Category: mkingdon

One wedding, seven teenagers and almost my funeral.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Before I start, can I just point out, more for my benefit than anyone else, that it is 25 days until we go to Florida!

This is not a gloat, well not solely a gloat, but more of a wake up to me that this thing is close now.  The whole new job thing has really taken my eye off the clock watching, agonising minute by minute countdown analysis that is normally going on around now.

With my first week at the new place under the belt, my eye is now drifting back, slowly to the very pleasant task of awaiting our latest trip.

Oh, I bought our park tickets!  I know I have dragged that out for weeks now, but with the realisation that we don’t have long to go, and a minor rally on the Dollar rate, I took the plunge.  I used Orlando Attractions in the end, and got an 8 day Magic Your Way Base Ticket, with 2 days for free.  We will not do ten days in Disney, but it gives us a couple spare in case we want to pop in for an evening etc on a non planned Disney day.  Add to that the 14 day 2 park Universal ticket and we are sorted, and all with change out of a grand!  I was happy.  Well as happy as I can be parting with that amount of cash!

So, this new job then, how did it go?  I know you will not have slept with worry all week, so let me enlighten you.  It was OK.

Now what else happened this week….

Oh, more detail perhaps?  Well, it was OK, with most people being very welcoming, and I certainly know more now than I did last Sunday, but there lies the rub for me.  For the past many years I have been the guru, the gnu, the expert, the one with an answer for any question.  So to transport me from that to being the bloke who is still opening every cupboard in the kitchen area trying to find a cup, well its a culture shock.

Salford Quays
Quayed up

By Friday however, I was feeling like progress had been made as I did make a couple of contributions that were remotely useful.  Hope is high that I may do the same again next week.

The week itself consisted of training on Monday, London to see a customer on Tuesday, another customer meeting, but this in the office on Wednesday, and then Thursday and Friday a series of internal meetings and getting stuff sorted to respond to customers.

The view to the left is a snap I took on my walk from the car park to the office on Monday morning.  The offices are at Salford Quays, so it is all penthouse apartments, pink pound and expensive coffees, but the views are certainly better than the last place which was a business park in Bury (no offence Bury).

Having avoided being uncovered as the charlatan I am in one whole week, we’ll see if we can do the same again next week and take it from there.

Emily returned from Berlin on Friday evening after another 24 hour journey from hell.  She had a great time, but was glad to be home.  When she posts her photos (obviously on Facebook) I will post a link here if anyone wants to have a look.

She was zombie like and hadn’t eaten properly in about two days, so we did the decent thing and ordered a load of Dominos pizza.  Her early night drifted to 11pm of course, and she is still struggling now to be honest.

This is mainly because she had her birthday “do” yesterday.  This involved seven teenagers descending upon us at lunchtime Saturday.  We quickly deposited them at the cinema to watch Toy Story 3, whilst we did the BIG SHOP, and prepared things for the evening.

Wedding Party
Well groomed groom
Emily & Friends
Fringes are fire hazards

This involved buying three tonnes of junk food, preparing it, supplying a few horror DVDs and then buggering off out for the night.  We tried a local restaurant for the first time having driven past it a million times threatening to eat there.  Desperate to escape Teen City, we arrived early, and had the place to ourselves initially, but very soon the place was buzzing as an Asian wedding was taking place.  We were enthralled to be honest.  The colours, dress and all round showbiz nature of the event was great to watch.

With all the hullaballoo, we couldn’t leave the restaurant as we would have had to walk right through the video and photos, so we just sat and watched.  This meant that we missed the film we wanted to watch at the cinema, Inception.  So we had to kill 45 minutes until the next showing with a glass of wine and J2O.  I will let you guess who had which!

The film was great…I think.  It is so complicated it was hard to tell.  I was almost afraid to breathe in case doing so distracted me from the story line and I lost the thread.

So we didn’t get home until midnight, to find our lounge looking like Beirut, and smelling worse.  So we shut the door and went to bed like the responsible adults we are.

Next thing, we are awake at 8.30am, by shouting and giggling from downstairs, and I am soon on bacon butty duties.  An enormous amount of getting ready happens and finally they all stumble out of the door around 10.30.  I see this as a chance of escape, and run away, I mean drive to the gym.  Having being operated on a little while ago (what do you mean you forgot?), I have not been to the gym since.  I have used our treadmill at home a few times, but that is quite gentle really, so I was fearing the worst to be honest.  I was right.

Five minutes in to my normal routine I was seeing my life flash before my eyes, and as most of it seemed to involve seven teenagers and an Asia wedding, peppered with highlights from Inception, it didn’t make much sense.  I somehow made it to half an hour on the cross trainer, and then shuffled for a further ten on the treadmill.  The sit ups I ended up with were less than elegant, and I dragged my wheezing frame into the changing room before I presented the gym with the highlights from last night’s curry!

As for the rest of the day, well the kids are out, probably taking crack somewhere, Louise is happily ironing away upstairs, so I think I’ll take my lead from Henry, and join him in a bit of this….

