May 2011 – Mkingdon's Blog

Forgetting to remember, and some fighters who are Faux.

30/05/2011 by mkingdon, posted in dibb, mkingdon, Walt Disney World

It happens every year. Right around now, eight weeks out from our holiday, things conspire to remind me that we are actually going. Having booked stuff months ago, written up a plan of sorts, and other than the daily subliminal knowledge of the trip getting me through every stinking day at work, it is filed away, out of focus.

So when things happen like, getting a reminder that the balance is due on my car hire, and then realising that I needed to send the cheque off for the villa balance last week, the trip is brought sharply and quickly back into focus. Minor issues like, wondering where the spending money is coming from, who will look after the dog, his snot, and the gaggle of cats are front and centre after being ignored since we booked the trip.

In fact this wake up call started late last week, when Tom, the kind soul letting us rent his DVC points, emailed me with a confirmation of our reservation, and an offer to check us in ten days before arrival, but on Friday I was still in the eye of the storm at work, and it wasn’t enough to pull me out of it. Work is a maelstrom of change right now, and that change has landed a whole load of new people and problems on me, for which I have received a massive pay rise, oh wait, no, that last bit is wrong. However, in the relative calm of a three day weekend, I have luxuriated in the writing and sending of cheques for large sums of money, and even begun to consider the reality of going somewhere we love, and being warm for more than three days on the trot!

So after a very busy week, comprising of long days at the office, followed by starting work again at home in the evening, all the changes happened, things went pretty smoothly, and so far I’ve been able to avoid any work for nearly all of the weekend.

On Saturday night, we went to our local pub (I say local, it is too far to walk, and guess who drove?) to watch a band. They were the Faux Fighters, not surprisingly a Foo Fighters tribute band. We went with my brother, sister in law and niece, and took our girls and one of Rebecca’s friends too. It was a shame I was driving, as I needed a stiff drink after paying £6 each to get in (we actually negotiated a £1 discount each based on the sheer volume of people in our party). I once watched Go West at the Manchester Apollo for less than that. Granted that was in 1986 but still!!

They were pretty good. My brother and I, being seasoned musos of course, were a little disappointed with the drummer, but apart from that they sounded like the real thing pretty much which is all you can ask for a tribute band, and they certainly got the crowd going. So much so that one berk, whilst dancing and jumping around launched his beer over half of the audience, including myself and Emily. Sweet retribution came to him later though as he was ejected from the pub, and soon after arrested for fighting outside (not faux fighting, real fighting!). Top night son, well done!!

Rebecca enjoyed herself by harassing a couple of teachers from her school. I say teachers, but apparently they were “technicians” who run the events, sound systems and all that stuff (it is a media college so they have sound studios, TV studios and all that jazz, although I don’t think they are limited to just jazz!!). These poor lads had come out for a bit of a pogo and a drink only to find two fourteen year old girls dancing next to them.

Now these technicians are only young, I’d say in their early twenties and one of them, according to Rebecca is, “dead fit”. Conscious of the need to avoid a court case or newspaper scandal I had my eye on her all night. I wasn’t worried about him!!!

The gig finished late, and by the time we got home, got everyone to bed, and I’d had my tea and toast whilst catching up on the Champions League final, it was nearly two when I got to bed. This led directly to an event, again not seen since about the time I went to watch Go West for £6. On Sunday I had a lie in until lunch time. Granted, I was not technically asleep for all that time, but the sheer joy of lying in bed and not having to get up for that amount of time was superb, and probably a reflection on the sheer hard slog the last few weeks at work have been.

Having wasted half the day in bed, Louise and I then wasted the rest of it by lazing around (aside from Louise driving the girls to a music festival in Darwen) and then going to see the Hangover 2 at our local Cineworld. Let’s get the important stuff out of the way. Yes, it was an ice cream and pick n mix bonanza again, but I have to admit that I felt very sick before I’d made any sort of dent in the latter, and had to on board a few of Louise’s nachos to counter act the limitless amounts of sugar coursing through my every shrinking arteries.

The film itself was very good. It of course followed very closely the same formula as the first, but unless my memory of the first is unclear, this one is much darker, ruder and has loads more sex and swearing in it. Top drawer!!

