30th October 2008 3.00am

What am I doing up at this time of the morning?.......don't even ask :(

Wandered around the internet, some. Spoke to an old friend, looked at some web sites, but not very much, really. Its just that I can't sleep with the neck/arm thing. Keeps me awake.

Acckk!!......this is not the time

Wednesday 29th October 2008 5.00pm

Another dank, dark, cold, wet, thoroughly miserable day. Everyone trapped in the house because of the weather. Who on earth would voluntarily live in this beknighted country?? When I was in the RAF, and getting around, seeing the world, all I could think of then was how nice it would be to be at home. I must have been MAD!! I have discovered I have a lot of sympathy with those folk who take themselves off to Spain for the winter months. I mean, my heating bill alone would probably cover the cost of three months in Spain. Pity that most of Spain is inhabited by Spaniards, with the leftover bit inhabited by rude Brits and towel wielding Germans (I've been right off Spaniards ever since I got burgled while on holiday, and more or less got the bums rush from the Spanish police - I've not been back since)

Continued on with the 'backup' thing for Joanne. I have just about finished that, now. She'll call on her way home from work to collect the kids, and her computer. Everyone KNOWS about the importance of backups, but very few people actually do it. Now I know why - its the most boring job in the world :)

Nell has been busy churning out apple pies. She really DOES make the most delicious ones. One of the kids just has to ask her to bake one, and its like watching a gun-dog take off after a kill. So far, David has had two (one of which he took into work and passed off as 'all his own work'), Simon has had one, and Joanne - well, Joanne is so taken with them that she's actually attempting her own. More word on that after Dr Stu has his stomach pumped out Funny though....its always this time of year when this apple pie baking urge sets in. Its the hallowe'en thing, I suppose. I know I can ask for apple pies most of the rest of the year and I might as well be whistling up an alleyway :)

Time to go check on my Pork Roast..........more later if the notion takes me :)

Tuesday 28th October 2008

A cold COLD day. Probably the first real blast of winter we've had. I hate winter. I hate the mess and being uncomfortable and sliding on my ass and having dogs mucked up to the eyebrows and BLEAK BLEAK BLEAK. Roll on spring, with its promises!

Managed to get the greenhouse back together today (with help from Simon). Whats IN the greenhouse, though, I have just about given up on. Those tomatoes are never gonna ripen now. Only thing left to try is to pick the decent green ones, then put them in a warm place to see if they will ripen. Such a pity that I got the greenhouse so late in the season, and also that I got such neglected plants from Joanne. It OFFENDS me that nothing came of it all. Well, not all...I still got my herbs (which I have been using liberally in cooking). So, my plan of action now is....get all the bushy plants out of there (like the tomatoes), and wash down in preparation for hunkering down for the winter. I have miniature daffodils that I intend to put in planters ready for the spring (and they should be in there before Christmas, I am informed), plus some other little flower things. Its a steep learning curve, this green finger stuff :)

Joanne arrived this morning on her way to work - with her computer under her arm, and would I please spend a few minutes backing up all her photography work? So I had a look. OH MY GOD!..........there was over thirteen THOUSAND pictures on there, taking up well over 20 gig. And no structure that *I* could discern. They were scattered all over the hard drive! I borrowed David's external DVD burner, and bought a pack of the correct DVD's, and started. Needless to say, between dealing with kids, thats been an all day thing....and I am still not sure if I have identified all that should be kept :) Still...it all keeps the brain active :)

Haven't seen David or Thomas today....Mertie had Thomas. Even with Simon arriving with Kate (Megan and Tara being at school), and Daniel (and later Rebeckah), we BOTH felt at a little bit of a loose end. I need an attitude adjustment

Evenings are a bit of a funny time for me. Usually, TV is crap.....I find very little on there to interest me. Which leaves the computer or the dogs, and walking dogs is NOT exactly a whole evening thing :) So its computer....either talking to people or fiddling. Only...the folk I talk to are either here, and watching TV, or in America and still at work. Weird, me :) I expect the divorce papers to be served on me anyday now

aacckk...enough for now...more later if anything occurs...

