Author: Greg

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We had an interesting Sunday night last weekend.

Internet connection has been up and (mostly) down all week. So, I finally get to relate this on Friday!

We had a huge heath fire down here on Sunday, and if it wasn’t for the skill of the firemen and a bit of luck with the wind, a lot of houses (possibly including ours) would have been toast. We were lucky in our cul-de-sac in the end – the fire was brought under control about 15 metres (15 or so yards) from the fence at the end of the road, which is I guess about 100 feet from our house. The next road down from us got it worse – their fences were scorched; the fire reached the edge of their properties.

100 or so people evacuated – we were probably the last ones left in our little cul-de-sac. Had the car loaded up with kids, cat, fish and insurance documents and were ready to go when the fire was brought under control.

Pictures here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4823640.stm

Buzz, if you remember back to when you were here, if you look at from the front of our house to the end of the road, that’s where I’m talking about. It’s all burnt out over that fence now. Picture 5 on that series above was taken from basically outside our house, it shows what I mean. In fact if you’re eagle-eyed, you can see Sarah in the picture. That was taken after the firemen had started to get it under control – half an hour before that, the flames were huge and sweeping down that hill towards us.

The first whinge of the year

I’ve been in Leeds most of this week on a course. It is 300 miles from Poole. Drove up there Tuesday night, 5 hours drive, developed a cold on the way up, spent 3 days in a classroom with thumping head and leaking nose finding it hard to concentrate, drove back tonight trying to see through streaming eyes and got home an hour ago.

Kids and Sarah were pleased to see me. However, I picked Lucy up for a cuddle and she threw up all over me. lol. Welcome home Daddy!

I want to sleep a lot this weekend. However I also want to play with the kids. Maybe I’ll play hide and seek with them and hide in the loft and snooze 🙂

Does this sound weird to anyone else?

From a story on bbc.co.uk about the Iraq election:

At one stage, an election official in Falluja said that so many people were voting, they had run out of ballot papers

ummmm….does this scream “electoral fraud” to anyone else?

How can you run out of ballot papers? Surely you know how many you need based on the number of registered voters, plus a few for spoilage purposes?

Story here

Ebaying baby toys

I just put a load more toys that the kids have outgrown up on Ebay.

Baby puzzles and toddler electronic toys that a 6 year old and her 4 year old sister don’t play with anymore.

I feel sad. I always laughed at people who said that the time goes too quick and to enjoy it – but they knew what they were talking about.

Oh, and Chloe proclaimed yesterday, completely out of the blue, that she “wants to go and see Buzz”. So if an enterprising 6 year old turns up in Atlanta, give me a call yeah? You made such an impression on her Buzz!

Scientists find the cause of fear

Apparently, scientists have found the gene that controls fear, and in mice have managed to reduce innate and learned fear. The story is here. The article tells of how this “could be used to study human phobias and anxiety-related disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder”.

Am I cynical to think that actually, the first use of this will be to make soliders more effective killing machines?