My BIL told me that he was very happy with his new toothbrush (we have scintillating conversations of a Sunday teatime don't we?) which was a Philips Sonicare. I thought I'd ask for one for Christmas so the old man complied and I tried it out Christmas Day night. I'm not a gadget fan and I've not used an electric toothbrush before and I wasn't at all prepared for what was going on inside my mouth. It tickled and hurt at the same time, and that was on 'beginner level', so I veered between wanting to giggle and needing to cry. You know you're dealing with something serious when it needs a beginner level don't you? After 14 brushes it threatened to increase its speed and ferocity, but I'm happy to report that by then I was ready. So, if anyone wants a really good cleaning, I recommend the Philips Sonicare. Just go slowly.

I'm in a quandary. The Steve Reich boxed set of 10 cds has gone down from £63 to £50 on amazon. It has done this before and then shot up to £75 (it has been in my shopping basket for a very long time.) Should I? It's still a heck of a lot of money. I'll probably procrastinate as usual and it'll shoot back up again so that'll solve that one!

For feck's sake, next time the computer tells me it can't find the site I won't believe it and hit 'try again' 10 times, only to find each time the entry had gone through. How embarrassing!

And who's as scared by pictures of him now as I am??  Whenever I make my daughter a hot water bottle I call it Walter and she doesn't really know why.  I looked up Walter on the 'net, I think he was in Playhour comic in the late 60's, and here he is!  Blimey, it's no wonder I'm a nervous nelly having to look at images like that.  What with that and Tenniel's drawings for Alice in Wonderland I don't know how I ever slept peacefully!

The Alien Illusion scarf is finished!  Please excuse the awful photos as DH has the good camera in the US, and I am also a  bad photographer.

See, it's just a green and black stripey scarf until you see it at the right angle, and then it's got alien faces on.  Ooh, I'm happy with this one

I didn't put my face in the picture as I need a haircut. I have an appointment booked for 6 weeks after the last one but at 4 weeks it already needs trimming.  My hair grows too fast.

As I have got 5 weeks without the old man breathing down my neck I shall have another go And as my daughter has now reached the stage where she doesn't really much want to be in the same room as me most of the time (10 going on 14) then I get quite a lot of time to myself and it can't all be spent playing with two sticks and a bit of pretty string can it, so I shall try blogging again. For people who read this and don't know, she's home educated so we're together all the time. I said that without screaming, aren't I good?

I must do something about the laptop battery. I say that like I know what I'm talking about! When it was new I could take it to my bed and have about an hour and a half on battery but now it seems to only last 33 minutes! Don't think I'd better try and buy one of those on my own, only get the wrong thing.

So, apart from knitting .... Big Brother? I'm glad Ken's gone, I was worried for him. You can't go in there at 79, it's all too revolting. They make sure of that by putting the likes of Jackie in there. I even felt sorry for Jade yesterday and that's a first!

Anybody who's as old as me got any experience of ulcers? I'm not impressed if that's what I've got, but it sure as heck hurt last night. As I am on my own I got my hypochondriac hat on and was sure that the back pain meant it was perforated and eating into my pancreas. If I don't return, it probably wasD

What an exciting return, I'm not sure you're all ready for me! I'll try harder next time

Ooh, I came back 'cos I thought of something else! We set up Skype and a webcam and we can actually see the old man in Atlanta, Georgia while we speak to him on the computer. How amazing is that? Trouble is, now I have to get dressed at a decent time in the morning or he can see I'm being a lazybones in my dressing gown while he's not here. As soon as we went on though I got some man with a picture of himself with huge muscles come through asking to chat, please, can he be my friend??? Go away scary man! I made the mistake of using my daughter's first name on the profile so that was inevitable I suppose. Just an initial would have been far wiser.