I’ve been away from the computer for over a week now. It wasn’t deliberate, it was due to a huge order of £1Million notes. 10,500 to be exact!!
Each note has to be put together with a backing card, slid into a plastic wallet, sealed and barcoded. The notes are then packed into envelopes of 25 with ten full envelopes going into a small box. Four of those smaller boxes go into one large box…..yawn!!! You still awake?
I normally do all the packing with the help of OH and two reluctant children. The most I have done up until now was 4,000 and I optimistically thought 10,500 would be a doddle.
I won’t bore you with all the details, but we started packing at 4pm Monday and finally finished at 11:30am Sunday! I went to bed at midnight each night and was up again at 5am each morning. I roped in my cousin, my uncle and two friends to help, plus bribed the kids to get them to stick bar codes on. All this in between OH jetting off to Baltimore, me taking the kids to their many social events, coming down with a cold and forcing myself to watch the Michael Jackson Seance with Derek Acorah!!!
Phew!!! I did my upmost not to moan or complain, after all I wasn’t down a mine, working on a hospital ward, cleaning public toilets or doing any other genuinely demanding jobs…but it was blummin’ hard work!
With the boxes all nicely packed, I spent Monday driving for 6 hours to Lowestoft and back to deliver them before flopping in front of the telly with a curry and cuddle from OH who’d just got back from Baltimore. While we were watching TV, I suddenly realised I hadn’t been anywhere near the computer for a whole week! No emails, no blogging, not even a tweet….and I hadn’t even missed it!
After that revelation, I made a pact with myself not to spend unecessary amounts of time on the computer…the Wii on the other hand!
I love the Wii, probably more than my kids do. I love it’s simplicity and how easy it is to use. By the way Santa, if you’re reading this, I’d really like a wii-fit for Christmas!
A couple of weeks ago I was sent a game to review called Bonsai Barber. As expected, I was more excited than the kids. The game is aimed at younger children, so my 13 year old wasn’t that impressed. Then again he’s a hardened PS3 gamer who plays games with horrible titles like ‘Modern Warfare’ and ‘Assassins Creed’.
I sat down with my 8 year old and we started to play. The idea is a little strange. You’re a new barber in town and have to cut the hair/leaves of various fruits and vegetables. You get given a style template and you have to cut around that template, gaining stars for accuracy with 5 stars being the highest you can get for each cut.
Simple enough. The wii remote becomes either a pair of scissors, clippers or even a paintbrush so you can colour the foliage.
After we’d styled about 6 different vegetables, the game suddenly wouldn’t let us go any further? We were both feeling a little frustrated until we realised that you only have a certain amount of appointments to complete each day.
The following day we were keen to turn the wii on again and see who was queuing up at our virtual barber shop. This time we had new customers and the styles were clearly getting harder.
We played Bonsai Barber every day for around two weeks and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. Even my step-daughter who isn’t remotely interested in gaming, started her own story mode. It’s certainly not taxing and you don’t have to be skilled with a game controller. For that reason it isn’t suitable for older children who are used to more difficult games consoles. However it’s perfect for younger children and 39ish mums who want to spend some time playing a game with their kids that they actually have a chance of understanding!
Now where’s that Wii remote gone?
