Book Reviews! The Arthurian Legend, Castles and all that Medieval Stuff

We're going to visit Corfe Castle again soon. And, you know how King Arthur was allegedly born in Tintagel? Near here???? Squee! If we don't make it there this holidays, we will soon. We are all agog! So we have been reading up on all things Arthur and Castles!

All about castles: DK books have a zillion pictures, which are great for younger readers to study while you read aloud.

DK again. This book goes into great detail, and tells of different Arthurian tales and when they were first told. The main text tells the story, and is very readable and gripping. The sidebars are full of history and facts. We really enjoyed reading this.

'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' is one of the stories contained in the main myth of Arthur. My favourite version is by Michael Morpurgo, not only for the great storytelling but also for Michael Foreman's beautiful watercolour illustrations.

'The Once and Future King', by T.H. White is one of my favourite books of all time. The first part, 'The Sword in the Stone', was adapted (loosely) into a film by Disney. Part one is great reading for kids! Not so much the rest of the book, which becomes dark and scary. Never fear, part one is a tale in itself.

'The Book of Merlyn' contains some of the stories which were in the original 'Once and Future King'. For some reason, later versions have turned the one story into two... we now have the new versions which are great, and eventually I will unpack the old book: a treasure! Merlyn turns the young Arthur into different types of animals to learn about politics: Ants are communists, Geese are military... it's funny and very interesting.

Again, Morpurgo is wonderful in this retelling.

'The Mists of Avalon'... A grownup book. I loved this book. I read it and bawled my eyes out, then lent it to mum, who bawled her eyes out, and then my grandmother read it and SHE bawled her eyes out... this is the story of King Arthur, told from the point of view of the women in the tale. When the boys are older, I hope they will read this beautiful story.

We've moved!

My friends! Just for you, there will be no more annoying  moderations or passwords or, in fact, anything at all! I've moved to Wordpress dot com. And I'll build us a new cafe there, complete with all your favourite housekeeping avoidance tips, books, and popular clutter.

I know you can find it! And I'll be popping by your place, anyway. Follow the party!

Stand by...

Stand by...

Here's an Idea...

I am getting MORE spam, not less. So moderating comments definitely doesn't work, and word thingy doesn't either.

So I'm going to try making this blog 'Members-only' for a little while, and post titles with pretty much no content, or I dunno, I might post content if I feel like it! And then, I will change it back to 'Public', and see what happens. And I'll let you all know!

I know I shouldn't get annoyed at Spam, I SHOULD just sigh and delete. But I am VEXED every time I have to look at it. It's making me just not want to write. I wonder why I'm getting so much? Any ideas?

Anyway. Experimentally, this blog will be locking its doors for a few weeks, to see if I fall off the spam wagon. I'll be sending out passwords to obvious members. Leave a comment if you want a password...

On How I Still Don't Miss Those Baby Years...

A good thing about having been writing here for so long, is that now when I have to write an article or assignment I have years of ramblings and writings to look at for inspiration! This made me crack myself up, and it's so true... so here it is again. 

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<--- This is a picture of my brother and his son. MUAhahahaa!

We have recently spent plenty of quality time with various friends and family members who have very small children. This is good, because it cures that "awww, let's have more babies, they're so cute" syndrome which can hit us from time to time now that our boys are all grimy and smelly and long, with so many elbows and knees and opinions on their own upbringing.

Even the ever popular "let's try for a girl" can be cured in just two short weekends.

Now, I am not saying that any of these kids are bad or spoiled or bratty in any way. They are all, in fact, lovely kids with nice manners, great personalities and a fine upbringing. They are cute, loving, and have not one single fault I can think of.