Thursday 23rd October 2008

Worn out! Who can remember that 2 yr olds TALKED so much!! He never shut up ALL BLOODY DAY. He also has discovered that adults are practically incapable of ignoring the word 'WHY?' Its a bit like the chinese water torture....drip, drip, drip :)

Thomas, well, he's got a cold. Pretty bad one too. Snot everywhere . And you just KNOW that everyone else has caught it from him. David is pretty bad - bad enough to ask if he could stay here tonight. He's my son....he needs to ask??? Both Nell and I have it too, though not as badly as those two.

(note to self.....its bad grammar to start a sentence with a conjunction, and I just did, up there - little blast from the past )

We also have Nathan, the criminal, staying tonight (and all next week probably). He's off school tomorrow (friday) for some teacher day thing, and he's off all next week because of the Halloween break. So tonight we have a full house, David, Thomas, and Nathan. (Odd?.... I don't remember getting so much time off school for Halloween?). Maybe the memory is going with the onset of dementia :)


Absolutely TERRIBLE day, weatherwise. Howling gale and pissing rain. One of the roof panels of the greenhouse blew off, flew over the house, and ended in the front garden. I suppose I was lucky it was still in one piece, and made of plastic rather than glass. However, a little aluminium strip that helped to hold it in place has disappeared completely. When it calms down a bit, a more exhaustive search is called for, though its likely its in Donegall by now :) The dogs, of course, are by now into giving me reproachful looks as if to say 'why haven't we been out much today?' Well SORRY, dogs, but only an idiot would venture out on such a day!!!

Hmm...what else? Elaine managed to screw up her desktop, and at the same time STEP on the screen of the laptop. Both ended up here. I am getting ruthless in my old age....wiped the desktop and reinstalled (and to hell with trying to save anything first), and done a restore thing on the laptop. Did I mention that she'd been contacted by her ISP to inform her that she was sending out THOUSANDS of emails? THAT caused a bit of a stir So maybe the reinstalls on both computers was not such a bad idea. I should have also asked her why the hell the laptop was laying on the floor, too

Still with Elaine, or more properly Noel. When I 'acquired' the greenhouse from Liz, Noel helped me collect it. Noel being Noel, and a born scavanger, also noted the presence of a garden shed (which also has to go before Liz moves). So now he wants me to contact Liz again to ask about the shed - IE, can he have it. I suppose I better do that, tomorrow. Noel, despite being very rough and ready, is ALWAYS willing to help out when you need help, so its kind of beholden on me to at least make the effort. I always sort of thought that, in those war movies like 'The Great Escape'? - there is always a character designated as 'the scrounger'? Noel would be perfect for the part

Time to post this....if anything further occurs to me, it'll be tacked on :)

Sunday 19th October 2008

Another bog standard, totally chaotic day. Kids and offspring ALL arrive, and bedlam ensues. There was ONE small twist to it. A few months ago, Mark, a lifelong friend of my kids, and his 'live in ' partner were told they had to get out of their house....a redevelopment thing. They had a greenhouse they had to get rid of - and I happened to be the lucky recipient Further...where we once had green fields next to us, locally known as 'the sandies', that area is now all built up with new houses. Now all this building went on at a frantic pace, riding on the crest of the housing wave. Then came the credit crunch, and suddenly no one is buying houses. The company that built the houses were stuck with them. The eventual solution (for them) was to sell the houses to a 'housing association', who let them out. Well, it seems that Mark and Liz (for thats her name) have been allocated one of the unsold houses. So, the person I got the greenhouse from, is now going to be a neighbour just YARDS away :) (she has NO chance of reclaiming the greenhouse ) The twist was....along with the kids piling in on me today, so also we had Mark and Liz - they'd been viewing the house. Its going to get 'interesting' around here, if it wasn't so already. (old chinese curse....'may you live in interesting times' )

