The New Toy...

I got a new toy, last night.

Well... I'll rephrase that. My daughter got a new toy. She just doesn't know it yet.

I just needed to set it up first. Make it so it was ready to go. Yes, that's it. Not play with it, simply ensure it's all prepared.

It's her birthday next month, four days before her baby sister's. We've spent a bit of money on her, it has to be said. She loves Monster High dolls, a craze of Mattel where they take a classic horror character, such as Frankenstein's monster, and give him a daughter.

Meet Frankie Stein. Meet her friends, Draculora and Abbie Bominable.

Then meet the endless stream of further dolls and merchandise to go with it. Wii games. Cars. Houses. Magazines and films. My daughter now has twenty one of the dolls. We've bought her the house for her birthday. I don't mind, really. It's better than her being sat in front of the TV or computer. She's using her imagination. And, she was given a doll rather than some form of chocolate egg at Easter - though that did coincide with a treat for being such a good girl.

So, we were spent up. We'd covered everything we wanted to and, hopefully, our back garden will be finished being completely changed around in time for a barbeque party.

But...

I'm not a soft touch, honestly. It's just, well, I didn't have much when I was a child. My parents had little spare money, though that wasn't something I actually suffered from. Not that I have a lot, I just want to give my children something I didn't have. We ensure they're not spoiled. She appreciates what she gets and is thankful of even the smallest treat or gift. There are never any tantrums and she does well at school, is wonderfully polite, and makes us proud.

So. I saw this tablet. As tablets go, it was very cheap. Less than £50. I shouldn't have, but I knew she'd love it. We went to Manchester a couple of weeks ago and, in the car (a two and a half hour drive), she used my own tablet to watch a film and play some games. Granted, mine cost a fair bit more than £50, but, to a ten year old, that's not going to matter.

She has a basic android phone - used to make sure, if she's at a friend’s or out playing, she's always got a line to us. The tablet is also Android, and, for the price, is excellent value.

OK, it came from China and was all in Chinese. Luckily I know my way around the menus to manage to change it to English. Once that was done, it's an impressive piece of kit for the price. 7" capacitive screen, WiFi and the latest version of Android. It's not got a superfast processor (1.2 GHz) and only 512MB of RAM, but this will be ideal for the apps she will be using. And it also has 8 GB of storage, with a slot for a MicroSD card.

(It's a Sensai N77 AllWinner, from Amazon if you're interested.)

I can throw on some films, she can Skype her friends, she can play her games. And she can smile.

Oh, and she loves to write, a little like her dad. The case I bought for it - for a mere £7.50 ish - has a keyboard attached. She's always making up stories (usually about how wonderful her family is - or mermaids...) and likes creating her own newspapers.

I know she'll love it, so I'm not berating myself too much for spending that bit more money when she was already getting a lot for her birthday.

So, last night, I was setting it up. Not having a play, oh no. Purely making sure my daughter's new birthday present it up to scratch and ready for her.

Honest!

Just saying... Laughter...

Stop the world, I want to get off.

Well, I don't, actually. Not really. The world is a pretty fine place to be, methinks. I just like the saying. Like, "Is there intelligent life on Earth? Yes, but I'm only visiting." I don't think everyone else on the planet is stupid. Far from it. Not everyone (lol). It's just one of those things that appeals to my sense of humour.

Yes, I have a sense of humour. It can be sharp, it can be dark. It can even be smutty (in the best POSSIBLE taste, as Kenny Everett would say), but it's there, nonetheless.

I mean, you've got to laugh, haven't you? There's so much pain and tears and woe in the world, you've GOT to laugh. You GOT to have smiles at some point of your day. You can't go all day without the glimmer of a grin, can you? Well, I can't. I do have laughter, guaranteed, at some point of every day. That's just how my life is. Granted, it's taken me all my life to get to this point. Granted, I'll admit, there's times when I went more than a day without a smile or a laugh or even a happy thought.

But that's probably why I embrace my sense of humour more so now. I've done the pain. I hope for good. One can hope, can't one? Don't we need hope? There's trip wires and traps lacing the jungle of life and I'm no Indiana Jones, but I'll do my best to avoid them where I can.

Not that it was always like that. Sin, my main character, is my 'Dark Half'. He stems from the times I did fall into the chasm. When I was battling giant scorpions and being chased by huge boulders. He's the voice of the Me that I buried to help deal with life at a time when Life and myself didn't quite see eye to eye.

Or, he might just be my excuse to think about things that i wouldn't otherwise ponder.

I'm not saying. Maybe I don't really know.

But, there's been darkness. And now there's light. So I know, you have simply GOT to laugh.

Doesn't laughter release endorphins or something? Good for the soul? Good for the heart?

Good for the sanity, as far as I'm concerned. And, from someone who's written of an escaped mental patient, that's quite appropriate.

Sometimes I waffle and talk about nothing in particular. Sometimes I waffle and think I'm talking about nothing in particular, when, in actual fact, the meaning slips through my words like water through my fingers.

I'm not sure which this was.

Anywho...

What's E.T. short for? 'Cos he's got little legs.

Just saying...