 

Henry asleep
I'm letting him lie.

Till the next time…..

Adieu, Adieu, to you and you and you.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon
Food
Food, Glorious Food

It has been a few days littered with goodbyes.  As I may have mentioned, I finally, after 12 weeks of hellish notice period, left my job on Friday.  As tradition dictates I was expected to take in some snacks for the team, as part of the ritual of escape.

It may not surprise you to learn that I may have over bought.  I do…no, did, have a largeish team of around thirty, but I still defeated them, and ended up bringing home quite a bit.

I was, by some bizarre circumstance, quite busy on my final day, which was annoying.  Perhaps they may miss me after all, but frankly, you cannot imagine the enormity of the toss I do not give.  As the time came to actually leave, the goodbyes were made with arms full of gifts and excess food.

The saddest goodbyes were with the chaps at my favourite supplier Merus Software.  We have worked together for ten years now, never had a cross word, and I can honestly say that it was fun working with them.  As they are based in the South West, our virtual office that we share is a chat room, and the goodbyes exchanged there were harder to do than the ones face to face in Bury!

The old place....
Nerds for Herding

Anyway, on to the important stuff, what pressies did I get?  Well, I got a posh pen.  I am not an aficionado of pens, but it looks nice, and someone let slip that it cost £40.  These pen makers must live off the gift trade as surely nobody in their right mind would spend £40 of their own money on a bloody pen???  I also got some M&S vouchers.  A safe, and appreciated thought, as, within 48 hours they are spent.  Louise works on the premise that vouchers expire within minutes, and we have spent the day today in Bolton getting me some new clothes.

There, I admitted that I do clothes shopping at M&S.  I am officially 106.

I think I realised today how long it has been since I actually went clothes shopping for myself.  Put it this way, I didn’t know that half the shops we walked by existed.  The last time I was in town they were model aircraft shops, and toy shops selling Rubik Cubes.  Having only managed to get two items of clothing for the best part of £50 was also a bit of an alien concept!

My team also got me another present which was a little odd, but a nice thought.  A photo of the team!!  Now, my unofficial job title for the past ten years has been nerd herder, so you can imagine the subjects in said photo would not trouble the cover of GQ magazine, but as I said a nice thought all the same.  It now lives on my fridge.  It puts the kids off eating too much!

Emily at desk
Working...honest!

Emily’s work experience ended on Friday too.  The two weeks were probably two of the longest in her short life.  Anyway, on Friday she was allowed to “work on her PC”, which meant playing with Photoshop, and perhaps more likely browsing the internet.

Speaking of Emily, the second set of goodbyes were this morning as we waved her off on her school trip to Berlin.  Linked to this, yesterday I had to go to a travel agents to pick up some Euros for her, and I realised that people actually still book their holidays in these places.  Whilst queuing I overheard couples taking to “agents” (typically early twenty something false tanned travel experts) describing their ideal/preferred trip, and then sitting back as these girls then tap at computers and make phone calls to secure their holiday.

It brought back memories of doing this with my Mum & Dad, over twenty years ago.  Really, someone needs to tell them that internet has been invented.  How can you hand over thousands of pounds based on one brochure photograph and the reccomendation of Kirstie from Bolton (apologies to all Kirsties).

So back to this morning.  Having packed yesterday we wrestled her out of bed early, and drove her to school.  We then stood for half an hour as about fifty sleepy teenagers were packed onto their coach.  There was a slight delay as one chap didn’t turn up.  It turns out he thought the trip was tomorrow.  Oh dear.

At 9.30 the coach left, followed by all the parents waving at their particular bundle of hormones, all feeling a little bit sick and upset at the thought of their child being out of their control and protection for the next week…or was that just me?  I hate the thought of Emily doing the long journey without me driving the coach and sailing the ferry.  Who said I was a control freak??

As goodbyes go this week, this was the harder of the two!

Tomorrow of course I start my new job, so all those new kid at school feelings will resurface, but hopefully I can avoid having my head flushed down the toilet for most of the day.  To ready myself for the trauma of this new experience I have told Louise that the correct preparation is to sit on my arse for about six hours in front of the golf.  She looks sceptical, but she’s busy with her ironing hobby so she’ll be OK.

I still haven’t ordered my tickets by the way.  My finger has hovered over the button a couple of times, as it has with the purchase of dollars too, but with the dollar rate having a welcome surge recently I am holding my nerve as long as possible to gain those extra few pence that will make all the difference to our holiday.

We’re nearly ready though.  I have, with the aforementioned M&S vouchers bought a shirt that is one of those that you will only ever wear on holiday, as it is  –

  1. White
  2. A bit see through
  3. Built for maxiumum coolness (and I mean temperature, as that boat has long since sailed)
  4. Likely to get you beaten up if you even think about wearing it in Bolton

All I am missing now are my obviously brand new bright white trainers, bum bag and one size too small speedos!!  Now there is a mental image to leave you with…

Till the next time….

As Joey Tempest once said….

