musingsponderingsandrants

Parenting, profundities and humour

Tag: humour

Takin’ It Easy — June 9, 2015

Takin’ It Easy

/sarahsmale/Leave a comment

IMG_4248

Last Friday I decided to make life easy for myself.

It’s rare in our house to have a completely empty evening, free from taxi-ing, and this night was no exception. However I had swapped two piano lessons (which involve a sort of hokey cokey – you take the first child down, you bring the first child back as you take the second child down, you bring the second child back, take, collect, take collect, shake it all about) for one All Age church choir session involving us all. Only middlest and youngest had homework, and youngest had forgotten her book anyway. And husband was out for the duration, due back about midnight.

And so I felt in a reckless mood. Hence I decided to scrap the stir fry I had planned and treat the kids to fish and chips on the way home from our choir session. Before chilling out after the minimal washing up that surely my pants dishwasher could cope with.

The sun was shining, we all felt upbeat from singing and meeting up with friends and so we hit the chippie in fine fettle.

Eldest and I queued up (along with, so it seemed, the rest of my village, including a fair few members of the choir) he having decided he is now too mature to swing on the railings outside the parade of shops. Middlest and youngest have no such scruples and so they began their usual swinging and messing around.

At one point eldest (self appointed health and safety advisor) reported to me that he thought middlest and youngest were being ‘a little reckless’. I was nearing the front of the interminable queue and merely commented to the choir member next to me that, and I quote, ‘they will only crack their heads open once before they learn’…

I had just ordered and was waiting for a new batch of chips to be ready (behind a man who was clearly mustering a small army as he had requested 8 portions of fries) when middlest came in and told me he ‘thought’ youngest ‘may have hit her head’.

I rushed out and would like to say for the record that there was clearly no doubt that ‘youngest had hit her head’ as she was standing in the middle of a blood bath looking a bit shocked.

I entered that state that I am sure many of you parents out there are all too familiar with. I call it ‘rabbit in the headlights’. I had no idea what to do first. Console. Staunch blood (with presumably my hands as I had no other sort of useful gear with me, assuming, as I had, that we could manage an outing to our local chippe with just my purse and keys). Shout. Check for pupil dilation with a small torch (no scrap that no equipment). Collect chips.

Luckily for me our take away is situated right next door to a pharmacy which was still open. One of the workers had seen the incident and came out to offer us his facilities. Cane chair (it flitted across my mind to sit on it myself), gauze pads, tissues and wipes. We utilised all of this most fully. Eldest remained in the chippe to field our order. Middlest (always good in a crisis) was oscillating between our two encampments providing updates to eldest and consoling youngest whilst I applied pressure to the back of her head which was gushing blood.

The pharmacist, whilst not asking for any form of reimbursement which I felt doubly bad about considering youngest had bled copiously all over his floor, mentioned the word hospital. Youngest, already in a state of shock, then descended into hysteria. She hates hospitals. Well actually so do I especially on a Friday evening with no spousal support. I inspected what I could see of the wound through her extremely thick hair and decided to get her home and reassess once it was clean. Self triage- I have seen those posters at the A&E and didn’t want to prevent someone in real need from a nurse or doctor. In any event the thought of taking three kids, one in hysterics I was having no joy in rousing her from, to A&E on our empty stomachs was more than I could, well, stomach.

By now the chips had finally arrived. Eldest wandered in really quite unconcerned. Middlest held the gauze pad to his sister’s head while I strapped her in and we drove home amid sobs, screams and snot.

Once we arrived home I dished up food and tried to get her to eat something. We had all gone off the thought of eating a bit but we did our best. Next I stripped youngest of her blood soaked shirt (see above) dumped her in a warm bath and used the saline solution again provided by my friendly pharmacist to clean up the wound. All this amid screaming. Now she felt sick so I gave her a plastic jug. From what I could see the wound actually appeared to be a number of smallish cuts and abrasions on top of a massive egg extruding from her scalp.

I attempted to get the rest of the blood out of her bum length plaits with mediocre success, gingerly brushed her hair and re-braided it, dosed her with Calpol and put her to bed were upon she immediately fell into a deep sleep.

Vowing to check on her vital signs half hourly I returned downstairs to deal with the bloody shirt and floor. I then persuaded the boys into bed after reassuring them that their sister would not ‘die in the night’- eldest looked a little disappointed but tried his best to hide it.

And then at around 8.30pm I actually started my ‘easy’ evening.

