Run

One good thing about my house is that it's next to Morden Hall Park. You can hardly believe you're in London - it's a picturesque and peaceful wilderness criss-crossed by canals and visited by herons.

With such a perfect terrain so near, no excuses for missing my running! I go three times a week; I more or less run around the perimeter of the park which takes me half an hour.

Brilliant exercise, year round. But autumn is definitely my favourite time of the year: the trees look amazing, especially the glowing yellows. I always go at about 0730 -- it's incredibly quiet then. Two or three people walking dogs and a few cyclists speeding to work -- that's it. Nothing really to interfere with my half hour of me time.

Sometimes when I especially enjoy my run, I relax so much into the rhythm of it that for a few minutes I forget all about where I am, and, all of a sudden my mind kind of comes up with answers for some of the most stubborn issues in my life. And that's without any prompting -- after all, I never set out for a run thinking "Ok, today, I'll think this new job opportunity through, or decide what to get Csabi for Christmas or figure out where on earth to get money for this year's skiing from. But all too often, a clear solution appears out of thin air, as it were, and it's all crystal clear, and I know immediately it's right.

Sounds brilliant, doesn't it. Well, not always: just a few hours ago I managed to breathe in a whole cloud of gnats that whizzed up unexpectedly against my face as I was crossing a small wooden bridge on the River Wandle. I did turn my head when I noticed them, but it was too late. When I got home, I started sneezing. Huge, extra loud sneezes. At least a hundred of them, I just couldn't stop.

My nose blocked up completely. I looked like I was having a very bad cold. My voice went all funny, and my face looked red and swollen. And it went on for quite a while. For a moment I even considered calling in sick for my night shift.

In the end I didn't have to... after about four hours, my symptoms began to subside. So here I am, typing away in the middle of the night, hoping I'm making a bit of sense. I doubt I do, so I'd better go now.

Moving house

I really, really want to move. To posh Wimbledon Village, from a rough-and-ready corner of Colliers Wood.

In principle, we all agree we haven't got enough space where we are, it's too far from both schools, and in general, we just want to be in a nicer neighbourhood. Except this small issue of money.

Well anyway, earlier today, I spent a lovely afternoon in the Village with Zsebi. As we were walking around, I pointed at some houses I really loved. "Shall we buy this one?" I sometimes asked him. Each and every time, his answer came without hesitation "No. It's too far from home."

Havering

Having young kids means havering an awful lot. Innocent stuff, mostly. A few years ago, when Non was very young, I happened to tell her that tiny dogs were running on batteries. I can't remember what exactly prompted it. I think we saw one of those ridiculously minuscule dogs being walked in the street, and she must have asked if it was a toy or real ... Don't ask me why, I just came up with this battery rubbish, and she just loved it. For the next year or so, every time we saw a small dog, she would ask: "Does this one take one or two batteries?"or "What size batteries does this one need?"

Anyway, with Zsebi having just turned four, once again I find myself talking rubbish on a daily basis. Not to confuse him at all. It's just sometimes I find myself in a kind of situation with him where the easiest way to calm him is, well, by inventing something.

Let me give you an example: one night last week, at bedtime, he said he was scared. Why? "Because there's a family of foxes living under my bed," came the answer. We investigated. Grabbed some torches, moved some furniture. No foxes. "But they come out when we switch off the light," Zsebi insisted.

So I told him a bedtime story, making it up as we went along, about a general medical condition prevalent in Britain's fox population. They are scared of heights, and they can't walk upstairs. If they attempt to get to the bedroom, they will get sick. On the stairs. See their tails are so bushy they find it difficult to balance...And start throwing up immediately.

By the time I got to these horrid details, he was fast asleep. Good for him. And he's never since mentioned foxes under the bed.

And yesterday brought another fine example of my havering: Zsebi refused to wear his new pair of navy trousers because he discovered that there was a small bat motif on one leg. "It bites me," he said, on the verge on a tantrum. Just as we really, really had to leave the house not to be late for an important randez-vous. "Look, let me show you something," I said in desperation. "This is the bat release button; if you push it, the bat will fly off." "And will it attack meanies?," he asked. Tantrum averted. Long conversation about meanies followed. A few minutes later, he was proudly showing off the bat release button to fellow passangers on the tram. And the bat one is now his favourite pair of trousers. It's official.

Podcasting

Cherrypicked the best items in our output over the past eight hours. Carefully re-jigged the cues, linking items where possible. Didn't overdo it, of ourse. Just created a nice, gentle flow of audio. Ensured a good spread of genres, pograms, voices, geography. Recorded it, mixed it, listened to it. I have to say it was a good listen ... one might even say it was a masterpiece. Transformed my wav file into a pod, all without a glitch, then hit the "publish" button. Then waited. And waited. Along with Emma, who had been trailing me all day. It will only take ten or fifteen minutes maximum, I assured her.

A good twenty minutes later, I called the helpline. "I published my podcast half an hour ago, and it still hasn't appeared on the Internet." "Don't worry, " came the answer, "it just probably takes a bit longer then usual. Can you hang around for another ... hour?" No way. My shift officially ended half an hour ago. In that case, could I please call the multimedia, across-all-platforms helpdesk, just to log it with them as well?

I call them. Happy voice answers. Oh, don't you worry, sometimes it does take longer... especially on Fridays. I remind happy voice that it's Thursday. You're right, thanks for reminding ... in which case, there's nothing I can do. But can you hang around?

No I can't. But can somebody explain to me what computer support is good for. Nine out of ten times, they have no idea what's causing problems, and even less idea of how to fix them. It's not much of a consolation to know that there may be hundreds of thousands of other unfortunate souls out there at the same moment, in a semi-vile state of computer rage. Having created something really nice and not being able to publish it is really, really frustrating. Are the geeks aware of that?

Credit crunch

There must be something seriously rotten in the banking system. Last week I bought four tickets to fly from City to Budapest, via Zurich. The grand total was slightly over £500... nothing out of the ordinary.

A couple of hours after completing the transaction online, the phone rang. A weird automated voice went along the lines of "Hello, this is xxx (name of bank) Security Services. Press any key to continue". Of course I hang up. Isn't it the first bit of advice you get this day and age of online fraud and identity theft and what have you -- never, ever respond to unsolicited, automated messages.

But they didn't give up. Another call came an hour later, then they started ringing my mobile, eventually leaving an automated message instructing me to call them back. I checked the number against my bank statement. It was different. Hmmm.. very suspicious.

In the end, I called the customer service number in the statement only to find out it was genuinely them, trying to contact me to check if I really, really wanted to buy those Swissair tickets. After answering a very large number of absolutely ridiculous security questions, they finally believed it was me ... and that I did want to buy the tickets. And they told me, as if they were doing a huge favour, that they could now unblock their Fraud Prevention System ... Excellent. Does that mean the payment has now gone through? No. no no, far from it. You have to buy the tickets again. What???

Apparently, if a payment is blocked, there's no way they can unblock it, as it were. All they can do is deactivate their wretched monitoring system, so you'll no longer get hourly automated phone calls ... I mean what the ****? If one of the four big high street banks creates such a fuss about paying an airline £500 -- something I do at least three times a year with this credit card -- I can believe the financial system is crumbling.

I go back to swissair.com... in the meantime, the total price of the tickets has gone up by £100 .. back on the phone to my bank. Your Fraud Prevention System has caused me a loss of £100 .... But Ms B, you have to understand it was in your own personal interest... That's the final straw. Banks ARE going nuts. No wonder they're all going bust if they behave like complete idiots ...