Last night I was supposed to accompany the Brownies after work on a walk along the riverbank to the next town, and then catch the train back. The arrival of rain, thunder, lightning, brimstone, frogs and pestilence yesterday afternoon put an end to that.
After cycling/swimming home, I arrived home and stripped down to my underwear in the kitchenmuch to the hilarity of the girls, who were in the middle of eating their dinner.”I can see Dad’s underpants!” (cue giggling)After being hurried along, the rest of the household vanished off to Brownies for a hastily improvised “Board Game Night”, and I was left on my lonesome. After washing up and tidying up, I finally turned my attention to the retro iMac computer that arrived in the post the day before.
After perhaps an hour of putting away bits of board game, stickle brick, lego, pens, pencils, and bits of unknown toy, I realised what it must be like to work on an archeological dig.
Finally, the iMac took pride of place in the playroom, and the drudgery started of creating an account for each child, logging in, removing nearly all the icons, and giving them immediate access to the things they will need (a fantastic word processor called “Bean”, and a paint program called “Paintbox”).
When the children arrived home from Brownies, they each took turns sitting at / fighting over the computer, and made the tremendously important decision of which wallpaper to have. Little Miss SixTiger Fur Little Miss SevenLeopard Fur Little Mis TenSeashore PebblesHalf way through showing our youngest the routine for saving her writing, logging out, and putting the computer to sleep when you are finished with it, I realised she was finding her own way unaided. I smiled.