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

For those too young to understand the reference in the title, your life is poorer for not having embraced the poodle permed, leather trousered, white teethed Lothario that was the lead singer of Europe, Joey Tempest.  The title of course refers to their finest hour, well three and a half minutes anyway.

The countdown reference is double barreled.  You may have heard me mention that I am due to start a new job?  I mentioned it once or twice.  I can’t believe that I’ve been saying this since April of course, but next week will be my final week of purgatory, otherwise known as my notice period.  This countdown has sort of distracted me from my more important countdown to my ever so special 40th birthday WDW trip.  This countdown too is entering the final furlong, with around 40 days to go now.

Last week and the one to come have been a little unusual in that Emily has been with me on work experience.  I do find it odd how things work out.  When I started work at my current employer, Emily was four, not yet in proper school, and now some ten years later she is in GCSE phase, and how ironic that she is on work experience for my final two weeks.

The experience she has mostly gained in her first week is the mind numbing banality that is the working office.  I think it was mid afternoon on her second day when she uttered the fateful phrase “How many hours to go?”.  Well, if I calculate that you will start work at say 18, and retire anytime between 55 and 75, I’d say she has a lot of hours to go.  Hopefully, it will help her to appreciate school a little more, and follow my one and only piece of advice about school, work and life in general.

That is to find something to do that you enjoy, because if you don’t, work becomes one long interruption to what you’d rather be doing.

Emily’s other contribution to this week has been to be the daughter with a broken heart.  They tend to alternate on this one, having met some boy, agreed to go out, and then about seventeen minutes later, break up.  This is a little disrespectful I suppose, as this week Emily is very, very upset over some little Oik, and I’m sure at fourteen the world seems to have ended.  If only there was some way to inject what you know into them they may not be quite so upset, but I suppose everyone has to go through it.  It is not an easy thing to watch though.  I should ready myself for lots more to come I guess.

On to more pleasant matters, and I have (I think) decided upon the ticket options.  It will, as predicted, be the Magic Your Way Base option for seven days, along with a two park Universal ticket which last for fourteen days, but we’ll only use two.  I had more Disney days in the plan, but to keep the ticket spend down to a level that George Osbourne would approve of, I did a quick switcheroo with the plan.

I have tagged an extra day onto our Daytona Beach visit, and rather than do their and back in a day, we are going to do a stay over.  This suits Louise a lot, as you may know that she is the first to tire of the Disney parks every year, and she is quite keen on a spot of sunbathing.  After a quick trawl of the The Dibb, I had enough info to make some firm plans.

Accommodation wise, the criteria was clean and cost-effective (ie cheap), as we’ll be spending very few hours in it.  A name that popped up a fair bit on The Dibb was the Sun Viking Lodge.  A quick bit of a google found me a price of less than £50 for a three bedded room (this is key as the girls are not keen on sharing a bed).  Having used Quidco, this cash back brought the price to nearer £40!!

The location looks superb, being beachfront, with a decent waterslide and pool, and if the rains come, and indoor pool too.  It is also less than five minutes from the baseball park where we have tickets to watch a game on our second evening.

Daytona Lagoon
We oughta Water Park

Again, from Dibb research I discovered that Daytona has a waterpark, and this being the activity I had culled from the plan, this seemed like a good option.  Even better that upon looking at their web site, the admission for our date was $12 each!!

I am not expecting a Disney experience from our break at the beach.  The hotel will not be Vero Beach, and the water park may not live up to Typhoon Lagoon, but it will be good to experience new things, and of course save a few hundred quid into the bargain.

Once I have the new job started, I imagine that I can concentrate more on the holiday, but for now it seems perhaps further away than it is.

So onwards we go into my final week at work for the old regime, and if you can imagine scenes similar to the closing ceremony of the World Cup, or even the last Olympics, these will be the scenes in an office in Bury on Friday.  I expect several members of my team to be wailing, tearful wrecks as I try to leave the office with several of them attached to my legs begging me not to leave.

More importantly I will find it hard to leave the office, burdened as I shall be by the vast quantity and size of the leaving presents I shall have bestowed upon me.

Let me remove my tongue from my cheek, and just hope that I can slip away in a peaceful manner with minimal fuss, and then get on with the new job…but only for a few weeks, as I have a holiday booked.  I did mention that didn’t I?

You may also have noticed that I have worked out how to embed video into these here posts…be warned!!

Till the next time….

Trussed up like a chicken

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

I’m off work today.  This is because yesterday I underwent a touch of surgery.  Nothing major, well, major enough to need a general anaesthetic, and a few frayed nerves, but I’m up and about today, if a little gingerly, with more dressings than Paul Newman.

The day started early, and not without nerves.  Upon arrival, insult was added to potential injury when I was instructed to put on my gown, which is understandable, but what are the medical benefits of paper underwear?  I think they are just used as a source of comedy whilst you are asleep.  They certainly are not built for comfort I can tell you.