Once I had quelled the urge to vomit, found some insulin and necked half a bucket of coke (diet) the film had quite a few laugh out loud moments, and not many films can say that.

So after picking the girls up from their festival (Louise did that), we had a late tea (no dessert, I’m not an animal), crashed on the couch, and watched some Man v Food. Luckily, I had overcome my aversion to anything with sugar in it by the time he rolled out the deep-fried cheesecake on a stick. My powers of recovery are such that given half a chance, at that point I could quite easily have done a fair slice of that.

I often curse my slow metabolism as being the reason that I am prone to pile on a few pounds, because as you know, my eating habits are beyond reproach.

So with Monday here, and no work, another day of not doing a lot meanders along. We’ve had two of the girl’s friends sleeping over this weekend of course, nothing changes there, and as soon as I’m done here I shall be having the daily chat with Emily about how much revision she has/hasn’t/will/won’t be doing today.

Eight weeks and counting, or if you prefer, 58 days. Count with me?

Till the next time……

Pick n Mix Pirates

22/05/201123/05/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

One week into the exam marathon, and it seems to have gone pretty well. As parents of teens will know, you only have around seven syllables per day to find out everything you need, so I can’t be too sure, but from the responses provided, Emily is fairly pleased with the first batch.

After what seems like around 14 English papers and one RE exam, positive vibes have been the order of the day. So that’s good. Now, my job is to resume head pecking so we can avoid complacency, and a downhill trek to disappointment. Emily is grateful for that of course.

Emily — She be a pirate aarrrgh, in high heels.

She doesn’t have things too bad, as of course Monday saw her being allowed to go and see Panic! At the Disco, but to be honest there was no stopping her, and Friday saw Emily at a Pirates party at the local boozer. Don’t worry I have not lost my mind and moral compass, she went with her friend and her parents, so I know she was on soft drinks and not Aftershock, a greasy kebab and a chat with the big white telephone. That completes the recommended allocation of fun and socialising and she should now be attached to her books for every hour God sends.

Anyway, enough of other people, how was my week? Pretty crap to be honest. It started OK, with some pretty drastic changes at work announced which on the face of it all looked good. No details here of course, but a “senior reshuffle” removed a couple of blockers that were legendary for making life difficult.

The next day, and a couple of chats with the MD later, where I suggested what he might now do when restructuring, saw me handed a whole new team to look after!! That’ll teach me to keep my bloody mouth shut. So from that moment on the week was hectic, rushed, panic-stricken and rife with planning, researching and discussing this new world. My use of the phrase “hospital pass” was increasing as the week went by.

Now you will of course appreciate that normally I am infallible, unflappable and pretty much the dream employee, but this new stuff took over my week, and seemed to have affected my capacity to deal with the regular stuff. This led to a stressful end to the week, with a few things going awry.

Doing a bit of work over the weekend to rectify said situations has thrown a more positive light on things, and hopefully, next week will see me back in my stride of uncompromising perfection. Ahem!

Oh and Steve, if you read this before I see or speak to you, keep quiet and I will explain all. This new team business is not common knowledge yet!!

pirates_of_the_caribbean_4_ — Penelope Cruz

On Saturday evening I had decreed that we shall all go to the pictures to take in the latest Pirates film. Having this all saying, all-seeing power, meant that Rebecca chose not to come with us as she’d rather see her boyfriend. A sign of the times. So, three of us made our way to the local Cineworld.

I’ll come on to the film shortly, but the most important part of any cinema trip is the snack choice. I say choice, but I think choice is for fools. Why choose? Simply have everything you want. Some idiot within Cineworld chose to put the Pick n Mix stuff next to the Ben n Jerrys counter. Faced with this double whammy of n’s, with Pick N Mix n Ben n Jerrys, I was powerless to resist.

A regular Hot Fudge Sundae (I resisted the large, I am not an animal), and a small selection of sweets that I Picked and then Mixed seemed the only way to go. It took so long to get all the food sorted (I blame Emily’s bloody Slushy thing) that by the time we got into the theatre, we only had the front row left to us. Rats.