But they bring back memories of having a baby attached to my hip 24 hours a day. Memories of the sleepless years spent in all night nursing and changing a plumbing wonder, whose output surely exceeded his input by 72% or more. Memories of having to be THERE for every single bath, meal, sneeze, poop, bumped head, and dropped toy. All of which were major productions, and were not in the least interesting or exciting to me. I know that many parents live for mealtimes, coaxing one more bite of spinach into their child and then being filled with angst because little Jimmy doesn't EAT anything. This was never exciting to me, which probably means that I am a terrible mother. I enjoy cooking and eating, and I feel that if a person is hungry, they will eat. I am lucky, though. Chas and Sam love food, and Max keeps getting taller in spite of going days without a decent meal. I am sure he would happily live on nuts and bananas. We should just let him go and live with the monkeys in the zoo.

No, I would have to say that smelly, tall and opinionated as they are, I prefer my boys OVER the age of 2 or 3. Perhaps if they had not been born so close together - three boys in four years! - I would remember more than just exhaustion.

Do you know what I love best about a cup of tea? I love that it is HOT. You can brandish a cup of tea at a clingy toddler and say "oooh! Hot! HOT!" and they will keep a respectful distance while you sit BY YOURSELF for a moment of lap freedom. Even a one-year-old can carefully touch the side of your cup, blow theatrically on his fingers, and toodle off to play with blocks till you are all done.

This is way more effective than sobbing "just let me SIT DOWN by MYSELF for ten SECONDS!!" it even beats locking yourself in the bathroom, because no-one is pounding on the door in hysterics. I have been known to take a cup of tea with me to the bathroom, on an especially bad day, (leaving the door open) just so that no-one would try to climb onto my lap.

My kids used to come and check on my tea level, to see how much longer I would be. They would peep into my cup, sigh at the half-full status, and go back to their play. Many is the cup of tea that I allowed to get cold, for an extra 10 minutes of teatime!

Once my little angels were used to the "cup of tea as force field" idea, I could even fill a mug with tap water and settle myself comfortably with a book for 15 minutes. Anyone who came near got the mug thrust towards them. "HOT! HOT! Mummy is having her tea, so wait!"

When I remember having to resort to such extreme measures, just to sit down; when I see my sweet, un-clingy niece crying "uuup! Uuup!" to a daddy who CANNOT pick her up because he is CARRYING a baby bag, sack of dirty clothes, wet baggies and towels, etc, for heavens sakes!! And my normally perfect niece is having a meltdown because, um, well, maybe she is tired? Hungry? Teething? Having a growth spurt? Abducted by aliens and replaced by "pod-child, the whiny terror"? Well, at those times, I just love not having a small child.

Because babies and small children are all-encompassing, needy creatures. They need to be this way, because every second their brains are processing information about their world. They need to be held, to understand that this is a good place. They need to be comforted at night, all night, to learn that dark is nice and cosy not scary. They need to breastfeed on demand, because only they know when they are hungrier than yesterday. They need to be washed and changed several times a day, to avoid rashes. A small child should never be left lonely, hungry or afraid because that will only teach them loneliness, hunger and fear.

This makes for a rough couple of years for a parent. But there is hope! The babies grow up! They become independent, helpful, responsible members of the family, and best of all they become really, really interesting. Our family can decide on the spur of the moment to go somewhere cool, and the boys will bathe, dress, and have the car packed in no time. They will eat anything, anywhere. They will sleep when they feel sleepy. They can wipe their own bottoms and noses. They don't have a meltdown if their routine is off or if it's past bedtime. They can make a sandwich. We play games, have lively discussions, enjoy the same music,(mostly!) and have FUN.

And best of all! I can still borrow a niece or nephew or godchild, ANYTIME! I can kiss their little fat knees, bounce them on my lap, discuss the merits of barbie princess nighties, sing lullabies, make them laugh at the same HILARIOUS joke 15 times, lie down with them while they fall asleep and gaze into their sweet faces, stroke their soft curls (or bald fuzzy head)... And then give them back.

Bloggers: UNITE Against Annoying Spam and Hackers!