It has to be one of the oddest sensations and experiences in life to be put under.  Some stranger wanders up, sticks a needle in your hand and talks to you like some sort of begowned Paul McKenna.  However, this was not to be the only odd conversation of the day.  As the theatre nurse came to collect me, we walked down to theatre, and she struck up a conversation no doubt intended to put me at ease.  Of course this started with the weather, but then turned into a very bizarre (one sided) conversation about her recently acquired paddling pool for her kids.  This went on for a good ten minutes, lasting all the way until I got onto the slab.

I now know the relative benefits of your solid framed affair compared to the traditional blow up model.  This is amazing really as my mind was obviously elsewhere, as we were sat in a little room just outside theatre, and I could see and hear stuff going on next door that was quite distracting.

Anyway, back to my drifting off.  I’m sure they have a standard script for these occasions, as he gave me all the usual warnings about feeling a small prick in my hand (which I thought was a little forward as we had only just met) and then that I might feel some cold in my hand.  Then as I started to feel a strange tingling all over, he was telling me all about some lovely warm beach I was on, and that the oxygen mask on my face was really a scuba mask, and I was drifting along looking at fish and stuff……

That is where I left that conversation, as the next thing I knew my name was being called out by some nurse who was all blurry.  Mighty relieved to be awake again, a quick squirt of pain killers and a bumpy trip back to my room brought things to an end.  Within an hour or two I was fairly normal again, enjoying my lunch and having my dressings done, however, not at the same time.  How I am looking forward to having them all removed, as they made a great job of attaching some sticky tape to every hair on my body!!

I was allowed home around 4.30pm, and enjoyed every pot hole on the endless drive home (Louise was driving not me!!).  I then ate the largest McDonald’s known to man as I was starving.

So I have a few weeks of being trussed up whilst stuff heals, but I am told I should be fine to go to work on Monday.  Hmm, we’ll see!!

Luckily I managed to get this done before my new job starts, and of course before our holiday.

Having time on my hands at the moment, I stumbled across something that really made me think on the internet.  No, nothing like that!!!  One of Rebecca’s friends had posted some old photos, and it seems that we officially had the cutest child in the universe.  Well we had two, but I only have photographic proof of one at my disposal for this post.

It is strange that this feels like just yesterday, but on the other hand seems like a lifetime ago.

Rebecca at Infant School
Cuteness v1
Rebecca at Infant School
Cuteness v2

So if any of you have children around this age, not too long from now you will wake up and find out that they have turned into something like the photo at the foot of this post.

Rebecca Now
Ok, she's still cute!

Right, I’m off to make the most of not being able to do anything, although I think I can manage to manipulate the Xbox controller!!

Till the next time…..

Raawwwwkkk and Roolllll…..Man!

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

A pretty uneventful week in the Williams household to be honest so I expect this to be a brief.

England Fans
They're Coming Home, they're coming home....

First, I should comment on the football.  After the glorious anti climax of the first game, the entire nation was built up to expect some sort of cricket score against the Algerians.  Well, I can safely say that the game was probably the worst performance by an England side in my memory.  I have no idea what was going on, but there were footballers there who looked like average Sunday league players, after a particularly heavy Saturday night.

Louise has taken to watching the England games with me.  This is not conducive to matrimonial harmony, as when my team is not doing well I become mono syllabic and grumpy.  Louise famously came into the front room during the 2005 Champions League penalty shoot out, with me on my knees, two feet from the TV, praying. She wanted to ask me to do something like feed the cat or something equally important before I came up to bed.

My less than pleasant response meant I enjoyed tongue and cold shoulder for the next few days.  The enormity of those occasions are understandably lost on those that do not “get” football.

On Friday, I was quite upset and angry about the whole thing.  The sheer audacity of the England players to perform so badly was shocking.  The enjoyment of these major tournaments is based upon having the odd win, or at this stage, I’d settle for a goal or two to celebrate.

I suspect though, as usual, having disappointed so well, they will pull it out of the bag in the last game and get through.  Although, after Friday’s game, I am struggling to see how that would be possible for the same players to be less crap!

Enough football (until we win a game anyway).

Saturday night saw us attending a 40th birthday party for a friend of mine.  I have known him from school, and we started our first band together at the age of sixteen, and continued to be local pop stars well into our twenties, until jobs, families and hair lines started to become bigger (or smaller for the latter) parts of our lives.

We’ve only seen each other a few times over the past ten years, and always finish these occasions with promises of more regular outings, so it was lovely to meet up again, along with other members of various bands from our history.  An evening was spent remembering all the toilets we played, some of the weirder band members we accumulated through the years, and if I’m honest more than a small urge to dust off the black leather trousers and rock some ear-splitting riffs.  For those not in the know that means play some music together.

I doubt it will happen to be honest, as we all have lives full of work, families and a lack of motivation to cart a load of gear to a cold rehearsal room on a Sunday morning, but you never know.

Pop Band
We looked just like this....honest!

