Author: mkingdon

What is an mkingdon? Well, it is a long story, but a simple one. I have an addiction to Walt Disney World and Florida, and have done little else but holiday there for the past ten years. Worse than that, I have written about it too,in the form of long and detailed trip reports mainly on The Dibb. Upon joining that site I had to choose a username. I chose mkingdom, with the obvious relation to the Magic Kingdom. However, I am cursed with less than perfect typing skills, and I actually entered mkingdon. So it all started there really, and people have come to know me as that, so I’ve sort of adopted it as my online identity. Behind the name is a late thirties Boltonian with two girls, and Louise, a wife. I work in IT/Web stuff, and endure it to the best of my ability. You can find me in various places online. You should follow me on Twitter, and I am facebooked up too.

Seven Tears, Two Trains and Too many tweets.

05/02/2012 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

I fear that I may have been over active on the media of Twitter and Facebook, especially on Thursday. I’m afraid this is what happens when you trap me in a steel tube for four hours with only the internet for amusement. Due to these over frequent updates, you will no doubt have gathered that I was in the capital this week for a “meeting” regarding an “opportunity”. The existence of those speech marks is probably irrelevant.

There is nothing secret about this opportunity, as I have as you also know already resigned and am preparing to start my new job next week. However, I just don’t want to jinx anything by talking about it before it is anywhere close to being in the same vicinity as my bag, never mind in that bag. I will say that the meeting seemed to go OK, and I have just heard that I am through to the next stage of the process next week, again in frickin London, so location aside, that’s pleasing. This opportunity is quite different to the job I have accepted in many ways, and it would make a significant difference to us as a family in all sorts of ways. First priority is to get the offer, then decide if it is the thing to do.

Regular readers will know that I am not a fan of these trips to the capital. By some quirk of the ticket web site I had managed to secure First Class tickets for pence more than standard, so it was slightly more bearable. Your ticket involves food and WiFi access. Having done the bare minimum amount of work in the first few moments of the journey down, I was then in the unusual situation of having spare time and the internet. Usually, whenever I’m on the internet I’m “doing something”, like work, writing stuff for here or the WDW Dads, or looking stuff up.

Having all that time, and all of the internet at my disposal I was a bit lost to be honest. Discounting all those web sites that men have been known to visit when alone, as this was probably not suitable for the carriage, I found my way to Youtube. Alas, the internet access was pants, and I spent about two hours buffering. Now, as I said, I avoided those web sites that usually involve any sort of “buffering”, and doing that for two hours would improbable and impressive in equal measure, so I do mean that the videos were taking an age to load and then freezing half way through. Very frustrating, as I could easily have busied myself for hours looking at all the sad 80’s bands that I used to love.

You’d be amazed at how many Goombay Dance Band videos you can find! There simply isn’t enough fire eating in pop these days.

If you do watch that video clip, what a superb week that was in the charts. So many iconic 80’s songs in the Top Ten in one week. Most were crap of course, but still iconic. Haircut One Hundred, The Associates, Tight Fit, ABC…..all songs that are still known and played today. All topped off of course by the permed fire eating power house that led the Dancers of Goombay.

I shall leave you to ponder which of those songs and artists I actually do like, and which I offer in jest!

In other more important news, Louise’s Mum is on the mend. She is something close to her old self now, but we are not kidding ourselves that she is out of the woods, so we continue to keep a very close eye on her. This typically takes the form of Louise spending long periods of time on the phone with her, being told the same tale seventeen times, and then fighting the urge to stick a sharp object in her own eye afterwards.

The week ended with the annual disabling of the entire country by a few flakes of snow. As well as earning every weather person and reporter invaluable overtime as they stand outside some random location, delivering tales of chaos and calamity, it also introduced Oli to the white stuff for the first time. He is obsessed!! He’s spent nearly every waking minute in the back garden, charging around, rolling in it and shoving his nose into it.

There are hours of endless fun available now by watching him charge around, slipping and sliding his way from one pile of snow to another, a bit like Frankie Cocozza on a night out I suppose.

So I shall leave you to dig yourselves out of the snow, should you have it, as we are going out tonight. Due to the complete absence of cash since all this job nonsense started back in November we haven’t been out in ages. So the plan, Louise tells me, is to go and have some tea somewhere and then the cinema. We did have a minor disagreement when she came out with the statement “Cos then we won’t need sweets for the cinema”. I countered with the only phrase that was apt in the face of such lunacy, “Are you out of your mind?”.

I shall be a picking and a mixing tonight.

Till the next time….

That was the week that was…bobbins.

29/01/2012 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

I have to confess to not really being in the mood for my usual jovial glance back at the week just gone.

We’ve had a tough one, starting literally with the week, when Louise’s Mum called us early on Monday morning to say “she wasn’t feeling very well”. I’m not going to go into loads of detail, but Louise hasn’t stopped all week, backwards and forwards to hospital, after two admissions in the week. The diagnosis is still quite unclear, ranging from some sort of stroke to meningitis and although she is out of hospital, much the better for the medication, she’s far from right to be honest.

Louise’s Mum stayed with us here one night, in between admissions, and she’s now recuperating with another family member until everyone, including her, feel she is more ready to be home alone.

Add to all this that two other folk I know, one virtually, and one originally virtually but now also in real life, have also had pretty rotten weeks too. It isn’t my place to outline their events, or even really comment, but the sooner the week is over the better all round I think. Many of you will know who they are I’m sure.

Other events over the last week then pale into insignificance, and therefore I’ll refrain from rambling on about them here. Not even a pleasing week of football results can rescue it from the bottom of the league table of weeks. I can summarise events in one sentence. Work, waney lap repair success and walking the dog. To lighten the tone of this post, here is my mate Oli, now six months old, and becoming a very handsome young man, pictured on Saturday morning.

This may of course lead to a very short entry here, and me feeling that I’m short-changing anyone that cares. Imagining that anyone does care, and may well be feeling short-changed of anything, I have posted a new article over at The WDW Dads website. So please head on over there, and have a read by clicking this here link. It deals with the oft discussed topic of what age is the best to first take your kids to WDW. Consider it an attempt to inject some magic into a week bereft of any.

So with a respectful nod to friends with crappy news this past week, and a wish for Mary’s return to full health, I give this last week a two-fingered salute and one of my stares.

Onwards and upwards into a new week which will hopefully deliver closure on which bloody job I’ll be doing, and some improvements all round.

Till the next time….

Britain’s Got Nothing Better To Do?

22/01/2012 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

It’s been a right old week. As much as it is nice (and welcome) to be popular, this multiple job thing is a toughie.

So I’m working really hard at trying to look busy at the old place, smiling at all the right things, feigning the appropriate level of concern at others, and above all else trying to keep up the thin charade that I really give a rat’s ass. On top of that, I’ve been to see my new place a couple of times, and despite not getting paid by them for some weeks, I’ve picked some work from there, which is hampered mainly by the fact that I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing in new world yet.

Add to all of that a week of second and third interviews, and ridiculous psychometric tests at my other “opportunity”, and all the brain power needed to think about which job I’d take where I to get both, I’ve certainly had less stressful weeks. With me, stress does not deliver handy side benefits like not eating so that I emerge some weeks later with the body of Russell Brand. No, stress for me represents itself in the form of binge eating and acne!! Yes, acne!! So despite turning up for these interviews looking like some plague ridden fatty, somehow I managed to get myself a second job offer.

That really put the cat amongst the pigeons. However, after due consideration, I stuck with my original offer, and politely turned the second one down. Financially both were similar, but the second one, frankly, sounded really hard, and so, like the big girl’s blouse that I am, I opted for what appears to be the path of least resistance.

You’d think having two offers was more than enough for anyone in these tough times, and believe me I have no clue how this has happened. For many weeks prior to this employers were literally making a point of not urinating on me despite being metaphorically on fire. Then, of course, to continue the overuse of metaphors, three come along at once.

What’s that? Three you say? Well nearly. I have one last iron in the fire which won’t come to fruition for a couple of weeks, and this one truly is a game changer in many ways, not least salary wise, but also in lots of other ways which I won’t bore anyone with until (and if) it becomes relevant. I suspect it won’t!

This hectic week was rounded off back in the office on Friday, where the normally fairly quiet and peaceful vistas of Salford Quays were overrun with badly dressed disillusioned Jeremy Kylers, as Ant ‘n’ Dec had brought the Britain’s Got Talent juggernaut to my offices. I work in a seven storey building right opposite the Lowry Theatre, and in reception is a “function room” which had for the day been converted into a holding pen for the intellectually challenged folks trying to get Cowell’s attention by passing coat hangers through their nasal cavity or similar. After being kept waiting in this corporate wasteland for several hours they were then escorted across the plaza into the theatre itself to perform.

As much as this made any lunch time outings an assault course, it did mean that the three-hour sales meeting in the morning had a welcome distraction, as I could giggle at the seemingly endless hordes of no hopers willing to stand in the absolutely persistent rain that did not let up for one second.

