WHEN is this rain ever going to STOP?! It really is getting very silly now, our garden is looking more and more swampish by the day and Li’l Bhaji is getting cabin fever.

Still, at least we haven’t been affected by any of the flooding, although surrounding areas have been badly hit. It’s very odd to watch the news and see the impact all across the country and hear about a man being washed away by the flood waters in a town not 15 minutes drive away and yet not have seen any signs of flood or even overflowing drains myself. Especially odd as usually the Severn bursts its banks in Worcester at the slightest provocation normally (although I understand that there was some flooding in the centre overnight).

It makes me wonder why there are so many new homes going up right by the river here in Worcester where every year there is flooding. What are the builders and purchasers thinking? I know there’s a shortage of homes, but those poor people will never get any insurance worth a damn living where they do – it’s a nonsensical situation.

Akra Jr’s school has (coincidental timing or a very poor attempt at being reassuring, who knows?) been learning about Noah’s Ark this week, leading one poor child to come home, see the news about the flooding and break into sobs “but God said he wouldn’t send another big flood”. And people wonder why I dislike religion in schools at such a young age…

Our dining room table is on its last legs (pardon the pun). It’s wobbly, the surface varnish has been scraped away over the years, the seats on the chairs have split (this is the second recovering).

We’ve looked into repairing it and frankly the cost greatly outweighs any benefit, although to be fair it’s done its time – my mum was given the table as a wedding present over thirty five years ago. But it was the abuse at my household over the last 7 or so that really finished it off.

So, I’m looking for another one. A fairly simple task, one would assume, but not so in practise. Apparently, I’m rather demanding of my requirements as our new dining set needs to be:

• able to seat 6 (although we’re happy for it to only seat 4 while unextended)
• modern looking (no heavy dark wood colours – it needs to be light wood or white)
• easy clean (wipeable surface, preferably faux-leather seating to be able to wipe clean the seats too)
• not dominate the room – it’s in the kitchen, so no thickly padded dark back which seems to be all the fashion
• no wider than 120cm
• no longer than 120cm (but can extend to up to 150cm at a push)
• must NOT have a drop leaf (so unusable when it’s just the four of you as you can’t get your legs under properly)
• preferably square/rectangular rather than round as it’s just easier to move round the space in our cramped room
• maximum cost of £500 (although the cheaper the better given that the children are still young and I hate being “precious” about furniture)

I wouldn’t have thought it was that unreasonable a set of criteria – there must be a fair amount of families with young children who are pushed for space but still want to receive visitors from time to time who would LOVE a dining room table just like that. But I’ve looked everywhere and not found anything that matches. Anything that comes even slightly close has a major flaw like cream fabric seats (like I can see THOSE lasting long with my two boys!) or the dimensions are too big.

Then this afternoon I remembered that Ikea now do some home deliveries and checked on their site. Found this table and these chairs. Okay, so the fabric of the chairs is still white (WHY do they do this – I can’t think of a worse colour with children in the house) BUT the covers are removable and machine washable (and easily removable also means easily recovered too). Yay, I think we’ve found the one.

Then I noticed that the table wasn’t available online. AND it’s out of stock in every branch that’s even vaguely reachable from here. BAH!

Back to the drawing board.

Not quite sure how we lived without this before, but Wellington Grey has designed an indispensable Period Table of the Internet.

I have not had a very good couple of weeks. You might have inferred that from my silence (or alternatively, you could just be thinking I was being lazy – well, that’s sort of true too).

Since I’ve had the Mirena out I’ve had a huge range of side-effects as my hormones seem to have gone into freefall: exhaustion, tearfulness, anxiety, insomnia and abdominal aches.

Considering the dose of hormones in the Mirena coil are supposed to be small and localised, its removal certainly has had a big effect – I feel all over the place and not able to trust my own reactions to things at the moment.

Hopefully it will settle down soon and I can rediscover what feeling “normal” is – whatever that might mean.

Did you do physics at school? Have an O-level or GCSE in it? Take a look at these example questions and see if you could answer one of today’s papers.

Wellington Grey, a high school physics teacher in the UK, is starting a campaign to beg for his subject back.

If, like me, you ever enjoyed science while you were at school, you’ll be very surprised to find the subject completely unrecognisable these days. I can’t see how this dumbing down of physics is going to encourage more young people to go into science-related disciplines as they get older, nor give them the tools to be able to distinguish between unfounded scaremongering and genuine scientific research in the press.

It seems as if those responsible for setting the National Curriculum for science need to take their own course in critical thinking…

You really know it’s summer when the door-to-door salesmen come out of hibernation.

Living on a new estate, we get more than our fair share and I’ve had three of them call on me within the space of half an hour – all of them while I was trying to prepare dinner.

I’m hormonal (just had the mirena removed and having my first period in four years) – you’d have thought they’d have been more careful… but ooooooooooooh no.

One of them was polite and lovely. I was equally polite in return. Thanks but no thanks. The other two… how many ways can I say I’M NOT INTERESTED before I give in and slam the door in your face?!