Thomas went home with his Dad tonight....for about an hour. He is not a happy bunny tonight. Not sleeping anything LIKE soundly...waking up crying every half hour, etc. The expert (that the woman I live with) has pronounced that its another tooth on the way. Whatever it is, David was beaten by it...he called, asking for assistance. Dealing with a screaming child with no one to turn to for help is a chastening experience. The end result is, that Thomas is back here again.....still disturbed and restless....but at least there are two of us here to take turns with him. I must have gone through all this when MY kids were little, but I don't remember it like it is now, where every little whimper has EVERYONE sitting up!! Perhaps now I have more time (?) now, or maybe just more time to appreciate? When MY kids were that age, we were dividing time between three of them....now its devoted to one.

Nathan....now there's a thing. He spends the weekends with us (since we practically raised him?) and because all his friends are hereabouts. Only he's now 14 years old, and a typical teen, in other words, a real pain in the ass. So saturday night he is out with his friends. He sends me a text asking if someone can pick him up at 11.30pm at his 'girlfriends' place. This, after being told 11pm is the absolute limit. So I reply to the text, stating the time again. HE replies, still asking for 11.30pm. I reply to HIM asking just what about the digits one and one he does not understand. Silence At 11pm, Nell goes to pick him up. And he's REEKING of beer. Well, if it had been me doing the picking up, I'd probbly have killed the lil shit....but to her credit, she gets firm....and drives him straight home to Joanne. Not our problem :) I reckon he'll be grounded for weeks :)


I hope, that when I finally shuck off this mortal coil, he gets to read this. And knows what grief he causes.


enuf

Friday 18th October 2008

Well, technically its saturday, because its just gone midnight. Never mind....the new day don't start for me until I get up in the morning. Nothing much, again, today. Just the usual stuff. We have Thomas again tonight. David going out from work, with friends, and probably that will be the usual drunken 'lad's night out' thing. I have no problem with that - it sorta means he's picking up the threads again, if only in a minor way. A bigger thing is, he has to go to Glasgow for a couple of days early next week for something related to his work. Again, no problem, except that Mertie (the other granny) returns home from another of her expeditions abroad today, and since no one has yet got to speak to her, its very likely that she'd want to see (or keep) Thomas for at least some of that time that David is in Glasgow. So THOSE arrangements are a wee bit up in the air at the moment. Still....she has a right! It'll sort itself out, one way or t'other.

I worry about Nell.......she's driving herself towards an early grave, with all the stuff we take on. There is just no way of telling her to STOP! In addition to the kiddie stuff, my washing machine has been working overtime dealing with stuff she either gets asked to do, or picks up when she goes to Davids. As for ironing and stuff like that?........well, with 3 kiddies around, not much of THAT happens during the day (by EITHER of us), and by evening, we are both indifferent to that pile! I try to help as much as I can, cooking, cleaning, and such......but sometimes that feels like pushing a pea up a mountain with your nose. At the same time, I fully understand the root cause - MONEY! I know I'd hate to be young and trying to buy a house etc etc.....it takes two incomes nowadays just to keep your head above water. Maybe we should all just sell up, pool the money, and buy one big house with lots of rooms, so at least everyone is in the one place. Look at the petrol money we'd all save.

Done some ploughing around on the net, looking into the neck/arm thing. Hopeless!! Everything I found was either far too technical for me and way over my head, or was written by one-fingered typing idiots. Still, I'll have to persist. When I finally DO get the call from the orthopediacs, I want to be armed and ready for them Or maybe I should just move to America - they seem to be right on the ball over there, medically speaking......even if they leave hospital minus the proverbial arm-and-a-leg :)

Haven't talked to my friend Wendy, much, lately. I'll have to do something about that - she's usually pretty well up on medical stuff, and knows the 'system' inside out. Note to self to action that :)

Well, I've just read over what I've written. Awful! There is just no WAY you can avoid trivia! Its as if your fingers get taken over by some obscure part of your head that says 'you started, so finish', like some nightmare version of mastermind. The stuff just keeps appearing in front of you. If any of my descendants ever work their way through this mass of verbiage, I'll be VERY surprised!!