This made the meeting go quite quickly if I’m honest. I will admit that me taking photos out of the window may have given the game away that I wasn’t giving the subject at hand all my attention, but hey, what are they gonna do, sack me?

At lunch time I did venture out, and the entire area was like a cross between some scene from The Lord of The Rings and a Jerry Springer marathon. Some “acts” had animals with them, some family were pushing some huge “thing” up the side of the theatre, with two young kids, obviously wearing some spangly affair under the coats. Lord knows what they would be doing. Hopefully it was some sort of Weapon of Mass Destruction to be unleashed on Cowell whenever he deigned to appear later into the day.

The first seven or eight hours seems to be run by hundreds of “Crew” who had an average age of around fourteen, but all had headsets and earnest expressions as they herded Albert the Spoon Playing Albino Dwarf across the slippery concrete expanse outside the Lowry Theatre. That’s showbiz.

Even as I left (which to be honest, was a little earlier than I should have), it was still ram packed all around, with the surrounding restaurants doing a roaring trade. It will take them days to sweep up all the glitter from those dance troops though.

I will say that the mechanics of it all it very impressive, and how they get a rabble like that into any sort of order to milk hours of TV out of it, I’ll never know. It may be crass, intelligence insulting bilge, but it is well organised crass, intelligence insulting bilge.

I wonder how many of today’s true global superstars can say their careers started off in a drizzly, windy and cold Salford under an umbrella.

Still, just think, these auditions may uncover a new star, maybe the next Coldplay? I rest my case!!

Till the next time…..

Wake me up when it’s over!

15/01/2012 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

They say that the most stressful things in life are divorce, changing jobs and moving house. Never ones to do things by half, it would appear we’re attempting two of those three at the same time. I shall leave you to guess which two. Depending on how these two go, we may end up with a full house anyway!!

It has been a badly veiled secret that I have not been in love with my job for some time, and without overtly stating it here, it will have been obvious to everyone and anyone that I’ve been assessing my options! Having been at this whole assessing lark since late November I have established the following truths –

1. Most recruitment agents are absolute teapot du chocolat style wastages of air. (For balance I have come across a couple who are also outstanding, professional, knowledgable and very well-connected, and I thank them!!)

2. Searching for a new job is a full-time job.

3. I am sick to death of talking about myself endlessly in a bid to convince someone to give me lots of money.

However, after all this effort, some fool has agreed to pay me money to turn up at their offices, and their offer is more attractive to me than my current one, which to be honest didn’t take a lot. So last week I resigned. It felt goooooood.

I have been sworn to secrecy until work can come up with a plan of how to communicate this to the troops, and have some sort of plan in place for the future. Having had to bite my tongue all last week, and keep up the (very thin) charade of giving a toss, I’m bored now, and should some work related folks stumble across this here blog then so be it.

Having badly broken my promise of not doing work stuff in this blog, I won’t go into details of who I’ll be working for. Firstly, no-one really cares, but also selfishly, I have some other irons in the fire over the next week or so which may result in me having a choice, so I don’t want to jump any guns until the plump lady has cleared her throat for a rendition of “You can shove your job up your arse!”

Last Friday saw the last few folks affected by the recent redundancies that started my job hunt, leave the business, and I am really chuffed that they have nearly all found alternate/better employment. There are a couple still looking, and it can only be a matter of time as they are excellent at what they do!

So, amidst all the rigmarole of trying to find employment elsewhere, Louise and I have come to the conclusion that we need to move house. I would dearly love to do just that, and pick our house up and put it where we want to move to, but alas, that is not possible. We need to be only a mile or so down the road, nearer to schools and parents for lots of logistical reasons, so it looks like we will have to endure the horrors of moving house.

We have been valued (again, as we’ve tried this before), and today has been a solid twelve hours of cleansing, clearing and preening the house ready for the photos to be taken tomorrow. This must be like being Peter Andre, and having OK round snapping your house. The only difference is that he uses someone else’s house that has been professionally cleaned!! Plus of course I have a better physique!

I am now of course on first name terms with the high vis guy at the local tip who tells everyone which container to shove stuff, and Louise hasn’t stopped today. Even now I can hear the distant hum of the Dyson, as she removes evidence of the house ever being lived in.

So there we go, that is how we have come to undertake two of the most stressful things in life at the same time. We have a track record in this regard, as many years ago, it all came to a head (literally) as Rebecca was born three days before we moved, so that was a calm relaxed time too!

Having moaned, I must say that me not changing my job would have been stressful in a different way, so I’m not complaining about that bit. I will complain lots about every aspect of moving house as I hate it with a passion. However, it is a necessary evil, and in the end it will simplify and de-stress our day-to-day lives if we can get somewhere suitable within walking distance of school, and as close as possible to our parents, so that we can look after them, as required in years to come, and in the meantime they can help with the kids and the dog! Seems like a fair trade to me.

It seems not eighteen months since you last had to endure me working my notice, and I apologise that you must go through that again so soon. On the bright side, I need only work one month of notice this time rather than three, so that should give us all a decent chance of getting through it with our mental health intact. Let us hope that we need never speak of such things again for quite some time once this is done.

So having already today, painted, visited the tip, been to Tesco, taken Emily to take some more photos for her coursework, made the tea (a fine Sunday roast even if I say so myself), arranged a babysitter for Oli tomorrow so he doesn’t eat the estate agent, tidied a bit and written this, I still have stuff to do so I must leave you.

Till the next time…..

Waney Lap…whoever he is.

08/01/2012 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

As I settle down to write this week’s blog, you may be intrigued to learn that I’m very stiff. Before your minds run away with you, and my female readers implode in a frenzy of mental images and hot sweats, this is because this weekend I have done my first bit of exercise for many a month.

This onslaught was brought on of course by the excess of Christmas, but it was brought into sharp focus this week, when I had to wear a tie for the first time in about four years. Ties have long since been surplus to requirements as part of my working life, but I had to go somewhere this week that required one. This formal occasion was sort of work related, and will hopefully expedite my escape from the morale and sanity sapping existence I endure Monday to Friday right now.

So having spent the usual few minutes getting showered and dressed in preparation, it then took about another half hour to actually fasten my top button! Once I’d woken from the blood loss induced coma, I then struggled through the day without turning my head! This episode sort of brought it home that I need to shed a few pounds…probably a couple of dozen. So, even though I hate being part of the cliché that is a new year diet regime, I’m in it, and I’ve eaten just a little bit less. With a workout on Saturday and a long walk with Oli today, the scales are showing a slightly lower number than last week, so that’s a relief. A long, long way to go though.

So I’ve continued to work on my escape plan, and although I always say I don’t do work stuff here, it will be no surprise to you that I’m exploring opportunities elsewhere, and hope to have positive news shortly.

The first week back at work, as horrific as it was, was softened by it only being for four days, and having traffic on the roads that would be very tolerable were that to be the norm. Add to that the progress made with a couple of escape routes, and it could have been a lot worse. The girls have been off all week too, and this has added to the gentle introduction to the new working year. Not having to wrench them from their pits at a silly hour means the early morning routine is much less stressful. With them at home, it also means I don’t have to walk the dog before work, as in theory they are at home to walk him. That theory sometimes needs a little encouragement!

Tomorrow may well be a shock to their systems as the last time they did not wake up of their own volition was December the 23rd!

It was my Dad’s birthday this week, and I do feel sorry for him, as it tends to get a little lost in the end of Xmas, decoration removing, diet starting apocalypse. I popped round with his customary golf related gift and card, pleased to see he’s more or less recovered from his proper man flu that besmirched his New Year.

We’ve had quite a relaxing weekend, which you could translate to, we don’t have any cash to do anything exciting. As a result of the excessive wind of late, we were missing a panel of fencing in the back garden. I have since birth (or shortly afterwards) understood this type of fencing to be called Waney Lat. It is only the writing of this blog entry that has taken me to google to find out how to spell it properly, and it would appear that the correct technical term is Waney Lap. Now that makes no sense whatsoever, but I sit, stiffly corrected.

Waney Lap Fence — Yes of course this is our garden!

My first job today was to effect a repair otherwise Oli would be leaving deposits in next door’s garden, and with the size of him now, they don’t want that. It takes two people to clear them up!

I think they could introduce this activity into the Olympics this summer. I’m sure had any of the neighbours been watching from a window, they would have been highly entertained as I attempted to slot the bugger back into place all on my own. Imagine if you will, a portly bald fella holding a fencing panel across his body, waddling around the garden at the behest of every breath of wind, trying desperately to lift it high enough to slot it into the grooves on either side. Now, imagine every swear word you have ever known, and them being shouted loudly as it falls back to the ground for the sixth time.

Should it become an Olympic event, it shall be yet another sport at which I have not been naturally blessed. I returned to the warmth of the house some many minutes later, with grazed knuckles, dirty pants (yes, soiled, but not in a bad way), and muddy shoes. Oli had spent this time exploring next door for the last time before his escape route was cruelly shut off.

