I know I’ve been really dismal at replying to comments the last few days, sorry about that. I am reading and enjoying all your comments though even if I don’t always get a chance to respond!

NaNo is going less than well. Tiredness is setting in, lots of other demands on my time have suddenly become urgent, I’m about 2000 words behind where I wanted to be right now, and more recently the satellite signal on our TV has disappeared.

Yes, I now have to write without recourse to CBeebies.

Finances being as they are, we’re going to have to wait until next payday to get it fixed, so I face the next two weeks of NaNo without the electronic babysitter.

Oh shit, I’m doomed.

Well it looks like Miss L is the Be Seen competition winner with her highly inventive use for high visibility snap bands:

I think they would look fabulous on a really well trimmed standard poodle – you know, the ones with the bobbles on their tails and feet. They would need one around the tail and one around each ankle. Very fetching!

Drop me an email with your address, Miss L, and I’ll pop the snap band in the post to you. Just hope the poodle is obliging…

It’s September. The evenings are getting darker, earlier. The weather getting poorer.

Just how visible are you and your kids?

This is just what is being asked by 3M’s Be Seen road safety campaign and to mark the occasion they have sent me a High Visibility Snap Band to give away here on the Prattle as well as a couple for me to play with to keep my two monsters visible this winter.

I have to say they really are rather cool and fun. They’re made out of the same reflective material that emergency services personnel have on their uniforms, so reflect really well. They have some sort of metal coil inside which snaps straight and then when you tap it against something (like the top of your arm) it wraps around securely with a click. Great to put around arms, wrists, bags, handlebars of a bike … you get the idea.

Anyway, to get back to the point… the giveaway. I thought we could have a competition.

To win one of these fab snap bands, all you have to do is come up with an amusing and unusual use for one of these (keep it clean though, eh?). One that makes me laugh the most, gets the band…

Closing date is midnight on Saturday 23rd September.

I’ve been blog faffing again.

There should now be a tick box option of subscribing to replies to a particular post via email when you submit a comment on that post.

As always, if it becomes borked, please let me know either here or via Pewari [at] may [dot] be.

Okay, so I haven’t reinstalled the laptop yet. In fact, I haven’t started the backups yet. But I have (with Akra’s help) redesigned the blog! What do you think?!

As usual, if anything is borked, please let me know by dropping me a comment or an email.

Do you think I might be procrastinating?

… going to need a full reinstall which I’ve been putting off for ages … see you out the other side.

Wish me luck!! (I always forget to back up *SOMETHING* properly … )

12 noon has been and gone so I should be safe from foolin’. I do confess to a quick chortle over Google’s jape this year though: Google Romance (be sure to take the tour).

I hope you’re proud of me. I managed to drag myself out of my sick bed to get all my photos done for this month’s Wheel of the Year, despite cold from hell and grumpy mardy children.

In other news, it’s Pewari’s Prattle’s third blogaversary today. That’s right … three years I’ve kept this up. Not bad for someone who isn’t good at following through on ideas, eh?

Rich over at Sad Salvation has got me thinking with his entry on abandoned blogs and his need to read a final entry that tied up loose ends. You know how it is, you wander the web, start reading a really funny and well written blog only to discover the posts just stop about six months ago with no explanation. Did they get bored? Did they move on to greener pastures? Did they die from a horrific boating accident?

Like Rich, I feel the need to know, and as you know I happily say my goodbyes and reasons why even when they turn out to be more of a sabbatical. But what if (heaven forbid) the worst happens and that meteorite strikes Chez Naan with no forewarning after all?

Well one thing’s for sure, I couldn’t rely on my husband to update you all. If you were lucky, you’d get a four word post along the lines of “Pewari dead. Sorry. Bye”. So I started to explain my dilemma to Sylvia, a long time writing buddy of mine. “No way,” she said before I could even finish my request of earth-shattering importance. “I am NOT writing your obituary”. Hmph.

So second best (but far from second rate), I ask Zip to supply her wordiness should the occasion arise. She reacted enthusiastically (almost too enthusiastically) and I confess to starting to feeling a little uneasy when she casually asked “can i still pick on you when you’re dead then?” and then a little later: “RIP Pewari, may she spin as I typo”. Maybe not then.

So, the situation is still vacant. If you want the job, drop me a comment explaining why you would be ideally qualified to write the final wrap up to Pewari’s Prattle.

Oh, and not that I’m in a morbid mood at all, but take a look at Scott Will’s idea for an interactive headstone for your grave – now THAT’S innovative!

Just a flying visit as I’m supposed to be elsewhere (story of my whole day, if I’m honest).

• Wheel of the Year – I’m up to date now with the entries for February as far as I am aware. If I’ve missed you off, please let me know either using the comments here or the contact form on the entries page. Looking forward to seeing March’s entries very soon!
• NaNoWriMo 2003 – Okay, it’s taken me around four months to get around to it, but I’ve finally put back the NaNoWriMo novel which got lost in the redesign. If you haven’t heard of NaNoWriMo, it’s a mad month in November when insane people attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in the space of 30 days. It’s not a great thing of beauty, but it’s quite entertainingly bad in places. Do feel free to dip in and out of whenever you feel the whim.
• That Damned Fish – Bob now has white spot, otherwise known as the ich. Sort of an “Ichy Ishy”. I vaguely remember Zip telling me that fish keeping was soothing and relaxing – so I’m holding her personally responsible.
• Heating – back on, thank God/Goddess/Tao/divinity of choice.

That’s all for now. I’ll try and plan my day better tomorrow.

That’s it. That’s my sum total of my notes I made yesterday when I had a sudden brainwave about what to write about today: Noise.

Of course, it obviously meant something to me at the time – I have no doubt that I was convinced it was such an obvious word that I’d have no trouble picking up the thought process again later on. Only I have absolutely no clue what the hell I was on about.

Was I getting annoyed at the decibel level of my two sons? Was I thinking about low-light photography and the problems of shooting at the higher ISOs? Was it an insightful ponder on the increasing popularity of the humble blog meaning that some of the best voices were getting lost in all the noise (if it was, I suspect that at the moment I am contributing to the noise rather than the voices)?

I have no bloody idea.

Someone is obviously stealing my thoughts as well as my time. It’s the only possible explanation.

It’s either that, or I’m now getting loopy in my old age (and yes, I had a lovely birthday, thank you all).