I took along some vouchers for Simon’s present, but I also stumbled across an old band photo in a drawer, so I framed it and took that along.  We all had our best moody pop star stares on, and more crucially full heads of hair.  None of that stopped us looking ridiculous of course, but we were enjoying ourselves.

Luckily for you I don’t have an electronic copy of this (or any other photo) as all this was well before digital cameras, but just use your imagination to conjure up the image of five young blokes all in black, with mood lighting and sexy scowls.

It was very easy to get back into the old routine with everyone.  Playing in a band does bring you together differently than other friendships, and had there been a collection of instruments strewn around the room, plugged in, tuned and sound-checked (just like there always is on Glee, Fame etc) we may well have performed a few of the old classics.  Sadly there were not so we had to sit and listen to some ex Red Rose Radio DJ pump out everything from Chain Reaction to the inevitable sixties medley.  Rest assured I did not endanger the dance floor, other than to wander over and say good-bye to Simon and his wife at the end of the night.

This time we really should get together before Simon’s 50th!!

Apologies for the brevity today.  I shall promise to blog again before the week is out, you have been warned.

Till the next time…..

Bingo, Balls and Bloody Tesco.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Have I mentioned that I’m working my notice?  Maybe once or twice.

Now of course this has not affected the level of professionalism, dedication and commitment I exude at all times….much.  Well it has a bit, and this was demonstrated on Thursday when I attended a meeting in Sheffield.  Firstly, I was quite impressed with myself that I could motivate myself to go, and not delegate it to someone who gives a sh…I mean one of my guys who would benefit from the learning and development opportunity.

You see, there we have an example of the first thrust of this here blog post.  Corporate bull$hit.  Please do pardon my French but it is called for I feel.  The business world it seems is littered with people who have been brainwashed into using it, or even more scarily, actually use this stuff and believe it.

Looking back at my notes from this meeting, it seems I didn’t make a great deal of them, as I got bored relatively early on, which in any other circumstances would have been risky, as the attendees where chock full of cheese.  We had to do that cringeworthy round the table introduce yourself thing, which inevitably turns into a battle of the job title.

There were a couple of MDs (one of them mine), many Heads of (yep, regrettably I had to cough to one of those), and many other job titles that I still don’t know what they mean.  Most like I, just said our name, job title and company, but there is always the odd one or two who launch into a ten minute monologue on their responsibilities, experience and how they were a prefect at school.  You see now why I was bored so early on?

So rather than watch the powerpoint slides I started to capture all the bull$hit bingo terms that I heard.  There were many of the common ones that I hear all the time….

Model, best fit, and my personal favourite, synergy!  One of the guys was obviously a serial meeting attendee, and revelled in the concept, insisting on capturing the “Expectations” of the meeting before we started.  My contribution of “Finishing early enough so the M62 isn’t the bag of spanners it is at rush hour” didn’t make it to the flip chart though.

I see one entry on my notes underlined and ringed a few times.  It is a new entry in my dictionary of dreariness.  Are you ready?

Glide Path.  Yep, you read that right.  What the bloody hell does glide path mean?  I know what he wants it to mean, but why not just say it??  It was right up there with another classic, Helicopter View.

Reginald Perrin
Is that you CJ?

In terms of popularity, there was no competition, it was the term “piece”.  In nearly every sentence you heard it.  How?  Like this.  How do we tackle the “insert any topic here” piece?  Have we thought about the “insert any topic here” piece?  To me this is like someone dragging their nails down a blackboard.

It was like living in an episode of The Office or Reginald Perrin (for the older readers).  I do feel like I don’t belong in this universe of Austin Reed open necked shirt wearing, ego waving, sanctimony, but alas I must as I have a mortgage, kids and an addiction to expensive holidays.

So we move onto the end of the week, and the World Cup started.  We are “beaming” matches throughout the office for all staff to enjoy.  Beaming may be over egging the technology, but it sounds impressive when explaining this to people.  In truth, we have scattered a few tellys, and a couple of projectors around the place, securing the best stuff for the area close to my desk of course.  There is no point in managing the IT department if you don’t get any perks is there?

So on Friday we watched the opening game, (whilst obviously working a full speed as well).  A good game, and it whetted the appetite nicely for our opening game last night.  After the usual over the top build up by the media, the millions spent on advertising cheap beer and crisps by the supermarkets, the country wakes up this morning to a massive hangover, and a sense of deflation.  Only a 6-0 win would have matched the expectations of the nation, and 1-1 draw leaves everyone feeling a little let down.

You can never enjoy watching England to be honest.  However I thought there were a lot of positives, and I’m sure we will get better as we go.  Frankly the next two games should be formalities and should give us some confidence for the next phase.

Now, what would one of these be without a bit of a rant?  Luckily it just so happens I have one.  Saturday afternoon saw us at Tesco, against my better judgement.  I had done the “big shop” late on Friday night at our local 24 hour Asda, and it was a dream.  It was basically me and a load of people with the munchies or who had run out of beer, and it was great to hold up about twenty people with just two items whilst I checked out a full shop!

