Category: mkingdon

Return of The Crap

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Is this thing on? Testing, 1, 2…testing.

Hello again. Turns out I’ve had, and needed, a little break from the weekly blogging so apologies to anyone….anyone??? who missed these on the last few Sundays. It wasn’t really planned and just happened but it was very much required and unavoidable.

I return today unable to promise a weekly delivery but for now, mainly as I’m off work until the new year, we blog again.

Over the years I know I have regularly moaned about work being busy, but I was a young naïve fool, as only now do I feel justified in claiming that. In the late summer I was asked to take on some new responsibilities at work as well as my real job and it’s been carnage ever since. It’s involved some travel too with visits in recent weeks to London (a few times), Southampton, Birmingham, Leeds and of course our Manchester office which, with the commute as it, is qualifying as a trip all on its own.

I can’t say I am deliriously happy at work, but that’s not really related to the silly levels of busy, but more the over arching landscape since a new boss and some changes came around during this last year. Everything will pass I guess and when you’ve been there as long as I have, these Johnny come latelys don’t seem to stick around for the long haul so hopefully this is a temporary thing as I could do without having to find another job at my time of life.

So that work stuff meant that for the last few months I really haven’t had a minute to think about much else, and the prospect of sitting back at the laptop at the weekend to write this nonsense did not appeal. I’ve already been spending good chunks of evenings and weekends either working or travelling for work so I decided to not spend whatever free time I did have typing these posts for a bit.

How’s everyone doing? Well, Louise keeps on nursing despite not really wanting to, Emily still works with me and Rebecca, Tom and the boys are all good, with Rebecca now working part time in a local nursery.

Yesterday we went to see my Mum to commemorate what would have been her and my Dad’s 67th wedding anniversary had he still been with us. She’s doing well, is fit and healthy for someone in their mid 80s and she’ll be joining us for Christmas Day next week. Louise is once again working on the day itself and for a lot of the festive period, such is the life of a Community Nurse and she tends to volunteer to do/get stuck with Christmas Day as many of her colleagues still have young children and they want to be there for the big present unwrap.

Both of my readers may have been wondering if we have any holiday plans for 2026. Well, next year is a significant anniversary for Louise and I, as we will hit 30 years of marriage, so we are hoping to gift each other not one, but two holidays, if funds allow.

We have hopes of a return to Mexico and Secrets Akumal in April. We’ve paid a low deposit to secure our dates and have to decide by February if we’re going. It ain’t cheap so we’ll make a call then as to whether it is wise to once again blow all our available funds on overseas travel rather than more sensible uses. Our house continues to conspire against us financially so we’ll see what major bills hit between now and then before inevitable saying sod it we’re going anyway.

However, our main trip next year is a, perhaps surprisingly a Disney one.

In September we have booked to return to Florida, this time with Emily and her boyfriend. It’ll be an off-site affair in our usual villa, flying with Virgin and that’s about all we know at this point. Our boycott of the US was not an easy thing to lift, but after Emily went last year and found that inside the WDW bubble all was well, we decided we didn’t want the orange turd dictating our holiday plans for the next three years so we’re going despite our strong objections to current events over there.

So let’s see how long I can keep this blogging up, and I’d like to as I do like to look back on these things many years later, and to do that, I suppose I have to write them first!

Till the next time……

Hasta Luego

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Uncategorized

Well, as punishment for daring to go on holiday, last week at work was one of the worst I’ve experienced in all the decades I’ve been sucking this shit up to pay the bills. Just two more similar days to go before I can pretend to not think about it for two weeks.

I can feel the stress coursing through my body and my neck and shoulders feel like I’ve done something that is very bad for your neck and shoulders.

All that meant that yesterday was also stupidly busy as I had to do some work that has to be finished before I go and I’m in meetings for every hour God sends from the start of Monday to the end of Tuesday and then start to try and prep the stuff I prep for the holiday. That meant printing off the stuff we might need (I’ve been over cautious as this isn’t our familiar journey) and can I say, how is it that in 2025 AI can do your job for you but we still can’t build printers that print? I also filled the rucksack, which won’t be Ryan for this trip. Louise says he’s too scruffy to go a resort like ours and I gave in as his role is solely for US based trips. Instead I’m taking son of Ryan, the brand new exact replica Louse bought me a few years ago.

Filling the rucksack is faffy, ranging from the essential passports and docs to the relevant phone and watch chargers, camera, kindle, painkillers, money and credit cards etc.

What I also learned this week was trying to order some US dollars in specific denominations appears to be impossible. I tried a load of websites and nobody gives you the option to request smaller bills (these dollars are only for tipping folks) so in the end I had to go old school and rock up the local post office and ask them to give me the smallest they had. They were still mostly too big.

With Louise out working I was also in charge of doing multiple washer loads, mainly of the dog’s bedding, and our bedding despite the fact that our house sitter is Emily, who lives here. I waited in for a delivery for Louise, which I “missed” as when it arrived, the chap rang the bell and then seemingly sprinted to his van and drove away by the time I walked the thirty steps from the couch to the front door.

Then I had to do some mowing up on the field as the grass was getting ridiculous despite me attacking it with a strimmer for the past week and I had to at least cut some walking paths in it for when Emily walks them whilst we are away.

I took delivery of an obscene amount of pet food for the dogs and cats and then nipped to the supermarket to get enough food to feed us until Tuesday and then I made tea.

It was a busy Saturday and today is looking similar. I’ve done some more work this morning, wrote this clap trap and then I have to go to a shop to collect an order Louise clicked last night and then go and see my Mum.

Anyway, as it always does, time will pass, I’ll get through work and we’ll be off soon enough. I’ll probably share some stuff on the Mkingdon Facebook page whilst away so do what you need to do if you want those. A day by day trip report is unlikely as it would be (more) boring than a US trip and I almost certainly won’t have time to write it, but I will of course share thoughts, highlights and food in some way.

See you in a few weeks.

