Peter's Blog

Mary-Esthers big eyes. Photographed with iPhone 3G and tweeked with the Photogene app.

Yesterday was hot and humid, a nice day for a splash in the paddling pool. This was another reason for buying a pump. Pool was very tempting but way too small for me

Kept Elizabeth awake all afternoon and she slept early. Success all round.

If you are in the Market for a paddling pool, avoid yellow as it seems to attract lots of little black insects.

Bubble machines are great fun for little kids. This one is from the Early Learning Centre and was on special offer for £10. I switched it on and it made a loud crack as the fan split in half. Couldn't be bothered to return it so araldited it. Much fun was had until the damn thing split again.

Here is a picture of me from my Fathers Day Card, complete with a cup of coffee.

I never formally introduced Mary-Esther to the blog. She's five months old now. She makes iPhone photos look good.

So why buy the nikon D80? To take pictures of Elizabeth Wilkinson, born 4:30am 29th November 2006.

I had to repair the vacuum cleaner, a Dyson DC04. It stopped working, switch it on and nothing. I guessed this was down to a break in the electricity supply, the fuse was ok so I had to take it to bits to trace the mains cable.

It is not an easy thing to work on. It does come to bits: unlike a hoover that I once had to scrap when I accidently sucked up a handkerchief: the thing was glued together. The Dyson uses torx screws but I have a torx screwdriver. The plastic parts interconnect quite closely and you have to get a bit medieval to yank them apart. I got the motor out (which is surprisingly small, about the volume of a baked bean tin) but the power was not reaching it.

I prised out the top of the switch (not easy, I had to abandon the prospect of not marking it) and power wasn't there either. I chopped 4" off the mains cable at the plug end and indeed the break was there, either where the cable comes out of the plug or under the little plastic clip that you can use to stop the cable flapping about in storage. The fix was simply to fit a new plug.

As a side note, I gave the decapitated plug to 15 month old baby daughter to play with as she was interested in what I was doing. I thought it wasn't sharp so she shouldn't hurt herself with it. She proceeded to try plugging it into the wall socket. No major panic, the wall socket did have a child cover, but still there is a moral: don't underestimate babies.