Anyway, back to Tesco.  We needed ” a few bits” which is female talk for stuff we could do without, but absolutely won’t.  We had a hand basket, and all the checkouts were crammed full of England tops buying cheap beer and crisps, so we went to one of those self-serve things.

Tesco Self Serve
Amen!

My God, what an abomination.  It took us about twenty minutes to check out a dozen items.  The assistant patrolling the area may have well have just done the whole lot for us as she was over every other item, entering her password.  It took her a while to believe that I was over 25 for the alcohol purchase, but other than that we couldn’t find Lemons on the alphabetic list of fruits (so that went in the bag for free), and nearly every other item became an “unexpected item in the bagging area” or just wouldn’t scan.

Technology at its best!  I left with high blood pressure, a desire to never darken Tesco’s door again, and a free lemon!  So, I’d call that a result.

Till the next time…..

June so soon?

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

I just need to point out that our fridge has broken.  I appreciate the nine o’clock news will not be troubled by this news but it has really naffed me off.

It isn’t even the main function of the fridge which has broken.  It simply will not dispense water from the fancy water dispenser thing in the door.  After a bit of Googling on the subject the water tank may be frozen.  I’ve turned up the temperature a bit and we’ll see what happens.

The reason this irks me is that there seems these days to be a constant stream of stuff breaking.  A symptom I suppose of having so many gadgets and gizmos (I have them aplenty as my favourite Mermaid might say).  Last week it was Rebecca’s netbook, before that Louise’s car, and next week it will be something else….so just to set the lovely jolly tone for this post, I am not in the finest of moods.

I do of course appreciate that there are many things worse than these minor incidents, but I reserve the right to be in a strop.  OK?

Breathe!

As I mentioned in my last post, I am in milestone mode, and the arrival of June is another on the road to our holidays.

I know the start of June isn’t officially the start of summer, but in my mind it is, as traditional summer stuff happens in June, like Wimbledon, the World Cup, and this year the paying of the balance on our villa.  See, so that last one proves that we are close now….right??  S’funny how usually the thought of dumping hundreds of pounds fills me with dread, (especially on netbooks, cars and fridges) but the cheque sent off today was written with a smile on my face, but looking back, a pen would have made things a whole lot easier.

Of course my notice period rumbles on endlessly, and this in no way meant that last week I spent most of it on the internet watching news events unfold, like the World Cup Squad “announcement” (I’ll come back to this in a minute), Rafa Benitez leaving Liverpool, and Rio Ferdinand getting injured.

For all of these, I think they all showed that the way in which news is relayed is changing (or perhaps has already changed) forever.  Yes, for years the web has been a source of news from official sources, and most people would go to the BBC site for “official news”, but the advent of Twitter is the real change agent here.

News breaks on Twitter first now, and you can find out things much more quickly there than via any official news channel.  To be honest, this will now be the way in which the official sources are getting first wind of news breaking.  With an application like Tweetdeck, as soon as you are vaguely aware of an event, you can create a search column based on any term (I created a “Ferdinand” one and within seconds I had unofficial news of his injury, and that he would miss the World Cup, hours before it was official) and watch people, often on the spot, report on an event.

This meant that the “announcement” of the squad for the World Cup was actually a stream of tweets spread over the day, meaning that by the time the FA posted any sort of official announcement everyone knew the outcome.  Even the unfortunate footballers left out, like Darren Bent, tweeted how gutted he was about three hours before it was official.  It does amaze me how this isn’t thought of by bodies like the FA.  This new fandangled internet thing has changed how stuff works, and they can’t send some bloke out in a blazer with a piece of paper to read stuff out anymore.

I do find this stuff interesting, which is odd, as really I have become familiar with it (or had to) due to the nature of my job, and it is very unlike me to like anything connected with my job.  It will still be relevant to my new one too, probably more so, as that is much more closely connected to how people use the internet on mobile devices, and twitter, specifically to report stuff as it happens, is one of the major ways in which people do and will use their mobile.  It may not be Twitter specifically, but how many of us update Facebook on the move?  This is just news for our friends and connections rather then being about some overpaid fop tweaking a knee.

I know those following me on Twitter will be endlessly enthralled with news on lawn mowing, my tea and where I am dropping the girls off today.

Anyway, I digress…I’m not sure from what, but it felt like I did.

As we creep ever closer to departure, the sacrifice scale increases.  What do I mean?  Well, there are times when at weekend we would like nothing more than to go out for a meal or three, buy this or that, but with dollars to acquire, and the worst exchange rate in the history of the world ever (OK, perhaps I exaggerate) we have to hunker down, and have a few boring weekends.  Even I, with my blind obsession for WDW feel this pain, and it can get quite frustrating.  Ultimately though it is worth it, well it is when we are there.  When we are tied to the couch enduring some bloke cut wood on Britain’s Got Talent I could quite easily give away a large sum of cash just for someone to make it stop.

Annie Hard Knock Life
Just put the dish IN the dishwasher.....