With that one job off my task list, it barely made a dent in the long list of stuff that is currently either slightly or totally broken in our house. We have a temperamental shower, a fridge with a door averse to shutting, a broken lamp, several bulbs that need replacing and Louise’s car is in for a service/Mot/Highway robbery in a couple of weeks with a list of minor issues to investigate.

So having missed all of Dancing on Ice by writing this, I consider that job done. Now, on our telly, I’m watching two vacuous effeminate chaps trying to groom three women into looking like Beyonce.Yes, that’s correct they have commissioned such a programme. The three contenders look like Beyonce about as much as I do, and of the three frankly I have the nicest bum. The programme appears to be called Bigger than Beyonce and I can confirm that indeed all the contestants are, by quite some margin.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again….TV will eat itself, and judging by these hopefuls, it is about the only thing they haven’t yet eaten. I appreciate I sit within a very glass house in that respect, but I am not flouting myself on national TV in some sort of looky likey travesty. If I were, then maybe Bigger than Brian Glover may be more appropriate? Go on, Google him. Although Louise always says I look like Gok Wan. If that isn’t grounds for divorce then I don’t know what is.

Till the next time…..

2011 in review – thanks to all who came along.

01/01/2012 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for my blog. Silly numbers, and I thank everyone who bothered to come and read this stuff.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 44,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 16 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

The longest break between food has been whilst writing this….

28/12/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Oli

I appear to have blinked and missed Christmas. I know I am of an age now, but wow, it flashed by in a blur of calories and crap telly. All of a sudden it is Wednesday, my holiday is half over (or only half gone depending on your outlook on life I suppose) and I am well into my second stone of weight gain.

As brief as it seemed it was very enjoyable, with Christmas Eve Eve spent with a takeaway, my annual Baileys and the new Peter Kay DVD. He is still one of the few comedians who can make me laugh out loud. Being more or less exactly the same age, and from the same town some of his references to his childhood etc do strike very close to home. We did have a very similar childhood!

From that point on, I have never let my belly get any less than half full.

If we thought for one second that now we have very grown up teenagers that the excitement levels would diminish in the run up, we were very wrong. Rebecca was excited enough for the two of them in the days preceding the big day, and having asked what time she was allowed to get up on Christmas morning, she arrived at our door at exactly 7.00am! Emily was behind her, doing her level best to cope with the early hour whilst remaining something close to festive. As usual no-one is allowed in the front room until Dad has been in to “make sure he’s been”, and to switch on the lights.

So, what was months of build up, present planning and buying, came to fruition in thirty second frenzy of wrapping paper, especially from Rebecca’s side of the room.

Rebecca's presents — All present and correct

She is a full blown force of nature when it comes to opening presents. Emily is much more measured. Whether they have been aged fourteen and sixteen or four and six, this has always been the case.

One thing that has changed is that these piles are getting smaller. These days they tend to contain fewer more expensive presents, whereas a decade ago, they literally had half of the room each filled with endless dolls and tat that I would then spend all day un-packaging.

This year, the main gifts were an iPhone 4S for Rebecca and a new “proper” camera for Emily, a Nikon D3000. As ever, the look of proper shock and surprise from both upon opening these was worth the expense. Yep, Louise and I are a collective soft touch.

We also had a new family member to buy for!

Once he’d got bored with that present, he looked around for entertainment elsewhere.

The day then went like this.

Breakfast was with my Mum and Dad, where once again I bedazzled everyone with the Benediction of some eggs. They left us around lunch time, to enable us to either start making “the dinner” or sit and watch telly drinking a gin and tonic. I shall let you draw your own conclusions as to which option I went for.

Louise’s mum joined us mid afternoon, and with a few minutes to go, I ventured into the kitchen to do manly things like carve some meat, and pick the best seat at the table. The meal itself was a delight, and from our cocktail of prawns (a Grandma tradition), through the traditional turkey fest and onto the unneccessary yet obligatory dessert, I showed great stamina to keep going to the very end, however I fell at the final hurdle made of cheese and crackers.

The evening consisted of a walk of the dog, and a bum on the couch. I endured as much of Downtown as I could, before making a run for the hills (bed) when I realised it was a two-hour “spectacular”. There are only so many stiff uppers I can stomach in one go. So I read my book (a present from Louise) for a while before placing my stomach on the mattress next to me and drifting off to a dream about leftovers.

Muddy Oli — His head was the clean bit....

On Boxing Day, we didn’t do much to be honest, other than take Oli out for a bracing and lengthy walk around a local reservoir. He got a bit muddy.

So after an hour’s walk, there then followed a bath of around the same length. From that point on, we’ve pretty much not done a great deal. Louise did somehow manage to persuade me to go into town yesterday, as she had some vouchers to spend with a 24 hour expiry period (apparently). We survived, albeit with a very close call on me spending a silly amount of money on a new coat. It was on the wrong rack, and so the price I thought I’d be paying was almost double that amount when I got to the till. I declined, almost politely.

Today, alas Louise was back in work (ah the perils of serving the public) so I spent the morning doing a couple of errands, and some washing (yes, I am THAT considerate), before settling in for a lengthy session my newly acquired Modern Warfare 3. A Christmas tradition for me.

So here I sit, surrounded by sweets of all kinds, having just polished off some cheese and biscuits that I clearly didn’t need, after necking a large tea only a couple of hours before. Somebody stop me!!!

So I have to go now to plan my outfit for the New Year’s Eve extravaganza celebration which will involve a helicopter arrival at some star-studded do, rubbing shoulders with celebs whilst quaffing expensive bubbly and posh nibbly food that isn’t from Iceland!! Either that or I’ll be sat on my couch berating the shocking quality of telly on New Year’s Eve whilst increasing my waistline by another belt notch or two. Don’t be jealous. I hope your celebrations go well, and your new year even better.

Till the next time….

It turns out, I am not the voice.

18/12/201118/12/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Oli

Another week filled with medical news and hospital updates for us. After another four days sat waiting for further scannage, my Mum is finally home. Hopefully now, she can enjoy a pain-free, non A&E Christmas!! Let’s hope I need blog of hospitals, doctors or the like for quite some time now.

Oli at 8 weeks — He used to look like this.....

You haven’t had an Oli update for at least a few hours so I’ve done some videos of him for today’s post. I am aware that I am becoming a bit of a bore when it comes to Oli. We were out last night (more of that later) and I found myself showing folks photos and videos of him on my phone. If that was you I apologise, and the search for my life continues!

Yesterday Oli and I ventured out onto the local park in the freezing cold and snow to get him nice and dirty ready for his bath when we got back in. Post bath, once he’s shaken himself over every inch of the house we then always put the fire on so he can dry off nicely! It makes him all sleepy!

Once he’d had a little nod and got all nice and fluffy again, he was ready for a roll around on the rug, and if you have the patience to stick with this one till the end, he does like to torment a cat or two when he’s in the mood.

Enough of me being a dog bore!! Let’s move on to me being a bore about other subjects!

We had a night out last night. That in itself is quite unusual, but in light of recent events and malcontent, it turned out to be what’s called a “nice change”, even if we were perhaps not the world’s most exciting company. Our lack of practice at this stuff meant that Louise and I were ready for bed at around 10pm, and had to dig deep for a second wind, which spookily I rediscovered this morning on the loo after too much Guinness!

The evening started off with chatter, some lovely food, and drinkies. It slid inexorably towards silliness through a Christmas quiz, boys versus girls, in which the male types prevailed (what do you mean I shouldn’t have been Googling for answers on my phone? that’s called being resourceful), a brief stop at Pass the Parcel, which somehow involved taking shots on board with every layer removed, and then inevitably towards the messy car crash that was SingStar.

Having avoided the microphone quite well for some time, the fickle finger picked me out eventually, and as a decent representation of my luck right now, it was no easy ballad in my key (Wandering Star would have been nice) I was landed with a song that no male on the planet is able to sing without surgical alteration.

Thankfully, by this time, everybody was on the wrong side of sober, and didn’t notice me miming like some sort of slightly flabby, paler Milli Vanilli. I then bowed out gracefully to witness renditions of true Karaoke classics, rounded off by the loudest version of Never Forget since the last time someone did it on Karaoke. Somehow it became 2am, and we taxied ourselves home and fell into bed.

So today is one of those lazy days with Christmas films on the telly right now (The Grinch currently), with Emily and her friend Laura regressing from sixteen to six again. Rebecca has gone back to bed after her night out at a party last night, and Louise also seems to have retreated under the duvet, having told me she doesn’t know why she is hung over!! I suppose if you get so drunk that you can’t remember you were drunk then that makes sense??

I finish for Christmas on Thursday and never have I been so happy to not be at work, as I will be at that time. I continue to work on my escape plan. Next Sunday is the big day, and that means there shall be no bloggage on that day. I warn you of that fact as I know you’d all be rushing to your computers to read it otherwise, sacrificing the Queen’s Speech for Mkingdon nonsense. What else would you be doing?

As I’m going to be off work for the duration, you will never know when one of these inane posts will appear over the festive period. It shall be like some unwelcome relative turning up on your doorstep unannounced. You have been warned.

