I've just looked back and it's been months, nay, seasons, since I posted. Life has been bonkers busy recently and with every www waking moment, I've been writing for work not for pleasure, although they are one-and-the-same as I do love my job but writing for withdewrespect does not a mortgage pay.
But now sinus infection has rendered me a few rare moments of inactivity, I have chance to catch up with the world of withdewrespect.
I've just read back to 4th November 2017 (a particularly fun one if you'd care to scroll) and seen that Daniel was then on PS3 playing Minecraft. Fast-forward a year and he's now on PS4 and, like everyone between the ages of 10 and 16, on Fortnite, cue sigh and eye-rolling from every parent of an aforementioned 10 to 16-year-old.
And, as of today, not just playing, but live streaming, bless his little cotton socks (although I'm not sure you can get a skin with cotton socks, that clearly wouldn't be cool, although having a burger for a head apparently is!). It's great actually, I'm laid up in bed but can log on to Twitch and see what Daniel is up to in the room next door, it's like having a baby monitor again!
It's amazing what we can do on the www now (said the old lady blogger); I can turn the heating up or down without getting out of bed. In fact I can go to the other side of the world and turn my heating up or down, get me! In fact, I have never ever wanted to go to Australia (you know, my spider thing) but now I want to go just so I can turn my heating up or down while I'm there. Of course, my husband would have to stay at home to check that it is actually going up or down or what would be the point!?
This remote / artificial / cyber intelligence thing is the future apparently. I want to be like the girl in Matrix who asks her brain implant chip thing to source instantaneous knowledge to fly a helicopter. Of course, I'd use it for something much more useful than flying a helicopter to escape certain death, like to summon up a nice recipe for lasagne, set a reminder to buy cat litter or order some printer ink on Amazon. Like Alexa, only actually in my head.
In fact, there may soon be very little reason to leave bed, let alone leave the house. I sometimes wonder why we bother anyway. I took the boys to Munich last year and later asked them what they had learnt about the city and Bavarian culture. Daniel: "They eat sausages", Teddy: "....and ride bikes".
Another recent trip had me chuckling at the banality of the road 'warnings' when you get north of Carlisle. Life in the northern most parts of our beautiful country is certainly not spent in the proverbial fast lane. In fact, I don't think anyone has ever used the outside lane on the A74(M), it still has its wrapper on.
Road signs up there can hardly be bothered lighting up at all and when they do they literally yawn out messages like 'drive efficiently', 'fasten your safety belt', 'soft tyres waste fuel', 'blah, blah', 'yadder, yadder'. On the M62 round our way, the incessantly flashing signage is much more shouty; 'slow down, debris on the road', 'incident ahead', 'hours and hours of delay ahead', 'have you brought a flask, you could be here a while?'
On the same trip, while touring round the Lake District, I was highly amused when we came across Loch Lochy.
It's as if the Lakes Naming Committee had had a long day. Catering had gone home, the tea urn had been turned off and the caretaker was peering through the door and looking at his watch, so somebody piped up; "look guys, there's just one more lake to name, fuck it, let's just call it Loch Lochy so we can all go home! All in favour....."