The trailers flashed by me in a blur of Phish food and Cookie Dough, and by the time the Orange ad appeared I was wiping chocolate fudge from my cheeks, and taking in my first fried egg. The combination of sitting at the front, and overdosing on sugar meant that the first twenty minutes of the film didn’t make too much sense, and by the time the second wave of nausea hit, I couldn’t tell which one was Johnny Depp and which one Penelope Cruz. I was so out of it, it appeared the latter had facial hair at one point!!

The crushing humiliation of having to leave some Pick n Mix uneaten, was tempered by my ability to understand the second half of the film, and the fact that it took care of breakfast, so all was not lost. I enjoyed the film though. I’m not sure if the earlier parts were a little slow, or if that was me concentrating on eating, but it certainly picked up and turned out to be better than expected to be honest. Geoffrey Rush was great!

Sunday has trundled past filled with a little ironing (yes, I know, dream husband), some tidying, and then a solid six hours or so of football and xbox (as I said, dream husband). Louise insisted on a “Sunday lunch” for tea, if that makes any sense, and she went out this morning to buy all the stuff for it that I forgot doing the BIG SHOP yesterday. I made the tea though. As it was made up of Marks & Spencers pull it out of a box and put it in the oven, I shall not be troubling MasterChef anytime soon. It tasted nice though.

So I’ve had better weekends in terms of calorie intake!!

Look at me all back to normal in terms of getting this posting done of a Sunday. I made an extra special effort as I just know once the week starts I won’t get any time to do anything but work.

As for our next trip to the cinema, I think Pick n Mix will feature again, with a reprise of the cold delight from those two chaps called Ben n Jerry. Oh, and we’ll probably watch the Hangover 2.

Till the next time…..

Wimbledon is just one stop on the tube from Mordor.

17/05/201118/05/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

I know it isn’t exactly the ends of the earth, but bloody hell Wimbledon is a long way from Bolton!!

I had the delight and joy of making my way there last Wednesday for a customer meeting, that beforehand I didn’t want to go to, and my ever reliable spider sense proved to be spot on as it was pretty much as expected. The sheer awe and wonder of the tube system, probably lost on those using it regularly, is something I do marvel at.

The fact that way back in Victorian times they managed to dig holes under London and put trains in them, and today they turn up more or less every couple of minutes, should be a mind boggler, but we take things for granted. Having said all of that, trying to get from Great Portland Street to Wimbledon is much like the journey across middle earth undertaken by The Fellowship, and they were only carrying a ring. I had a laptop, iPad and book in my bag!! To be rewarded at the end by one of my all time worst meetings was truly kicking a man when he is down.

My raid on the capital, in the form of as brief a visit as I can get away with, ended with a three o’clock train from Euston, and exactly two hours of feeling sea sick….on a train!! I was quite delighted to get back to Piccadilly and sit in traffic for an hour. At least there was little danger of filling my lap with lunch! The rest of the week was fairly quiet, with a day working from home on Friday. I had a load to do, and can’t get any peace in the office, so when Louise said she was going for a “procedure” in hospital on Friday, I used the need to drop her off and pick her up to base myself at home.

A weekend without any major events was on the cards, but that didn’t mean for one minute that we had nothing to do. Between “the big shop”, a bit of tidying up and taking Emily for a hair cut, that was most of Saturday accounted for, but on the plus side, my house wasn’t full of teenagers on Saturday night, aside from the two that I don’t mind being there.

Of course, both girls were out on Saturday night, with Rebecca at the cinema scaring herself to death with Insidious, and Emily out on about the 27th “leaving event”, a field party. I think that translates to around 100 teenagers stood in a field being cold and wet, but I think she enjoyed it. With Louise feeling pretty rough still from her “procedure”, she went to bed, and this left me at a loose end, with the worrying combination of Eurovision and Twitter to keep me entertained.

I apologise now for the sheer volume of tweets, but it made the time pass until I had to go and pick Rebecca up after her film. As ammunition goes for pithy tweets, Eurovision has to be the event of the year to be honest. Where else would you see rapping gnomes, dodgy singers and crass over production? Well, to be honest you could have turned over to ITV and seen exactly the same stuff on Britain’s Got Talent, but you pays your money and you takes your choice I suppose.

With the usual voting nonsense, with the likes of Cyprus giving Greece twelve points, (and I don’t think Greece were even in it were they?) and all those countries ending in consonants voting for each other as they used to be the same country until the mid nineties, we did well to come mid table I think. Blue can now slip back into panto and reality TV for another decade.