Till the next time……

It’s A Nice Day For A Welsh Wedding.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Cheer up. Just two more of these things and you get a couple of weeks off from them being inflicted on you.

Yes the holiday is so close now I can almost smell it, literally. I don’t know if it’s only me but when the warm weather hits there’s a certain smell that I get that just evokes holiday. I used to think it was sun cream or Florida but I get it here too. It’s either that or I’m having a stroke.

Ahead of me are seven more work days and they feel like a marathon right now but this is always the way.

Other than wishing my life away it’s been another week of being busy at work and none of that is worth documenting here but at least I didn’t have to go anywhere and sleep in a strange bed.

Yesterday I did leave the country as we had a gig in Wales. Denbigh to be exact. It was a wedding at an unnecessarily rural location. The last four miles, yes, four miles involved a single lane country road that did nothing for the blood pressure. It was, as you might expect a lovely location when we got there and we were surrounded by alpacas, peacocks and most importantly freshly baked pizza.

They were a good crowd and the dance floor was full from start to finish which is always lovely. I don’t know if it’s some sort of Welsh tradition but we witnessed our first ever conga to AC/DC.

That clip is quite short as I started filming before very quickly realising that I had to play in about nine seconds.

Being a fair distance away it was a late night and necessitated a lie in this morning. With Louise working and Woody away in Liverpool with Emily it’s just me and Bean today taking it easy. All I’ve done so far today is clean the kitchen, do the recycling, had the big shop delivered, got all my band gear out of the car and packed it away and had some toast. I suspect all international rock stars have similar mornings after a gig in Denbigh.

Speaking of the dogs Emily recently created these lovely pics of the dogs using some AI magic and I love them. So I’ll leave you with those.

Till the next time…..

Marlow and Memories

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Uncategorized

My recent tour of the UK continued last week with a couple of days in Marlow doing things considerably less fun than playing bass to people. Work required my presence and so 450 miles of driving, a night in a Travelodge and two days of meetings made up most of my week, as I was off on Monday.

I think/hope that might be it for travels until after my next proper travels to Mexico but with a couple of weeks still to go, who knows. Work is a bit like that at the moment.

My night away did afford me an expenses paid meal at a place called the Giggling Squid in Marlow which was very nice, even if the main course I chose snuck up on me with its spice. A wander down by the Thames on a summer evening did beat more recent trips of staring at a concrete tower block in London with a Tesco meal deal, but I’d still rather be at home.

My pre-holiday prep is complete with two deliveries this week. Louise has “toiletries” to procure, mainly sun cream, but it’s almost time to get the cases out. I am unusually anxious about the trip as I lack my normal levels of certainty of what is to come. Louise’s uncertainty was I suspect none existent until Friday’s Air India crash and now all of her long held fears around flying are re-surfacing.

Any last minute buying will need to be done outside of the next two weekends as she has somehow been rota-ed to work both of them. I’m at the stage now where I am scouring my work diary and counting how many really crappy things I have to endure before we go. Anyone else do that?

Aside from the mundane details of how I’ve passed the last seven days, today is Father’s Day which has been weird for me for the last couple of years of course. I think about my Dad a lot, but I suppose today is the a day when that is bound to happen more than it might normally.

I still don’t think I have fully accepted that I’ll never see him again. It’s very weird and for reasons I don’t understand I regularly play back those last few hours we spent with him in the hospital before he died. I somehow feel like I did it wrong or could have spent those more wisely even though he didn’t really know we were there.

Anyway, I love you Dad, and I miss you every day. It’s a cliché but if you’ve still got one, try to appreciate them as when they’ve gone and you think you can’t even remember their voice, you start to panic a bit and feel like you’re letting them down. Enjoy your Father’s Day and here’s mine as he would probably like to be remembered.

Till the next time……..

Harley Worth Bothering.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Another week with a half baked post. I’m currently in the back of a van heading back from a festival/gig up in Scotland. This rock n roll lifestyle is getting out of control.

As typing is difficult in these circumstances I’ll just share some photos of the very scenic journey up to Dunoon and the journey so far back where we played at a Harley Owner’s Group event.

That bed was not built for a man of my width.

The gig itself went very well which is always nice. It’ll be a good few hours before I’m back home so forgive the poor posting and enjoy your weeks.

Till the next time….

Woody Worries

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Another four day week leaves me wondering why we splurge them all at this time of year. I suppose it gives us all a chance to enjoy the lovely weather, unless, like last week, we reverted to mid winter up in the frozen north anyway.

With four weeks to go until our holiday our minds have turned to preparing a bit, and at least thinking about what we need to take from a clothes perspective as our needs will be different to a Florida trip to some extent.

I already actually wrote down in words my trouser buying experience a few weeks ago, so believe me when I say I shall also detail other irrelevant and uninteresting details about my wardrobe.

I did a “try on” yesterday, digging out the summer stuff that hasn’t seen the light of day since our last trip. I have a lot of holiday clothes. That may not to be too surprising I suppose, but having managed to drop a few pounds in my usual pre-hols preparation I do have slightly more options than otherwise I might.

So thankfully my need to go out and do any actual shopping is limited to stuff I can buy online like some shoes, a new cap and some socks. Yes, I am actually spending time writing this stuff down on the internet.

Louise enjoys the madness of a real shop so her buying started this week with a couple of dresses and some shorts.

The rest of the week was of course dominated by work as it always is. However, there was a mild drama on Friday afternoon. I was, as ever, on a Teams call with the doors open as the temperatures had recovered to at least double figures and the dogs were pottering about in the garden. All of a sudden I heard Woody yelp in pain and he came running to the door feeling very sorry for himself. It took a few minutes for him to stop crying and I got him inside and up onto the couch in the conservatory where he literally flaked out.

He was worryingly limp and his eyes glazed over. For a few minutes I was genuinely worried about him. I comforted him for a bit until he started to come round and after half an hour or so he was up and about again.