Till the next time….

There is a light that always goes out….

11/12/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Being of an OCD nature, with more than a hint of Virgo, I apparently seek perfection in all things, and I am not comfortable with things being incomplete or broken.

I plead guilty to most of that to be honest.

So, already feeling that the Gods are toying with me at present, seeing what new wretchedness they can bestow upon me for their own pleasure, I have developed a theory, based solely upon our dining room light fitting.

It is relatively important to me that things function correctly, and are as they should be, so I am a slave to B&Q each time a bulb goes out around the house. So this here dining room light fitting is currently funding the fat cat bonus of Messrs B & Q. Every sodding time I replace one bulb, within twenty-four hours, the one next to it (it’s always the one next to it) goes out.

So I now have two choices. I can either throw another three quid down the swanny, (as they do not sell bulbs in single packs) whilst octogenarian shop assistants chuckle under their breath at the B&Q warehouse, or I can simply never again look upwards in our dining room. Thinking about it, I bought the bloody light fitting from B&Q too, so have they devised an ingenious money-making scam, where the sale of a fitting continues to generate revenue for them on a weekly basis? I both hate and envy them in equal measure.

For now, let’s see who blinks first in this stand-off where I am refusing to buy another bloody bulb any time soon.

It has been a relatively uneventful and unjoyful week, as most of it was spent in work, uncovering fresh misery upon misery each and every day. To add to this nonsense and the light bulb persecution, our potentially restful Sunday was hijacked at around lunchtime. I was due to pick my Dad up from his golf club after his annual “whiskey do”.

This whiskey do involves a round of golf where the winners of each hole take a shot of whiskey. Then back in the clubhouse the whiskey continues to flow, guaranteeing that those participating will be in no fit state to drive home. As the weather has been shocking, I decided to call my Mum at lunchtime to see if the golf had been cancelled, meaning I wouldn’t need to make the trip and scrape my Dad off the nineteenth tee.

It turned out that she was having a recurrence of her troubles from last week, and requested that someone took her to the hospital. So Louise did that, whilst I waited for Dad to phone after his golf to be collected. Upon collecting him it soon became apparent that he’d had a successful round of golf, and taken on board a fair amount of whiskey. I informed him that his planned afternoon of sleep and hangover cultivation was cancelled and we were headed for the A&E.

We met up with Louise and Mum there, and did us some waiting. My Dad, having had fifteen whiskies was probably in the right place, because had I consumed that, I would need to go to A&E too. He was definitely worse for wear, and I’m not convinced he really knew what was going on. After some doctorage, we left them at the hospital for tests etc and went home. Within half an hour of being home (it takes half an hour to drive to or from the hospital), Dad called saying that he didn’t feel great, and could we go and get him!!! We did, with me dropping him at home, and Louise waiting with Mum. Are you keeping up so far?

Eventually, some hours later, Louise has arrived home, leaving Mum for more testage and treatment. She’ll need picking up later, but fear not, I have asked my brother if he’ll step up for that one, as frankly neither of us want to do that journey again today.

So, no-one knows what’s up with Mum right now, and I think that is the worst thing for her, as that causes more worry. Hopefully they’ll get somewhere near to the bottom of it for the sake of her peace of mind.

I suspect come tomorrow morning, whatever the outcome at the hospital, my Dad will feel the worst of the two. If the hangover doesn’t get him then my Mum will!!

I’m hopeful for a more positive and rewarding week to come, and surely on the law of averages, that has to happen sometime soon.

Till the next time…..

Deck my balls with boughs of holly….

04/12/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Alas the lottery balls have denied me the joy of telling work to place their job anywhere north of the sphincter. The hope I invest in this each week is beyond sad, and until the balls drop on a Saturday evening, in my mind it is a valid route out of a Monday morning.

As you may have predicted the working week was spectacularly poor. There have been smatterings of good news, with many of my guys affected quickly finding new jobs. I have greeted these bits of news with a mixture of definite pleasure, and just a little jealousy. Until I get that lucky, I am enslaved to “work through it”, so onwards I trudge.

My “no work here” rule is under strain, as I could quite easily wax lyrical for quite some time on the reasons that I would literally rather be anywhere else but at work tomorrow, but I shall resist. No doubt many of you dear readers feel the same, so it would be selfish to do so.

With a veil thrown jauntily over the working week, other news this week was also on the bad side. Late on Friday night, my Mum was taken into hospital. She was suffering from some serious abdominal pains, and she was admitted for prodding and testage. I popped up to see her today, and she seems much better, but is waiting for more scanning to see what on earth it was. It seems the immediate problem has gone but it would be good of course to find out what the underlying problem was/is.

Having done the visiting thing for an hour or so, Emily I then picked up a new Christmas tree. We binned our long serving model a couple of years ago, and had a real one last year, but the thought of having both a real xmas tree, and a four-month old puppy in the same house is perhaps not the most sensible idea. So we’ve (heavily) invested in a new unreal tree. To get suitable value from the investment, I shall expect my great grand children to be gathered around this bloody tree in decades to come!!

Really, it is just some metal rods with green bits stuck to it. We left the decoration of the tree mainly to the girls this year, once I’d done the annual wrestle with the lights, and other erection grunt work. Apologies for the very poor quality snap, but it looks pretty good (honest).

As some sort of well-timed mood setter, it is now snowing outside. All we need now is three pints of advocat and Shakin’ Stevens to turn up and it’s just like Christmas used to be in the good old days.

So Christmas is on officially, and I welcome its arrival with open arms for many reasons –

1. I will be off work for almost two weeks

2. It involves lots of food

3. It signals the end of what is essentially four months solid of reality TV.

Plus, on January 2nd I like to see if I have won a favourite game of mine. It is called, which tragic minor celeb has released a fitness DVD for 2012. Amongst the Hoseasons adverts and that bloody Martine McCutcheon plugging some white gloop that does you good, there is always at least half a dozen Davina’s pushing their lycra clad exertions, with them air brushed within an inch of their lives on the DVD cover.

My predictions for 2012 are –

1. Any one of the vacuous skin wastages from The Only Way is Essex.

2. Fatima Whitbread, and by the way, I have an exclusive sneak peak of that one…..

3. Russell Grant (yes, he’ll milk this five minutes for all it’s worth).

What are your predictions then??

Till the next time…..

Woeful Weeks and other words starting with W.

27/11/201127/11/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Hello again. I am back.

Apologies for my absence over the past week….what do you mean you hadn’t noticed??? In the great scheme of things, me missing a blog one week isn’t even a pimple on the arse end of the universe, but I just couldn’t bring myself to put fingers to keys last Sunday. Why?? Well, I knew at that point that I was in for an awful, awful week at work, and my head and heart weren’t on anything else.

I already knew at that point that on Tuesday we were to deliver some horrible news to many folks at work, which would lead to them all having to find jobs elsewhere. I too am affected, being officially “at risk”, but I have a role I have been invited to “apply for”, and so I know we will have funds coming in for the forseeable, albeit at a reduced rate than we are used to. As I always say, I don’t do work stuff on here, so I’ll not continue the story. I will say that the sheer horror of last week isn’t something I can capture here, or some of the very, very dark places it took me. Thankfully it is behind me now, and I suppose next week can only be better, if only by small degrees. I suppose you know when real life stuff gets tough, as my nonsense via Twitter and Facebook stop!!

I’ve been through this a few times before at my old place, but being a much bigger outfit, it felt very much like I was “processing” folks as I just didn’t know them that well. I know that is awful, but simply true. This time, the company is much smaller, and it is all very raw.

So as you can imagine, these events have pretty much dominated our lives for the last week or two, so I haven’t got much else to report. However, we’ve been photographing more doors today, and we’ve been walking Oli some more. Last weekend, we took him out around the Jumbles Reservoir, and half way round we gave him a go off the lead for the first time ever. I had my young and athletic frame poised to chase the little bugger the three miles home. Thankfully, for my wobbly bit’s sake, he was brill.

He just trotted alongside us, never ventured out of sight, and acted like he’d been doing exactly this for years. Unless you are one of our three cats then he is pretty much the ideal dog. As far as the cats go, well he is pretty much making their lives a misery!! He does just want to be friendly, but as he is now three times the size of them, I can see how he could appear a little intimidating!!

It is good fun to watch anyway!!

In other news, it would appear that my obsessive nature is pretty much passed down a generation to Emily. As you may have noticed, once I get an interest in something, I tend to fixate on it. Hence over a decade of Disney obsession and trip reports. Emily tends to do a similar thing with bands. Usually it is some black clothed loons called Death Rot and Garbage, but right now, she is absolutely engrossed in One Direction!! Reconcile that with the fact that her usual taste is My Chemical Romance, Asking Alexandra, Panic at the Disco and Paramore, with the odd brush with screamo crap along the lines of Bring Me The Horizon.