Sunday was a little less hectic, with Louise enduring the ironing as usual, and me pestering Emily about revising as usual. I popped out to kit Emily out with her exam essentials, you know, the lucky gonk and 27 packs of polos, and left her to her work.

So after five years at secondary school, all that effort, all that homework and hopefully all that revision she kicked off on Monday with her English GCSE. Emily, as ever seemed pretty unfazed by the whole thing, and toddled off to school in usual fashion, whilst I was trying to give her pep talks and inspiration. She was more concerned with the Panic! At the Disco gig they were going to on Monday evening to be honest.

Upon picking them up after them Panicking at the disco (and for one second did you imagine that anyone else would be doing that) and dropping off the customary friend, it was going on for midnight by the time everyone got to bed on Monday. Luckily, Emily’s exam on Tuesday was not until the afternoon, but Rebecca looked suitably zombie like the morning after.

Hopefully the week ahead will see Emily handle all that the exam boards can throw at her, and Louise feeling more normal too. She’s not had the greatest few days following her trip to hospital. Oh, and by the way, it is 71 days until Florida. Yes, I am indeed counting. Till the next time…..

Party People

10/05/201110/05/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

My up until now solid schedule for these here postings seems to be out of the window. Having missed my Sunday slot for two weeks on the trot now, I shall have to make an extra special effort. In my defense, last Sunday I was undertaking some serious rest and recuperation. The sense of relief I was feeling on Sunday hadn’t been known since that post curry “gas release” which for an awful second may have been something more substantial, but wasn’t.

The whole of last week was a build up to Rebecca’s long-awaited (by her) 14th birthday party. You may think us insane to agree to such a thing, but her original request was for a more formal bash, heavily influenced by those ridiculous Sweet Sixteen things on MTV. You know, the ones where you end up spitting bile and vitriol at the TV due to the arrogance, ignorance and avarice of the youngster involved. Having checked out similar yet less gaudy options we quickly realised that a good old house party would be equally acceptable.

There then followed literally weeks of planning, mainly from Rebecca, where lists were drawn up of who was in and out, a facebook page was created, and endless iPod playlists were created with the appropriate “tuneage”. I have to say I did not share the same level of anticipation and excitement.

So after spending all Saturday going to the vets with the dog, getting my hair cut and then wrestling furniture into safer places, with Louise picking up the cake, balloons, and by the looks of the bank account, hiring Lady Gaga to perform, we looked somewhere near ready, and my loins were girded appropriately.

As the first guests started to arrive, we began the prep of the extensive menu of refreshments (nibbles and pizza!), which meant we were hanging around the kitchen for the first half hour or so to witness all that lovely awkward early party stuff where people wonder where to sit and stand, and avoid eye contact with each other. I wore my slippers for the occasion, which Rebecca no doubt appreciated.

Soon though the number of teens in my house became too much, and I grabbed the dog, and with Louise made a swift escape into the relative sanity of our bedroom. From which we then enjoyed the next three or four hours of unintelligible bass lines, girly gossip (my God teenage girls are bitchy) and thankfully a lot of laughter. We did pop out briefly at certain points during the night, but the sheer amount of sweaty teenagers, mess and destruction around the place drove us back into our bunker very quickly.

At around 10pm we gathered everyone together for the singing of Happy Birthday. This was something I suspected Rebecca to be too cool for, but no, she insisted!!

I have to say we were astounded that as the evening came to an end, there was a complete absence of the expected queue of parents at the front door to pick their kids up. Most were calling for taxis, or walking home, and we do not live within five minutes of most of these, more like a forty minute walk. There is NO WAY either of mine would be in a taxi or walking at that time!! Sometimes I wonder if we are smothering our two, but, it just would not happen!! Earlier in the day, one parent had refused to come out at 11pm on a Saturday to pick up his 14-year-old daughter, so told her to ask if she could sleep here, or she couldn’t go. Honestly, I find some folk hard to comprehend!!

So, with those staying over making too much noise upstairs, we began the tidy up, and we were pleased to see no real damage. There was lots of mess though, but I’d have happily settled for that prior to the event. An hour of work saw the house nearly back to normal, and the worst of the damage was that some clown had taken four or five bananas and mashed them up in the kitchen. Oh, and some prat had changed all the settings on the freezer so it went into Power Freeze. Minor annoyances which I am glad I did not witness as I don’t like prison food.