We blog for many reasons. I began as a way of keeping my family in touch with what my kiddies were up to (pre-facebook), and now that the kiddies have reached the age where they don't appreciate being embarrassed on the internet I blog for myself. Over three years I've made real friends, been virtually hugged when times were hard, and been told that it's okay, even admirable! if I give my children ice cream for supper.

Clearly, the blogging community is something worth defending. Bloggers are generally interested in helping one another, sharing information. You can find great advice, recipes, humour, moral support and technical tips on every topic under the sun, given freely. Bloggers ask nothing. And serious journalism now recognizes bloggers, or 'Citizen Journalists', as an important part of the news media.

But recently, we seem to be under attack much more. Comment Spam and Hackers used to be an occasional annoyance... now, they are an everyday one. For non-techies like myself, it can be confusing and expensive, and takes all of the enjoyment out of writing and sharing. I've been trying to get to the bottom of the recent barrage of spam comments I've been noticing on my favourite blogs. Within hours a post can attract spam.

Using a Comment Moderation form, where commenters have to enter a word or answer a question in order to comment, stops most automatic spam. Recently, however, spammers are using humans, paying them a pittance, and getting them to enter comments manually.

Comment Spam is a tool which companies use to increase their internet rating.

If your website was visited, say, a thousand times last month because you have a following of readers who keep coming back, it means that if someone searches a term used in your writing you will be higher up in the search list than a site which had just a few visitors. And if you linked to any sites, or any sites linked to you, that also improves your search rating, and theirs. Apparently, lots of links give a better rating. Of course, if the link says 'Viagra!' this will not help a blogger's rating much, unless they are hoping to be found by someone searching for Viagra.

So, If anyone leaves a comment on your popular blog, you have their link right there in your comments. And the smart people in Spamland have figured out that if they can leave six zillion comments saying "Nice Blog! :)" their rating is artificially improved, even if no-one actually clicks over. The fact that their comment may be in Chinese matters not at all. They've got teams of folks earning 3 cents or whatever per comment, that they post on listed blogs.

Remember that Google keeps an eye on blogs, and can shut us down for content. If a porn site, for instance, leaves links on our blog, we can be flagged as 'Adult' and shut down. And if you're shut down on Google, that means blog, email, photos... this could be inconvenient or disastrous, depending on how much you count on your account.

Malware is another huge problem. This week, two of the blogs I regularly visit have been infected. On one, I could not log in because my computer said WARNING in big red letters... hooray for mega security! The other blogger has said on facebook that she's infected, so I'm not even going there! Malware can get onto your site or computer by being downloaded by you. If you get ANY popup which says "Oh, no, you need our program! Click here!" It is probably malware. These programs prey on our fears. Don't download ANY program you don't recognize! But malware can infect your computer or site just by visiting an infected site.

Once there's malware on your computer, or on your site, it can affect all of your visitors and friends. You don't want this to happen, obviously. Malware can sell your email address and your personal information including credit card numbers. Facebook appears to be susceptible to malware too.

So WHAT can we do?

We have to be smart. Don't assume that links are okay. Just clicking on a link can lead to infection. Do NOT click on a commenter's link unless you can read their comment. If the comment appears at all iffy, delete it. If it says nothing but "Nice Blog!" you can think "Thank you, nice person" and delete. Don't feel bad. If what they wanted was to tell you they like your blog, they will not mind if you've deleted their comment to be sure of your security. Read emails carefully. I've had job offer emails where I thought "Huh?". It's best, if you are worried, to assume the worst. Don't reply or click over before doing your own internet search of the company's name. Obviously if there is no company name, just delete.

Get security: McAfee, TrendMicro, AdAware, RegCure, Norton... Ask a techy friend which is best. You may need one for antivirus and one for registry stuff, but don't download a whole bunch of them because they often won't work together.