The girls have no issue in not doing a lot.  In fact, if it were an Olympic event I would enter them both.  We have recently decided that the handouts of seemingly unending cash is to stop, and they shall earn some spends each week.  I’m not saying they are on their hands and knees singing Hard Knock Life, but little things like keeping their rooms recognisable as a room, a bit of hoovering and perhaps even managing to get the odd dish into the dishwasher rather than just leaving it either wherever it fell, or at best on the kitchen worktop, will make the house a happier place.

In this way they can fund their trips to Manchester, where they congregate with other Emo types, and stalk boys.  We’ve already had our first “upset” over them both liking the same boy, but it didn’t last long, and to their credit they agreed that being sisters was more important, and they moved on.  Emily has decided that she doesn’t want a boyfriend at the moment, and has recently turned down one boy, which quite upset Louise and I as we think he is great!  He is now going out with one of Emily’s friends instead…how fickle these boys are!!

Rebecca
Mirror, mirror on the wall.....

Rebecca on the other hand definitely does want a boyfriend, and seems to have a different one each week, but most of them are mainly over Facebook.

She changes her status one way or another, for one boy or another, most times not even having actually been “out” with them.  Bless her, she is finding her feet, and is ever so slightly conscious of her looks at the moment so we have to walk on egg shells most of the time.

At the risk of sounding like a biased Dad, if only she knew how beautiful she was…..same goes for Emily who has so little confidence in how she looks it is scary.

On another totally unrelated topic (why change the habit of a blog-time), it is looking like we will have three Dibb meets whilst in the US.  Now, again, this is a sign of how life has been changed by the internet.  Even when the internet was established in our lives the prospect of meeting people from off of the internet would have been a bit odd.

Through a mutual love of WDW we have met some lovely people, and we are pleased to call them friends now (not sure what they call us though).  Our three meets this year consist of two regulars, Jakki (TinkTatoo) and her family, and Margaret (gala) and two of her kids.

Jakki is leaving Florida on our first day, so we have a very limited window of opportunity.  We’ve arranged to meet at the Main Street Bakery in Magic Kingdom.  We shall try not to gloat too much at their impending departure, but to be honest, they will have been in the US for about six months anyway, so my sympathy will be limited!!

Margaret happens to be staying at the Hard Rock Hotel on the same night, so we’ve arranged to meet at the pool bar for cocktails.  There is nothing in the theory I can see you formulating that these meets are taking place around cakes and cocktails.  They are simply the most convenient locations available!!

I’ve also got a yet to be fully arranged arrangement to meet up with Andy (Woody) as he is staying at the Beach Club at the same time as us.  Again, I suspect this will be alcohol based.  Having met Andy several times already (virtually) whilst playing Call of Duty on the Xbox, I’ll just have to look out for the bloke in the army uniform, fully armed, shooting at people.

Having also struck up a now fairly long lasting friendship with Mike Jones, and latterly his wife Amanda, based on a web site, I come back to my theme of stuff changing how we live our lives.  It could very well be the case that my girls meet their future partners courtesy of the internet, and for their generation, any stigma we may or may not have about that will have long gone.  They spend half their waking lives on the thing so the odds of a relationship starting there is pretty good.  Don’t worry we’ve had the “conversation” about nasty folks etc……

This brings me to a parting thought, on this topic of change, that I don’t think I’ve shared with you yet, but I may have so apologies if so, but it is very relevant here.  The headmaster at the girls’ school said that around 40% of the pupils now at school will do a job that hasn’t yet been invented.

I’m pretty sure I have mentioned that already, but hey ho, you are not paying to read this drivel!!

In life only change is constant.  Someone clever said that, and it wasn’t me.  My favourite piece of wisdom, that I really did invent is, In the great block of flats of life, one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.  Think about it.

Till the next time…..

Let me explain…or at least try to.

by mkingdon, posted in dibb, mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Girls with Mickey
Three of my favourite things

I have been incredibly lucky. Don’t get me wrong, at times I have also been incredibly unlucky, but the luck I refer to being good is that since 1999 I have been able to go on holiday to my favourite place more or less every year.

So in some respects, each year follows a similar pattern as the countdown does exactly that. Depending on how early we book, I mentally tick off certain landmarks of the year as they pass. If we booked nice and early, then this mean Christmas, Easter, and then as we get into summer, the passing of Rebecca and Emily’s respective birthdays in May and July tell me that we are getting close.

During a countdown that is usually months long, some weeks I don’t really think about our holiday. I know it is there, like a long term promise, don’t get me wrong, but other life stuff takes over, and I am swept along with it. The business of life doesn’t really impact this, as some other weeks I can do little else but think about our upcoming trip, even if I am rushed off my feet at work.

I suppose this is the main difference between “normal” holiday makers and those who see it as more than just two weeks away. A trip to Florida is pricey. You can’t get away from that, but to coin a phrase, it is the holiday that keeps on giving.

With the level of preparation and planning required over things like –

  • Flights
  • Accommodation (often several different places each trip)
  • Park Tickets – A million different combinations
  • Dining Reservations
  • Car Hire

and a host of other things, it can be, and some days is, a full time job.