He’s been fine since so whether he was stung or stood on something, we have no idea. There was no sign of any damage and he wasn’t paying particular attention to any part of his body so it was a mystery. He took himself upstairs to his proper bed for an hour or so and then seemed to be fully recovered. We went out for a decent walk yesterday and he was absolutely fine. It was all a bit strange.

He’s now gone over to Liverpool with Emily to spend the rest of the weekend there at Mikey’s where as you can see he struggles to settle!

Emily’s prep for her August WDW and Universal trip continues. They have booked Mickey’s Not So Scary and have what looks like an action packed and fun plan.

They are taking some first timers with them who of course are listening to almost all of Emily’s advice. However, she did share some shocking news this week. Apparently the newbie couple have bought new trainers for the trip but are refusing to wear them until they get there despite Emily’s advice and pleadings to wear them in. Is this the most rookie of rookie mistakes for a WDW newcomer? It’ll end in tears.

Till the next time……..

A Post About Not Posting.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Sorry there has been no time today for a post even though you are now reading one.

I’ve been out at a music festival with my band mates. Not to worry I thought, I will take some photos and videos of the day to post instead. Then I forgot as things are always hectic when getting set up and ready to play in the very short time afforded for such things.

All I managed was this brief backstage clip ….

We just did half an hour of 80s tunes and it went pretty well. It was a charity festival for Cancer charities. The weather could have been kinder of course but it was dry if a little windy and chilly as bank holidays tend to be.

Now I’m planted on the couch watching Liverpool and waiting for them to lift the Premier League trophy. Add to that not being in work tomorrow and I’ve had worse Sundays.

So apologies for the size and quality of this micro blog and enjoy your Monday off if you get one.

Till the next time…..

99 LuftBallons

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Thankfully no tales of work travel this week.

The main thing of note to share from the past few days was our gig last night, which was our first public outing as the Neon Vortex, our 80s tribute band.

We had rehearsed on Wednesday and felt completely unready for public performance, mainly due to a lack of rehearsal time due to our collective busy lives. Anyway, that fear drove us all to do enough homework before last night for it to go off almost mistake free.

It was pleasing to see this new show go down so well with the audience and hopefully things can only get better from here on in.

Earlier in the week something a bit odd happened. I started to get alerts that my blog was getting large volumes of traffic. Now, those days are long gone so it felt weird and certainly unexpected and I wondered if someone had uncovered my secret scandalous life of drug abuse and crime, but no. After a bit of digging into the stats and the source of the traffic almost all of it was coming from Facebook but in Germany.

Of course I have legions of readers all over the world as you would expect but the sheer volume was off the scale of even the height of my relevance and readership.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, mainly as I stopped researching it as soon as I figured it out, it would appear that I am not the only one who can’t type kingdom. A typo decades ago on The Dis saw me create a username of mkingdon rather than mkingdom and here we are. Still, it made buying the domain cheaper and easier.

At some point during last week something happened in German politics which saw a group or party get banned or something and they were called Kingdom of Germany. I have no idea how, but it seemed folks searching for that somehow then led them to click through to my blog.

I can only chuckle at the bizarre and surreal experience my new German visitors had when trying to make sense of the absolute trivial nonsense I pump out here when they were looking for some insightful information on whatever these Kingdom folks said, did or had done to them.

I only hope they used Google translate on my posts to see what it was all about and suffered whatever Google made of my drivel. If any of my German friends have stuck around, literally all I can say to you is Ich mochte ein stuck shwarzwalderkirschtorte bitte.

Two years of German study in the mid 80s has not gone to waste.

Ironically, one of the songs we did last night was Nena’s “classic” Neun­und­neunzig Luft Ballon. We did however take the easy option and do the English version. It’s spooky how different themes collide or at least how I can desperately mash them together in an attempt to churn out a few hundred words every week.

At this point doing these posts is solely driven by my “completion complex” (not a euphemism). I’ve been posting nearly every week since 2009 and every cell in my body rejects the idea of stopping now, and of course once I pop my clogs, all this inane crap will be a fitting testament to my time on the planet. Take from that what you will.

Till the next time……

Capital Punishment

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

In an unpleasant and unwanted turn of events last week I was once again in London.

I’m not really saying I want another pandemic to obliterate travel for work and in person meetings but it was a silver lining in the heaviest of clouds.

I left on Tuesday afternoon on an uncomfortably packed train from Piccadilly and arrived in my “digs” that evening not too far from the Gherkin (not a euphemism).

I doubt that anybody’s company’s travel budget affords them luxury but a London Travelodge is never going to evoke memories of the Yacht Club. I settled into the room desperately trying not to think of everyone else who had slept in that bed and I took in the view.

I was not expecting a glorious vista with herds of wildebeest but perhaps the odd London landmark would have been nice.

With a Tesco Express meal deal secured I returned to the room for an evening of freeview telly and an early night.

The work itself was nothing I wish to recall. It was bad enough going through it once and I escaped the capital around 5pm on Thursday thankfully being able to secure a train an hour earlier than the one I had booked so I got home around 8.30, tired and all Londoned out for the foreseeable. The parking fee at Manchester Piccadilly for those three days will be given our finance folks heartburn for a while I’m sure.

I was very happy (relatively speaking) to be back at my desk at home for work on Friday. Sure it was an unacceptable day of back to back Teams calls but at least I didn’t have to wear proper pants.

Saturday saw me gigging with Mustard down in Knutsford at a 4×4 car festival thing.

Our first outdoor gig of the year, albeit within a marquee. Luckily it was a dry sunny day but as we crept into darkness the temperature dropped and my already average playing skills were tested as I started to lose all feeling in my fingers.

It has been nice to see the sun recently and experience some hint of warmth as the weather improves. I am so tired of being cold. It makes me look forward to our July Mexico trip where we can hopefully forget all the coldness for a couple of weeks and instead moan about it being too hot.

