I'm sitting on the doorstep......

while my children cycle round the block.  It is something I have very mixed feelings about.  They should be out playing, cycling round, enjoying htemselves and being children but I can't help thinking that something bad could happen to them.  I know I am not the only one that thinks like this...lots of my friends do.  And yet, when  was their age I used to spend hours in the woods across a busy main road (busy for 30 odd years ago) from our house.  Just my brother and I, not mobile phone.  We may have had a watch  and been told to be in at a certain time or just told to be back for tea, I really can't remember.  What I do know is that I'm still here, nothing happened to me.  No one approached us and asked if I would like to see their puppies or go back for sweets, despite the fact that Charlie from 'off the tele' met with danger every time he went out (thank goodness he had that sensible cat with him!!), so why are we all so paranoid now?  Come to think of it, my mother never made me wear a helmet (they weren't invented for bike riders) and I didn't have any lessons teaching me how to ride a bike...I just got on with it. 

Totally as an aside, Mr Chops has just asked me if I am writing my will!!!!  This is the same child who once asked me what I would do if someone phoned me and threatened my life...and I think I worry too much!!

I am excused, Mr C has just come and relieved me of my sentry duties...just as well as the battery was going :)  I am cheating a bit really.  It is my birthday tomorrow and my parents have got me a laptop...I am using it now...all shiny and wi-fi enabled...I should have waited really but I could not.  I have, however, shown remarkable patience in waiting for my pressie from the in-laws.  Back in the Easter holidays, when we went on holiday to Southwold, teh time of the great Ruby Port panic, we went into Anne Brewsters and they were having a Cath Kidston sale...what joy shall fill my heart.  So I bought a purse and MIL got the bag for me, to match, and I have had to wait until now to gaze and admire it (I am not always this shallow)...and now the time is here...what a beauty :)

So, some pictures.....I don't seem to have downloaded them from the camera yet...so another time.  Am still getting used to this new keyboard...I go to hit SHIFT for some capital letters and end up hitting the print button.  I have absolutely no ides what most of these buttons do either so lots of exploring will be needed...off  to find out.....