From the drafts: Crafty games

This was one of the final TinaLostInSpace posts that never made it. That's because I only added the photos. No comments, no writing, no nothing...I'll do that now.

It'll probably not surprise you that I was big into crafts when I was little. Every Christmas and birthday I got something that needed me to make, create, paint, set, do. I had them all, plaster of Paris, clay, Fimo modelling clay...and these fine examples of craftiness.

Latch hook is actually quite hard to do, which is why this remains mostly undone.

The weaving loom though...

Oh yeah, half done as well.

Sylvanian Families paint by numbers is done. Actually, this was a practice one just done on paper, not the 'canvas' they give you. So what, I liked to practice my crafts.

There was something I did particularly enjoy about the things I found - the box kids. You know, the ones that demonstrate what you're supposed to do and how well they can do it (which, no matter how hard you try, you'll never be able to recreate). Take these examples:

I don't know how old you have to be before you can be described as 'preppy' but I'd say that boy has reached it. (Discover Food Technology allowed to do experiments on mouldy bread and the like. You got your own petri dishes and everything.]

Oh hair, hair, hair. So big you don't notice the braces until at least the second look. (Bead and stitch, you probably had one yourself. Ahem.)

It's good to have your ribbons match your shirt and pinafore combo. (Clothes peg dolls could be the theme of a four Yorkshire (wo)men skit. Dolls? We used to dream of dolls, we used to make them out of clothes pegs. Clothes pegs? Luxury.)

I also found a few card games. Nothing was complete, except this one, The Neighbours Card Game.

It's like a version of Happy Families, you have to complete the families, which if you can't see are the Robinsons, the Mangels, the Clarkes, and the Ramseys. Proper old Neighbours like.

Well, you don't just lose your Neighbours cards, do you? 

Ah good 80s times!

From the drafts: old computers

This should have gone on August 17th, but I think I thought I was plaguing you with posts about my roof space tidy. So better now to post it when I'm plaguing you with posts in order to beat the deadline eh?

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Technically the tidying started last week. Dad started to throw away our old computers, like this one.

A Mackintosh PowerMac 5500. It boasted a 4GB hard drive and interweb capabilities.

This was its laptop cousin, a PowerBook 5300cs. No one in my house remembers actually buying it. Do let us know if you think it's yours.

Our very first computer, a Spectrum ZX. That's not a tape deck folks, that's where you load the games!

I found video of the screen you got when a game was loading on You Tube. There's no sound though, I remember there being a screechy kind of sound.

Our favourite games were Treasure Island and Postman Pat. Both are on You Tube, of course.



That's 128k technology right there my friend.

Then the Postman Pat game. You can click through to it here, I didn't want to post it because of the username of the person who posted it - you might be sensitive to such words. Bet you click through now though...

This game became famous in our house for the phrase 'Cup of tea Pat?'. Even now, every once in a while it's likely my parents will say it each other (neither of them are called Pat, you probably knew that though.)

From the drafts: I've got a golden ticket

[This is from June 22nd. As you might guess, I'm excited for 2012 arrive!]

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The email finally telling us what we got in the Olympics came last night. I had heard rumours that if you checked your 2012 account in the early hours of the morning then you'd see what they got. I tried that, as it happens at 23.59pm and nothing. At the stroke of midnight I hit refresh and bam! There were my bloody handball tickets listed in all their glory!

Obviously I got mum to check hers immediately and I am delighted to say that she got Athletics tickets for the last night! How exciting! The night includes:

- 4 x 100m Men's Final (no baton drops in the heats Team GB, USA or Jamaica please and thank you)

- 5000m Men's Final (Mo Farah, I hope you decide to double up)

- 800m Women's Final (Jenny Meadows? Come on girl!)

So today I have been reliving some 4 x 100m action. I must have watched this about five times today. My favourite things are Steve Cram saying 'In fact it was terrible!" and Maurice Green's seriously unimpressed face during the medal ceremony. Brilliant!

Slightly concerned that Team GB don't really have many sprinters left in their prime, never mind their baton dropping. So who knows if we'll see them even make the final.

And there's this one, which lacks Steve Cram's excitement. The commentators seem slightly underwhelmed by Jamaica breaking a world record which stood since the days of Carl Lewis. So you'll have to make your own excitement of the magic of 37.10.




[December edit: I was lucky enough to receive a How to Watch the Olympics book for Christmas. It's very good, although, strangely it lists the sport as Handball, not Bloody Handball as it is referred to in our house.]