You still paying attention, kids???.........this is my LIFE in front of ya!!........don't you DARE burn it!!


onwards...

Thursday 17th October 2008


Another bog standard day. What can I say? I KNEW this was going to degenerate into a 'Mrs Dale's Diary' thing......despite not wanting it to. Ha!....like the people this is aimed at are going to have the slightest idea what 'Mrs Dale's Diary' actually is (was?)!!!!

Our wonderful NHS came up trumps again. A week ago, I am told that I am now on a 12 week waiting list. So today I get a letter telling me I can expect something to happen in the next 13 weeks. Counting the week that has already passed, I make that 14 weeks. Hands up anyone who believes government statistics Still....I suppose half a loaf is better than no bread!!

Hmmm...lets see...what else? Thomas?....Daniel?....Rebeckah?....just the usual on that front too....this getting old stuff is HARD...........they wear me out. Not helped by the fact that Joanne don't get home from work till gone sometimes 6.30pm. By then, I am whacked. I have no idea where kids get their energy from! And in the spirit that I started this in, as in telling it like it is, I have to confess that by then I am getting REAL grumpy!! Like today, for instance. I have retreated to the roofspace intending to do a little work on computer ( I am working on some little video's and I am not exactly the greatest movie producer in the world ) and Daniel escapes from downstairs and climbs up here. Now, up here, in my little romper room, there is all KINDS of stuff that you would not want a 2 year old anywhere near :) I made the mistake of leaving a piano keyboard out....and he gloms onto that right away. Before I know it, the little demo thing built into it is blasting away at full volume, Daniel is getting all 'hey look at me'..........and a computer gets kicked and falls to the floor. DAMN! Haven't tried hooking it up again to see if it still works, but I fear for it :) Good job it was only one of the spares.


This journal idea....its kind of addictive. I mean once you start rabbiting, its hard to stop :) Even if it IS day to day stuff!


Thomas is back home with David tonight. Why is that bothering me? Its not that David is not a good dad to Thomas.....he's actually very good. Its just that we have had so much to do with Thomas that we is becoming, well, PARENTS. Not good. Very mixed up feelings about this. I have no idea how this is going to pan out. I do know that Thomas is comfortable with us (and with his dad too!), but I have always believed that little kiddies need SETTLED....and being shunted from house to house is NOT settled.

Done some chatting online tonight..... I have some people I talk to (HAVE talked to) for a very long time now. And tonight was nearly all bad news. One having a kidney removed, one with a bereavement, one rushed into hospital, and one diagnosed with MS. And one missing (you know who you are! ) Good nights and bad nights :(


I better shut up now...I'm getting trivial

same time...

ok...I read over what I just posted...and its unsatisfactory. The whole intent of this was to 'leave a legacy'.......not just note down day to day stuff. To let the kids into who their dad/grandad was. I sorta feel I am failing in this. I'd want them to know I am NOT just the person who shouts at them, but that I am (by default) the head of the family, with responsibilites for their welfare, but also that I love them all, each and every one of them. There are times when I wish I had an older brother who would have taken on this role. I don't like it....I don't like being the scary figure.

Tuesday 14th October 2008


Wonderful day.....not! First of all, its all GREY and OVERCAST, but not actually raining. And this being market day in town, naturally Nell has stuff to get (really!...some of this shit is only available at the market!). Soo..the plan is, I drive her down there, drop her and Thomas off, and continue on to the park with Daniel and the dogs..........meeting up again later. RIGHT! I get to the park, get the dogs out of car, get Daniel out, get the bag of bottles out (did i mention that i am a frequent bottle banker? )...........and no sooner have I done all this, but the damn heavens open. It POURS down! Have you ever tried walking two dogs, one kid, and one large umbrella, in the pouring rain? Its not a fun thing to do. Plus...the park is well endowed with chestnut trees, and Daniel is INTO hunting chestnuts (even though games with chestnuts is beyond him.......its the discovery thing). So there we are....rain POURING down, me trying to keep a 2 yr old dry, while at the same time pandering to him hunting chestnuts........you just HAVE to know we were the only people in the damn park, because everyone else with sense departed for home STAT!