Recently, I changed my comment settings so that NO comment will be posted unless it is checked by me. This is okay for me, because I don't get dozens of comments. My phone is set up now to beep if I have an email, and all I have to do is click 'Publish'. It is slightly annoying to have to keep my phone nearby: I am one of those people who often go out without my phone, and don't like being constantly available. But I really appreciate my wise and witty commenters, who don't generally say anything unless they have something to say, you know? Many hilarious conversations have happened in my comments sections and friends have been made. Why should I allow spammers to invite themselves to the party, just to make their own questionable sites popular?

Comment moderation has NOT stopped spammers. They still comment, daily, but they will never be published. I hope that soon we will have more security and anti-spam options in our comment settings.

On a related note: Forwarded Emails! Please, NEVER forward emails without deleting all previous email addresses. If you get an email that says something terrible will happen if you don't forward it, why would you want to expose your friends to that? Just delete. Really. I always do, and so far that threatened bus has not run me over, and nice things happen to me all the time. For other forwards, use BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) whenever possible, which would make your friends' and acquaintances' addresses invisible. When you forward an email which contains a list of previous email addresses, you expose those addresses to potential spam and infection.

I am NO EXPERT, so I'm hoping that anyone who has an idea will leave a helpful comment! And if you know anyone at Google, tell them we said "Help!"

Gotcha!

If your mum put you to bed because "Tomorrow's a big day!" and turns the lights out at 9.30, and you're going to read under the covers, choose a book that won't have you cackling helplessly. Just sayin'.

Chas is reading 'Mort'. Yet another piece of Terry Pratchett genius.

The Sunday Telegraph says: "He is screamingly funny. He is wise. He has style."

Terry Pratchett will make you die laughing. Chas keeps trying to read me bits, but has to stop for long periods of gasping and wiping his eyes. 'Mort' is serious too: unexpected insights into Life and Death are a Discworld standard.

Today IS a big day. Sean and Issa just called from Gatwick, they will be here in a few hours, for a month of Dorset fun! We're all just ecstatic and really looking forward to our holiday! The boys do have a few days of school left, but I smell truancy in the air...

Piglet had never seen so much rain...

After several weeks of HOT sunny beautiful weather, we've got rain! We listened to it falling late last night, and it made us happy. This morning Chas rode to school in it, and he was not so happy!

Sean is arriving tomorrow, and we can't wait. It's been too long! And he's bringing someone special with him... Issa! There will be a happy houseful of boys here!

I'm ruminating over at GNM Parents,wondering just how much freedom to give the boys. We still have a week of school to go, and everyone's really fed up and wants to be on holiday. After supper last night the boys took their cricket set down to the end of the road and I had to go searching for them, drag them in and put them to bed kicking and screaming... "But it's DAYTIME! We want to play!" Bedtime's been 10.00-ish the last few weeks, because these equatorial children just can't understand the sun not setting at six. If I put them to bed at eight, they lie wide awake, knowing that behind the dark curtains there is a sunny day beckoning.

I'm going to leave comment moderation on. I'm still getting many spam comments, and I've got my phone set up now to beep when I have an email, so I can publish or reject on the spot. Because I love you! And you should not have to put up with spammers! And neither should I! Plus, your word-recognition definitions crack me up several times a day.

Beautiful Cottage for Rent, Perfect for Artist, Writer or Painter

Ajoupa Pottery offers this small, one bedroom cottage for rent.  It is located in the foothills of the Montserrat Hills (nearest big town - Chaguanas) within the Ajoupa Garden amongst the trees and birds.  Perfect for birdwatching, writing, painting or any other occupation that requires peace and quiet.  Please contact Bunty or Rory at 1 868 673 0605 or cell: 1 868 678 4615, or in the UK call Nan at 0787 251 7434. 

There is a store within walking distance where you can buy bare necessities, and wireless internet is available. The views from the cottage are beautiful and the five acre garden has to be seen! Rare birds can be spotted, with frequent noisy visits by toucans and parrots.