The noise from upstairs continued into the early hours, but it ended just as my patience did, after I had a quiet word!

So you see, Sunday was a relaxed affair, with lots of football watching by me, and Rebecca even made our tea. This was not some sort of thank you for the party, it was simply that Louise was ironing and I was watching football and she was hungry. There are benefits to your kids getting to a certain age!

I did go for a walk on Sunday, on my usual route, and said hello to some of the wild life there. Last week it was young cows, and this week the two donkeys were out and about. I don’t know about dolphins being intelligent, but as soon as he saw me start to take a photo he just started showing off. To be fair, with that “talent” so would I!!

So we come to this week, with a full five days of horror to endure, one of which sees me in London, well Wimbledon to be exact, for a meeting I don’t want to go to. Work is like that I find.

Till the next time….

Rooms, Restaurants, Rum and Raisin.

03/05/201103/05/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

What’s this? A mini trip report? Oh yes!!!

Our miniest of mini breaks to the Lakes was indeed lovely, and began last Thursday with us setting off just the usual five minutes later than I would ideally have liked to. We left Rebecca in her PJs awaiting her Grandma, with a list of things she must do and a longer list of things she shouldn’t do, mainly around the looking after of animals, and to some extent Grandma!

We don’t get away without the kids very often really, mainly as usually we enjoy being with them, so doing lots of things without them seems to work against that, plus they are getting to an age now where we have to bribe them to do stuff with us anyway, as we are just too old and square. However, this rarity did not stop us both feeling guilty for driving away from the house with an empty back seat!

The journey north was uneventful and just over an hour, and we only hit any traffic in Windermere itself as we queued to get through the silly one way system and then down the hill into Bowness. Parking was a bit of an issue, which is ridiculous, as you would think Bowness was a popular tourist spot, the weather was nice, and 90% of the country wasn’t in work!! Finally we find a slot, and dump the Mondeo and go for a wander.

As I was parking up I Foursquared the fact that we were in Lake Windermere (not actually in the Lake, but you know what I mean). This seemingly trivial piece of info will be relevant soon.

Things were looking pretty idyllic to be honest with blue skies and a sort of grey/green lake.

It will not overly surprise many of you that top of my list was food at this point as it was minutes past midday. We pass at least one eatery before I forcibly drag Louise into the Two Egg Cups Cafe, and after wasting vital seconds pondering where to sit, we do, and get to order. Soup and a sandwich for me, with just the latter for Louise. Red Wine for Louise, yes, at this early hour!!

Replenished, we start to browse some shops, only to be interrupted by a text from Paul, the former singer in my band (you know, the one in which I very nearly became a world-renowned pop star?) asking if we were still in Windermere. We were, and it turned out that he was too, with his family, and we arranged to meet up near Beatrix Potter…the attraction, not her rotting corpse! He’d seen my “check in” on Facebook it seems!

So we find a seat outside a pub opposite, get a drink and wait. We have a nice chat with Paul and his family for half an hour or so, and then make our separate ways to the rest of our days. The wonders of social networking eh?

The immediate rest of our day consists of shopping it seems, and Louise buys a new dress in Hen House, followed by some more browsing and awandering. I wish to draw a veil over the next few minutes as they involve a parking ticket, quite a lot of swearing and a promise never to darken Bowness’ doors again. Yes we were slightly late back to the car, but the signs saying it is free for 2 hours were small, and our lateness was not much bigger. The £25 I have paid the council will be the last pounds they ever get from me, and basing this on what we spent there that day, they have lost a fair bit. However, I was late, the signs were there, but I moaned anyway!

So as I drove away, seething, counting up the numerous other unfortunates along the road who were about to come back to a similar thank you for spending their hard-earned money in the Lakes, I tried my best to calm down and not let it spoil the day. Having spent a few hours down by the Lake we then drove up the hill and parked up in Winderemere itself (as opposed to Bowness) and looked at some more shops! We did also stop for a drink outside a lovely cafe in the sunshine, and I went mad and had a shandy too!

