Ran Fiance ver 2.0 between 1999 and Nov 2002 which was then upgraded to the costly Wife version 1.0 (Retail not OEM). We have also now opted to take delivery of the optional expansion pack which is due mid to end July.
Time to get sensible (reasonably) - can anyone offer technical support?
The String Bag & Octopus Guide to Parenthood
Women: to prepare for pregnancy, put on a dressing gown and stick a big bean-bag down the front. Leave it there for nine months. After nine months take out 10% of the beans...
Men: prepare for paternity - go down to the local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet on the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself. Then go to the supermarket and arrange to have your wages paid directly to head office. Go home, pick up the paper and read it for the last time.
Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run riot. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour. Enjoy it - it'll be the last time in your life that you have all the answers.
To discover how the nights will feel, walk around the living room from 5pm till 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 9-12lb. At about 10pm put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1am. Put the alarm on for 3am. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2am. Sing songs in the dark until 4am. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up, make breakfast. Keep this up for five years. Look cheerful.
Can you stand the mess that children make? To find out, first smear Marmite onto the sofa and jam on the curtains.
Hide a fishfinger behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flower beds, then rub them on the walls. Cover the stains with crayons.
How does it look?
Dressing small children is not as easy as it looks. Buy an octopus and a string bag. Attempt to put the octopus in the string bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this - all morning.
Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a pot of paint, turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet roll tube. Using only copydex and a piece of foil, make a Christmas cracker. Last take a milk container, a ping-pong ball and an empty packet of Cocopops and make a replica of the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations, you've just qualified for the Play Group Committee.
Forget the Gallardo and buy a Mondeo. Don't think that you can leave it on the drive spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that. Buy a choc-ice, put it in the glove compartment and leave it there. Get a 20p piece and stick it in the CD player. Take a family-sized packet of chocolate biscuits and mash them down the back seats. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There - perfect!
Get ready to go out. Wait outside the loo for half an hour. Go out of the front door, come in again, go out, come back in, go out. Walk down the path, walk back up it, walk down it again. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes. Stop to inspect every cigarette end, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way. Retrace your steps. Scream that you have had about as much as you can take until the neighbours come out and stare at you. Give up and go back into the house. Do it all again later. You are now just about ready to take a small child for a walk.
Always repeat everything you say five times.
Go to your local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you find to a pre-school child - a fully grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything that the goats eat or destroy. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not consider having children.