With hormones a raging, if Harry Styles were to be locked in a room with Emily I fear for his safety. He happens to be a member of said One Direction. Ah the follies of youth. Imagine my fixation with Disney and multiply it by a hundred. I figure that her obsession will burn a much shorter life than my Disney thing, as that is here to stay, but I’ll hazard a guess it will cost her a lot less money!!

So next week is looking full of trying to help those affected find a job. I did quite a bit of this last week too, and thankfully many are well on the way to something else. Having recruited most of them, and worked with all of them for some time, calling up anyone I know who might be able to help, and getting agencies in to talk with them is easy to do, and pretty much the least I could do. When I’m not doing that, I’m doing a fair bit of job searching myself, as I would be silly not to!! Who knows now when the reaper will come calling for me! I’ve got a pretty good idea when actually!

In addition to all of that, I’m also tasked with working out how we continue to do what we do today without all these folks being around!! I think the term for that is insult to injury!!

So I’m very aware this week’s post is a bit “woe is me”, so I’m sorry about that. No doubt as the days go on, and my head continues to wrap itself around all this, I’ll be back on form in terms of moany tweets, and sarcastic facebook updates. You have been warned.

As they say, there is always someone worse off than yourself, and I’m absolutely sure that is the case, as I’m working with some of them at the moment. As concerned as I am for our own fortunes, I have to tell myself it could have been a damn sight worse, and take the chance to proactively get a plan in place just in case this is going to be a death by a thousand cuts!

Right, enough of this stuff, it is what it is. I shall rev my sarcasm and pithiness back up to ten, and perhaps watch the X factor later so I can tweet myself back to form. I always feel better after being sarcastic and nasty about people who will never know or care about my opinion!!

Till the next time……

I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll photograph your door!

13/11/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Oli

How’s your Sunday been? I have spent mine taking photos of doors. No, worse than that, I have spent mine watching someone take photos of doors!!

I’ve been driving Emily around trying to find her interesting doors to take photos off. This isn’t some sort of Jim Morrison pilgrimage, no, it is for her Photography course. Her first project is on the subject of doors. You would not imagine the numerous ways, angles, scenarios and locations in which one can photograph a door. I do.

I have had to explain several times to worried looking residents/park keepers/pub owners that we are not casing the joint in any way. We are not some sort of Kick Ass style father and daughter crime team. Instead, I have a daughter lucky enough to be able to study something she likes.

Anyway, here are a couple of my favourites. I have no idea if they are any good from a technical point of view, but I like them.

Emily door 1

Emily Project 2

There are 136 others that I shall not share!! By the way, both of those were taken at the local church were Louise and I were married! Cute innit? It was a new build back then.

Emily’s interest in photography is going to cost me, literally. She feels she now needs to progress onto to a “proper camera” and get an SLR, rather than the bridge she has right now. That’s her Christmas sorted out then.

For those of a photographic bent, she is probably going to get a Nikon D3000. I’ve spent most of this week consulting with my vast army of photographic expert friends….both of them!! The chances of me blowing one of my xmas gifts on something for school back in the day would have been nil. This is mainly as I took History, Economics and English Lit!! These new fandangled subjects!!

Rebecca is much more traditional in her giftage. Yep, quite predictable really. Just an iPhone 4S please Dad!! Nice.

Oli’s growth continues in Digby style progress. He doesn’t like going for baths, as evidenced by the look in his eyes here, which says, just wait until I’m bigger than you!!

Oli after bath — Revenge shall be mine!!

He really has become part of the family now. I shall take a chance and declare him fully house trained!! He has been for a good few weeks now, but the real proof was that we woke on Friday morning to find him lay at the side of our bed fast asleep. Some idiot had left one of his cage doors open (dunno who that might have been!!) and he had at some point in the night wandered out and settled down in our bedroom.

Not one piddle or poop was had until we got up and let him out the back door. He shall be allowed to stay after all.

Later tonight, the reality TV trilogy is complete with the arrival of the Jungle thing. With Strictly, X Shambles and I’m a Celeb, there shall not be one inch of TV between now and Christmas without some celeb gyrating or eating something unmentionable or a celeb wannabe making something their own. As you may have noticed, my tolerance for X Factor is very low, but now I am officially middle-aged I can tolerate Strictly most weeks, and, not that I will have a choice, but I can watch most of the Jungle stuff without poking my eyes out with a rusty fork.

I already know who we shall be supporting. In our house it goes off who is “fit” and therefore Emily has declared that the Williams household shall be team Poynter. For those who don’t know (yet) who he is, he plays bass in McFly. It would seem that McFly have decided to embrace reality TV in a big way whilst still actually in the middle of their careers rather than after them.

Without getting too analytical about this (I don’t wish to appear sad!) but this is quite astute really. As they mature, and leave behind some of the tweens they built their careers on, they now need to establish a wider fan base, who will buy their albums for the next ten years or so. You may not remember that Danny off of McFly did the Popstar to Opera Star thing, Harry is currently in Strictly having to dance with that ugly bird with the bright coloured hair(!!), and now Dougie does the Jungle.

At the risk of extending this image of being a sad git, I quite like McFly. They write some “proper songs” with melodies and choruses, like in the good old days. We are almost related too, as Danny’s Mum & Dad live around the corner from Louise’s Mum!! I’m not one to name drop of course. See, I can be in touch with the kid’s music in some instances. However, in other instances, I can only shake my head at the ludicrous nature of the music industry, as evidenced best by the mere existence of Professor Green and his comedy rap accent. He’s like a character off a comedy sketch show!!

As someone once said, Pop will eat itself.

Till the Next Time……

A party, and people looking at a pair of puppies.

06/11/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Oli

So as I come to fill another blank post with nonsense, I am on the couch, with Emily sat three feet from the TV, watching Peter Pan for the gabillionth time. Her crush on the actor playing Peter is beyond measure. The fact that he’s now 37, bald, and sixteen stone is something that I will keep from her for a little longer.

I think that watching the same thing over and over is something that the generation younger than me have perfected. It is only in the last ten to fifteen years that it has seemingly become acceptable to watch the same things again and again. I suppose with advent of 24 hour TV and hundreds of channels, there would never be enough content to fill them all with unique stuff. I admit to watching the odd episode of Champion the Wonder Horse more than once in my youth, but really, my girls have seen some films literally dozens of times, and still seem happy to sit through them again.

It all started with Barney for us. Every breakfast time, we were subjected to that overly sweet subject matter, and by the time they were ready to progress onto something slightly more mature, we’d seen every episode a good twenty times each. As for episodes of stuff like The Suite Life of Hannah McGuire or whatever gets played on the Disney Channel, well, there are several episodes of those that I know all the words to.

We’ve just sat through most of Open Season, and all of the Grinch, as it seems today has been a relative day of rest following a very busy Saturday, and last few weeks. This is because yesterday we hosted the party for Louise’s Mum’s 80th. This involved over 40 folk cramming into our house for several hours. It also involved about three weeks solid prep, and about six hours of the hardest work I’ve done in a while. Constantly topping up everyone’s glass, warming and serving food, all whilst navigating a house made for four not forty is bloody hard work!

Mary's 80th party — See if you can spot me...

It all went very well to be honest, and the birthday girl was delighted. All the guests seemed to enjoy themselves, and we kicked the last ones out (politely) at around 8pm, having opened the doors just after 1pm. We were absolutely shattered!!

As you can imagine, this morning consisted of much tidying of all varieties. We escaped with a small amount of collateral damage to the house it seems, and I’ll be ready to do it all again in another 80 years or so.

Today then, having reconstructed the house, returned the glasses we hired, and undertaken the big shop, the day has been quite restful. This afternoon we went to a local park with Oli, and met up with my brother and his family, so that Oli could meet his cousin, Baxter. He is a couple of weeks younger than Oli, and if Oli had a pocket, Baxter would quite easily fit inside it.

Still, they seemed to get on OK, after an initial bit of timidness on both sides. Oli is a big softie, and when out for walks will sit down and wait for a car to pass as he isn’t keen on the noise. This can make walks last about two weeks each.

Anyway, he doesn’t mind actually riding in a car, and here is about to set off for the park. Ignore my hand showing at the top of the pic, I was trying to block out the low winter sun which was coming in right down the camera.

Once we got to the park, this is the calm, sedate way in which Oli and Baxter introduced themselves!!

With two little cuties with us, our walk around the park was constantly interrupted with folks wanting to have a look at the puppies and have a stroke. Louise, and my sister-in-law Paula got very bored and quite chilly, and so declined most requests!!

So with my thanks to Ronnie Corbett for that last gag, I shall leave you again. Frankly, I’m just too knackered to keep pressing these keys all the way down. Luckily, work swings around again tomorrow, so that will make everything alright again.

Till the next time…..

Sid Owen vs Olly Murs, Discuss.

30/10/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

I worry myself sometimes. The state of my mental health is a cause for concern. It is a source of eternal puzzlement where the random thoughts that populate my noggin come from.