Thankfully next week has no requirement for me to be anywhere for work so it will just be the standard level of horror. Can’t wait.

Till the next time…..

Thank The Bank Holidays

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

It’s Bank Holiday season. Damn these pesky four day weeks preventing me from spending all the time I’d like to at work! Since we last spoke it’s been a proper busy time and it whizzed by in extra fast fashion as it was broken up by a visit to London for work. I’m never a fan of work involving leaving my house but it’s becoming more of a thing in recent times as things change at work and it all gets busier.

It was fairly painless as work trips go with a 8am train out from Manchester and a 4.15pm train back out of London with a 3 hour meeting in the middle. So just the 13 hours end to end journey.

Despite the horrific Wi-Fi on the train I even managed to get a little bit of work done on both legs of the journey.

The rest of the work weeks have followed the recent pattern of absolute chaos, back to back meetings all day every day and the feeling at the end of each day that I’ve been run over by a train with a brain that can barely remember how to eat my tea.

There was more travel and leaving the house last weekend too as Louise and I went to see Calamity Jane in Liverpool, which was a recent birthday present from Emily for Louise.

It was funny to watch the show as a million years ago both Louise and I “starred” in a local production of this show. Well, Louise starred as Calamity Jane and I had a slightly less vital role as Joe the bartender, but I feel I added my own unique take to the character.

The lead role was taken by Carrie Hope Fletcher, who you may know is the sister of Tom Fletcher from McFly, both huge Disney fans and regular visitors to WDW. I’m sure both of them read this blog religiously of course as every Disney fan on the planet tends to.

We arrived in Liverpool nice and early and of course immediately had some food. We stumbled across an eatery called Smoke and Dough and were glad we did. It was an unlimited meat platter kind of deal.

They had me at assorted breads.

The main platter was very nice and we could not take advantage of the ability to order any more.

Following our meal, still with time to kill we took the opportunity of being in Liverpool One to do some holiday shopping.

I have secured my holiday slacks. I confirmed my middle aged middle class status but procuring four pairs of summer trousers from M&S. That blew my usual clothes budget for the year.

The day after I was busy mowing and choring around the house and then had to enjoy watching Liverpool secure the league title. All of that was the reason for no post last week. There was just no time. I hope you coped and suspect you didn’t notice.

This week just gone saw a Mustard rehearsal as we enter a busy band time over the next few weeks and of course there were more manic days at work. One day did include a working lunch with a supplier down in Knutsford. The weather was proper summery and we ate outside, lightly toasting my glorious dome.

Tune in next week for, time permitting, more tales of this jet set lifestyle.

Till the next time…..

Oh Chino

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Usually, about now, in the standard cycle of our endless Disney trips, I would be elbow deep in all kinds of planning activities. Assuming a summer trip, once we start to see daffodils and daylight beyond tea time it normally feels like a proper sea change in daily life, everything looks literally and figuratively brighter and I undergo self imposed and unnecessary stress about where we might eat in a few months.

Do I miss it, with our plans not involving the US this year? A bit, yes. One of the big benefits of a holiday that takes more than the action of booking it is the continuing dopamine hit of doing the bits of planning that are the milestones in the countdown.

With us heading for Mexico and an all inclusive experience I have nothing to do other than ensure I have the appropriate attire for our activities that might even fit me. On Friday, not being allowed to work, I found myself in the unusual setting of a retail location and did cast my eye over some suitable long trousers for the posher restaurants at the resort which insist on such. After about twenty minutes of pushing things around racks I left with a pack of socks and nothing related to the holiday.

There’s plenty of time yet and I as ever I hold onto the hope that I will lose fourteen stone “in a daaaaay” before July and any wardrobe additions now would be wasted. Socks however, will fit me whatever shape my body is in.

Conversely, not having to keep up to date on all the happenings at our destination to understand what attractions might be closed and what format and price this week’s FastPass system may take is liberating. I’m not saying we’ll make a habit of it but this relaxed approach to going away to relax is definitely a change and in some ways welcome, especially with work being stupidly mad at the moment.

I am even thankful that our chosen resort does not operate a reservation system for their restaurants. I am an animal of extremes! The absolute extent of my pre-holiday activity has been watching the resort post on Instagram.

I really don’t want to wait four years before returning to the US so let’s hope something happens over there to return things to something approaching normality. It may just be my soft lefty liberal echo chamber on social media but I am seeing lots of articles detailing large downturns in tourism to the US. It’s a real shame that ordinary folks in the relevant industries will be affected, unless of course they voted for him, then not so much. Maybe the downturn in numbers will see some keener prices for flights and more offers from Disney and the like, but I suspect any downturn from the UK market won’t be significant enough to make that much of a difference.

So as we enter the season of bank holidays, allegedly higher temperatures (although nobody seems to have told the weather up North), power washing your flagging and unavoidably visiting DIY shops and garden centres I find myself with nothing holiday related to do. It’s different, but I’m not too sure whether that is good or bad different. I am absolutely looking forward to our change of pace and plans, mostly because I am just sick to death of being cold!

I’ll just have to spend the next few months browsing lightweight chinos online I suppose and call that holiday planning.

Till the next time…..

A&E I O U

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Another week whizzes by. Work for me was full-on in terms of hours spent, complex stuff to deal with, and having to spend an unwelcome amount of time physically in the office. Insult to injury, indeed. I’ve said it endless times before, but I will say it again: How I did that commute five days a week for decades is beyond me.

There was also a team-building night at Junk Yard Golf in Manchester, followed by a curry. Whilst always grateful to the company for spending money on stuff like that and actually enjoying it to some extent once I’m there, they are not essential for me to want to work somewhere.

Still, I came joint first at the golf and enjoyed the food, so I should probably stop moaning about it and show some gratitude.

Louise has had less fun this week. Having worked last weekend and a good number of days on the trot, she had all this week off and had lots of plans.

Instead, she’s been pretty ill, and we ended up in A&E on Friday evening after her GP sent her there to hopefully get sorted.