Footnote: she was fine. I gave her more painkiller at my bed time which I easily roused her for. She was scabbed over by the morning and able to play football…. and the shirt did come clean, a combination of cold water and Vanish and my new German washing machine saw to that…I am mighty pleased at £10 a pop…

Lumpy Mash — June 7, 2015

Lumpy Mash

/sarahsmale/2 Comments

first aid

One day last week the mash on my shepherd’s pie was lumpy.

This is bad in the ‘World According to My Offspring’ for two reasons. One it isn’t actually a shepherd’s pie as I made it with minced beef, and so therefore it is a cottage pie… my mistake… I blame too much Masterchef Australia for my children’s gourmet tendencies. And, two, my kids hate lumpy mash. Again see Masterchef above.

And here is why the mash on my COTTAGE pie was lumpy.

I like to top my COTTAGE pie with cheese. Well actually I top half my COTTAGE pie with cheese so my darling husband will partake (please see my earlier entry Food Glorious Food– which incidentally remains my least read entry of all time, which I think is a shame, I thought it was quite funny, but then, hey, what do I know, its probably to do with timing (please see my earlier entry Timing, Its Everything, if you need an explanation)- if you need an explanation). Wow what a master of subordinate clauses-which middlest has been studying in Grammar this year- I am.

He unpacked the kitchen (see my earlier post Maxims for Successful Kitchens) when we moved house. And now I cannot find the cheese grater. These two things (his cheese aversion and his unpacking of the kitchen) may be related although he swears not. It is odd, though, that as far as I can tell it is the only thing missing from my kitchen. Even the knife and spoon that remained in the German dishwasher we left behind (again see Maxims for Successful Kitchens) made it back via my lovely buyer.

I was searching for the cheese grater more thoroughly than on my last attempt. And entered the cupboard that my husband had haphazardly piled with my Robochef and all its accoutrements, my hand held blenders, my lovely Boden electric cake whisk which I treated myself to when the cake requirements for Cub Camps became excessive, the sandwich toaster and the little mini blender I used to puree carrot in when my kids were weaning (mental note must do a blog entry about that!).

Whilst furteling around in the cupboard I put my left hand in a small bowl which I have never in my history of owning my Robochef (about 20 years) ever used- it probably chops garlic or fresh herbs (dried herbs were invented for a reason people) or some such poncy thing- and slit the middle finger of my left hand open. Two things flitted through my mind. One how sharp that twenty year old blade remained- credit to the makers of Robochef- and OUCH!

One of the many things I have noticed about aging (please see my earlier blog entries Senior Moments & My Brain for others) is that my blood takes much longer to clot. It didn’t look like much of a cut. But it bled like a stuck pig. I pressed kitchen roll to it and held it in the air for as long as my biceps would stand. About a minute.

And anyway then the phone rang, which in itself is a minor miracle (see Rant Alert and Rant Alert Update), and as I no longer have caller ID- I lost that somewhere in the LLP debacle (you really need to read those entries)- I felt I must pick up. Ironically it was someone who thought I had recently been involved in a no fault accident.  However as she couldn’t put a monetary value on my inability to mash root vegetables I hung up.

I was now under increasing time pressure as I was due to take out my lovely friend (she of the laundry fame- please see my earlier entry The Definition of Sod’s Law) for a birthday shopping and lunch trip. And I needed to mash the topping for my COTTAGE pie.

The cut would not stop bloody bleeding. And I am allergic to plasters, which anyway are out of reach in a cupboard which my husband unpacked. So I tried to mash the potatoes whilst holding a piece of kitchen roll to my finger. It did not really work. I had to drop the kitchen roll which meant that I could only mash for about 5 seconds at a time before droplets of blood threatened to turn the potato a fetching shade of pink. As such my usual vigorous and thorough technique was somewhat lack lustre and led to lumpy mash.

Which my kids complained about. Along with who got the most cheese (please see my earlier entry The Unfairness Indicator) which I had managed to grate a barely sufficient quantity of using my tiny Parmesan grater in between swabbing down the work top (perhaps the only substance not to show up on it too badly is blood…see Maxims for Successful Kitchens)

In the end I did have to resort to a plaster so I could leave the house. Its 24 hours later and the cut has finally stopped bleeding and is now just throbbing not really that gently.

As for that cheese grater. I will find it I am sure. Probably after I have bought a new one. That’s Sod’s Law (again).

Maxims for Successful Kitchens — June 5, 2015

Maxims for Successful Kitchens

/sarahsmale/2 Comments

kitchen

We recently moved house. I know, I know I have mentioned this before, in fact I may have opened another blog entry exactly like this before, I forget, its my age you know. A thousand, humble apologies.

The house is basically a three bed 1930s detached with a big double storey back extension and a spare room plonked over the garage. It is actually nicer than I am making it sound here.

Whoever did the extension was clearly a man. And here is why.

Let’s start in the kitchen. On the surface it looks quite pleasant, one may even say smart. Cream, gloss cupboards and black, possibly granite, worktops. I may sound like I am gloating now but bear with.

In my old house I had a worktop which was speckled in shades of beige and brown. I cannot remember the actual name of the colour, something poncy no doubt, but it could have been called ‘Toast Crumb Camouflage’. It was absolutely brilliant. Unless you actually put your eyes at counter level all manner of grot could be lying around totally unseen. Black granite is, shall we say, not as forgiving. Even when it is wiped down it needs buffing to remove the water marks left by my rock hard water. I was not put on this earth to buff worktops. Seriously.

Another smart but totally useless area is the in built draining board which consists of three shallow grooves carved into the granite vaguely sloping towards the sink (which I may add is hardly big enough to wash a mug in- more later). Things do not drain on it. Glasses, mugs, snack pots etc sit upside down on it until you remove them the next morning and the water that has remained trapped inside falls out. I have been banned from putting a plastic draining tray on it by ‘he who must mostly be ignored’ but I am reaching breaking point.

Back to the mouse’s bath that is my sink. Not even the smallest washing up bowl known to man will fit in it. (It is however deep enough to drown in.) So I have to be scrupulously careful about tipping out dregs etc before starting the washing up process. And yes before some smart Alec says it (husband take note) I could take all those dregs to the futility room sink but I don’t because I am in a hurry. And anyway it is just annoying.

And it is even more irritating because the integral dishwasher (which just means it has a cream gloss door attached to it, has reduced my magnetic noticeboard surfaces by one, and provides a much smaller inside capacity due to it BEING IN A CUPBAORD) is utter pants. I cannot fit my usual cooking pans in it (remember I am catering for a small army, or so it feels), the powder flap doesn’t open properly and it doesn’t clean anything, except water glasses used for water by someone who wasn’t wearing lipstick. I do a lot more hand washing than when I had my German machine, which I actually left behind. Sobs…

And then there are no drawers. Well that is a lie there are three normal sized drawers- cutlery, large cutlery, tea towels. And two ‘pan’ drawers. Which take roughly half my pans. And bizarrely two refrigeration drawers which are vast and currently contain the Ribena and the ketchup, which my kids now maintain is un-pourable as a result. This leaves me no cloth/ duster/ scourer/ extension cables/ random instruction booklets drawer; no cling film, foil, sandwich bag drawer; and no drawer for aprons, random party stuff, candles, matches, keys for locks I have no idea about & spare batteries. Unless I want them refrigerated, I am left with shelves in cupboards for this stuff. And my husband unpacked the kitchen (what was I thinking) so all the things I use most are out of reach. I can easily re-waterproof your mackintosh here but don’t come knocking if you have a blinding headache or require an emergency plaster.

What else? The built  in cooker’s automatic setting doesn’t work. Which leaves me with considerable cottage pie dilemmas. And the hob is electric. Very easy to clean, which is useful when everything I cook on it either boils over or doesn’t boil at all. But not so clever when your offspring use it as a work surface for the bread bag after you have just finished boiling over some rice. And actually not that easy to clean in those circumstances.

And then it has cream gloss doors. Need I say more. Not really but I will. No-one in their right mind when designing a kitchen for a five bed house (which presumably will mean children will reside in it) would sit down and think, hmm I know, cream gloss doors would work… no, no, no… they do not work on any level…unless you are one of those poor unfortunates addicted to cleaning. Let’s put it this way I empathise more with the dirty bu**ers on Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners, not those in rubber gloves…

Whoever designed the kitchen, therefore, had clearly hardly used one, the design breaking, as it does, my three principles for successful kitchens:

You can never have too may drawers.

A dishwasher can never be too big.

Camouflage is key.

Your Children Are Never Too Old for a Dressing Up Box — June 4, 2015

Your Children Are Never Too Old for a Dressing Up Box

/sarahsmale/2 Comments

dressing up

My eldest is just about to leave Primary school. This is his last term before he ventures out into the world of Seniors. In some ways it makes me a little sad. But in others I am pleased. And one of the reasons I am pleased is because he is getting too big for a lot of our dressing up clothes.

I am a veteran Primary school parent. I have 7 years continuous service, with the last four of those seven years seeing all three of my kids attending. And so I am in a fortunate position and can pass on some of my wisdom. And the best and biggest piece of advice I can give you is to maintain a fully stocked dressing up box. Keep everything. Do not throw any garment away that could go in the dressing up box. Scour jumble sales for useful items. Keep everything they make at cub camp. Buy high viz vests in bulk and cheaply, buy face paint and hair dye. Keep a stock of Sharpies in various hues. Have snake belts. Keep old broken broom handles and cheap synthetic blankets.

And here is why.

One day, probably within your first year of being a Primary school parent, you will be asked to send in your child in fancy dress. The school, of course, does not call it fancy dress. They call it Curriculum Enrichment. But it is actually fancy dress.

It starts off quite benignly. Usually with a super hero day. Or a ‘People Who Serve Us’ day. Most parents of four year olds have a Spiderman outfit or a nurses costume. Easy you think, I have this licked.

Ha ha ha.

Within months the school will be sending out requests for historic costumes. You will be asked to provide gear to attend a mock christening or wedding. Someone clever in the PTA will decide wearing spots is a good idea for Red Nose Day. Your child will be evacuated, transported back to Ancient Greece or Roman Britain, be flying in space. You will discover your child(ren) is (are) in the house coloured in the only colour they do not possess a T shirt in for Sports Day.

And here is a heads up. Generally the time notice period has been set by someone who has no kids. That is, too short. Certainly outside Amazon’s normal delivery time scales. And the letter will always says, ‘Please do not go to too much effort, it is about the taking part, but little Jimmy will get much more from the day if he comes dressed in a mop cap, doublet and full breeches, but please no swords’. Damn I have several hundred of those.

Again ha, ha, ha… One would love to ‘not make too much effort’. Again the non kid owning teacher has never experienced the mummy guilt which prevents one from sending in little Jimmy in rolled up trousers with a pillow case over his head. (Never throw anything away). Leaving aside the fussy and image conscious child.

Individually I can usually cope with these requests it is the likelihood of a co-incidence of costumier requirements amongst my three children that cause me headaches.

For instance that seemingly easy request for spots. I have two boys I can tell you how may articles of clothing they possess which have spots. None. At all. I had to cut down an old shirt of daddy’s and cover it in Sharpie pen. Times two. You see? Throw nothing away.

I have had some luck though. As my kids are close in age the Curriculum Enrichment opportunities often repeat themselves and I can re-use costumes. Its a shame then that my eldest is huge. And middlest is not. And youngest is a different gender. No matter. I am sure Tudors wore their breeches baggy. And she’s a tom boy anyway, so hey, suck it up.

And talking of Tudors. The instructions on HOW TO CHEAT to make the outfit required by this particular ‘full immersion’ day still required a sewing machine. That is not cheating. Anything involving haberdashery is not cheating. I went on e bay and looked up child’s Tudor costumes. Some enterprising soul was making outfits by hand to the exact specifications of the ‘Curriculum Enrichment’ venue my child was attending. Only a collar less shirt to provide. He went in with a collar. And was told off. And had to turn it inside. Making him hot and uncomfortable all day. In blazing June. Pardon me for not having ‘spare’ shirts I can merely hack the collar off.

Even such an easy request as a pyjama day can actually be fraught with issues. My children, especially middlest, who is a rake, struggle to keep up PJ bottoms. Which is fine in the privacy of my lounge not so good in double Maths. Snake belts, just saying, perhaps the single most useful items Santa ever brought. Also in this house PJs do not always fit. They are either too long or too short. Again not normally an issue. However it invariably rains, leaving dragging PJ bottom legs soggy and the child miserable. I have been up before now hemming pyjamas in the wee hours, after unearthing the letter from the depths of a book bag.

And then there is the annual jeopardy that is Christmas. Every year I dread the letters. I have had everything from line dancer to elf (green leggings for a boy, anyone?) to the traditional crib characters. Perhaps my most memorable year was when school decided in its infinite wisdom to ask both my boys to be angels. Whilst I applauded their gender neutrality providing white clothes for boys was less than easy. Luckily middlest was still in Reception and happy to go in one of daddy’s old T-shirts belted at the waist. Eldest, the year above, was less pliable and I had to beg some white jeans off a friend. They both agreed to tinsel, only middlest would wear wings.

I have only had a livestock request (sheep) once. And after a lot of time and cotton wool I can only say that the recent, if too late for me, boom in novelty onesies is every parent’s blessing.

Perhaps the worst of all will be days ‘left entirely up to you’. World book day is a classic example of this. Go as any book character. Please for the love of God narrow it down a bit. The stress of three of those costumes nearly un did me one year.

And my final bit of advice. Never volunteer. Unless you can rake up your own costume. And look good in half a bed sheet and your sandals from circa 1980. In the rain.

Eldest’s last hurrah dressing up wise is a WW2 evacuation. Luckily he did this in year 3. So upstairs somewhere I have a battered, small, hard suitcase, a flat cap, a knitted tank top, grey shorts, a ‘granddad’ shirt and a gas mask box. Of course he wore all this when he was about a foot shorter but hopefully no one will notice. Make do and mend after all.

My Brain — June 2, 2015

My Brain

/sarahsmale/2 Comments

Just a quickie…

So today I was in the middle of hanging my laundry on the airer. It being rainy here…again…

My doorbell rang, well I say bell, actually it plays an extremely tinny version of ‘I came from Alabama with a banjo on my knee’ …the previous owners of this house were just…weird…I can’t seem to change it…Interestingly on the Fixtures and Fittings list they said they were taking it with them which I thought was a bit odd, seeing as it is sooo hideous, but they possibly ran out of time to remove it as they were too busy taking down every….single….curtain rail… which were on the Fixtures and Fittings list as staying…ho hum, I digress.

At the door were a national bed company who were here to deliver our new flat packed double spare bed. I supervised the process. And then being a little odd I decided to start assembly. I quite like flat pack, as long as I am not doing it with my husband, when I hate flat pack. I like to read ALL the instructions, count ALL the bolts, and nuts, and gizmos and Alan keys. He doesn’t. Let’s just say we are slightly incompatible in this regard.

I was expecting a handyman to call to tell me he was on his way to fit some of the aforementioned missing curtain poles.

I realised I perhaps ought to have my mobile and landline handset upstairs, in case I missed his call through all my grunting and swearing.

I went downstairs and could not find my mobile. So I called it from my land line. I located its muffled ring under a pile of wet washing on my futility room side. Oh, yes, I remember I was doing the laundry. I pocketed the phone and finished hanging the laundry.

I then checked my phone for missed calls from my handyman. There was indeed a missed call, damn. I didn’t immediately recognise the number but thought it odd that it was a landline not a mobile. So I called it.

And got myself…

I actually do worry gently.

The Definition of Sod’s Law —

The Definition of Sod’s Law

/sarahsmale/2 Comments

sods law

If you read my previous entry entitled Bodge it Yourself (if not, do look it up) you will know how hard I worked to remove my washing machine from my old house.

It made it to the new house.

I plumbed it in, despite the waste outlet pipe under my new sink looking disticntly odd. The removal man who helped me said this was ‘how most pipes looked these days’. How old did I feel?

I did a test run. And in the drainage section of the cycle my machine stated to make horrible sort of ‘I am trying, I really am trying….but getting no where’ noises.

The drainage pump was defunct. I had had sporadic issues with this at my old abode. Which I had ignored, adopting my ‘head in the sand’ approach to disaster management.

Because that is what being without a washer is in my house, a disaster.  My new home was already a complete box bombsite. The thought of a laundry mountain added to that made me shudder.

I ordered a new machine on line. I had no emotional energy left to try to organise an engineer. The old machine had done six years which in my house seems par for the course.

In the meantime an exceptionally good friend took in my laundry. I delivered it to her, or she occasionally picked it up from me, such service, and it came back dry and folded. Bliss.

My new machine arrived at tea time on the following Thursday and was fitted and tested by my delivery men. I had to run a two hour dummy cycle to unlock the spin system and open some ball valve or other. (Germans- such control freaks). That wait felt like agony.

I put in my first lot of clothing; pants and socks… We generate an unbelievable quantity of smalls. That went on the maiden airer. I put in a second load and set the timer so it would finish just as I arose the next day.

And I awoke to rain, the first in weeks.

And all this my friends, is the definition of Sod’s Law….

Open Sesame — May 29, 2015

Open Sesame

/sarahsmale/Leave a comment

password

I have recently moved house…I know, I know, I have mentioned it before.

We are now in our new abode  and aside from risking life and limb every day shuffling around rooms piled higher with boxes than any self respecting health and safety officer would agree was safe and loosing sleep through lack of curtainage things are getting more settled.

So today I decided to start tackling the ‘change of address’ process.

Originally I was going to do this in a reactive way having paid more than a small fortune to the Post Office to redirect my mail. It’s at times like these that I regret not using my married name as the process has cost me twice as much due to the fact that good old Royal Mail charge per surname as well as per address. Money for old rope… And don’t get me started on the burning hoops of fire I had to jump through in order to set this highly extortionate process in motion. I wouldn’t mind so much but we have literally moved around the corner. And I am on first name terms with my postman…and actually my buyers…but, hey, I am British and therefore hate to put anyone out.

Then I got to thinking about it and decided a reactive process might just draw out the inevitable pain too long. So I changed to proactive mode. And started logging on to various web sites.

I am going to let you in to a little secret. My memory is not that great. It might be my age or just they way I am made but I forget things. I may have told you this before, apologies.

When the Internet banking/ shopping/ membership management/ forum revolution started in earnest it quickly became apparent to me that I was not going to be able to retain all the information required by these sites to gain access to their wonders.

I can remember my bank card PIN, and make sure all my cards have the same number so it is fool proof…In fact if anyone cracks my bank PIN they will also be able to steal my bike from it’s combination bicycle lock, access the numerous mindless games downloaded by my kids onto my I pad and deactivate the house burglar alarm, that we never use. And good luck with Crossy Road…which as far as I can see is Frogger with different animals (capybara anyone?).

Those of you with a security bent are no doubt horrified by this laxness but as the PIN is truly random (given to me with my first ever card by some Bank or other, probably Lloyds, Sheffield University branch) and does not relate in anyway to birthdays or some such nonsense it is relatively safe. Except my kids now know it…and I have to prevent them shouting it out in unfortunate places, for instance when they are withdrawing money for me from an ATM… In my defence I need to teach them how to survive in the modern world, and anyway they still have wonder that money appears for free from the wall…

It soon became apparent that this simple (yet actually quite difficult to break) code was not going to suffice for these new fangled internet sites.

It started with banking. Along with a lot of people, I imagine, I search diligently every new tax year for a relatively decent interest paying ISA account in which to stick some funds, should we have any spare. Of course the ones I already have are never the best ones going forward and as I am too lazy to move the old money out of the old ISAs (to be honest it just seems soooo complicated) I have built up quite a collection of banks and building societies and airlines….

Of course the best rates are always on line. And anyway the on line financial institutiton doesn’t know I am not my husband. So I can manage all his money too. He trusts me. Evil cackle…

That doubles the number of accounts. And the number of passwords. And the number of user names. And the number of ‘memorable questions’. And the number of card readers. And the number of random number grids.

Over the years the Financial Institutions have upped their security game, some key stroke capture avoidance or something.  In fact my most secure account (I think it may have around £200 in) has a randomly generated User Number, needs my date of birth, a card and card reader and a PIN which is unchangeable and not the same as my ‘normal’ PIN. The letters that arrived, separately, containing all this information asked me to memorize the numbers and store the card away from the reader. I laughed, heartily, and stuffed all the correspondence in the padded card reader envelope in my drawer. I didn’t write down my DOB as I can manage that (and my husband’s) but any one who is savvy enough could find it on Facebook and steal my money if they raided my man drawer. Frankly if they can navigate the security system they would have earned that £200.

You can imagine the process I needed to go through to change my address with these people. Which they never use, as it is an a on line account with paperless statements. I think they have now changed it. I got a normal email telling me there was a secure e mail waiting for me on their secure system, and I have yet to find the energy to re log in.

At yet another institution I was asked to change my password for a more secure version. Apparently my original password did not have the right combination of upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers and random punctuation, nor was it long enough. I defy anyone to remember such a password.

And then there are the memorable questions. My main bank uses these to identify me on the phone. Every …single….time…I ring up I am offered another form to fill in with my answers to these ‘memorable questions’  as some of the answers are clearly not that easy to remember. If you are me…  First house….god knows what I answered to that. I have lived in 18 houses over my life time. I never get it right…

But it’s not just banks. It is all the shops, memberships of charitable organisations, the cinema, Facebook and other essential social media sites, my supermarket, this blog host, my BT (ARGHHHH) account, paperless utility bills, the TV licence and on and on and on…

I have a file full of post it notes on which I jot, as I join any new web sites, the user name and password.

So I am a security risk. If I ever get burgled my life will be quite literally open for all to see. My only saving grace is that I never store my bank card details on any web site. You see I have no problem remembering numbers (in four digit parts) its just all those pesky words…and difficult questions.