Today, whilst packing the shopping into bags at Asda, completely out of nowhere I had an internal discussion with myself about how it was suddenly blindingly obvious that Olly Murs is having Sid Owen’s career, but in reverse order. I had not heard from or seen either of these minor celebs during the morning, but still this startling realisation came to me from nowhere.

It made perfect sense to me, which is perhaps a greater cause for concern than actually having the thought itself. Allow me to explain.

Both of these allegedly talented Essex/London types have somehow overcome the hurdles of a total lack of star quality and talent to forge what seem to be quite lucrative careers. Olly has lucked his way through a TV talent show, only to emerge a year later turning out turgid pseudo reggae pop. Owen on the other hand must have known someone in casting at Eastenders, and played himself for many years before becoming every impersonators catchphrase when referencing Eastenders.

All together now “RRRIIIICCCKKKKKEEEEEE!!!”

So what of my theory that they are living out each other’s careers in reverse. Well this is the thought that came to me. Sid Owen limped along in Eastenders for too many years before believing his agent’s promises of Number 1 singles and TV specials, which led to him throw away that steady and well paid contract on Stenders, to them move on and release what could well be the most insulting homage to reggae since Boris Gardner.

Don’t believe me?

Murs it seems has started his career with a similar two-fingered salute to the reggae genre, and it can only be a matter of time before the hits dry up, and he meanders through panto in Bognor, to eventually turn up in Eastenders as some long-lost relation of some character I am not aware of. So you see, careers in reverse!

Made perfect sense to me at the checkout today. As I said, I worry myself sometimes. The fact that Sid Owen’s pop “career” is lurking in my subconscious is a reason to visit the doctors all by itself.

Anywho, now I have that off my chest, what have we been up to?

It has been a busyish old week really. It has been my nephew’s birthday, and Jack is now 18. Having watched him dance naked by the Christmas tree some very short years ago, I cannot believe he is now officially an adult. Mind you at 18, it is surely only a matter of time before he is again dancing naked by a Christmas tree, but this time he won’t be four, and he will be off his tits on tequila!!

To celebrate, we all went out to the Red Hot World Buffet in Manchester on Saturday afternoon. I believe this to be a national chain, and I would encourage those unfamiliar with it to give it a go. What it lacks in quality, it more than compensates for in quantity, and to be fair the quality is fine too. I ate a lot. Those four words should avoid me having to describe the endless procession of plates that graced my table.

A veil shall be drawn over the exact events. Safe to say, I got my money’s worth, mainly as Jack’s Mum & Dad paid, so I guess I got their money’s worth.

So by tea time yesterday we were home, stuffed, and to be honest ready for bed. Louise, to her credit then went on to decorate the downstairs loo. By that, I do not mean that she undertook some sort of dirty protest following a buffet overload. No, she actually was wallpapering and stuff.

All of this bleeding decorating is going on as next weekend we are hosting a special event for Louise’s Mum. We are having 40 family and friends round to celebrate a landmark birthday. She will be 80!!

So this has meant that all of those jobs that we have been putting off, like painting the kitchen, and re-papering the downstairs loo after the not so recent garage conversion meant one wall got re-plastered (it’s complicated), have had to be done as we have folks coming round. We may even have to hoover too!

Having failed to benefit from the so-called extra hour in bed this morning, I used the extra time to put the final finishing touches to the kitchen, and once finished put the decorating stuff back in the shed where it will sit going stiff until we decorate again, and then realise we didn’t clean stuff well enough and have to go buy some more. I had finished painting, had breakfast, showered and dressed before 9am. Tragic. No wonder my mind was playing tricks on me during the BIG SHOP.

I shall leave you with just a small insight into my buffet experience.

You may be shocked by the contents of that plate. I know, pathetic right. This was Louise’s plate, I had twice as much as that!!

Till the next time……

This lack of WDW is clearly affecting my health!

23/10/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Having had Emily at home all last week due to a nasty bout of tonsillitis, it would seem that the baton of grottiness has now been passed on to me. I wouldn’t mind being ill so much, if I were able to be off work with it, but in the current circumstances that will not be an option, certainly on Monday anyway. Is it every company that devotes most of Monday to meetings at which, if you are not there to present, the earth will cease to turn upon its axis?

I also have a new starter turning up tomorrow, so not to be there would be very bad form. How much better it will be that I drag my sorry carcus into the office, and infect him with my illness so he can have time off later on in his first week!

Other than lots of work, which means stress, hassle and problems, in the usual seemingly unending stream of nonsense, the only other thing to report this week is that Oli has been out for his first walks. With Emily too ill, Rebecca and I took him out around the block on Wednesday night, and he did surprisingly well to be honest. He obviously hasn’t got the rules yet, and does tend to spend most of the time eating his lead or sitting down, but he could be a lot worse.

On subsequent days he has ventured further afield, and discovered that he really doesn’t like cars, and feels compelled to chase every leaf that moves! I’m sure he’ll get used to everything. On Saturday Emily and I had him on the local park for the first time, and then Rebecca had him down to my Mum’s. This eagerness to walk him won’t last with the girls I’m sure, but it is good whilst it lasts.

Rebecca’s willingness to be out with the dog is based on the amount of attention he attracts. If Oli brings “cute boys” into any sort of conversation with her then he will have served his purpose. She’d better make the most of it though, as at the rate he is growing, it will soon take all four of us to manage him on the lead, which will cramp her style just a little.

With half term on the horizon, we’ll see how willing they are to have him out when the inevitable lashing rain and icy winds kick in next week.

On Friday evening, Louise and I went out for tea, and the biggest plus to come out of that was that we were then able to spend Saturday night watching the programmes we Sky plussed on Friday night, rather than endure the seven hour marathon that is the X Factor. Modern Family and An Idiot Abroad are two of our favourite programmes, so not being able to watch them on Friday made for a much more palatable Saturday. My decreasing health levels, having to pick Emily up after a gig, and not much sleep last night have led to a Sunday of extreme couchiness for me.

Louise has had to do the BIG SHOP, and the ironing, added to a load of decorating yesterday. Yes, it continues. It might sound like we have a kitchen and dining room the size of Surrey, but we haven’t. It is very nearly done now!!

Before I slumped into this life threatening cold, I did manage to splurge some random words out for the WDW Dads site. Feel free to go have a read if you are so inclined. It covers one of my favourite subjects, food!!

It does seem that most of the other WDW Dads spend 90% of their daily lives inside one of the parks, which makes me sick in a whole different way!! Their constant tweetage from these places is both informative and depressing in equal measure. Jealousy isn’t pretty, but then again I never claimed to be in any way pretty.

So that’s your lot for this week, my illness obviously is affecting my ability for bloggage, and I need to go and feel sorry for myself some more. It is funny but in dozens of trips now I have never been ill on US soil, and never had so much as a sniffle inside a Disney theme park. For the sake of my health, and the NHS it is my duty to be there as much and as often as possible. You know it makes sense.

Till the next time…..

Woah, what a feeling, when I’m rollering the ceiling!!

16/10/201117/10/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Oli

If you are likely to be bored by updates on the growth of Oli, then this week’s bloggage may not be for you.

I’m taking photos and video to track his growth, as this is something we didn’t have with Henry our last dog. This was because the technology was much clunkier back then in the good old days of 1997, and at the time we had a new-born baby and an eighteen month old. So add a new puppy to that and we barely had time for our nervous breakdowns.

Here is the little (big) chap playing on Saturday afternoon. All the female folk were out clothes shopping. Rebecca needed a new winter coat and Emily yet more jeans. I stayed home with the big fella and watched the footy with him.

I keep telling myself, that it is too early to say what I’m about to, as it will surely bite me on the arse, but he does seem to be house trained now. We have to still make sure we have him outside regularly, but he knows to wait until we do, so as silly as it might be to assume the worst it over, it looks like it might be.

Again, at the risk of premature announciation, he is also very good generally. He’s fairly calm for a puppy, doesn’t mind spending time alone in his crate when he needs to, and generally is pretty chilled. Cue the next week being the one where he destroys the house and undertakes some sort of dirty protest!

Thursday sees him being walkable. I know of course that I’ll be the idiot out with him at 6am every day once the novelty of day three has worn off, but it will make it easier all round.

The decorating of the kitchen has continued this weekend, and my contribution has been to paint the ceiling. I have a sore neck and a desire never to paint again. Louise has worked really hard on the rest, and it needs just the finishing touches now. It looks lots better of course, but nothing will ever justify the living hell of undertaking any decorating whatsoever. What do you mean that may be an over exaggeration??

Poor Emily is ill. She’s got tonsils like space hoppers and a snot filled nose. She is rubbish at being ill though as she struggles to swallow tablets. Anyway, she’s been to the doctors and got some antibiotics. She is gutted though as normally (since she was a toddler) she has had banana flavoured medicine. For some reason this time it is strawberry and tastes, and I quote, “grim”. Yes, she is 16!!

Sunday has seen me finally put the 2011 trip report to bed. It is a relief to be honest. My oft mentioned OCD about stuff being an incomplete state has not made this easy. To return from holiday on the 13th of August, and not complete the trippie until mid October is something of a new record, but hey, I’m busy!!