View from the front porch:

And in the garden:

Rainforest walks and beaches less than two hours' drive away, Trinidadian / East Indian cultural festivals such as Divali are celebrated in the village, and the neighbourhood is safe, welcoming and friendly.

You may email this page to anyone you think might be interested, by clicking the little envelope down there... Pass it on!

Where is my Funny?

Dear Internets, I seem to have lost my funny.

Is it under the pile of paperwork?

In the 'Assignments' file?

In Max's lunchbox, with the uneaten cheese?

In the laundry basket?

In my husband's suitcase?

At the bottom of my gran's shopping basket?

I suspect it's in ALL of those places. I have found it there before. But it's elusive these days. O woe is me!

Saturdays are Awesome

Happy Saturday y'all!

This week, Sam and Max both got their school reports and they are brilliant, so they say they want to go to the videogame arcade and race virtual cars and play in a virtual band. I said yes. Chas and I will rock the high-speed air hockey table. I can still beat him half the time, HAH!

Chas has been working really hard to catch up at his awesome new school, and he says that Latin is easy peasy. He's all "Cibus in culina!" (food in kitchen!) Sam went for his Induction Day there Wednesday, and had a blast, meeting other boys who have read the same books as he has. He's looking forward to next term.

Chas can almost do a back-flip on the trampoline. He needs tips. I say, 'don't arch your back', but I could be wrong since I could never do a back flip. Any suggestions?

Sam had a few buddies over for a birthday cake-and-icecream session yesterday. A few of my buddies came too! It made us all wish the Summer Holidays would hurry up. We had pineapple upside-down cake (delicious!) and the kids drummed and guitared and played DS and jumped on the trampoline. They kicked a ball around too. Come on, summer holidays!

My mum and dad, and Ailis and Dan, sent Sam a super-awesome video camera! It's yellow! Full review to come!

You may visit Chas' new website for a video (taken with the regular camera) of Schrödinger the snake EATING A BABY MOUSE! It's really good, and slightly icky. The site has also got instructions on how to make a snare, in case you are ever lost in the wilderness. You never know.

I know that we can all look forward to many, many videos and photos from Chas and Sam, and best of all, they will not be on my camera! I will be pleased when I download pictures and there aren't 657 images of a lego. man. moo. ving. one. leg. and. then. the. other.... and. then. a. car. comes. along. and. runs. him. over.... and. there. is. blood. on. the. ground. of. lego. land.... EXCITING STUFF, this stop-action photography.

I wonder what will happen next??

I have homework assignments, and articles to write, and writer's block. Which always happens when I'm supposed to write about something specific. I need to be more disciplined. Going back to school is HARD! But I am setting a good example, aren't I?

Have a great weekend!

Update! Nothing Exciting at ALL is Happening...

It's been all systems go here, somehow. My sister and the Indomitable Uncle Dan are MOVING HOUSE, so we spent the weekend with them stripping wallpaper and cleaning the undersides of shelves, you know how you do. Lots of painting, which I love, except when you're painting a gentle shade of cream over mint green and it takes twenty-seven coats.

The boys have all kinds of stuff going on. Hordes of friends coming over, which we all love. I am eating the salt out of the bottom of the nachos bowl as we speak.

Tomorrow is SAM'S BIRTHDAY! And also SHARON'S BIRTHDAY!

I have bought a meeelion new picture frames, and everywhere you look there are happy family and friends looking back at you. It's lovely!

Chas and I are taking turns reading (we're fighting over it, actually) (I'm allowed to read after bedtime!) Terry Pratchett's 'Wintersmith' and giving it four thumbs up! This is book three, go read 'The Wee Free Men' and 'A Hat Full of Sky' first.

AAAAND... that's all for now! I promise to post more soon. Things are busy. Thank you for your helpful advice of last week, including offers of cattle-prods and the divide-and-rule tactic. Feng Shui in the form of loving photos has been interestingly successful, kinda.

What I need is a BLACK BELT in Feng Shui. Sign me up!