Now I’m not only hormonal, but I’m pissed off (and a bit pissed too, if I’m honest… it’s been a crack open the wine sort of day). Can’t find a sign on the internet that says no sellers without also saying no free papers (I love my free papers). So I’ve found a company that will make bespoke signs and fired off an order.

I don’t expect the cold callers will take a blind bit of notice, but at least I’ll be able to minimize my interaction by silently pointing at the sign and THEN slam the door.

Li’l Bhaji is in major boundary-pushing mode today, being constantly and deliberately naughty with a grin and cheerfulness that is actually harder to bear than if he’d been sullen and wilful.

I have just rather tearfully confessed to an online friend that actually, I don’t like my three year old very much this morning and was glad to dump him off at nursery for a three hour respite. I have been a shouty, vindictive bitch-monster from hell and I’m not proud of it in the slightest.

So the article Parent Rage in today’s Times was very timely.

Campaigners for children’s rights certainly take that line. The NSPCC’s campaign against child abuse makes an explicit point that no loss of self-control by parents is tolerable. It’s not just smacking that now qualifies as abuse, but shouting, belittling, almost any kind of deviation from the unruffled air of benign and imperturbable calm urged on us by the parenting pages and the plethora of television parenting programmes[...]

[...]Back in 1947, long before Supernanny was thought of, the renowned paediatrician D.W. Winnicott wrote an amazing thing: “Let me give some reasons why a mother hates her baby,” he wrote. “The baby is ruthless, treats her as scum, an unpaid servant, a slave. . . He is suspicious, refuses her good food, and makes her doubt herself . . .” Oh my goodness. He just came right out with it. Let’s hear it again, shall we? Mothers (sometimes) hate their babies. We could continue this line of thought: sometimes they hate their toddlers, too. And their bigger children.

And their teenagers. Especially their teenagers. Sometimes we hate our children so much that we wish we’d never had them, or that we could run away from home and be ourselves again – have fun, get some sleep, have a conversation, or simply not just have to keep telling people what to do, nonstop, all day long.

It’s an excellent article, and I thoroughly recommend you read the lot.

My favourite bit though is the list at the end of suggestions on how to keep your children happy in the car. It describes the usual bunch of entertainment ideas then at the very end suggests:

- Install a cage partition, as for dogs.

Perhaps I should invest in a kennel?

We’re not having much fun potty training Li’l Bhaji at the moment.

Oh, the wee side of things he got VERY quickly (the advantages of leaving until after the age of 3, I suspect) which was lucky as about 3 days after the start of training we went on a three hour car journey to a barbecue with friends. Okay, a few accidents on that day, but thanks to the chain drinking of squash the entire event he seems to have finally sussed it and now rarely has accidents. Fantastic, way to go Li’l Bhaji.

Now if he could just get a single poo in the potty so we can go wild, pile him with chocolate buttons and start the fanfares…

I wouldn’t even mind that much if he asked for a nappy, or waited until his night-time nappy to do a poo, but no. He seems to wait until THE most inconvenient moment possible then poos in his pants, leaving us with a major clean up operation in whatever basic facilities we can find nearby. Lovely. I’m rapidly losing my sense of humour about it all.

Until I discovered Suburban Turmoil‘s Potty Training for Dummies series.

I laughed hard at Part 1 – the Naked Baby method which swiftly got her two year old perfectly rug trained. By Part 2, I learned how with perfect demonstrations you can get your child to sit and say “ssssss” very convincingly. Part 3 had me in hysterical laughter (severely testing my own pelvic floor) over The Doll, and A Joyous Occasion gives a stark warning of the dangers of promising your daughter luxury fashion items in exchange for potty success.

The really useful section for our stage though is Baby Poo Poo Takes the Ride of His Life. I am practising my melodramatic weeping at this very moment.

I’ll let you know if we have any success.

I spent most of yesterday evening enthralled by Facebook, the social networking site.

Unlike Myspace, it seems to be based more around people you already know, rather than collecting complete strangers along the way, which suits me. I find it hard enough these days keeping up with the friends I already have.

It’s actually insanely addictive, and I’ve faffed around adding photos and amending my profile (sorry, no links as it’s under my real name in an attempt to get back in contact with people from the past). It’s certainly much more user friendly and fun than Friends Reunited. You can also network with others in your region (if you so choose) and join various special interest groups.

I do have this nagging doubt that my age group isn’t exactly the target audience though. Partly because no-one in my school is listed earlier than the year 2000 or so, and partly because I only seem to have about 5 friends, yet everyone else a decade or so younger seems to have a few zillion.

The effect is that I feel I’m turning into one of those weird adults who pretend they’re “hip” to what the younger generation are up to, while really they’re just sniggering behind my back… It’s good future practise for embarrassing my children, anyway.

Alley Katt‘s brother is currently doing a charity bike ride to raise money for the 2nd Cheriton Cubs and Beavers and Kent Marine Cadet Force in Folkestone. The route is taking him from Folkestone to Winchester and then returning which should take him just over a week to complete.

To mark the event, Alley Katt has set up a blog for him at Duncan’s Journey which will have updates and photographs as he goes.

Good luck, Duncan! Am very impressed… I think if I did that long a cycle my legs would fall off…