I do need to thank everyone (again) for the reading of the trip reports and these ramblings. As much as keeping up with stuff is a pain, I do enjoy writing, and would, given any sort of chance, like to have a go at it for a living of course, but I suspect that turtle head jokes and knob gags are slightly less in demand than whatever it is I currently get paid for. Anyway, having folk read what I come out with is welcome, so thank you.

The posting of the last day is often greeted with questions around another trip. Well, as ever, right now, we’re going nowhere, and look unlikely to do so by next summer. However I am long enough in the tooth to know that these things change, so we’ll see.

In the mean time, I have teeth to grit and endless working weeks to endure, which currently mean lovely twelve-hour days, and working some of the weekend too. It’s a good job I love what I do so much isn’t it? I’m knackered and I must look it, as Louise refused to let me do any more of the decorating as I “looked like crap”. Well, every cloud has a silver lining then eh?

Oh look, the X Factor is on now. Must go and throw things at the telly.

Till the next time….

Decorating and Digby the Dulux Dog

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

I suspect it is often quite easy to get a feel for my state of mind and mood by reading both in between and on the lines of these blog updates. You could search every word for hidden meanings, and every sentence structure for implied nuances. This week it is really easy to judge my state because….

I have been decorating!

Those four words tell you all that you need to know. Now, before you have images of me buried in roll upon roll of wall paper, weeks into endless stripping, priming (I never prime by the way) and sanding, I must confess that I did about two hours worth of painting on Sunday afternoon.

The amount of time spent is not the point. The fact that decorating is even happening gets to me. Being a control freak Virgo with hints of OCD, the mere existence of disruption in the house makes me uneasy. I like to make omelettes without breaking eggs if at all possible, and the kitchen and dining room being “upside down” whilst we give it a lick of paint is enough to drive me to drink!!

Louise has done most of the work, and I probably spent more time putting the room back together than actually painting yesterday, but I felt better once the room was as normal as we can get it.

So that is how the weekend finished. It started with me going to the pub with a group of teenage girls. This is not, as it may sound, some mid-life crisis episode. Instead it was me, Emily, Rebecca and several of their friends going to the Railway Pub to see my brother’s band Mustard!

Emily and Rebecca have never seen them so it was overdue. However, after feeling bruised battered and beaten following the usual working week, topped off with a Friday to beat them all, I did not feel like going. Louise declined the outing based on the fact that if she were more than four feet from our toilet things might get unpleasant. So it was left to me to either tell the puppy eyed daughters that I could not be arsed venturing out into the rain, or to bite the bullet and take them and their mates to the pub.

The evening was good once we were there of course. Rebecca and her friend danced all the way through the first set, which in a pub which was not yet packed, takes more bottle than I ever possessed at 14, hell, even now to be honest. Our milkman is quite confident though!

Surviving on nothing but pints of Diet Coke, I coaxed my tired frame through to midnight, and the final “Thank you and Goodnight”. Louise had been home minding Oli, so she may have had the more tiring time of it.

Oli Growing — Not the best photo I know, but if you watch it long enough you will see him grow!

Speaking of Oli, he grows literally by the hour. Normally when you see someone or something every day you can’t see a difference, but each morning he seems to have added inches and pounds over night. Those of a certain age will remember the Digby film? I’m quite concerned at this stage.

Generally though he’s been very good so far. I do not want to talk too soon, but we are someway down the path now with the house training stuff. This success has been built on the premise that he now knows that every evacuation, of any variety earns him a puppy treat. So he is currently “going” about 27 times a day. This may of course be fuelling the growth we are seeing, but I don’t care if it keeps the house wee free!

He has recently started “wanting to go out” rather than just deciding to do it where he stands, so this is a breakthrough. Other than a few times when he has a mental half hour, and anyone in a mile radius of his needle like teeth is at risk, he has been very calm and well-behaved. He is also fully injected up now, so from a week on Thursday he can go out into the big bad world. We can’t wait. The girls, as they want to show him off, and I, as it will get them off their backsides and doing some exercise, and it will burn off some of his energy, which might stop the bugger growing!

When we got Oli, my brother and his family came to see him, and their daughter (the one in the photo last week with Kelly remember) fell in love and asked if they could get a dog. The expected responses of absolutely not were heard, but some two weeks later, they were as strong as I was in their stance, and they picked up Baxter on Saturday!

He is a cross between a Westie and a Shitzu (I think you spell it like that). We popped round to see him, and he is indeed as cute as, well, a puppy!! I’m sure he and Oli will be great friends over the years!

Baxter — In a glass box of emotion (Anchorman reference!)

On Sunday I edged closer to the completion of the latest trip report too. It has taken forever I know. We left for this holiday in late July for goodness sake. But work, the writing of stuff for WDW Dads and this blog have all eaten up time, as well of course as having a real life to do, and a new puppy, so I have plenty of excuses.

I have one day left to do, and it is usually the hardest as it involves the journey home, and the summing up of the trip. It is at this point that I always say to myself that this report shall be the last, and the online world may heave a huge sigh of relief as they are saved from the onslaught of turtle head and toilet gags. I don’t know, we’ll see. It probably won’t matter all that much as we are more likely to visit the moon next year than Florida. But as you all know, I’ve said that before…probably about ten times in the past ten years. Anyway, I am stealing my own thunder for the trippie.

For those still interested, I’ll try to get that posted this week, and then my Virgo OCD side can relax knowing that loop is complete, that loose end snipped off, and one more thing is tidy and complete. I’ll feel better for that!

Now, just the decorating to get finished….

Till the next time…..

Plants, leaves and 30p wees

02/10/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

I had a bit of a rant this morning. This I think is a direct reaction to the ridiculous nature of work at the moment. Each week sort of flashes by in a blink of hectic and chaotic nonsense, filled with insurmountable issues and impossible challenges, mixed with constant reminders of just how unbelievably stupid folk can be.

So the nature of the rant was the level of help given by the girls around the house. I was not ranting about them doing too much, but I think you guessed that. I won’t bore you with the details of said rant, but I was shocked to find that it might have worked…a bit….for now. Rebecca spent the day cleaning. She hoovered upstairs, tidied and cleaned the bathroom, and not only sorted her room out, but also rearranged all her furniture resulting in a room I do not recognise for all sorts of reasons.

Emily too has helped put the big shop away, hoovered downstairs, and although she doesn’t realise it yet is about to make sandwiches for everyone’s lunch tomorrow!

It isn’t too often that I lay down the law like this, but a mixture of being worked to within an inch of my life, and a realisation that they actually don’t do a great deal around the house led to this line in the sand. How long it will last who knows, but at the age they are, it is literally the least they can do.

If you have not yet heard it on the national news, our back lawn has been conquered. Following a solid few hours of sunshine last week, well, a lack of rain anyway, Louise made a start on Friday, helped by our neighbour, and I finished the job yesterday aided by a new strimmer. This new implement, like most things we seem to buy did not work at first attempt, as a crucial bit was missing, so I had to drag it back to B&Q on Saturday to have one provided from another box on the shelf. So next week some other poor sod will buy that one, go back the next day with a missing bit, take that bit from another box, and well….you see where I’m going.

We do not so much garden, in our back garden, more go to war on unending and vicious plant life. The guy who owned our house before us was a Biology teacher, and some of the plant life he had growing just refuses to die. Every summer for the last nine years, we have battled, chopped, removed, and in some cases burnt all sorts of odd-looking growths, which I’m sure are catnip for them botanists, but for those who just want to look at, and weather permitting sit in their garden, this constant over growing nonsense is just crap!

In other non plant news, I was in London last Tuesday for a pretty pointless but unavoidable meeting, and as impressive as the now only two-hour journey is, I still hate it. With a meeting late in the afternoon, I chose to save the company some cash and travel off-peak, leaving Manchester at 11.30, and leaving Euston on the return at 7pm…the first off-peak train of the evening. What a mistake.

The journey down was OK, but the return leg was horrific. The stampeding crowds hurtling towards the platform as soon as it was revealed on the boards was incredible. I was half way through my Burger King tea when I was almost trampled Lion King style by sweaty blokes in suits, sweaty students in converse and demonic looking silver foxes, heading North to see India, their horse riding, ballet dancing grandchild. Ok, I can’t be sure of the last bit I admit.

I took my sweet time walking to the train as I knew I had a seat reserved. Alas, not in First Class, as that extra £40 would have sent the company into immediate administration, but in standard. Following an ill-timed call from the boss just before I caught the train, I now had at least two hours work to do on the way home, so I looked on in despair at my seat, and its lack of power for the laptop, and room for both my arse cheeks. For some reason no-one took up the seat next to me, despite some folk sat on the floor near the loos, and a couple standing. Perhaps I was one of the sweaty blokes in suits then?

Instead, I balanced the laptop on the envelope sized tray table, completed forty-six minutes of work until my battery gave up and spent all the journey trying to block out the screaming kids in the seats in front of me, who both it seemed had whooping-cough or rickets or some other medieval disease. By Stoke, I was so uncomfortable that I vowed there and then never to travel like this again.