It had a good side though.......he just about passed out when we got home (for his nap). I love his naps

Dinner.........

Dinner was beef curry, in the slow cooker (God, that thing is marvellous!). While Daniel is napping, I get it all going. Takes a while, and while I SORTA follow the recipes I find on the internet, I kinda extemporise a bit ). Usual afternoon ...fetch Rebeckah from school....entertain Thomas and Daniel once he wakes up....collect Nathan once HE gets home from school....collect David once he gets home from work (home being the train station )

And NOW its time to take the dogs out. So I do. Only thing is, while I am out walking dogs, those two hungry hounds, David and Nathan, are having dinner..........MY dinner!! Now bear with me here....there is 2lbs of meat in that bloody slow cooker..........enough to feed 4 over two days, right? I get home from walking dogs.........to discover they have eaten...........as in eaten just about everything!! How did I ever manage to raise people with hollow legs??? When *I* finally get MY curry....its nothing but plain rice and sauce....of meat there was very little sign :) I really GOTTA put my rates up

Moving on...and continuing with the 'leave a legacy' thing... I have been taping Thomas in little short episodes all through his (short) life. So now its time to start transferring to disk. RIGHT! Only senility is setting in.......I gotta learn all over again how to DO that. (my vid cam is old and analogue....needs capture to disk then converting to digital for consumption) Parallel to this, and talking to David, we have a kinda solution. David has a web site, with oodles of room. I (shortly) will have vids of his son. Sooo........the idea is to upload the vids to his site so that anyone can get them (sure, there's gonna be a stampede to get them )

OK...so tis a pointless little exercise...but it serves two purposes. It keeps my brain busy and active...and it creates a record. Who knows...when Thomas comes of age, he can be as embarrassed as hell :)

Which all glosses over Thomas's presence, and how special he is to us, and how much time we devote to him. Really, we are surrogate parents. Not through choice, but through circumstances. Nell has taken to the role like a duck to water, and I'd be blind not to see how those two have bonded. We have a saying here, for babies who like the comfort zone, that they are 'strange'....meaning the child is not HAPPY with things (or faces) that are not familiar. I guess everyone who has dealt with children knows just what I mean. Ya lift them, yer not on the recognised list, BAWWWWWLLLLL. Well...he don't bawl much in this house.....which I guess means he even recognises MY ugly mug and feels safe :)

I look at him........

...and how can ya weep and smile at the same time?

He's such a GOOD little boy....he's almost the blueprint of how you expect kiddies to behave. He eats...he naps...he smiles in his own little world...hell, he even experiments with the one single tooth he's managed to get so far :)

I love him to bits. Him and me do a LOTTA male bonding :)

Daniel, now....well, I got a problem. Because Daniel is exhibiting JEALOUS big time. I pick up Thomas....Daniel is right there. I talk to Thomas...Daniel is right there. I go to entertain Thomas ...Daniel is right there. How do you explain to a 2 yr old that he is loved just as much?

OK...this is NOT stuff you can explain real well, and I ain't good at explaining anyway........

such is life

Monday 13th October 2008

Time for an entry.