With the afternoon pushing on, we decided to head over to our hotel (or Inn) and get booked in and start to get ready for the important stuff, like eating. The place had grown since our last stay with some renovations and extensions taking place, but it still looks pretty idyllic and peaceful. Our room was large, airy and had lovely views out over open fields. I immediately take up position on the bed, and do what you’d expect when away with my wife, all alone, and that was to switch on the TV, whilst Louise got ready.

Two showers later, and one of us in a new dress and we make our way downstairs to our table. We were asked if we wanted to go straight to the table or have a drink first. I looked at the bloke incredulously wondering if he’d lost his mind. It had been hours since I last saw food, and there was to be no further delay.

I had a lovely starter, of Serrano ham, chorizo & boscaola olives with seasonal melon, manchego cheese with extra virgin olive, whilst Louise had Chicken liver parfait, pear & saffron chutney, toasted brioche. I only managed to get a photo of mine as Louise was busy shaking her head and tutting at the sadness of me in photographing my food.

Mains followed, and I had an 8oz rump steak, served with twice cooked chips, onion rings, field mushroom, tomato and sauce poivre (which is pepper sauce to me and you), whilst Louise had Lasagne. Louise had some Rioja, and I had some San Miguel, as I was on holiday after all.

At this stage I was full, but with a dessert menu thrust into my hand I had little choice but to choose one, and it was tricky as I wanted them all. In the end after asking the waitress just how large the Chocolate Mouse with Amarillo (I’m sure this was what they were called!) biscuits was I plumped for that. All dessert menus should quote volume and size in my view.

That was absolutely lovely too. So armed with the remains of the bottle of red, and some San Miguel, we headed for the beer garden. However, I don’t know if it was a sign of my old age, or a symptom of a full tummy, but I was freezing cold, and we retired to our room shortly afterwards to do what Louise had been looking forward to all day. That was to watch My Big Fat Royal Gypsy Wedding on the telly. With Louise fully satisfied we were asleep minutes after its climax. Night then!

So the next day dawns, and more showers happen, before we are tempted back to the restaurant for yet more food. All good intentions of having some fruit and a yoghurt are out of the window, and we both plump for a full English. It would indeed be rude not to. Full again, despite not really getting empty from last night, we check out and head out for the day. We paid £165 for bed, breakfast and evening meal, including the alcohol, which I thought was excellent value!

We have no concrete plans, and as soon as I can get a 3g signal we pull over and I use the Enjoy England app (my company built this one you know!!) and have a look at what is available. Louise fancies a castle, and so we then discover that the Lake District is pretty much short on castles, and the nearest one appears to be an hour away at Muncaster. No matter, have Mondeo will travel, and after a brief stop at a garden centre to get some drinks (and would you believe Louise suggested we share a Dime Bar Cheesecake, but I sensibly declined!) we set off.

The journey was fairly tortuous and windy (as in bendy, not full of flatulence, although there were moments….it must have been Louise’s lasgane) and where radio signal could be obtained we listened to bits of the wedding that was going on down south. With a short delay for sheep, and the most annoying Ford Focus driver known to man doing 28 mph in front of a three-mile queue of traffic, we finally got to our destination.

Muncaster Castle is a very good day out to be honest. First we had a look at the Owlerey (I’m sure that is a word), and then did the tour of the castle itself, which is lived in to this day. Both Louise and I love this history stuff, and are both fascinated by how things were in “the olden days”, so this was very enjoyable.

We grabbed some lunch, and did some souvenir shopping (presents for the girls to relieve some guilt), and picked up some Cream Fudge bars too. Good grief, the Chocolate Rum and Raisin was incredibly good. We both stood in the car park making foodgasm noises as we chewed. We thought briefly about nipping back to the shop to get some more before we left, but again sanity prevailed and we wandered back to the car.

The Sat Nav said it would be two and a bit hours to get home, but my superior driving skills took a good fifteen minutes off that, and we pulled up outside the house at 5pm. We were both knackered!!

We had a lovely break though, helped by the glorious weather of course and we must do it again and more often, if for no other reason than to get some more of that Chocolate Rum and Raisin fudge!

The evening is spent watching endless reruns of the same news story about the wedding, which seem to focus on Kate’s dress and her sister’s arse, and I see nothing wrong with that.

Till the next time…….

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