As I described this journey to my boss the following day, in between telling him why he only had forty-six minutes worth of what he asked for, he did tell me to book first class next time, as the adverts say, because I’m worth it. This is good news of course, but no reason at all to rush into making any more trips to London until it is absolutely necessary.

All this, plus having two 30p wees at either end of the journey made for not a great Tuesday. At Manchester this meant finding a cash machine, then buying a drink from a shop, only to find I still didn’t have the right change. I then had to find a change machine, and break £1 into crappy shrapnel, to then reach the turnstile to find someone had put too much in before me, and I could have had a 10p after all.

Seeing that the loos were just around the corner from the turnstiles, I did consider making my point by seeing if I could hit them from this side of the turnstiles, thus saving 10p. Maybe in my younger days, but at my age I’m lucky to hit the back of the loo from point-blank range.

This week also saw my Dad return briefly to hospital for a planned stay. He has something that it seems needs regular draining. The details of which are not for here I think, but he again got through it OK, and was in fine spirits when I took my Mum to see him on Wednesday evening. So much so that he was most upset that his request for a Kit Kat had been ignored/forgotten by Mum, so I had to seek out the WRVS shop to prevent it turning nasty. He seemed quite settled, with his Sudoku book, personal telly and Horlicks being served to him bedside at supper time. When asked when he’d be coming home by Mum he pointed out that the healing process could not be rushed. The fact that he would be unable to golf at weekend meant he was in no real rush to be home, and was quite prepared to be waited on for a few more days.

However, I’m sure he was glad to be turfed out on Friday, and is doing fine apart from a little soreness.

Oli’s week has been one where he has certainly grown both in size and confidence. He is terrorising the cats, and has taken probably two steps back after his one forward on the house training front, but I guess this was always going to happen. We just need to be patient and consistent I think. Either that or Louise is going to tie a knot in it! A threat with which I am familiar.

So another week looms, bearing who knows what delights. If at any point you’d rather do anything than work, have a wander over to WDW Dads where I added my third article this week. It is all about a friend of mine who had a birthday.

Till the next time…..

And Oli makes five.

26/09/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Oli

I still haven’t managed to mow the back lawn.

I trust you have all been enjoying the wonderful British autumn? What was it that some famous poet bloke once said (I got an A at English Literature O level you know), it is the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness? My arse. Once we get into September it is just one long grey miserable drizzle filled mess until the snow comes. I am sick to death of everything just being moist, dank and grey.

There are rumours of an Indian summer to come this week, which probably means a half day break in the drizzle.

There is only one topic this week to blog about and that would be the new arrival into the Williams household. After four weeks of waiting, Tuesday evening crept around, and with the girls more excited than a hundred Christmases combined, we set off to the darkest recesses of East Lancashire to collect our new Old English Sheepdog. The four weeks since we had seen him had resulted in him doubling in both size and cuteness. His name has been settled since before we even chose him. Emily had decided upon Oli. Not Ollie, or Olly, certainly not Oliver but Oli. This is important, as he is named after someone called Oli Sykes. I include a photo so you can get some appreciation of what Emily’s bedrooms walls are like!

With a nervy drive home behind us (no-one wants a wee soaked Mondeo), we introduced him to this new house, and to be honest, he settled in straight away. We were all ready for an interrupted night’s sleep, well, Louise was, as she had taken a few days off to help him get used to us, we did not hear a peep out of him all night.

This was partly due to the fact that Louise and I were not in for most of it. Louise had been suffering with a painful foot for a day or two, and it chose tonight to flare up into what turned out to be a severe bout of tendonitis. At around 2.30am, I joined Louise in being awake, and we toddled off to receive the necessary medical attention, in the form of an xray and medication. If you do need to go to A&E, I would recommend 3.00am on a Wednesday morning as we were seen straight away, and with not one drunk in sight.

After getting a luxurious hour or so of sleep on our return, I zombied my way to work and somehow ambled through the day. Louise began the constant supervision of Oli. To be fair to Emily she was up at 6.30am that morning to look after him, and has been every day since. Her body is in shock, and this can’t last forever!!

My main fear in getting a new puppy (I say main, as I had a few) was the horror of house training. We’re still under a week in, so I don’t want to jinx anything, but the little fella is doing alright. We are extremely vigilant in making sure he is taken outside at all the right times, but he is getting the hang of knowing when and where to do stuff. He is also doing fine during the night in his crate. All in all it could be a lot worse!

Aside from the chores of looking after him, it is safe to say we have all fallen for him, along with the extended family, and we’ve never had so many visitors as we’ve had in the past few days. As you can see from the photos he is so cute that he doesn’t look real, and in real life he is all that cute and more.

My Dad in particular seems smitten, mainly as it brings back lovely memories of Kelly, the Old English we had when I was still at school. I, like Emily, promised to look after her, and so by default, she became my Dad’s dog!!

Dad came round to see Oli, and brought with him a photo of Kelly, with my niece Sarah, who is now twenty years old by the way!!

The red fridge magnet is a recent addition, as that is where the photo now lives!! Standby for Oli overload!

Louise’s foot has improved a little during the week so she’s been able to chase after him well enough. I’ve spent more time on our decking in the past week than in the previous several years since we had it built. It has been drizzling for every single minute of that, and applauding and cheering at every “movement” could be viewed as a little odd, but it is, so I read, a key process in the training of your puppy! I’ve also learnt that drizzle covered decking allows me to put on my own Bolero most evenings, as I skate around the thing, trying not to triple salco into the latest pile of “Success”.

Today is my turn to settle him in, so I have booked a day off work. It is amazing how something as simple as that can change your whole Sunday!! The retribution for that is on Tuesday in the form of a flying visit to London for a meeting. Yes, four hours on a train, for one meeting….at 4pm!!

I shall leave you with even more Oli, this time in video form. I will warn you that my camera technique may leave you feeling sea sick, and our decking is a wet mossy mess! Enjoy

Till the next time…..

A bit of blog for the (WDW) Dads

18/09/2011 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Final preparations continue for the new arrival. This week we erected Oli’s crate, and sacrificed half of the kitchen to accommodate it. We are all quite excited about our new family member, mixed, certainly in my case, with a fair bit of trepidation. For the girls of course all they can see are the good, fun bits, but although it is a while now since we had a puppy in the house, I can still remember how hard it is. Louise said tonight that it will be like having a new-born baby in the house again. However, they can wear nappies!!

As much as the week just gone must have dragged for the girls as they countdown to this arrival, it passed me by in a blur of constant and perpetual motion. Being busy does make the time fly, which is a bonus when it is time at work.

Outside of work this week, I found another outlet for my written ramblings. For reasons that I cannot explain, a Disney website by the name of WDW Dads have added me to their roster of writers. I have been billed as “International writer”, which is perhaps the most exotic way in which I have ever been described. If you so wish, feel free to have a virtual wander over there. My first offering can be found by clicking this piece of text.

It is a fairly simple view of how a trip to WDW differs when you live on this side of the Atlantic. Now if you were all to make your way over there, and leave highly complimentary comments on that article, well who am I to try to stop you???

After the first article of course, I now have to think of stuff to write about in future, plus come up with someone to waffle about here, and finish the trip reports. Luckily, work is a dream and is not taking up any of my time currently!!

At home, yet another weekend has rolled by where I have been unable to mow my back lawn, and by that, I do mean the grass behind the house and nothing else. We have had a week of relative dryness, so I was hopeful that I would be able to tame the wilderness out there one last time before the ravages of winter roll in, sometime in early October. I haven’t had a mower on it since just before our holiday which is going on for six weeks now. Since our return, a mixture of a little bit of apathy and a whole lot of rain has denied any reduction to the green stuff.

Thinking this weekend would be the time, as I lay in bed early on Saturday yet another tropical style storm paid us a visit, and pretty much hung around all weekend. The lawn is wetter than the Total Wipeout course, and so it stays wild another week. Maybe it is possible to mow a lawn whilst it is covered in frost? I am not lay awake at night worrying about this, but I do fear for young Oli. We may lose him forever in the knee-high jungle that is our back lawn. Is it just a sign of old age to believe that every summer is worse than the last, and the only decent one we have ever had was in 1976? Perhaps, but I can’t remember a wetter one than this year.

Now that I have dazzled you with exciting lawn news, I could perhaps tip you over the edge with excitement, by dropping in that I have also got a new pair of slippers. Does anyone know where I can buy a pipe?

So to balance this level of banality, next week, rather than go to work, I am off to Rio, with Keith Richards and half a ton of Class A drugs. Maybe not. However, if the mood takes me I may lob my PC monitor out the window of the office, which would be very bad news for the swans and Canadian Geese that swim past my window all day. Salford Quays is an exotic place!

Don’t worry, next week I with fill this space with multiple puppy photos and tales of naughtiness and puddles on the floor. This has got to be an improvement on rampant lawns and slippers?

Till the next time…..

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: