Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising. Mark Twain

Yesterday evening I put a huge smile on Robbie's face - I brought home several packs of the newly released Lego Olympic Minifigures. He had been waiting for them to be released and they turned up several days early, so when I gave them to him he was really surprised. He sat down at the table with a cup of coffee and set about making his first Olympic minifigures. His little expressions of excitement caused my son and daughter to shake their heads and exchange exasperated looks. My son made two posts on facebook which supped up the situation perfectly.

"You know you're set out for a career in mental health care when your stepdad sits in the corner calling a Lego man beautiful...and you don't question it"

"I would worry when my stepdad says he can feel the difference between a weightlifter and a an athlete... Until I realise he is on about Lego men."

As far as I am concerned it is harmless, it is not especially expensive and it gives the kids something new to disapprove of, it takes the 'spotlight' of my perceived failings. When you think of it that way the minifigures seem much less irritating! 

Too Much Excitement

The road where we live is reasonably straight, then there is a bend and the road changes its name. This causes some confusion especially for delivery companies because it seems like one long road. Anyway, the 'powers that be' decided to have the road resurfaced, something which is long overdue it was more like the surface of the moon than a road. Each morning they closed the end of the adjoining road and they closed our road part way along to stop traffic getting stuck. Unfortunately it caused problems for me and many other residents trying to reach their homes, so I hoped that it wouldn't take too long. By the end of the first week my hopes had been dashed, they had taken the surface off the road, but there was no sign of a new surface. It is only a short road, not the M1 so I don't know why it took so long, maybe they were digging it up with a teaspoon!


After a second week of road closures and no significant action, they have managed to produce a road surface, still unfinished and not the smoothest I have driven on, but after waiting for two weeks I was glad to be able to drive along the road at last. Robbie had paid keen attention to the road closures because it altered the bus route slightly, and we all know that he loves to obsess about timetables! I wasn't really surprised by that, but I was amazed by his reaction to driving over the new road. His excitement about driving on a road with no marking was just plain weird, he still manages to surprise me!