I have been thinking about how sometimes it can seem like there seem to be expectations that you should do lots of things.  We have quite a lot of friends who are away seeing people or doing things really most weekends or maybe every weekend.  I think this is ok if that is what you like.  I don’t really. 

What I like doing is having a bath and reading a book and seeing Ben and walking in the woods and thinking and doing music.  I also like swimming.  So I think people might think I am very boring.  I don’t care because I like it and that, I think, is all that matters.

This is an interesting thing I have found out today.  I have never seen a baby pigeon.  This is because pigeons grow very quickly and stay in their nest whilst they are growing.  So they look like adult pigeons even when they are in their nest.

 Homing pigeons are pretty clever as they can spot land marks from high up and find their way even across the atlantic.

Apparently, it used to be believed that a pigeon could suck poison out of wounds with it’s back end and were used to try to treat adder bites.  I do not expect this was effective.

Last summer we sailed across the channel to Guernsey and on the way a pigeon landed on our friend’s hand.  This was quite surprising and distracted Ben from being sick.  It was a very tired pigeon and sat in our boat until we got to Guernsey.  We think it was having trouble with the wind because it couldn’t really fly against it very easily.

However, I still do not really like pigeons.

…this is a direct quote from the BBC 6 o’clock news, describing the elections coming up next week.  What??  I think I will run my own life thanks, rather than just giving politicians an idea of how I’d like it run for me.

I suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise seeing as this government has spent a lot of time making up laws trying to control how we spend our free time and even how we choose to raise our children.  I’m not big into hunting myself, but why should some politicians decide what people should do when they’re not at work?

On a tastier note, I had a delicious curry for my tea, out of jar made by Pataks.   Much, much nicer than that Badsha mess.  And a lot cheaper.

Today Ben and I had a very bad experience.  I fancied a curry for my tea so we went to Badsha in Tenterden to get one.  First they gave my curry to someone else so I had to wait longer for it.  But mistakes happen so I just waited for mine.  Then I took it with me back to the jumps.

It was horrible.  It was a cashew curry (they call it badami) and it had no flavour at all.  It didn’t claim to be particularly mild, and I’m pretty keen on any kind of curry but it just didn’t have any taste whatsoever.  And it had cost £7.75. 

So we decided it would be reasonable to take it back. 

Not only were we offered no kind of compensation at all, we were treated with aggression and disrespect.  The waiter we spoke to shouted at us (in front of a whole restaurent of customers – many of whom looked pretty surprised!), saying that if there was nothing wrong with the food (being tasteless and having only 2 half cashews in doesn’t seem to count) they didn’t have to do anything and you couldn’t just take things back.  After all you can’t do that in Tesco.  Well actually you can do that in Tesco but they’re different in Badsha Indian.

It wasn’t so much the nasty food that we had paid a rather high price for that was particularly bothering, but the way in which our complaint was handled.  He could have politely said that he was sorry but there was nothing he could do; instead he was rude and very aggressive.

We will not be getting food from Badsha’s again – which is a shame for them too as we would have been likely to get a take away most Saturdays over the summer.

I think hippos are an interesting animal. 

 They are actually one of the most dangerous animals in the world so definitely worth knowing about.  What you have to watch out for is getting between them and water as when they are startled they run back to water and might trample you on the way.  They are quite grumpy too so if you poke them with a paddle them may chomp you.  They won’t eat you though as they are vegetarians.

They share a major weapon with lions: lions and hippos have very bad breath so if they want to stun you they breathe on you and then you are easier to defeat. 

Just a little update about some things I heard a child say today.

 “I know all the w(h)ales: the country, blue and killer”

“I did used to want to go to Antarctica but now I don’t want to because I might find I’m the wrong way up”.

An interesting thing I found out about today is scorpions. As I have mentioned before I like to know about things that are a bit frightening and I think scorpions count.

The thing I found out that I thought was most interesting is that when scorpions are angry they say “ha-tsu”. So if you hear someone say “ha-tsu” watch out as they may be a scorpion about to attack. I also did not know that there is a belief that scorpions commit suicide if surrounded by fire by stinging themselves. I don’t know if I’m relieved to discover this is not true. They can’t do that as they are not sensitive to their own venom. Which makes sense really as it would be bad to carry a substance around with you which could kill you. They have also been known to survive radiation testing. And they are occasionally born with two tails. This is a genetic abnormality.

Other animals also say strange things when they are cross. Both tigers and weasels say “fuff”.

This week there was another one of those things when someone goes into a school and shoots a load of kids.  The thing I think is strange about this is that there is then a whole series of reports about how the person had mental health problems, as though this is a big surprise.  Surely going into a school and shooting children is a pretty clear indicator of mental illness.

The slant never seems to be: how come this person didn’t get more help?  Why isn’t there much support for people with those types of problems?  This is particularly ridiculous when you consider that about 1 in 4 people suffer a period of depression in their lives.  Obviously only a fraction of people with mental illness will go into a school and do some shooting, but I think this all points to the fact that there’s not enough focus on helping people be well mentally.  I think this probably starts with parenting and education.  After all, there is so much emphasis on academic achievement that actually being ok is forgotten.  It also doesn’t help that any other label will do, just not mental health problems.  I’m very often involved in the process of diagnosing autism and it seems to me that some kids get that diagnosis instead of a diagnosis of mental health problems, or they may have both difficulties but just get one label – autism. 

One real problem with this is that it means that people don’t realise that more people need to be paid to work in mental health for adults and for children so no-one does anything about it, and that it should be a part of home and school life too.  Also, people think they’ve got the answer and everything is down to autism, when maybe we’re missing something…

It’s the same with the original “I don’t like mondays” case.  Turns out Brenda Ann Spencer used the gun her father gave her when she was less than 17 in the shootings and never had any coherent reason for what she did.  Didn’t anyone wonder why her father had bought her a gun in the first place?  And isn’t there something wrong when a person doesn’t seem to understand why it matters that she killed some people?

I think this will probably keep happening as long as society doesn’t try to care for children’s needs rather than just their education.  And whilst anything is blamed instead of realising that one way or another those people just weren’t looked after well enough.

I am very glad of all the messages that have been put up so far – thanks.  I did not think anyone would look so it’s really good when people do.

I am about to go to bed (feeling sleepy, as Liam advised) but a quick addition to my comments on spiders:

I found out today that tarantulas can die by falling down stairs.  This is because they have an exoskeleton rather than an endoskeleton so they can be “broken”.  This makes them, in this respect, a little more like a crab than a spider.  Last night my sleep problem involved waking up in the middle of the night thinking there was a spider on me.  I had to put the light on and check all around.  Sorry Ben.  Now I know that if I think there is a spider on me, I just have to thrown it very hard against a wall and that will break it. 

Sweet dreams.