Had a fright yesterday, when all the kids were here. Megan and Rebeckah were outside next the house playing, Daniel was overtired and being a royal pain in the ass, Thomas was asleep, Tara was busy breaking something, and Kate was muttering away to herself in babyese. Simon was watching some sports thing on tv, David was busy in the kitchen (more on that in a moment), Joanne was dozing while waiting on Dr Stu, and Claire was off at Tesco's. Kinda typical sunday. Then we notice that Megan and Rebeckah are no longer visible. So Simon drags himself away from the tv, and goes out to look for them. They are nowhere to be seen. When Simon returns for his CAR keys to drive around looking, suddenly the attention level has escalated. Joanne goes out in HER car, Nell in ours. I get to walk :)

Its not that we live in a big estate.......its actually quite small. So not really a lot of places you can DRIVE to. It is, however, surrounded by a lot of 'green' places. Maybe not so much as it used to be, but still lots of 'kiddie friendly' open space.

After half an hour of mobile phones going red hot and people going hoarse from shouting....the fright level has REALLY escalated. At this point I should maybe mention that all that green 'kiddie places' were used a few years ago when a little girl was abducted and assaulted. (Luckily the police got to the guy before the search parties did, or there would have been a lynching!)

OK, you've got the idea......EVERYONE is going frantic by now. At almost an hour since we first noticed they was gone, the pair of them show up again, as unconcerned as ya like.

Well...those two little girls got LIT upon....by very relieved parents and grandparents. I think we scared the shit outta them :) We still have no idea where they were, because THEY didn't know...but they were covered in mud. However, I think they got the message!! But it was a frightening hour for the grownups.


More on David (as above). Sometimes my number one son can be weird :) He, and a few friends had cooked up (no pun intended) the idea of having a LASAGNE making contest, the judges to be the children of a few of his friends. So he was busy cooking away (with a break, of course, for the search). Now when *I* make lasagne, the red sauce and white sauce jars you get in Tesco's makes perfectly acceptable lasagne (with the addition of extra garlic, worcester sauce...tada!....I wing it ). Not so for David.......he's there beating up eggs, melting cheese, liquidizing this and that......seemed an awful lot of trouble to me :) Anyway......because of the break (for the search) he's short on time. He DOES get it made....and has to rush off right away, leaving the kitchen looking like a bomb site. Its been suggested to him that the NEXT bloody competition he proposes should be a washing up competition :) Took ages to clear up! Turns out there were five entries........3 vegetable and 2 meat lasagnes. He got second place in the meat category (and I've tasted his lasagne......seemed a wee bit bland to me, but thats just me )


More on David. Thomas was with us friday night because David was going out with some friends. All fine and good. Saturday, Nell rings him in the morning.........and he sounds fine! He's busy tidying up, cutting grass too can ya believe. Everything seems good. Come around middle of the afternoon, he rings and asks can we bring Thomas home about 7pm. So, thinking RIGHT!...Thomas gets bathed, fed...and packed up for transport. Off goes Nell with baby. Only....we can't raise David to warn him she is on the way. 15 minutes later she rings me. She has gone into the house, and David is asleep....and she can't get him awake! Now for most people, that would ring alarm bells, but we KNOW our son. He really DOES sleep the sleep of the dead!! So.......Thomas got brought back here. Nell can get quite stroppy where kiddie welfare is involved I should maybe add here that the expectation was that Nell would drop off Thomas, come home, and get geared up to go attend the reception of Dr Stu's sister who had got married that afternoon. And that the reception was 50 miles away. And that I had adamantly refused to go (think 'Mrs Bucket'). That left me with a by now wide awake Thomas, and Nell going into a real fluster trying to get dressed so she could LEAVE. Well....it all worked ok, if maybe a little behind schedule. Thomas, bless his little cotton socks, is a GOOD child. He went to bed no trouble at all. Nell made the reception ok, if late. And David woke up and rang me at about 10pm. I think he realised he'd done a no-no....

Such is life

Still Thursday 9th October 2008

ok......it seems to be working again, though naturally, despite what the email said, no one bothered to actually TELL me this. Never mind.....