Fearing a couple of days in the waiting room, we did OK. She was triaged within an hour and then was given an appointment with a doctor a couple of hours later, so we were able to go home, get some food, and go back at the required time. Another hour or so and we’d seen the doctor and were on the way home with Louise reassured it was probably nothing too serious.

She did have to go back on Saturday to pick up the prescribed painkillers and other drugs as the pharmacy didn’t have them in stock, and they gave her an IOU. Ironicall,y that took longer than the previous evening as she was given duff info about the opening times and spent several hours wandering the hospital, filling out forms, and generally waiting around just to get her hands on the all-important meds.

Hopefully, with those secured, her recovery will be swift. She certainly feels better today than yesterday.

Emily has been away from home doing some house and dog sitting for a friend who has gone on holiday to Italy. This is Pablo.

If this kind of work funded trips to Disney, I think she would happily do it full-time.

I’m still a little concerned for her August Florida trip as the US continues its rapid descent into anarchy and chaos. I know I have, without doubt, over-thought and over-egged potential issues for tourists to the Sunshine State, but it’s clear I’m not the only one, as stats are starting to emerge from the US of sharp declines in tourism this year. Hopefully, that just results in smaller queues and the same trouble-free experience as we are all used to.

It doesn’t feel like this level and rate of chaos can be sustained for four years but what do I know. Often, very little indeed.

Till the next time……

Video, Vloggers, and Very Little Else

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Sunday again. Another post to come up with when it was only about six and a half minutes since the last one. Clichés are clichés for a reason and the one about time going by too quickly once you are of a certain age certainly rings true.

At least that brings July closer more quickly and our two weeks away from the work routine and for me a break from ” can you see my screen”, “jumping on a call” and “circling back” to things I didn’t want to deal with the first time round. I’m not doing anything manual or even important but at times it really does burn you out.

For Louise, it’ll be a break from things much more gruesome, somber and depressing of course, but that has never stopped me bemoaning my comfortable office based first world problems.

Aside from work taking up far too high a percentage of last week than I’d like, we also took delivery of the previously teased band video for Mustard. Yeah, another bloody video to inflict upon you. It’s the first with our new singer and we’re pretty pleased with the results. Do not fear, I shall only put you through the short one-minute version. If you want to see the full six-minute marathon you can seek it out.

This weekend has been an uneventful one as Louise is working both days. It has just been me and Bean, our elderly cocker spaniel, as Woody, the sausage dog, has gone with Emily to her boyfriend’s in Liverpool where he has been barking at anything and anyone daring to invade his space as is his way.

Emily often takes him off for weekend adventures and for such a little thing, you wouldn’t believe how much calmer the house is when he’s not around.

Bean. bless her, is getting on a bit now. She’s lost a few teeth and is going a bit grey around the edges but she’s still pretty sprightly and long may that continue. She loves the one-on-one attention when Woody is out of the way too.

My plans for today are not very expansive. I have a few songs to learn for a band rehearsal this evening and a football match to watch, which as a Liverpool fan is equal parts exciting and terrifying in equal measure at the moment, as I want to believe we’re going to win the league but daren’t allow myself to just yet. Bean and I will venture out for a wander at some point too.

In other news, I have seen a fair bit of content online about Epic Universe. Well, to be accurate, I have seen the exact same footage from about a dozen vloggers. I have to admit to being pretty ignorant about the whole thing at this point, having no parks in our foreseeable future. The bits I have seen look impressive, even if I don’t know exactly who some of the characters are. I’m sure we’ll make plans to go at some point, although, if I understand it correctly, the Express thing you get from on-site stays do not apply here which makes it a little less appealing. Once the initial crowds (50% of which seem to be content creators) die away, it’ll be on our list, I’m sure.

If anyone goes in the near future I’d love to hear your take of course.

I shall go and do my chores, learn my songs, walk my dog, and watch my football. Enjoy your Sundays.

Till the next time…….

No Sleep Till Delray.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

As predicted it’s been a busy old week, with work scaling new heights in ways to keep me occupied for more hours than it should. Battered, bruised and breathless I fell over the finishing line on Friday. My task now is to try and come down from the adrenaline and stress of work life so that I can actually relax and enjoy not working for a bit. Look, I know I’m not pulling babies from burning buildings but it has its moments.

As a parting gift, the UK graced us with 48 hours of continuous pouring rain, just to confirm that our decision to go somewhere else for a bit was correct. Also, how cold has it been? It’s ridiculous for late May.

Having eliminated the pouring water inside the house last week, this week it was (mainly) outside. The biggest challenge has been convincing the dogs to actually step foot outside to do their business. Hey and guess what? We have another leak. Whilst Emily was showering on Friday I could hear a dripping noise and yep water was coming down through the kitchen ceiling and probably has been for a while from time to time as there is a faint brown patch around that area. This house hates me. Well, that can wait till we get back and Emily can use our shower until then and the plumber can return, no doubt to cut more holes into this money pit.

Louise finished on Thursday and has been in prep mode since then. There will not be a shop unvisited before departure and somewhere in between all that and me doing two Pink gigs this weekend, we’ll leave the house at some point early on Tuesday with a couple of cases full of what we need, purely down to Louise getting us all packed on Saturday. The bank holiday Monday is well-timed.

Today I have to break my golden rule of never going to the tip at weekend as needs must so we do not leave Emily with a house full of rubbish that has somehow appeared asa result of holiday prep. No I don’t understand that either.

I should probably report in with you all on the weight loss front. It’s been a fairly strict and well-behaved four weeks and depending on what mood the scales are in of a morning it looks like I have shed something like 8 to 10 pounds. It sounds like a good effort but the injustice of that small number compared to the huge effort and time taken is heartbreaking. It also brings home how horrendous I must have looked at my heaviest as even in my new svelte form I will still be scaring folks on the beach.