'Resolutions'

My resolution this year was to write more. I wrote my dissertation, all 20,000 words of it (60,000 if you include appendices. Just saying.) So check that one off the list.

I also vowed to blog more. And I did do that too! Last year I blogged 64 times. This year, I'm up to 66. Oh yeah! I say 'up to' because obviously this one will make it 67. Plus if you include the drafts that I never quite published (but am about to) I'll beat the dizzy heights of 2009 level blogging. Not sure the glory days Princess blogging in 2005-2007 will ever return. Ah, glory days.

I'm not sure the point of resolutions is to do them on the last day, but I do like the pressure of a deadline.

Click here to read:
I've got a golden ticket
Old computers
Crafty games

Christmas activities

New Year's Eve. Ugh. Not only is Christmas over, it's followed by the most hyped two days of all. We've had a good Christmas, lots of reading (Michael Johnson's book, Gold Rush, and Bill Bryson's Troublesome Words, which made me never want to write again - I make so many mistakes), gaming (see below) and television watching. Right now I'm watching Who Do You Think You Are? Actually this one is called Who Do You Think You Are UK? because I recorded it from RTE (southerners say 'Who d'ya think ye aar? but OarTE. I know, you enjoy my deep observations on life.)

I was happy to chance upon it earlier this week because it's the one I saw being filmed on my way home from work one day. I blogged about it here. It was being made in the autumn of 2006, and depending how well you know/remember the life of Tina, I was away in Singapore 2007 so missed it's transmission. I had looked on repeats on BBC and on Yesterday or whatever channel they appear on, but then chanced upon it this week on RTE! Delighted, I was!

As I watched the opening credits I was a bit confused because there, staring off into the distance in front of some barn/battlefield/workhouse, were celebrities whose programmes I'd seen, like Chris Moyles and Kim Cattrall. Had I actually been back and missed it? Nope, the opening moments of the programme told me OarTE had repackaged the programme, with some Irish accented man narrating. So they must have picked out the 'best' ones too. I still checked the website to be doubley sure. Sure enough, Graham's was broadcast in October 2007. Yeeeoooo.

And sure enough when I watched the programme I saw the bit I saw being filmed.

My original photograph. My phone camera didn't have zoom. But it's him.

As I think this photo from the programme shows.

I forgot when I blogged about it first time of the Graham H connection and how if I had gone to get him he could have met his namesake. I speculated at the time that this might have made the cut. Well, a funny exchange with a passer-by did so, I'm going to say, for sure I could have been on TV.

"They seem nice..."

In other Christmas activity news, we finished our jigsaw. Like I might have mentioned before we're a jigsawing kind of family. Or as I've typed each time (and then corrected) jogsaw. Our jogsaw (I'm just going to leave it) of choice this Christmas was this olde worlde shopping from the 1950s.

It doesn't look too bad, there's lots of distinctive pieces, but that's exactly the problem - they're all distinctive pieces.

When the box arrived we put it under the tree, alongside the tin of Roses (a tree just looks better with a tin of Roses underneath. You can keep your Quality Street.) Anyway, it was all looking lovely. And then Christmas Eve came when I wrapped my presents and put them under the tree.

"But oh no, what this? Oh the jogsaw box. I'll move it to make room....presents, presents, presents...I'll carry them across..."

Crunch!

I stood on the box. Not only was there a massive Tina sized foot dent, the box even ripped in the impact. Oopsy. Thankfully no pieces were harmed in this act of clumsiness.

All good jogsawers know you start with the frame.

Getting there...

And we're done! Let me just say that basket down at the  bottom was ridiculously hard.

I got to spend some time round at the home of the Duke and Duchess of Finaghy. As any good host knows, after-dinner entertainment must be planned. Thankfully Nicky knew this and laid on a great game of Mullet Power Top Trumps. Makes me want to see the Royal Wedding version ever more now.

You couldn't make it up.

We also played a good old fashioned game of Boggle. Word games like this aren't my favourite, I'm just not very good at them. My words in this game were mostly made up of three letter words, like pea, lad, gin... I got a handful of four letter word (no, not that sort) and the whole game I only got one five letter word, sings. I thank you. I wasn't allowed coo, which I thought was a travesity. People coo at babies all the time. But they very generously allowed me peed, you know, I peed, you peed, he peed.

That's why it's best to just leave me to the jogsaws.