered Glass proves that Christensen is actually an actor, so therefore it must be Lucas's fault that he's so wooden in Attack of the Clones!

As an aside, I was convinced that Georgina had chosen the film by searching LoveFilm for the actor (I thought he was Legolas in Lord Of The Rings, but was mistaken!) She claims otherwise is adament that it isn't, and she claims is sure that it was from a Salon article...

Nevertheless... it was a good film to watch, even though we both expected it to be dire!

A fairly typical weekend has passed in the-allens' household. Not a lot has been done other than chores! We did get the stair gates up though in the optimistic thought that Ben may start crawling soon. Certainly, he's moving around enough now that we need one upstairs. Georgina got these really cool looking ones that are like sideways roller blinds - useless though! Jon can't work it at all and we can't do them one handed, so we ended up using the old ones from when Jon was little for the stairs after all.