Let’s see how the calorie sponge that is my body responds to ten days of holiday eating and you can all make your own bets as to whether all of that goes back on.

So we leave on Tuesday morning, so you can expect the usual “I’m at the airport” post on Facebook just to make you all feel happy for me. Right?

Anyway, we have a busy day ahead so I must leave you. As ever, feel free to follow the trip “live-ish” on the Mkingdon Facebook page and you can all look forward to another trip report about sitting in the sun most days followed by what we had for tea (dinner). You lucky, lucky folks.

Till the next time…..

Water Palaver

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

I know you will have been on the edges of your collective seats after my leak cliffhanger last week. Well, what a palaver it turned out to be.

A non-criminal plumber turned up on Tuesday after much encouragement/badgering and spent a good amount of time scouring our house for the source of this bloody water.

He ended up in all our loft spaces and then cutting holes out of floors and walls to understand what may be happening. He could see some wetness on some stonework through one of the holes he cut but no telltale signs of any burst pipes.

After quite some time he left, giving me the number of a roofer he recommended as he strongly suspected it was coming from the roof above where we were seeing signs of water.

Frustrated, we sat down to dinner (tea) and after that, I thought I would go and try to dry out the wet stonework that had been spotted through the aforementioned hole. I spent a good ten minutes drying stuff out with Louise’s hairdryer (you may be shocked to learn I do not possess one) and then sticking my phone camera through our new hole and videoing what it could see. All of a sudden I spied some fresh-looking water and stretched my arm as far as it would go to video the evidence.

Yep, we had a leaky pipe.

The relief was palpable as I knew that any faffing up on the roof would take weeks and probably not definitively solve anything. I messaged the plumber who said he’d be back the next day to fix it by cutting yet another hole in another section of wall to get to it.

The quality of the camera work is dreadful but I was filming blind with my arm through a hole up to the shoulder, whilst lying on my side.

How a pipe suddenly starts leaking like that when nothing has been able to touch it since it was installed probably decades ago I had no idea, but I feel both incredibly unlucky that this happened to us, but at the same time so fortunate that we happened to cut a hole in a wall in just the right place to eventually allow me to see it.

The plumber did not make it back to us until Thursday, and after giving us another hole in another wall, he replaced the offending pipe. It had a tiny pinprick of a hole in it. He told me that lime in mortar will literally eat copper and the pipes should have been insulated/covered. He replaced it with plastic ones to avoid a repeat. No doubt this won’t be the last time a small prick causes untold carnage and expense.

Now, I just hope all the water damage internally will dry out alright and allow us to get it back to as it was, as well as having to repair all the bloody holes in our walls. This is the current state of play at our house…..

In more pleasant news, Wednesday saw Dougie turn 2. He was spoilt appropriately by everyone and we (me, Louise, Emily, my Mum, Tom, Rebecca, Freddie, Dougie and Tom’s Mum) went out for a meal on Wednesday night to celebrate.

We had a nice meal, the obligatory bad singing, and good cake in what looks like an abandoned restaurant, but there were other folks dining around us.

So now I enter my last week at work before a holiday. It’s always a difficult one, not least as it lasts for about three years, but also as I am desperately trying to prepare my colleagues for the gaping void my absence will no doubt leave, hoping they can somehow manage without me.

Then once that is done there is the chaos and carnage of getting stuff into cases, prepping the house for Emily and Mikey and making sure our zoo has all they need to be kept in the manner to which they have become accustomed. I’m always happy to be at the airport with all that done.

Here’s to a week without further house-based drama, smooth sailing on the holiday prep front and some kind of miraculous three-stone weight loss thrown in for good measure.

Till the next time…..

Feeling Stressed

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

I was inundated with a comment recently asking if I still did the Mustard thing. That isn’t some deviant food-based kink, but instead, a band that I have played bass guitar in for almost a decade now. I do and we’ve also started a Pink tribute, so now I gig in both lineups.

For someone of my incredibly average musical abilities, I enjoy playing live and just about manage to keep up with the other members who are much more talented than I am.

Despite playing quite a few gigs each year, I rarely go to any. The reason for that is that most of my gigs are on the nights I would typically go to watch one, but also, it has to be a special gig to tempt me into the palaver of all the traffic, parking and expense involved now in seeing a “proper famous band” at a large venue. I’m not sure The Feeling qualifies as one of those, but the palaver was still decent. When you almost spend as much time getting out of the car park as you did at the gig something isn’t quite right.

I could at this point, spend a while asking how Disney can disperse tens of thousands of vehicles out of one exit seamlessly and yet a multi-story in Manchester is in gridlock from 10.30 till midnight. I won’t do that though.

Despite all those trepidations, Louise and I made the effort last night. We went to watch The Feeling at the Albert Halls in Manchester. I will include a humble brag at this point, that I too have played that venue with Mustard. Granted it was a Thursday night at some Architects awards bash and the audience was a little less interested in us, but still I’m claiming it. It is genuinely awesome to play venues like that as they have incredible gear and top professional sound guys who make you sound fantastic and take away all the stress.

Anyway, The Feeling is a band that both Louise and I really like. They are the perfect blend of catchy pop tunes, great musicianship and consistency. It was a great gig.

Away from Rock ‘n roll, I have continued to eat less than I would normally and have shed a pound or so more. If I keep this up over the next two weeks I should have bought enough runway to eat what I like on my hols so that I return only as fat as I was a few weeks ago, staring down the barrel of having to lose it all over again at some point.

I am cursed with a metabolism so slow it is a wonder I continue to exist and I only have to look at food on the internet and I put weight on. It is a constant struggle and if I were to ever meet a Genie and get three wishes, one of mine would be to be able to eat whatever I liked but remain at my ideal BMI, which I don’t think I have ever been in all my years on this planet.

Anyway, we’ll be going away whatever weight I am and the cases are out now and safely stowed in a spare room until the packing commences whenever Louise gets around to it. I shall be summoned to try on and select the stuff I want to take and we’ll both say we won’t take a lot of stuff but inevitably overpack and carry a load of clothes both ways over the Atlantic having not worn them.