Not one of my better days. First my cousin contacts me re her printer. Now, you have to understand that in this life, there are some people who should never be allowed near a computer. SHE is one of them. To say she is stupid is really an insult to the english language. Last time she got into a pickle the quickest way out of it was to get her to hand the phone to her 7 yr old grandson and talk HIM through it. But today was a classic. It goes like this....

(her) you know that little blue light on the printer?
(me) no?
(her) the one right under the other thingy
(me) what other thingy?
(her) the other button that does not light up!
(me) Edna, I don't have the faintest idea what you are talking about....
(her) well, the little blue light is flashing instead of staying on!
(me) WHAT blue light!
(her) (ignoring me totally) ....and it never used to do that before, and now I can't print and I have
something on my screen that won't go away!
(me) whats on screen?
(her) I don't know WHAT it is!
(me) (bowing to the inevitable)..........Edna, i'll come over


So I go there......... Whats on screen is a message that says there is a paper jam in the printer. I take all the paper out, and put it back. Bingo!........warning light stops flashing, and about a million queued prints start to spew out.....all of the same thing. Problem solved..........silly bitch!


Then there's the arm. My arm, that is, not Edna's. I hate to admit it, but this constant pain is wearing me down and making me hell to live with. I've started chewing co-codomol tablets like they was smarties. I AM worried about it, more worried than I care to admit publicly. I've lost touch sensation in my thumb and forefinger now, the arm THROBS all day, and when I try to lift one of the kids, I have noticed not only increased pain, but a certain weakness in that arm. Night-time is a nightmare, trying to find a position to sleep in - and never finding it. So add lack of sleep as a contributory cause of said bad temper :) I just hope those orthopediacs get their finger out and it does NOT turn out to be a 12 week wait. And to be honest, I have my doubts that they can do anything anyway. According to Dr Stu, they are very reluctant to even consider neck surgery.......too little space, too much to go wrong. Still....we live in hope :)

I saw something when I started this venture that you could post pictures on your blog. I was wondering if that includes little video's. I have this idea in the back of my mind of little vids of Thomas at various stages. I already have one of him as a tiny little just-born-ish, but with the advent of what seems to be a tooth, I figger thats a 'life-moment'. Must look into that......when I get time :)

The slow cooker I bought......brilliant!! Only used it the once so far, and I am tickled to death with it :) Recipes seem few and far between, though....mostly american, with strange names (to me). What the hell is 'brisket', or 'chuck steak'? And measurements?.......a cup of this or that?......whats a CUP for heaven's sake!! Still.......I am quite looking forward to experimenting.

So, all in all, not a great day. Gloom and doom about the arm, absolutely CRAP weather, squealing kids, jumpy dogs. People are starting to tip-toe around me, and whisper in other rooms.......or am I getting paranoid

thursday 9th October 2008

this is a test to see if this thing is working

Sunday 5th October 2008

I know I just posted the first one....gimme a break here, I am new to this :)

OK...sunday

Usual mad day........collect Thomas and David (the sooner he gets a car, the better!), then Joanne and kids arrive (Dr Stu was on nightshift last night, so he's in bed), shortly followed by Simon and Claire and their three kids.

I have a hard time keeping quiet about Simon's kids. Simon and Claire are into the 'naughty step' method of bringing them up.........and the result is three wild animals. I've long since lost count of the stuff they break here, and watched while Claire, in a very measured tone, says something like 'Now say sorry to Granda' to the miscreant. Me?.... I am a firm believer in the quick smack to the ass.........ya do it, you get punished, you remember it......end of story. Its kinda hard to hold back and say nothing...but I sure wish I could make them understand that this 'naughty step' crap is going to come back and bite them in the ass when the kids are older.

It gets a bit murky here....bearing in mind what you just read, and keeping in mind that almost by default Thomas is in OUR care, and is likely to be for years to come, do *I* have to subscribe to the 'naughty step'? I don't think so........my house, my rules. After all, I didn't do such a bad job raising my own :)

Odd thought..........when Thomas is 10, I'll be 74. Thats scary :) (and 10 ain't that OLD!) Then there will be all the usual stuff......like starting school, homeworks, driving here and there...

