In the middle of the night last week, we were awoken by a strange noise in the bathroom. My Oral B electric toothbrush had turned itself on. Lachie leapt out of bed, unsure what the noise was but determined to find out. This is third time one of our toothbrushes has become haunted. Last time this happened to me was 2022. E says itās broken, but if it was broken surely it wouldnāt turn on. The problem with this toothbrush is it works a little too well. So it can only be a ghost honestly. And the proximity to halloween? come on.
When this happened before, Lachie took apart the haunted toothbrush and scared the ghost away with his soldering iron. However the toothbrush became haunted again a few months later. Iāve said he can have a go at exorcising my toothbrush if he wants but Iām not hanging around for that to get to the top of his to-do list.
I got a toothbrush from boots. Itās the fancier model but was also discounted to be cheaperā¦ I donāt know how the economy works.
Wee man has been talking for months about the cookie cutter fish, so named because itās mouth is shaped like a cookie cutter. Finally I looked up this cute sounding fish. Wow. what a horror-show. This fishās bottom teeth are the shape of a cookie cutter, and it uses its floppy top lip to suck onto other sharks and then it rotates round taking a perfect hockey puck of flesh to snack on.
Question: Why is there a fine yellow-green residue over everything in the garden? Is it fireworks related or is it tree pollen.
I made tom stuartās ruby tandohās too hot soup. Did you know you can freeze ginger, and then itās not stringy when to grate. I learnt that on TikTok. One time Sainsburyās online was selling ginger for minus 1p. A shame I didnāt know you could freeze ginger back then, Iād be a ginger millionaire.
The kids spent the week away with their grandparents and their 3 year old Mandarin speaking cousin. They returned with key phrases in Mandarin that any 6 year-old should know - dinosaur, elephant, bottom, Granny [fatherās mother], Grandad [fatherās father].
On Wednesday I went out for cocktails with Rowan in Soho. It was very good to catch up, but the venue I picked was too loudā¦ orā¦ am I old?
Lachie and I took two days off and walked the 50km from Eastbourne to Brighton over the South Downs way. We stayed in a youth hostel - the āyouthā part is presumably aspirational - at about 30km in. Every time I walk up something big and then look at something far away I think āeveryone should really be forced to walk up something big and look at something far awayā. Outside is what? FREE!.
I will say that walking that far over two days wasnāt hard but it was extremely painful. My feet were wrecked by the end of it.
Lachie and I had time to talk about many things over the two days and one of them is āwould you rather learn to fly a plane or sail a boatā. Lachie is a boat guy of course. We all know plane guys. The reason this came up was because on the Downs there are loads of people flying little two seater planes, presumably because the view is nice and because you can keep your bearings easily along the coast. We even saw one man* doing loop the loops, nose dives, barrel rolls etc. *Obviously I canāt know this person was a man. But I think we can all agree that it was almost definitely a man.
Once back at home, E and I cut up all her old dresses that were too worn out for the charity shop (all of them being at least second hand by the time they reached us) and made them into patchwork bags to give to various people. She is pretty handy on the sewing machine and all I had to do was iron.
Wee manās fave top is a red adidas zip up. This is ideal. He looks like Robbie Williams at glasto (very cool), and I can snap a photo and do a reverse image search it on vinted and buy him the next size up for Ā£4.
The kids like to yell out of nowhere āSWEET LARINDA!ā. Not sure why. Something related to Mrs Frisby and the rats of NIMH maybe? SWEET LARINDA rules are that you just have to yell it suddenly and for no reason and then other people in the rest of the house have to yell it back.
I want a base layer that has thumb holes but they seem hard to find. So I have ordered some chartreuse jersey and am making my own. Annoyingly I have made it too tight. I look like a lime green sausage, especially after a big bowl of pasta. BUT itās a base layer so I think the only bits anyone will see are the long cuffs. So if you see me wearing it just try not to imagine my sausage-body OK? Itās under there but just donāt think about it.
mmkay now Iāve lost all the non-believers with the sausage-bod chat, shall we talk about this week? Lachie left on Monday morning for a 4 day work thing. Bye honey! hopefully nothing totally mad happens while youāre gone!
Monday completed without any surprises. E did a very nice rendition of Tequila! in her trumpet lesson.
Then I spent four days straight in four different incidents - GCP, PHP, NodeJS and eMudhra. I still find incidents quite bewildering at RM, where is the dashboard for this? does this thing talk to that thing? can I use the table view for opslevel or do I need the GraphQL playground? How does the python interpret the egg?. What is a spring boot?
ANYWAY, not an ideal week to be looking after the kids 100% but I survived!
The new whatsapp iPhone icon hasnāt been optically aligned š¤®
whenever I go on linkedin I just want to post ādoes anyone want a hug?ā. Thatās all anyone really needs probably. Iām not a doctor. some people probably need more, but not the people posting to Linkedin.
Iād be such a shoe girlie if my feet werenāt such an odd shape. Too long, too narrow.
Last week, with my talent acquisition partner, I was fighting with a spreadsheet and our recruiting software, miserably trying to open a job role for the T W E N T Y F I V E i need to hire and my TA partner stopped me and said āI really love your nail varnish!ā and then we both did a big laugh and she said āah, i feel like we needed thatā and we went back into the spreadsheet mines.