I am of course ready for the break. I always say that and of course were we not lucky enough to be able to have this booked I am sure I would survive without it, but some time away from the stresses of daily life will be lovely.

The latest thing that I was over-anxious about was a leak in our house last week. Louise spotted a wall in the utility looking damp and after a lot of moving stuff around and swearing, it looked like the outside tap on the other side of the wall must be leaking within the cavity between the stonework and the internal wall.

There was no chance of me getting to it and of course there was no isolation switch fitted on that outside tap so we sat with the water off completely for most of Friday waiting for the plumber to come and attend to what was a quick job for anyone less incompetent. When you need someone to come out quickly, the quality of their work is often the sacrifice and whilst he did indeed disconnect the suspected pipe, charging me what he did for literally 30 seconds of work upset me both financially and from the point of view that was I even slightly competent, I could have done that myself. Anywho, he will never darken our door again.

On Saturday I noticed that the wall was still wet and indeed the issue was not resolved. I spent most of the morning trying to diagnose what the hell was happening, whilst messaging our regular plumber who has agreed to come out asap next week to have a look. The problem may be located in the ceiling above it. These things stress me out more than I can tell you, as my brain defaults to worst-case scenario mode and I have visions of re-plastering and endless damage as a result of any fix, not to mention the expense. These fears are always based on a complete lack of knowledge of these matters and at times like these I miss my Dad’s advice and personal black book of any tradesman you could ever require. He had golfed with every trade on the planet.

As you will know from my well-documented roof struggles a few months ago, nothing stresses me out more than water getting into the house where it shouldn’t be. By the way, in the end, I went up on the roof (I was terrified) and fixed the issue. Well, water is no longer coming in. How permanent that fix will be, who knows.

Hopefully, I will bring you a post about how silly I was to be worrying about it all next week.

Enjoy the sun.

Till the next time…….

The Joy Of Six

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

The week of Halloween is typically spent celebrating Freddie’s birthday. This year was no different. It was inevitable, with Rebecca being his Mum, that Freddie is a huge Halloween fan. Rebecca makes sure the house is fully decorated and when the day itself comes, they are appropriately attired to do some candy gathering.

With the spooky season done, it was then time to move on to his birthday and the serious business of turning six. On the day itself, he was overwhelmed with presents, taken to a play area and the cinema, and then on Saturday, we joined him and his classmates at another play area for his official party.

He’s had a good birthday and a good week! He deserves it as he is just a lovely soul. He’s kind, clever, considerate and really funny. Clearly, my genes run strong!

Our kitchen remains unchanged from this time last week. We are waiting it seems for some drawers to be resized to fit into our island, accommodating our fancy new extractor that is in our hob. I say it seems, as getting any form of reply from our fitter has proven to be a bridge too far since we saw him last. Frustration levels are high as we still sit in the 95% completion zone, not yet able to get things “back to normal”. Hopefully, it’ll all get sorted out next week before we go away or there will be a falling out.

Speaking of which the cases came out this week. A little early, but I was in the outhouse getting a cat carrier out for THE most expensive visit to the vets in recorded history and I thought I’d grab the cases whilst I was in there to save me a further trip a few days later.

We’re taking two large cases as normal, despite only doing ten days as one of these trips I would like to not have to stress for the last few days about how we are going to get everything we have acquired back home.

I’ve also been helping Emily plan a WDW trip for next March. She is going with her boyfriend and a couple they are friends with. As one of their friends is a teacher they have to go at a really expensive and busy time, so finding flights that are not laughable has been a challenge. Emily is now planning out the days and is finally appreciating the high degree of expertise and responsibility involved in doing so!

None of the others have been before, so the pressure is on. They literally could not be in better hands as long as they submit to her will and plans. Right?

So I’ll see you back here next week for a pre-flight post.

Till the next time……

Dougie Duties

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Uncategorized

I know this is a ridiculous thing to say after the last couple of years, but I need a bloody holiday!

A mixture of our leaky roof saga (now resolved) and our never ending kitchen refit (about 95% done), along with some work stuff that would try the patience of a saint, I am frazzled. It feels like we have been living amidst chaos for far too long.

I know it is physcological, and if I did not have an imminent trip booked I would probably feel less deperate for it, but here we are.

The worst news of last week was discovering that The Cheesecake Factory have stopped using Yelp for their reservations and now they insist on a US phone number to do any table booking. This means I will have to do an actual phone call to the restaurant once we’re in Orlando to book us a table. I know I could do it now, but that would add unacceptable pennies to the bill of thousands for this holiday so I won’t of course.

All this activity, choas and kerfuffle has meant that over the last few weeks and months I haven’t really watched any Florida vlogs. I have managed a couple recently to discover that The Trackers are clearly billionaires now and Mr Morrow has shifted his views per video from the 30,000 bracket to the 100,000 bracket. Good luck to them both.

It did dawn on me whilst watching one showing Mr Morrow spend about $300 in Gideon’s that when we are there in mid-November I think all the Christmas stuff will be up. Not that we will be in a park of course, but it will be nice to see that at Disney Springs and any resorts we go to.

Halloween starts in August and Christmas on November 1st I would assume.

With a flurry of activity late last week in our kitchen we were hoping it would be done. We had multiple trades in the room at the same time on Thursday and Friday and enough got done to get us a functioning kitchen and we can now start to think about putting the house back together again. Maybe by next week it’ll be really finished and in a state fit for some photos that I can share.

My hatred for the disruption of this type of stuff going on in the house only grows deeper every time we do it.

On Saturday we had Dougie stay over with us as Rebecca and Tom took Freddie away to Drayton Manor for an early birthday treat. He is trouble in human form but also a little love and we dutifully spoiled him rotten.

I had a long arranged gig so Louise was on main duty until this morning.

Freddie had a blast too.

