Hi. There is a mention on my blog of this illustrious blog, in a post about the Forth Road Bridges (bear with me...)

Go and look up Metropolitan Mum! She used to live in London.... You live in London... She now lives in Sweden... You're going to Sweden... Obvious connection there!

Your husband is hilarious. You are too... obviously... goes without saying...

"Dear Dormant and Inactive Manager" - haha!

I have a Dormant and Inactive tale to tell. Last month I went to the bank to pay a cheque into the account my son (aged 14) has had since a baby. Because we haven't used the account much since then, the cashier said it was dormant. She went away and investigated, and came back and said the money had been paid into our account, as guardians. I said "What, without telling us?" (winging it at this point, because how the heck would I remember if 40 quid had randomly been paid to us months or years ago). She went away and investigated more, and came back and siad that the money had been paid into the bank's own account. "Which is rather different, isn't it?" I said.

Anyway, I filled in a Dormant Investigation form for that account, and for his brother's, and they said they'd look into it asap, and it might take a few days, and that was about 6 weeks ago.

Intriguingly, they said it had been Dormant for years. I said "but look, here's a receipt for a deposit I made into the account a few months ago " (feeling incredibly smug that I'd kept the receipt folded up in the little booklet, for such an occasion as this). They replied that they had no idea how the system had allowed that, since the account would have been Dormant, but that yes, the receipt did show that the money had been paid in, so not to worry, they would find it.

It's so so so tedious, isn't it? I can't be bothered to phone, as I know I'll get into some vortex of choosing menu options from which I might never exit. I can't be bothered to go to the branch because there is always a queue, and all they will tell me is that they haven't got the answer yet.

I feel your Dormant and Excruciating pain.

There is something about this post that bothers me, and I don't know what it is, as yes, I would totally defend the right to free speech. Hm... I think it's this. If you pursue being tolerant to the Nth degree, you end up with intolerance. Intolerant of intolerant people. So, sometimes if someone is saying "this is unacceptable to me", then we need to listen to why they are saying that, and not just say "too bad... it's my right to say what I want".

Trying to think of an example here... How about this? We used to call disabled people "the disabled". Then some of them said they didn't like that. Yes, this could just be PCness. But maybe using different language has changed society's attitudes. Maybe those attitudes wouldn't have changed as quickly, if the language hadn't changed. So if you wrote a blog post about the crippled, or the handicapped, or spastics, I would be offended, and it would be a question of my offence versus your freedom of speech. But the underlying issue would be my upholding the right of some people to be seen as full members of society against your right to freedom to describe them how you like.

Not sure quite what I'm saying here, but throwing this in the pot as food for thought. And, given what you've said in your post, you'll have to accept it and not be offended by it!

Yes, socks that have different coloured heels or toes are the way forward (3 men in the house here all have the same sock size and all wear black socks). Or realising that they just don't care if they wear each other's socks. My battle on the sock front has been teaching the boys to unravel their dirty socks when they take them off. Who wants to have to pull endless smelly dirty balls of scrunched up footwear into shape, before putting them into the washing machine? Yuk.

The thing I hadn't expected as my children grow up is the sheer amount of physical space they take up. Seems obvious, but I'm still not quite used to the thudding as they run downstairs, the sprawled bodies on the sitting room floor, the emptying of the cornflake packet in a couple of sittings (as you say), and the bumps in the night as my 14 year old turns over in his single bed and wallops the wall that separates his bedroom from ours. There's just so much of them, and even if they're not around, as you mention, there are plenty of lingering reminders in terms of mud, laundry, aromas, etc. The only thing that goes in the smaller direction is toys. No more piles of brightly-coloured plastic, or boxes spilling off shelves. It's all small electronic things and wires and cables.

Great post.

I know what you mean about supermarkets. Everyone's life stories and circumstances being pushed before them in the trolley.

So sorry to read this post. It makes me all the more impressed with you, that you spend so much time, thought and energy on other people's daughters. That's a wonderful thing.

Very inventive!

And the beep could be personalised. "Have you fed the cat?" for example, or "Don't forget your mum's birthday".
My recent post Parenting for failure

A watch that tells a man when to buy milk. Genius!