I lose an armchair and gain a Space-Time Travel Module

Mary ("Mrs Werewolf") writes:

Well that was quite a weekend, I'm glad the kids are back at school today to give me some peace!

On Friday Minnie went to her first Hedgehogs meeting. The Hedgehogs Rampant are the junior section of the Knights Hospitalier, an ancient order of soldiers skilled in the healing arts. They have a rich tradition which stretches back to the Crusades, of carving up their enemies and bandaging up their allies.

Their uniform is rather sweet. Over a tunic of knitted chain mail they have a sort of shirt with a cross on it. They have a sword and a first aid kit in their belts. The Knights (they are the over-eighteens) get a hobby horse to ride round on.

Minnie was very excited and spent much of the weekend stabbing her toys with a toy sword. I'm relieved to find out that the swords for the Hedgehogs are only made of rubber. They don't get to use real edged weapons until they are Squires at the age of eleven.

On Saturday Jay (armed with his Nintendo Wii) and Stanley (armed with his laptop) came round and they and James (armed with the Werewolf's toolkit) disappeared into the workshop. I saw them only three times all day, when they emerged to order marmite sandwiches, ginger beer and slices of apple pie.

During the course of the day my armchair disappeared from the sitting room. I love my chair. It is my Seat of Power, my Throne from which I survey my kingdom. Sitting in it I can see what is going on in the garden and kitchen (although I usually end up seeing things I'd be happier not knowing about). I was annoyed enough to venture into the workshop to enquire about its whereabouts.

In the workshop I found a very odd contraption, part go-cart, part bicycle, part television and part computer game. And part, I noticed, Mum's armchair.

"What are you doing with my favourite chair?" I thundered.

James had the decency to look guilty. Stanley didn't. "It's the driver's seat in our Space-Time Travel Module," he informed me breezily. "We need a massive chair in case of a hard landing. The ground level has changed over time so we can't be sure how high up we'll be when we arrive. We'll set off from up in the tree house for safety and plan for a drop of a few feet."

"There's room for all three of us on that chair, so we can all go together," piped up Jay. "Two of us can sit on the driver's lap."

"Not that we're gay!" added Stanley quickly.

"What are the Christmas fairy lights doing round it?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me despite my best efforts to remain stern.

"Well, they don't actually do anything," confessed Stanley, "but they look really sick!" I consulted my mental dictionary of Teenager Slang and remembered that sick is good.

"Mm. And the television is....?" I asked.

"Albert said we needed a particle stream that we could focus and target, and I thought of the insides of a TV," said Stanley with justifiable pride.

"Ok....and the Wii?"

"That provides all the controls you need to start, stop and steer the machine," piped up Jay. "It's amazing what you can do with a Nintendo Wii!"

Blimey, yeah. I wonder if we should tell Nintendo what their computer games are capable of. I expect they already know and are hushing it up. There's scope for a whole new conspiracy theory here.

"And the bicycle rear wheel and gears?" I asked, poking something mechanical and getting oil over my fingers.

"That works the trip counter, so you know how far you've gone. And it looks phat!" said Stanley, who appears to have become fluent in Teenager since I spoke to him last. Let me see...."phat" like "sick" means "jolly good". I'm getting the hang of this.

"For Heaven's sake don't put that contraption up in the tree house then all jump onto it!" I warned them. "I don't think the tree would stand it. You'd be better to just put your travel module up on a couple of crates here in the workshop. After all, all this was fields right up until the 70's. A few feet up in the air should be fine."

I went back into the house. I replayed the conversation back in my head. Something was missing. Ah yes....I went back to the workshop.

"And you're paying for a new armchair for me, young man!" I shouted at James, waggling my finger at him sternly.

James tutted at me impatiently. "Well, you owe me five weeks' pocket money. Buy a new armchair out of that," he said.

Ok, so the chair had only cost £3.50 from a Red Cross furniture shop eight years ago, but it's the principle of the thing that matters. "You're grounded for another week!" I fumed as I turned to leave. James was putting on a welding helmet so I don't think he heard me. Perhaps it was just as well. It's time I thought of a punishment that he doesn't actually enjoy.

