Javascripting and spelling

Well this week I've been busy working on websites.

The first is the local CAMRA branch website (for those of you who can't spell, that's Campaign for Real Ale, not anything to do with photography). I've been having a lot of fun creating a map which shows all the pubs in the branch. Google provide a lot of libraries to help with this, but it does mean creating rather a lot of javascript. Then of course, two hundred odd pubs looks rather cluttered so I turned to the MarkerClusterer library to help. This is absolutely fantastic, and magically clusters all the pubs nicely. However, it did rather annoyingly draw the cluster markers under the branch outline. A little hacking later and the clusters are now above the map. I've even added the local breweries too.

The second website I've been working on is for my daughter. The original idea came from the fact that her school appears to believe that they've taught 'times tables'; and certainly Louisa can count her way slowly through any times table given enough time and fingers. What she can't do is answer a multiplication question without resorting to her fingers, so to help her we figure she needs to keep practising.

Naturally, she enjoys playing games on the computer (check out the millions on the BBC website) so this is an easy way to help her practice.
This thought was still developing when we went to a school meeting where they told us the plans for the year. Apart from general homework, they're also giving the children spellings to learn each week. Obviously another opportunity for an online game.

For me, this feels slightly surreal, as some of the earliest games my mother wrote on our BBC computer, were a spelling game and a tables game to help my sister practice!

Still, I've put something together and it's met with an enthusiastic response so far. So lets see if it helps her to learn to spell 'germination'.

Yes, that really is one of her spelling words this week!

Lucy got Married (so did Ben obviously)

Ok, the being busy thing...

Well in the week since Easter, we have been ill (yuk) while simultaneously making service sheets, bookmarks and writing a speech.

All of which was more than worth it, to watch my sister get married yesterday.

The bride had the most gorgeous dark blue dress, while the bridesmaids were resplendent in light blue (that means Louisa and me). As Herring was the best man (hey, family wedding!), he didn't get to take a single picture, so nothing to show yet.

The sun shone, the children (there were lots) were all adorable and everyone had a good time.

Congratulations to Lucy & Ben!

Louisa got Baptised

Ok, so this is a bit delayed, but we've been busy (I'll get to that later) since Easter. Anyway Louisa got baptised at the Easter Vigil.

She was beautifully behaved despite the lateness of the hour. And I thought I should post a picture of her looking all angelic.

The dress was originally her Aunty's First Communion dress, which her Grandma (that's Louisa's - which means her Aunty's mother - are you keeping up at the back?) made.

Haggling

Well we've not mentioned our blue car for a while, and while all is well with it; it is admittedly a little old.

Anyway we sort of decided to take a serious look at replacing it. We found a rather nice Skoda Octavia, all in silver and lovely. The price however was (as with all cars from dealers) rather more than we figured it was worth. We had a bit of a look, and walked away suggesting that we were prepared to buy it, but not at the advertised price.

Anyway, while I was away in London today my husband has completed his haggling with the dealer and we will soon have a shiny new silver car.

Anyone want to buy a 306?

Connected

It always seems to be a challenge to get techy things to work the way you want. For some time now, I've been increasingly annoyed that my contacts on my phone were getting more and more different from the ones on my desktop. Not to mention that somehow the desktop ones weren't being updated correctly.

Recently I tried out ScheduleWorld, and after a certain amount of experimentation I have finally got the two back in sync and receiving updates.

I've got a new shiny google calendar that I haven't yet sync'd to my phone but will (either through ScheduleWorld again, or another service) soon.

And I've just signed up to Twitter for micro blogging fun - and yes, I can do that on my phone too.

Happy Paws!

Drinks Cabinet!

We have a drinks cabinet.

That probably doesn't sound hugely exciting; but for the past ten years we've been storing our (extensive) drinks collection in a huge bookcase.
We have now assembled a rather nice drinks cabinet. Narrower, taller and deeper than the bookcase it replaces, everything is now hidden behind doors, making us look slightly less alcoholic. But the best bit, is the centre section, with its drop down flap enabling easy making of drinks.

I've tested it, making a couple of G&Ts. It works brilliantly!

All praise to Herring, who modded the original cabinet so beautifully, adding the drop down flap, with braking action stays, in a way Ikea never intended!