Oh...and watching Nell, my wife, that EARTH mother, coping like a trooper, and collecting grey hairs and wrinkles like they was going out of fashion. In truth, I am not a GREAT help here...but only because I'd need 10 elbows to get a look in.

I do a BIT, though.... I cook, I iron (when I need a shirt ), I drive, I entertain, I distract, I cajole, wheedle, bully....the usual things that comes from looking after kids :) I long ago got resigned to being the villian of the piece :)

What else of note today? Not a lot...........except I bought myself a Slow Cooker. We have an electric cooker here, and that bloody thing does NOT understand the meaning of 'simmer'. So I have expectations of solving that problem :)

Tomorrow (evening) I meet up with a very old friend (schoolfriend) who long ago emigrated to Australia. I feel very awkward over aspects of this. I mean, the guy only came halfway around the world...and yet just picking him up causes logistic problems, and having him stay in a guest house is quite shaming because on the surface there is only two of us in a three bedroom house......but ya have to look deeper :) Whatever...tomorrow evening is a 'lads night'...

So thats been MY sunday......I know its just been a relate of events. There is probably ALL kinds of undercurrents inside me I should have been writing about, but bear with me, kidlings....I am new at this :)

And so to bed...

its a BLOG ya stupid bot

Saturday, 4th October 2008


A few nights ago, talking online with a good friend, I expressed the thought that keeping a diary would be a good thing, to let my grandkids (or even my kids!) know, or have a little insight to who I was, and how life dealt with me (or me, it). Now, a diary implies daily entries, and most of the time those daily entries would be so BORING, so I decided instead on a kind of ad-hoc journal. This is it, it starts here.


I am on the verge of being 64, which is a TERRIBLE age to be . I have been married to the same woman (Nell) for 37 years, and I have three children. Number one son, David, born in 1973, and twin boy an girl, Simon and Joanne, born 15 months later.

The kids are all grown up now, and moved into their own lives, only somebody forgot to tell ME that…no matter how old they get, I still worry about them like they was still little kids.

Simon is married to Claire, and they have three daughters. Joanne is married to Stewart, and Joanne has a son by a previous relationship, and a son and a daughter with Stewart.

I guess that’s the bare facts of my life…my family, my world.

I could go on and on about my youth and what I did, then, but I won’t. That will come out in bits and pieces as this goes on. This journal is more intended to commence from today and go forward. Looking back nearly always leads to regret, and that’s a futile occupation, since its always too late to change anything.

Though there HAS to be some looking back into the recent past, to an event that has changed our lives forever.

My number one son, David’s wife took her own life just two weeks after giving birth to their son, Thomas. I doubt that any of us here will ever get over the shock of that. Even now, some 5 months after the event, it still haunts me. How my son copes is beyond my understanding. Judith was such a LOVELY down to earth person. A geology graduate, who thought nothing of taking of to Arabia on a dig, or taking a job in Greece teaching English, or spending months laying in the mud here in Ireland just digging. Plus…she was forever having a little smiley dig at me because I like my wine

Whatever, things happened as they did, and Judith left us, but left us also a legacy who is now just about the centre of everyone’s lives.

So, nowadays, life starts with Thomas ….

That’s not to say that the others get left out….every day there is Rebeckah and Daniel her brother, to say nothing of Nathan, also their brother.

As I see things now, the priorites are to make sure Thomas is cared for in a loving environment while also trying to help David….not always an easy thing to do, because David has always been the short-tempered, go-my-own-way, private person. Still, we progress ?

All this so far is by way of bringing you, gentle reader, up to date…I would guess that entries downstream will be a bit….everyday ?

Note to self….google ‘how to start a blog’

Note to self….how to keep this permanent and out of sight till the time comes ?

Note to self…. Thank Wendy for helping to coalesce vague thoughts

Note to self….don’t wallow in self pity, pour another drink ?