Wendy House Wednesday: Shredding

Shred any bank statements older than six years. And if you have any other paperwork hanging around, make a plan for processing it.

The instructions are:

• Don't over-think. 
• Spend no more than 15 minutes. 
• It doesn't have to be perfect.

Wendy House Wednesday: Virus check

The instructions are:

• Don't over-think. 
• Spend no more than 15 minutes. 
• It doesn't have to be perfect.

Run a virus check on your computer.

Wendy House Wednesday: Spice

  

Well that was a mission and a half. Here is my spice and condiment department. It's spread over three shelves and I do use most of the spices at least once a month. I try to wipe each jar every time I use it so the rarely-used jars get a bit fluffy and of course the shelves themselves need cleaning and certain items that don't belong (can you see the postcard and the mac button) need to go to their proper homes. Because Bettany and Alec were only tenuously employed (him with a game on the tablet and her practising her rolling on the floor) I decided to set my timer and tackle just one shelf at a time.

It was a case of move a couple of jars, roll Bettany over on to her back. Wipe a jar, help Alec guide his fire engine through the maze. Wipe another jar, re-roll Bettany. Wipe a jar, ask Alec to turn the siren off. Wipe a jar, re-re-roll Bettany. The bottom shelf jars were spread across the worktop, half of them dusted, half of them not when Bettany started howling because she had wedged herself against the back door and Alec started howling because he, like me, had run out of time on his game.

 
Nick came to the rescue and finished the job for me while I was telling Alec firmly that he needed a nap.

This is one of those tasks that I don't do often enough -- but now I know a shelf takes just over 15 minutes I'll feel more confident about tackling it.

Wendy House Wednesday: Spice up your life

The instructions are:

• Don't over-think. 
• Spend no more than 15 minutes. 
• It doesn't have to be perfect.

Quarter of an hour straightening the spice cupboard. Sniff some favourites while you’re in there (and do let us know what you found).

A Night Elf in Ironforge

This adventure was spent in and around the Dwarven(fish?) city of Ironforge. It had two strands: one was accumulating more information about the party I am following. Honrid and Tikka are now wanted for murdering their parents and there is a hefty reward offered, which I might try to get for myself. Ironforge is their home city so several people knew them -- I feel as if I'm definitely on the right track with my

The second strand found me hijacked by my colleagues in SI6 -- Sylvya was rather irritated by this, particularly because as a Night Elf she doesn't like doing favours for Dwarfs: being told to do something 'because it's your job' is just annoying. And I could feel her blood pressure rising as she once again had to remind a contact that she hadn't been paid recently.

Anyway -- a mysterious 'scroungy-looking' man on the tram told her to speak to a barman at a gnomish inn and say 'MK sent me'. I didn't write down my instructions and Bettany distracted me and then I found I had forgotten them when the time came. Luckily I remembered enough that the barman gave me a note (which I carefully copied into my spy diary).

The instructions told me to access a legendary undercity called Old Ironforge and check what the Dark Iron Dwarfs were up to down there. I was to get more information by handing over two oranges to a party called Huldur Blackbeard, who I would find in The Forlorn Cavern. I was to take my information over the mountains to Mikhal at Menethil Harbour. I spent some time enjoying Ironforge (you, too, can enjoy Ironforge on the WoW Wiki), chatting to people (mostly slightly unfriendly to a Night Elf tourist). I concocted a cover story -- I was the servant of a Night Elf scholar who was inexplicably interested in Dark Iron Dwarfs ('I know... scholars eh?')

Then I made my way to The Forlorn Cavern where I found a humourless Dwarf with a black beard:
Sylvya: Do you like fruit?
Dwarf: Depends what kind.
Sylvya: Oranges?
Dwarf: Go on...
Sylvya: I've got ONE orange for you.
Dwarf: ...
Sylvya: Just kidding, here's another.
Dwarf: That kind of thing is going to get you killed.

Blackbeard said that there was a magically concealled entrance outside Ironforge and sent me to a riding ram ranch. He also said that Tikka and Honrid had been framed by an organisation called the Twilight Cult. I waited until morning to set out -- it looked cold and dark outside. This proved to be a mistake in some ways as a black cloaked assassin tried to kill me in the night. I didn't have the advantage of stealth so I yelled for help before slashing away. I got a good stab in with my two daggers before the innkeeper arrived with his trusty frying pan. The human assassin was in a bad way, but he came round for long enough that I could ask him a few questions. He muttered something about a black dragonfly and said that she would have killed him anyway before expiring.

I found a family in mourning -- their daughter had run off with those two troublesome dwarf lads and got herself killed by the Dark Irons. I asked, as delicately as I could -- with NO JOKES this time and staying under my cover story -- if they could tell me about Dark Irons. I followed the farmer's information up into the hills and came across two DIs guarding some rocks. I waited to see how the gate worked -- I didn't want to get stuck inside. Then I nobbled the two guards, looted the bodies and took their ears as trophies before letting myself in.

I nobbled and looted another DI despite some atrocious roll-to-hits. Then I reached a large cavern where there were three more DIs and a lot of large eggs. I decided that I wasn't being paid enough to fight against three. I listened in, and discovered that they were waiting for a lady to visit the following day.

Sylvya could have taken this information off to Mikhal at Menethil Harbour -- but I decided that my superiors might want to know more about the lady so (stopping briefly to hand over my DI ears to the underwhelmingly grateful farmer and to buy a riding ram from him) I hurried back to Blackbeard and told him all. He also displayed underwhelming gratitude and asked me to stake out the concealed entrance and watch for the lady's arrival. Sylvya definitely felt a bit disgruntled about this and asked to be paid for her trouble. Anyway, she waited and was rewarded -- a cloaked lady arrived and turned her pale red-eyed face towards Sylvya's hiding place in a very sinister manner, almost as if she knew she was being watched...

(I need to decide which voice I'm writing in -- it switches between player and character throughout this piece).

Wendy House Wednesday: I see dead people

I set a timer for 15 minutes and went through the contacts book on my email client. I deleted:

• several people who have died -- it was good to recall them for a moment particularly one writing mentor who passed on very recently
• people related to jobs I no longer do -- I suspect in most cases the contact details relate to jobs they no longer do either
• one person who I hope never to come across _ever_ again
• people from clubs, classes and societies that I am no longer part of
• travelling friends that I never kept up with.

I felt strange about clearing out the work-related addresses because it reminded me that I've been out of the world for a while now. Most of my mummy-networking is done by face-to-face or by text message so there aren't many parenting contacts in there. I should find a way of merging my phone and email contacts; and I should back them all up, too.

It also made me think about the easy come, easy go nature of a lot of my friendships. There are people that I got on really well with who I never communicate with any more; and people who I had less in common with but who pop up often on my Facebook or Twitter streams. Nick is a lot better at shepherding his friends in the real world than I am. I need face-to-face contact but I find it exhausting so I tend to avoid organising it unless I'm given a good hard shove. 

Wendy House Wednesday: Stay in touch

The instructions are:

• Don't over-think. 
• Spend no more than 15 minutes. 
• It doesn't have to be perfect.

Spend some time with your address book – update, cull, clean out. Transfer any details you have stashed on scruffy scraps of paper and new home cards. If it’s electronic do a back-up. Who have you not heard from recently? Who would welcome a postcard?