"A one two three four five six seven eight n-i-i-i-i-ine te-n-n-n"

Eleven.

Count 'em.

Eleven long days in the wilderness. It's the longest amount of time I have allowed to pass between posts (if you ignore the short, scared one I added on Monday asking you to keep your fingers crossed for me).

"What has happened?" I hear you cry. "Do you not care enough about us anymore to keep us informed with the day to day tripe we occasionally stop by to read upon these green tinged pages?"

Well as a matter of fact dahlings, yes I do care and I have a damn good reason for my prolonged absence.

Viruses.

Not the swine flu variety but a full blown, niggling, awkward son of a beech hidey little bleeder of a computer virus and dammit if I just couldn't shift it!

I pride myself with the fact that generally I am savvy enough to keep my PC functioning fairly well (stay with me here, I'm not geeking out on you) and, thanks to anti-virus and spyware software, that's how things tend to be.

But even I, Dad himself, had to admit defeat and call in the Big Guns, or in this case, some local geezer who had dropped his card through the letterbox recently.

Anyway, I'm all better now, thank you for asking and I think I will just jump right back in like I'd never been away.

With the type of short term memory I possess however, (a stinkingly bad one), I tend to post here quite often (recent events aside) for a very good reason. Something happens during the day or someone makes a funny comment and I carry it around in my head until late evening when I am free to sit down and share it with you.

A very helpful aid of mine is the easily accessible voice recorder in my mobile 'phone which I tend to use as a memo recorder; a few words to trigger my memory later in the day or week and there you go, I have another post to waffle on about.

You'd think then, that after all this time I would have loads to tell you but alas this is not the case. In the same week that I opt out of using my PC until Mr IT got it sorted for me, my 'phone also goes down the pan after making some very strange noises that would be more familiar if R2D2 were standing next to you.

(can you see where I'm going with this???)

Let us summarise.

This past week, I have had NO memo recorder.

This past ten years I have had NO short term memory.

Therefore, I have NO specific tales to tell.

Oh sure, the children have made me roar with laughter over the past week and yes, there have been umpteen situations that have warranted a mention here but they were obviously not meant to be.

"Hah ha ha ha, that's hilarious, I must make a note of that so I can blog about it", I have said on more than one occasion, but short of sticking fingers in both ears to stop the damn thoughts dribbling out of my grey matter and down my ear lobes, there hasn't been a great deal I could do to stop them being washed down the drain.

One little story that is both lovely and funny though is this. One sunny day late last week, Joseph and Annabel were playing in our little garden while I was tidying up/putting a wash on/preparing some food etc. They had ensconsed themselves in separate corners of the lawn and while Annabel was playing with actual toys of hers on the grass, I was more intrigued with what Joseph was doing.

I stood a few feet away from him and watched until he was aware of me crouching there.

He was hunched over and kneeling but drew himself upright, smiling at what he was about to tell me.

"What's this?" I asked, smiling back at him.

"It's to help insects", he beamed.

"Really? How does that work then?" I asked, genuinely intrigued.

"Well, if any insects fall into the green bowl of water, then they can climb out onto the stick, walk along the stick into the sun where they can dry out and then climb down the stones and go home".

He said this while pointing at the different stages of the bugs' journey from impacting on the water to regaining their freedom. He looked so delighted with himself that I had to give him a hug. To be honest, I had to hug him anyway because I had burst out laughing before he had quite finished explaining his rescue plan.

I tried to explain to Joseph that if he hadn't put the bowl of water there in the first place, he wouldn't need to save any creatures unfortunate enough to land in it!

All I could think of was the terrific scene in Spinal Tap where Nigel Tufnel is explaining how his amp goes up to eleven, not ten, like most amps. (read the excellent conversation here).

"But if they do fall in", he insisted and clearly still pleased with himself at his thoughfulness, "they can use my escape route".

"Ok Poops, you win. Let's find some bugs and chuck 'em in!"

(It's good to be back!!)


Small print: no insects were harmed during the making of this post.