Silver bells, and cockle shells

My husband hasn’t been feeling very well for the last day or so. Our little angel said, “When I feel poorly I go to bed and cuddle a toy. Wait here, Daddy, I’ll go and get you one.” She came back with a big cuddly panda called LowLow. “Here you are, I brought this one as it was the only one that was big enough for you!”

If that doesn’t cheer you up …

Having banged my head against a brick wall trying to call mysql stored procedures and actually get the results from the output parameters in php we finally installed php5 and mysqli on the server.

$sql="call insert_account(
'$SQLEmailAddress','$SQLPassword','$SQLFirstName',@retval);
select @retval as return_string;";
if (mysqli_multi_query($link,$sql)) {
do {
    if ($result = mysqli_store_result($link)) {
        $row = mysqli_fetch_row($result);
        $ResultString=$row["return_string"];
        if ($ResultString!="S") {
		echo "There is already an account for this email address. ";
	}
	else {
		echo "Account created successfully. You will shortly be receiving an email 
			with a link to confirm your registration.";
		include("confirmationemail.php");
      }
      mysqli_free_result($result);
    }
  } while (mysqli_next_result($link));
}
mysqli_close($link);

Job done!

My daughter was in her Sunday School Nativity tableau today. She (being one of the younger girls) was cast as an angel. Not altogether appropriate in this case. Did she sit nicely through the rest of the service? Did she keep her halo on? Did she stand still in a prayerful manner during the performance? Or did she roll around on the floor through the whole service, take her halo off every few seconds and turn around bumping into the smallest angel (and nearly being sent flying off the stage when the smallest angel took exception to this)?

We then got home with all the relations and started having our nibbles. Finally she was an angel offering round the Fararo Roche (Auntie wasn’t offered them at the High Commissioner’s party and hasn’t had time to check the embassies) and checking who needed coffee. You never know she might even be in bed now!

If the dragon of bad luck loses a shoe it will be the left one!

He had just got his first pair of winter shoes when we went shopping at Bluewater. After having lunch I noticed that he only had one shoe on (the right). We retraced our steps but didn’t find the other so we had to buy a new pair of shoes for him. They were identical to the lost pair so we would have a spare.

Ho, Ho, Ho! We couldn’t find one of his shoes for days, he had to wear wellies as it was the left one he’d lost. Last night he surpassed himself. We left the two children at a friend’s house while we went to the “Nine Lessons and Carols”. When we went to collect the kids the dragon only had one shoe on. Having searched the whole house twice it was found in the back of our car! Have you ever tried searching the back of 4-seater Morgan (no courtesy lights) on a dark night with a tiny torch? Trust me you really don’t want to.

Anyway, we had the shoe. We put it on then got hats and coats on, put the child seat back in the car. Loaded the children – couldn’t believe it, only one shoe! Searched the car again, in the dark, with the tiny torch and no courtesy lights. Too cold, so we went home without finding it. Looked at the spare shoe – wished the dragon had two right feet. Searched with the garage light to help – it didn’t much. Rang friend to see if they had the shoe.

Luckily the friend found the missing shoe so all is OK (until the next time).

When I was at school my uniform specified black shoes. The choice available was uncompromisingly black.

My daughter’s uniform also specifies black but children’s shoes have moved on since. Now it is possible to satisfy the little girl desire for pink and still comply.

We went to see the Wakehurst Place Christmas tree today. Every year they suspend lights from one of their Redwood trees. There is a video playing in the Learning Zone of the people up in cranes fitting them to the tree.

They also had three beautifully decorated trees in the Mansion plus many outside the visitor centre. One of the trees in the Mansion is decorated with little parcels made from old Christmas cards!

I suggest you get your wellies out, unlike us, or the dragon of bad luck will get his trousers soggy!

The picture is of the pond in the carpark as dusk fell.

I ring, my husband doesn’t. But he can’t always avoid me talking to him about it. He frequently complains that all the explanations he has ever read about ringing use so many technical terms that they are inexplicable to the non-ringer (so somewhat self defeating)! I don’t think he can have looked in Wikipedia as this appears to be an excellent piece with any jargon being explained before it is used in anger!

If you leave the bathroom door open the dragon of bad luck will drop his sister’s toys down the toilet!

There were four of us sitting in the room. All of us have been using computers for years including extensive web browsing. Only one of us knew how to increase the text size on their chosen browser but he didn’t need too! The one complaining about the size of the text had no idea that he just needed to go to View – Text Size to change it (of course some browsers may have a different menu system but this is the place in Firefox and IE6/7 – Firefox also has a keyboard shortcut cntl++)!

My husband and my daughter (4) each have blogs (rather longer running than this one). Once a week, on a Sunday, my daughter has more hits on her page than my husband (much to his chagrin). This led me to ask whether his page had a noticable daily cycle. Sure enough there is a definite trend with a peak on Tuesdays and a trough on Sundays (my daughter has a Sunday peak)! Does anyone else notice a definite reading pattern during a week?