After living in the same town for over 40 years, I have upped sticks and moved; 4½ miles away!

Battletech Website / Steam Product Page

Amongst a small number of presents, I got an Amazon Fire TV stick for my birthday this year. It's a great, little device! It uses the Amazon Appstore and there are apps for BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4, My5, Sky Go, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and the WWE Network, amongst others. You can even connect a bluetooth keyboard, mouse or game controller to it. The only app that I was disappointed to discover isn't available, is the BT Sport app, which is available through the Google Play Store, but not the Amazon Appstore. I hope that's rectified at some point in the future. If it's something that you've thought about buying in the past, but wasn't too sure about, I can honestly say that I would happily pay full price for one. Click on the link to the left if you want to buy one/see more details on Amazon's UK website.

The Teapot Trust children’s charity uses art therapy as a way of helping young people cope with long term medical conditions. We know that these conditions can cause anxiety, anger or upset for children and families. Art therapy provides a way of expressing and dealing with feelings, helping children to feel more in control and to cope with their condition.

Visit them.

Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn’t wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn’t wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn’t wisdom. It’s the furthest thing from wisdom—it’s animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others’ throats.

Bible Version: The Message

Varda doesn't like our new rug!

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Varda is just about 8½ months old now and I can't imagine how our lives would be different without her. She's one of the happiest babies I've ever encountered and rarely gets upset for any period of time. Within the last month she's started to crawl and has already started to continually pull herself up onto her feet by leaning against the furniture or either myself, Beck or Tore. She's probably going to be walking within the next month or so. About the only time she really cries is when she falls over and bangs her head whilst she either leans backwards to look up at something or tries to stand.

Anyway, in the past year or so, I've seen a number of stories on social media and news sites about people causing horrific injuries, and even killing young babies; especially stories of people doing these things to their own children. In the past these stories would've saddened me and then I'd think no more about it. Not anymore. These days, I find such stories to be quite distressing and just can't get my head around the fact that somebody would do something so despicable to such a defenceless child. Logically, I understand that some people can't cope, have mental issues, are just plain evil, etc. However, as a new parent, albeit probably a very lucky one in terms of Vards behaviour and temperment, I just can't rationalise their actions.

I'm almost ashamed to say that I found it almost gratifying to discover that the mother who was recently jailed for stamping her baby to death had been seriously attacked in prison.