Now for some rest before the madness of whatever next week brings starts.

Till the next time…

Chaos and Kris Akabusi

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

It has been a bit of a week. Hectic is how I would describe it, with some chaos thrown in for good measure.

I was in the office on Monday and Tuesday. I don’t think I have done two days in the office in a row since February 2020. It hurt, and if, as The Daily Mail may have you believe, the whole country is working from home now, why did my commute take longer than it did pre-pandemic? I will not be repeating that in a hurry.

Our roofer finally turned up on Monday and got to work stopping our living room wall resembling Niagra Falls. He didn’t come Tuesday as it was raining, but thankfully by then he had found and fixed the bit that was causing all the trouble and we were watertight.

He was back later in the week to do the bulk of the work and said he should finish tomorrow. It will be an (expensive) weight off my mind but “Winter is Coming” (we are currently almost done with a complete rewatch of Game of Thrones, and we had forgotten most of it, so it has been very enjoyable) and I will sleep easier knowing we have sorted what has been a troublesome part of the house since we moved in.

Whilst that went on in one part of the house, the kitchen continued to be a scene of chaos. Our fitter was back for a day, followed by the electrician, and then on Friday, the men came to take away everything that is to be resprayed. We are keeping most of our existing cabinets, adding a few more, and have new worktops. That may have reduced costs slightly, but we seem to have opted for the “longest possible disruption” option.

We have a working hob and oven but still no sink and all our cupboards have no doors. I thrive in this chaos!

Then on Thursday evening, I was out at a Mustard gig, (yes I still do the band thing) and we were playing at the after-party for an awards do in Manchester. It was a star-studded affair if Kris Akabusi presenting the awards fits that description. We did not actually attend the awards ceremony so missed his hurdling-related high jinx (he was a hurdler right?) and we were just celebrity adjacent, knowing he was somewhere in the same venue. It was a building awards event and we had a good night but it was a very late one for a school night!

Then on Friday morning, I had to go to the dentist, just for a check-up but it was lovely to hear that I have gum disease, just to confirm that I am old and decrepit.

Speaking of rubbing shoulders with celebrities, whilst on Facebook the other day I spotted a clip from Phoenix Nights. Whilst nobody other than me and Louise would ever spot it, there in the background in the dressing room at the club (real name, St Gregory’s in Bolton) was Louise’s promo from when she was doing the club circuit in the late 90’s. Acts performing at a club would always leave their photo/promo on dressing room walls. Don’t try to click the arrow to play the video, I just grabbed a screenshot so you could really appreciate the blurry thing that may or may not be what I said it was.

It was a club we regularly visited on the circuit and it is exactly as the show depicts it, as were (and probably still are) most of the other clubs too. That dressing room is as “roomy” as it looks and most were also filled with all the crap the club didn’t have anywhere else to put, such as broken bingo machines, the Play Your Cards Right game, and the Hoover. Endless glamour it was not.

Unrelated to anything else, it’s been a while since I inflicted any photos of our endless pets on you, so here are some from when Emily took Woody to a pumpkin patch yesterday.

He’s almost 18 months old now and I suppose it is safe to say he’s here to stay and part of the family.

I am ever hopeful that by the time I post here again, we may have a fully fixed roof and a kitchen approaching something like normality. It’s this naivety that is both stupid and admirable in equal measure.

We are now less than a month from our Orlando holiday (we’re still not doing any WDW parks!) and I am ready. I did ask Louise if I could get the cases out yesterday as I was going to the outhouse in which they are stored for some other reason but I was denied.

I will try again soon!

Till the next time…….

The 1973.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

I’m not a great fan of nostalgia.

On Facebook, the local community pages just seem to be a load of boomers mooning over photos from the old days when rickets and 10-year-old chimney sweeps were a thing, yearning for a return to those golden times.

“Oh look how full our town centre was and how many great shops there were,” they say before going to the door to collect their 4th Amazon delivery that week.

I can enjoy memories of the past without always thinking that today is bobbins and yesterday was always better because it wasn’t.

Having said that I am a bit of a sucker for some WDW nostalgia and this week some was sent to me that I feel compelled to share. As you know I am on close personal terms with all the high-ups at Disney, and they all read my blogs you know, and every now and again a Disney Imagineer that I know through a friend will send me some good stuff. I don’t know how much I can say about this Imagineer but I will tell you he was heavily involved in the recent project to design and build that real lightsaber you may have seen showcased at a recent D23. It is annoying that he seems to have the job I would like. It’s only a lack of relevant qualifications, experience, and about 4,500 miles that stand in my way.

Anyway, this week I received this gem from him of WDW in 1973.

It’s funny how some things look unchanged and some unrecognisable and that I suppose is the sweet spot for WDW to achieve. I was 3 when this was filmed, and aside from most of the people in the film now being dead of course, I wonder what they would have made of how things are now.

Have a watch if you can spare the time. It’s like being wrapped in a warm blanket.

This video, as lovely as it is, has not altered our intention of not visiting any parks in November. Part of the deal of going back to Orlando was to do so on the same budget as Egypt would have been, and with WDW park ticket prices as they are, they would be a deal breaker. Honestly, though, I have no real desire to do so either. That would change the entire trip’s dynamic and “planner Craig” would kick in and I’d be setting alarms for 6.50 a.m. to secure virtual queues and Lightning Lanes and then dragging Louise from one end of the park to the other because a ride we’ve ridden six dozen times only has a twenty-minute queue.

It’s enough that our entire eating itinerary is laid out already. It’s best not to awaken that beast.

The plan remains unchanged from last week, mainly as the week just gone has been an absolute shitter at work and with the house so I haven’t had the time or mood to be looking at it. It’s probably for the best.

Next week doesn’t look to be shaping up any better. I have to be in the office for two days in a row, which post-pandemic is an absolute insult and horror show and we have (the promise of) multiple workmen being in and on top of our house too. I can’t wait.

Till the next time…..