Excitement at CERN

E-Mail from the office of Dr Gödel, Leader of the SPTRH project (Smashing Particles Together Really Hard) CERN, Switzerland.

Hallo Mary!

Thank you for your most interesting e-mail. I printed out all your suggestions for modifications to our equipment and took them into work for the team. Some of our younger postdoctoral interns were left scratching their heads as they tried to puzzle out the sixteen-dimensional equations! I don't know what they are teaching them at university these days!

There is no doubt that your theory is quite correct, and a polarity inversion switch with a resonance dampener circuit in the positron stream feed would greatly increase the power as well as the functionality of the Large Hadron Collider. It may even become possible to create a bidirectional, traversible wormhole! You don't need me to tell you that that could make travel to the farthest limits of this and other universes, also travel in time within our local area of space, reality instead of something out of a Doctor Who story!

The Collider is out of commission currently due to a fault in the electrical circuit containing the supercooling magnets. Alice was at the Collider on the day that it broke down (it was Bore Your Daughter At Work Day in Switzerland), and she saw it all happen. But I'm sure she had nothing to do with the break-down. Accidents happen even in the most expensive and dangerous experiments!

But every cloud has a silver lining! Now we can include your design modifications to the Collider without causing fuss or bother. To shut down the experiment while it was working would have needed approval from the Central Steering Committee, which could have taken years! But as it is already shut down, it will only take a few days. We will give the work to the interns, it will be a good education for them!

I have to say (I hope you don't mind it!) that your suggestions for practical implementation are not so good and we will need to rework them. We no longer use electrical valves or open tanks of mercury in our electrical circuitry. Perhaps your scientific dictionary is out of date? We also won't use cardboard, meccano or string to make repairs in the supercooled sector. I think the Chair of the Health and Safety Commitee would have a heart attack! We already have had to reassure the world media that we will probably not be destroying the universe before Christmas, and we do not need any more bad publicity.

In response to your questions, yes, we do watch a lot of Doctor Who here (although the TV reception is terrible so far underground, we watch DVDs in our lunch-breaks). And yes, we are big fans of the Nintendo Wii. We have a room for the use of the Nintendo Wii Fit in our free time!

I am glad that your son James is writing to my daughter Alice. I am sure they can learn much from each other and have a lot of fun.

Bis bald,

Deine Lieserl.

Message from the Other Half

The Werewolf (I do have a name, you know!) writes:

Hello dear! I'm posting this message on your blog because I know you'll at least actually see it here. Honestly, woman! If I put a note on the fridge the fridge magnet falls off and the note falls into the freezer section. If I leave a note lying around the house you won't see it because you never actually do any dusting (that's a joke, please don't hit me!). But I know you look at your blog at least 3 times a day to get your hit rate up.

I had a lovely time knocking the shed down with Minnie. All that exercise made her quite talkative for a change. She says she wants to join the Hedgehogs Rampant. They are the cadet branch of the Knights Hospitalier - you know, they're like the Scouts except instead of camping they learn martial arts and nursing. I suppose it makes sense to be able to tend to your own victims. It saves you from having to go out and find other people's victims to practise bandaging on.

I can't think of any good reason to refuse her. It is cheap and really quite educational. As well as the fencing classes and the bandage practice they get lessons on accident prevention. I must say I've never seen Minnie cause an accident - it is always quite deliberate as far as I can see. But it would keep her off the streets more. The local teenagers have been complaining about her stealing their bikes for joyrides. If she doesn't stop it she'll end up with an ASBO before she's much bigger.

Oh, can you tell James that I went to Silicon Heaven for him. The Head Anorak said that some of the components on his list were too specialised for them to stock, and he suggested James look on eBay for some really specialist component suppliers. He also suggested that James should "get out more". Coming from a man with a t-shirt that says "More Random Doping Tests for Semiconductors!!!" that's quite an insult.

I've found a skip with lots of useful looking bits of scrap wood in it. That should do for his chassis. I've also got some wire and coaxial cable and some bits of circuitry from Harry the Geek at work. I've promised him a jar of my Evil Lime Pickle in return. Don't worry, I'll make him promise not to eat it in confined spaces.

Oh, and also tell James that he can borrow my soldering iron only if he uses it in my workshop and not in his bedroom. I mean it - he nearly started a fire last time.

Love xxxxx

The Church Bazaar

Mary writes:

Saturday dawned, bright and early. The blackbird was singing and all was idyllic in Dusty Mouldings. I made myself a cup of tea and settled down to enjoy a quiet lie-in.

Three minutes later the Werewolf (otherwise known as my dear husband) hopped out of bed and bolted down a slice of toast and a cup of builder-strength tea, before taking up his trusty big sledgehammer to demolish the garden shed. Minnie took up her trusty little sledgehammer and ran out to help him. I sighed and got out of bed.

At ten o'clock sharp James and showed up at the church bazaar. Lizzie Higgs-Boson was there already with her kids. James wandered over to plot with Stanley. Olivia, who knows that I can't last ten minutes at the church bazaar without a cup of tea and a fruit scone, and who also knows that I am easily persuaded to buy cakes for any children who go into the tea room with me, trotted over to my side.

I saw the Vicar behind the church souvenir stall. I went up to say hello and to admire the new t-shirts, with the legend: "The earth moves around the Son!" I wondered if Lieserl would like a tea towel showing the scientific martyrs.

"Mrs Dunwich, how lovely to see you!" trilled the Reverend Cheryl ("just call me Cherry!") Sconne. Why must she call me that? It makes me feel far too respectable. "I see you've brought us one of your lovely cakes. Is it a Victoria Sponge?"

"Good Lord, no!" I hastened to reassure her. "It's just an apple pie. There'll be no trouble with the W. I. over this one!"

My Victoria Sponge had nearly caused a diplomatic incident with the Women's Institute at the May Day Bazaar after it been found to contain twice the proper number of eggs, and a cinnamon cream filling. It had tasted delicious, but they said that that "wasn't the point". "It is not acceptable for people to take liberties with the recipe for Victoria Sponge!" said Mrs Plum-Duff in her official complaint.

The Reverend Cherry nodded thankfully and said, "Mrs Plum-Duff will be delighted! She's inside on the Cake Stall." I smiled the angelic smile of the irregular church-goer and went into the church hall.

"Hello Mary!" boomed Mrs Plum-Duff, the Supreme Grand Leader of the local branch of the Women's Institute. "Is that another of your sponge cakes?"

"It's Gedeckter Apfelkuchen," I said with great dignity. Mrs Plum-Duff frowned and wrinkled her nose, but the W.I. has no rules covering foreign recipes, so she let it pass.

"Is it spicy?" she asked. "It smells of cinnamon."

"It's Albert Einstein's mother's own recipe," I answered. Scientists are well thought of at St Copernicus', as presumably are their mothers. My humble offering was graciously accepted and, with a sense of relief, I shepherded Olivia on into the tea room for some sorely-needed tea and cakes.

When we came out James and Stanley were holding carrier bags bulging with goods. "What have you got there? I asked.

"We've been round the Boot Sale in the car park. We've bought materials for our project." James held out a bag for inspection. It contained a set of meccano, some tupperware boxes, a salad bowl with big serving spoons, a bag of old electrical components, a toast-rack, some bicycle gears and an umbrella.

"Well, as long as you've had fun," I said. "I just need to buy some of Mrs Lardycake's jam and then we can get off home." Mrs Lardycake's medlar jam is famous throughout Dusty Mouldings. I wish I knew where she gets the medlars from. I don't think I've ever seen one growing here.

Five minutes later, feeling socially respectable and carrying bags full of jam and junk...sorry, project materials, we set off for home. A morning well spent in Dusty Mouldings.

Recipe for Apple pie

Dances with Werewolves (oh, all right then, Mary) writes:

My son handed my a recipe this morning.

"It's Albert's Mum's Gedeckter Apfelkuchen," he said. "Albert's very fond of it."

"Can he...er...still eat it?" I asked with some apprehension. Broad-minded as I am, I don't fancy the idea of an ectoplasmic manifestation at my tea table.

"Of course not!" answered James with scorn at my dim-wittedness. "But he likes the smell. It helps him think."

Mmm....sugar-crusted apple pie. I scanned the recipe, written in German in James' wobbly handwriting on the back of a Shreddies packet. It looked very tasty, and not hard to make. Cinnamon, flour, sugar, butter, apples, fine. Vinegar? Mmm. Is a TL a teaspoon or a tablespoon? And what's an EL? Well, I'll figure it out. If I get desperate I can always e-mail Lieserl and ask her, in between remarks about physics and flirting in Swiss German.

"Mmphg!" I grunted (see, I can speak Neanderthal too). "Well, I might make it for the cake stall at the Church tomorrow." I'd promised the Vicar that I'd bake a cake for St. Copernicus' Autumn Bazaar, and I've had complaints about my Victoria Sponge. I've never actually attended a service at the church, but as long as I bake cakes for the coffee mornings I can stay on good terms with her. A good cook can get away with a lot in the Church of England.

I think I'll take James to the Bazaar with me. He's grounded so he technically should stay at home, but he hates going to the church so much it'll be part of his punishment.

Identity theft is very naughty

Dances with Werewolves writes:

I read the e-mail from Lieserl with interest and mixed feelings. She really sounds very nice. I had already suspected that she had a sense of humour (even I know that cuckoo clocks aren't Swiss!) and her research work, from the little I understand from her attached papers, looks......actually, I don't think I understand a word of it, but I'm impressed. I'm sure that we have much in common and would get on very well.

Except, of course, I can't ever write to her, without her wondering what happened to my old-world charm and my knowledge of Swiss German. I don't even know what was in the e-mail that was sent to her. EtherMail has gobbled it up and I don't think I can retrieve it.

I gave James a lecture about internet security and how impersonating other people was very naughty. I also said I wasn't happy that now a complete stranger knows my real name. It would probably have made more of an impression on him if he hadn't been watching The Clangers at the time.

"Mmm," he said, his eyes never leaving the TV screen. "Who's that then?"

"Well, Lieserl," I said. "The woman you sent the e-mail to. Who else could I mean?"

"Oh," he mumbled. "I thought you were talking about the blog post."

"The...what?" I went and had a look at our blog. Then I got angry. "You idiotic son of a muppet!" I shouted in a less than controlled manner. "I've spent years hiding behind the name Dances With Werewolves. I've even been telling people it's a Native American Name. It's my secret identity. Now you've gone and blown it. The whole world knows now that Dances with Werewolves is really called Mary Dunwich."

"Yeah, whatever," he answered in fluent Neanderthal. "Like you actually have anyone reading it. You've only got, like, three readers and they don't speak English."

"I'm up to six now," I retorted with as much dignity as I could manage. It wasn't a great retort and I couldn't leave it there, or he'd think he'd won. "You're grounded for another week for identity theft!" I turned back to the computer.

"OK Mum!" he answered cheerfully. "Oh, and while you're online could you download those technical papers onto my Ipod? I'll ring Stanley and get him to bring him laptop over."

I hope I'm not going to get into trouble with LingQ for this. I hear the anti-fraud laws in Canada are quite strict. I don't want the Canadian Mounted Police to come knocking at my door to arrest me for letting a famous scientist and a small boy steal my identity.

We get an E-mail from a Scientist

Kuckucksuhr writes:

Dear Mary!

I was very excited to receive your interesting e-mail and I would be very happy to become your new Swiss penfriend! I hope that I can help you to improve your German - although it is already very good! You even know Swiss words! Although your writing is (I hope you don't mind that I say it!) a little old-fashioned. My friends don't call me "gnädige Frau Doktor Gödel", but Lieserl.

I am pleased that you are so interested in our work here at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Your knowledge of the Einstein field equations is most remarkable! Are you Mrs Dunwich or are you actually Doctor Dunwich? Because you write about our work as if you were a physicist yourself.

I am sending you many academic papers which have been published about the work that has been done here. The most are in German but I think you will have no trouble in reading them! We will record ourselves reading them and you can use them for your LingQ studies!

Our daughter Alice is twelve years old. She is learning English and would very much like to write to your little boy. Is he interested in science too?

I hope you can understand my terrible English!

Die besten Wünsche,

Lieserl.

James' Mum gets a new penfriend

Dances With Werewolves writes:

After tea James switched on the TV to watch Doctor Who. "For research", he said before lapsing into a science-fiction induced trance. I switched on my computer, for a little light studying.

I could tell at once that James had used my computer. The mouse, usually on the right, had been moved to the left of the keyboard. (James is the only left-hander in the family). I don't mind that. What I did mind about, and I said so with some force, was the little stickers he had glued over some of the keys. Stickers with a lot umlauts on them.

"Well, it's hard to type in German on a UK keyboard," he said in a period of lucidity.

"That's why I touch-type," I said. Then I stopped and thought about his answer. "Why were you typing in German?"

"I was showing Albert how to use your LingQ website," he answered. "He thinks it's very clever. By the way, he's corrected some mistakes in your German writing assignment. He could be your tutor if you like."

I could feel one of my bad headaches coming on. "I think that's taking it a bit too far!" I snapped.

James smirked. "I didn't realise you were prejudiced against the post-living!"

"I don't mind that he's dead, I mind that he's Swiss!" I retorted, more sharply than I meant to. "I've always had trouble understanding Swiss German."

"What you need, Mum, is practice. You should find a Swiss German penfriend," said my son, studying the television with the air of a research scientist watching a tricky experiment.

"You cheeky little..." I started to feel a twinge of foreboding along with the migraine. "What have you done? Have you been sending e-mails from my account again?"

"Look up Kuckucksuhr on LingQ," he answered. "She says she'd love to be your penfriend. She has a husband who's a project leader at CERN and a daughter who's learning English."

And with that the Daleks invaded Earth and James lost interest in anything but the battle to save the planet. I groaned and went upstairs to enjoy my headache in peace.

Extracurricular activities at Bouncing Bunnies

Lizzie Higgs-Boson writes:

The school term is in full swing now. All the school clubs have started, and the children in Year 6 are starting to think about their projects.

I do think that children these days are given far too much work. In addition to the standard primary school day (from 8:45 until 3:15, with a morning break and a lunch break) there are the lunchtime clubs and all the after-school clubs, which run until 4:30.

Olivia is in the school choir, and will also be learning karate this term. She says she wants to "kick Stanley's kidneys out then sing at his funeral". Sometimes I think that being in the same class with James' little sister Minnie isn't good for Olivia.

Stanley can't do computer club this term (there was an incident when he was caught helping James to send an e-mail to a family friend who lives abroad, apparently) so he has chosen instead to attend German Club after school with James, who, like his mother, is interested in foreign languages.

Stanley is very keen and, after only one session, can say Zeitreisen, Zeitmaschine and Reisen in die Vergangenheit. It's nice to see some good coming out of his friendship with James.

James is still grounded after the computer club incident, so Stanley went round to his house at the weekend to discuss their project. Apparently they will be using the internet to communicate with the scientists at CERN about cutting-edge physics, and in German! It all sounds very advanced for eleven-year-olds. When I was at school we just had a day trip to Calais and bought baguettes.

It's a good thing we bought Stanley his own laptop computer, they will be able to work just as well either here or at James' house without disturbing anybody.

James gets expert help for his school projects

Dances with werewolves writes:

Well, I did my duty and played the outraged parent to James when I got him home.

"What did you think you were doing in Computer Club?" I asked sternly. "You've gone and upset Miss Huffkin, Mrs Lunn and the school governers. What have you got to say for yourself, young man?"

James looked only very slightly contrite. "We wanted to tell Albert Einstein the good news about CERN working on the Grand Unified Theory of Everything," he said innocently. "He was working on it when he died. I though it might help his spirit to rest easily."

"You know what I think about Ouija for Windows," I sneered. "It's a great big con. It's never worked properly. And version 6.1 is full of bugs."

"It worked on Wednesday lunch-time," answered my son smugly. "We got a really clear connection. It was better than on Skype."

That was impressive. Maybe the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider really did make the fabric of time and space flap around. "So did you....er...get through to him, then?" I asked.

"Oh yes," he answered. "We had a really good chat. Albert's very excited about finally getting some experimental data to support his theoretical work. So excited that....erm....well..." He broke off to stare at a really interesting sparrow in the garden. I started to have foreboding feelings.

"Yes?" I asked, as sweetly as I could. If you get angry with him too soon then he clams up and you never get a straight story.

"He wouldn't go back," James mumbled, staring now at the odd socks on his feet. "He's staying to see how the Large Hadron Collider experiment turns out."

"Staying....where?"

"He's hanging out with me." A defensive note crept into James' voice. "He says he can help me with my school work this year. You wanted me to learn German, didn't you? It'll more fun than that LingQ website you use."

I thought that was a bit cheeky. Working on the LingQ website is definitely more fun than hanging out with lost souls. Well...most of the time.

"And we're going to do a science project together," James continued quickly. "The teacher have decided that year 6 can do group projects for their homework this year. So Stanley and Jay and I are going to do a German project and a science project together.

This was a bit of a dilemma. On the one hand the school had several bits of paper with my signature on swearing that James would not be meddling with Dark Forces or talking to strangers this year. On the other hand, this sounded really rather educational. Foreign languages and science are key parts of the National Curriculum.

"I should keep quiet about the fact that you are getting, erm...outside help," I said slowly. "If you let on that you are communicating with a strange foreign man, particularly a post-living one, I shall get called into your school counsellor's office even more this term. I can really only stand so many of Miss Bunn's Rich Tea biscuits."

"No sweat Mum!" he answered chirpily. "I'll keep quiet about him. In any case, Albert likes talking in German when he's discussing science, so if anyone does hear us they won't understand any of it." That's true enough. Mrs Figg-Newton, the German teacher at Bouncing Bunnies, and I are probably the only adults in Dusty Mouldings who speak any German. It's not a very international area.

"I still have to punish you for getting into trouble at school," I remembered. "I'm going to stop buying you the Fortean Times for the rest of the school year."

James smiled angelically. "Fair enough," he said. "I was planning to buy the New Scientist from now on anyway. Albert wants to catch up on the last fifty years of scientific developments."

Oh Lordy. Still I would like to see him learn a foreign language. And it'll keep him away from causing trouble with Minnie on the streets of Dusty Mouldings.

Things KS2 Were Not Meant to Know

Dances with werewolves writes:

I was called in to see the Headteacher today. I wasn't surprised, Minnie gets into trouble so often that I have my own tea-mug in the school counsellor's office.

This time however it wasn't Minnie in trouble, it was James. "What on earth has he done?" I asked, in bemusement. Mrs Lunn shuffled through a sheaf of papers on her desk, before handing me a copy of the school's Internet Use Policy. As it had my signature on it, it must have been one of the zillion permission slips I signed at the start of term.

"He and some friends were using the internet without permission during computer club at lunch time yesterday," she said sternly. "Miss Huffkin said they were Meddling With The Unknown."

"Isn't the purpose of education to meddle with the unknown?" I asked brightly.

"Paragraph 5 of the Internet Use Policy forbids students to use the school Computer Suite for the Dark Arts," said Mrs Lunn.

"What were they doing?" I wondered.

"They had downloaded a copy of Ouija For Windows and were communicating with a member of the post-living community," replied Mrs Lunn.

It took me a moment to work that one out. "You mean they were holding a seance?" I was rather impressed. "I didn't think James had that much understanding of computers!"

"He was working with Stanley Higgs-Boson and Jay Bee," was the answer. Now it was clear. With Stanley the Science Freak and Jay the Nintendo Ninja's help, James could probably start World War 3 if he wanted. And win it.

"Did they, er, try to contact anyone in particular?" I asked innocently. I was starting to have a feeling about this.

"They said they were trying to contact someone called Albert. Apparently you had a message for him."

Mmm. "Well, after all, it's still only like using the internet for e-mail," I protested, feeling the fighting urge slippinng away from me. "Sending messages out into the ether, you know."

Sally Lunn cleared her throat meaningfully. "As a matter of fact, that is forbidden in paragraph 2 of the Internet Use Policy," she said, pointing me to the relevant section. "The school governors get very tense about unsolicited e-mail."

Curses. Either James had been Meddling With Things That Key Stage 2 Were Not Meant to Know, or he had been contacting a post-living stranger using a school computer. Either way could mean a suspension for him and another session in the school counsellor's office for me.

I had no choice. I promised to tick him off royally, ground him for a week and cancel his subscription to the Fortean Times. I only hope I don't get aggro from Lizzie and Mrs Bee as well.

Will a black hole swallow up James' football lesson?

Dances with Werewolves writes:

They switched on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN today! I am so excited! To mark the importance of the day I am wearing my T-shirt from the Department of Really Weird Science at the University of Harrogate (the best physics laboratories and the best tea shop of any university in Britain).

James, Minnie and I watched the event live on BBC News 24 at 8:30 this morning, just before we set off for school. James asked how likely it was that the experiment would create a mini black hole that would swallow up the earth before his football practice this morning.

"Not very likely," I said, "and if the experiment does destroy all life on earth then that won't be a very interesting result. Theoretical physicists are hoping that it will create a mini-worm hole that we can use to travel backwards and forwards in time and space. As far as I can understand it, the switching on of the system this morning will cause the fabric of time and space in our solar system to bend and warp and flap about a bit before springing back into its usual shape. If we are still all here at tea-time then everything is OK."

I explained to James on the walk to school that the experiments that CERN are performing will help us arrive at a Grand Theory of Everything. "Albert Einstein would be so happy today!" I said. "Wherever he is now, I hope he is looking on."

Mums and Tots: not for the faint-hearted

I took little Ivor to the Mums and Tots group in the village hall. This is run by two or three women, all of whom have children Ivor's age (i.e. under three years old). The Village Hall either lets them meet there for free or for a very low charge. The Mums and Tots group gets a grant from the government to buy toys, and the women helping to run the sessions are unpaid volunteers. As such it is about the cheapest morning out to be had in Dusty Mouldings: for £1 your little darling gets a one hour play session, followed by a snack of biscuits and fruit and fruit drink. Mum gets a cup of tea and a biscuit and the chance to chat to other mums with small children.

You do all have to sing songs at the end. There is no avoiding this part, I've tried but you can't. You sing "Twinkle Twinkle little star", "Row row row your boat", "I'm a dingle-dangle scarecrow with a flippy-floppy hat" and "if you're happy and you know it clap your hands!" and do all the right actions too.

Despite the name Fathers are welcome too. They just never go. I have never yet met a man who enjoys sitting in a village hall with fifteen toddlers all running around shouting "graagh!" until one of them wets themself.

The sessions run once a week, term-time only. I did take Stanley along to a session once but he hid in a cupboard and wouldn't come out until it was all over.

Back to school!

Lizzie writes:

Autumn term started last week. Thank goodness! The children were starting to get bored after six weeks at home with only me and little Ivor for company.

Stanley is in year six now, he is eleven. Olivia is seven, and is in year three. They both go to the Bouncing Bunnies primary school in Dusty Mouldings, which is where we live. They have to wear a school uniform, which is usual for all school children in the United Kingdom. Their uniform is a grey skirt or grey trousers, white or grey or red socks, white or red polo shirt, blue sweatshirt with the school logo and black shoes.

The school have given me a whole pile of permission forms to sign for the school. They need my permission to use a computer, handle food, eat their school lunches, or be taken on school trips.

Funnily enough, one thing they don't need permission to do to children is to teach them religion. The Church of England is the official state religion in England, so even if you aren't a Christian yourself and your children aren't Christians, the school will tell them all about the miracles that Jesus performed and make them sing hymns and so forth.

Stanley tells his teachers that he doesn't believe it all, while James tells his teachers that he is a prays to Pan. The teachers ignore them. Neither atheism nor paganism are officially recognised religious viewpoints.

This blog is actually the work of several people, all of whom would like to see their names in cyberspace: myself, Lizzie Higgs-Boson (Mrs); my son, Stanley (aged 11), his school-friend James and James' Mum, who has recently decided to become a Shaman and has chosen the Native American name Dances with Werewolves.

Due to creative differences it would probably be better for James' Mum and myself to have separate blogs at some point; however Stanley is the only one of us who understands blogging and he has set us up this joint account. No doubt if James' Mum decides to post she can work out how to use a different font to make the different authors clear.