I cried in front of wee man this evening after a particularly trying argument with the other one. He said āthis is the first time Iāve seen you cry mamā which is weird because that is exactly what he said two weeks ago, the last time I cried in front of him.
Lachie generously gave me four pairs of trousers he no longer wears for me to ādo something withā because he has worn through various parts of them (most commonly the arse?). There were two pairs of grey chinos that, once Iād mended all the holes, yielded more than enough fabric for a pair of pull on trousers for my little guy and he is thrilled to have a new pair of trousers and thinks itās really funny that they were made out of his dadās old pairs.
Tomorrow he gets to take a teddy in to school and heās hoping to take the 2 metre sock snake I made him by sewing all of his skanky toddler-hood socks together into a long tube and then stuffing it with even more skanky old socks.
Good photons this week as the rising sun drenches the train platform for the 7:30 train.
]]>Week 422: Licking the pebbles2026-10-04T00:00:00+00:002026-10-04T00:00:00+00:00https://alicebartlett.co.uk/blog/weaknotes-422
My silly hyper-mobile hips hurt. I should stop sitting cross legged in my office chair at my home desk but itās so hard to concentrate if Iām not in the shape of a pretzel. I donāt do it at the office because I wear shoes in the office and I do have some decorum but at home itās irresistible.
This weekend my younger brother came to visit with his family. Weāre twins of course, but he is two minutes younger and one thing every oldest twin needs you to know is that they are the oldest. His daughter is 3 and a big fave with my kids. We went to the open market for Tonyās pizza by the slice and AF beer from the bottle shop. Then we went to the library and the photo booth place, and finally the beach to run at the sea. It was very pleasant for October, t-shirt and ice cream weather.
Chaz likes salty food so much I caught him licking the pebbles on the beach.
The warm weather did mean that I didnāt get to see my niece and daughter in their matching petite knit marseille sweaters, but Iām sure Iāll get my moment.
At my local park run there are some bollards, and when people run through them in a crowd, they put their hands in the air and some yell āBOLLARDS!ā. They also have bright pink bollard toppers that sit over the top of them.
None of this helped me on Saturday when, while looking back at someone on the side of the path I ran squarely into one. It was extremely painful and, I assume, also very dorky. I was saying hello to someone and I was also thinking āthere are some bollards coming up iād better -ā. Anyway. As I yelled immediately, āIām OK!ā but I did need to get the special peas out of the freezer.
I hadnāt realised how often the kids sort of throw themselves into my crotch.
At swimming lessons I have to sit really close to the edge of the pool. Closer than anybody else. And if everybody else had to sit that close it would be quite difficult for the instructors. Anyway as a result, this week I learnt that the important part of breast stroke legs - aka ābend star snapā - is the snap part not the star part. Not interesting but it is true.
Eight years ago, for my firstbornās first birthday, instead of a normal present, we bought her a plank on the Crystal Palace bridge (to be built) engraved with her name. The donation was to fund the renovation of the dinosaurs and the building of a new bridge to help with maintenance. In the time since that happened, I have heard absolutely nothing about this project from the people to whom I donated. Some days I even wondered if it had been a very convincing scam. We have also moved away from London. A few years ago, a bridge was built, but it didnāt have any planks at all, and there was definitely no tribute to any donors nearby.
This weekend we went to Crystal Palace to see the dinosaurs on the way to a friendās 40th. Much to my delight, there is now a very lovely plaque with my now eight year oldās name on it, along with about 5 other people and a then lot of clubs and companies š
Anyway - all of this is yet more proof that doing nothing is a good idea.
Please can nobody tell my son - who LOVES dinosaurs - that his sister has her name on the fence of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs. Many thanks.
At park run this week I recognised the woman scanning my barcode as a local legend. Sheās in the W60 category and has recently run at a 100% age graded pace (ie world record speed for her age and gender). I said hello and in a very uncool way told her she was a big deal. She said that she was injured and had lost her confidence a bit so it was really nice to hear that. Anyway - be uncool and nice to people!
The grapes did not come in this year. I assume they did not bother because of the extreme drought. The skyomish tomatoes are on the vine but have not yet ripened. I got 1.5 squashes from the three squash plants I planted. I did get some cherry tomatoes butā¦ just a couple of handfuls. Ah well, the peas were good this year.
Next year Iāll grow the toms outside.
At the beginning of the week I felt frumpy, grumpy and dumpy but actually it was just hormones as always.
]]>Week 418: Bodily fluids in the wood room2026-09-06T00:00:00+00:002026-09-06T00:00:00+00:00https://alicebartlett.co.uk/blog/weaknotes-418
I learnt a new word this week - adrenache. Itās where your eight year oldās adrenal glands kick into action and things get a little crazy! āøA little loco in the casa you knowā½ This happened in April and I remember it very distinctly although I didnāt realise that was what was going on.
The new and improved Muller family came to visit and nobody got any bodily fluids (or solids!) in the Wood Room. The wood room is our nice(r) living room but we do have some rules about what our kids are allowed to do in there that do not apply to guests but this was confusing for our children.
I gave baby Muller - or āMuller Liteā as I like to think of her - a Little Cotton Rabbit and some animal toys from t-lab which have a very nice tactile feel to them.
In other good making news someone stopped me at the Open Market in Brighton to ask me where Eās jumper was from (I had knitted it) and then asked if she could take a photo of it. E agreed to the photo and I also wrote down the pattern name (Petite Knit Marseille Junior)