Then upon returning to the UK, if you are so inclined (and I am) you can then continue to enjoy the holiday for weeks and months to come. This, for me, takes the form of writing my trip reports. This takes a while, and I usually don’t finish mine until late October.

Then, often the cycle starts again, as the next trip begins to cross my mind!

I know that many of you visiting my blog do so (very kindly) as you have read and hopefully enjoyed some of these trip reports. This means that all this will probably make sense to you. I do of course understand that there are those outside this “club” that simply don’t get it.

Holidays for those not of this mind set, can be a very simple affair, and they certainly would never dream of writing about it when they got back!! That’s OK. I am not in any way criticising anyone for this. I fully understand that I am not normal!

I have given up trying to explain to non believers what this is all about. Disney is only for young kids, it is a theme park (singular) like Alton Towers, and isn’t something that adults could enjoy for two weeks, with or without kids. I have heard this a million times. As I say, no point arguing. Besides, the more people who don’t get it, the shorter the queue for Soarin!!  If someone calls the Florida version Disneyland then you know they don’t get it at all!!!!

Last week has been one of the weeks when I have been thinking about the next trip. Aside from stressing about the abysmal exchange rate, I have been fine tuning the plan, and browsing various web sites, trying to inject a little of the Disney magic into an unseasonably cold and windy UK week.

I am re-reading for about the four hundredth time a couple of the Disney books we have hanging around. This all helps.

But why? What is it that keeps drawing us back?

Well, if I could put my finger on that, I could sell it, and make a fortune. All I can do is perhaps try to express how the place makes you feel.

In my rational mind, I fully understand that Disney is very much a for profit organisation. I can see the business elements hidden behind the magic, even as I hand over my handful of dollars, which I know is probably inflated for the privilege of spending them on their hallowed turf, but I don’t mind at all.

Magic Kingdom 1980
And so it begins....

Disney is built on nostalgia, on the legacy of generations, and of course family. It is a haven from the madness of the real world, and a sanctuary for a family to escape to, and make some memories.  The beauty of their business model is that we market to ourselves. For me, I was hooked early. I first went when I was ten, in 1980. We actually stayed in Miami, but drove up Orlando to spend two days at the Magic Kingdom, and the rest is history.

Now, WDW is a common language spoken by the extended family. I am by far the most addicted, but we’ve invested thirty years and unimaginable amounts of money in the place, and this means that every time we go back, we stumble across a memory, a half remembered episode of a previous trip that sparks a warm glow, or in some rare cases a shudder!! But the latter are very few and far between. Disney have somehow found a way, like childbirth, of having their guests forget about the time when they queued for Dumbo for two hours and had a one minute ride, or spent a day in a park when it was so busy you couldn’t see the pavement below your feet.

The special memories, and the place they hold in the hearts of my family are unique, emotive and unforgettable. I may be an extreme case, but I feel many things as I step onto Disney property –

  • Safe
  • Comfortable
  • Happy
  • Relaxed
  • Privileged
Magic Kingdom Castle
A heck of a pull.

I don’t have a favourite park, but the essence of the experience for me is the Magic Kingdom. Every penny that a trip costs is paid back on the first morning stroll up Main Street. The castle seems to draw everyone up Main Street towards it like some sort of friendly tractor beam, using smells unique to this one place on earth, sights that are both familiar yet ever exciting, and perhaps this is the crux of the experience, friendly, engaging, welcoming and highly professional Cast Members.

If you read any of the many books on the market that talk about some of the behind the scenes elements to how all this works, you know that the level of detail, and the attention to it is a massive part in the chasm between WDW and UK theme parks. Every smell, note of music and each blade of grass is there for a reason, and is controlled to be exactly as they want it to be.

This is where the detractors can be heard to bemoan the manufactured sterile nature of the place. I can understand that point of view. To be honest though, I live fifty weeks of the year in the non manufactured, natural, uncontrolled environment, and frankly, most of the time it sucks. With that in mind, I can suspend belief and normality quite easily and allow myself to be swept along with the magic.

I also think that there are two (well, there are hundreds, but bear with me) main types of holiday to WDW. Both are wonderful, and can honestly be a once in a lifetime (every year!), but they are different. This is where my Disney snobbery raises its head, be warned.

The first type of holiday is the one most probably undertaken by everyone going for the first time. If you haven’t stumbled across one of the many Florida planning forums you will still have a great time, but perhaps only skim the surface of the place and I have known people return from this type of trip and be less than impressed. One family we know were a case in point.

I spent not an inconsiderable amount of time writing up a series of tips, recommendations and things to avoid, all of which they seemed to ignore. Their main priority seemed to be that the hotel had a bar!! Having holidayed in the Med for years, their holiday focussed on the pool and as much alcohol as they could imbibe. Wow, I do sound snobby here, but let me explain.

Ironically had they read my tips, they may well have discovered an angle to Disney that not many do. One of the multiple faces of Disney, in their unending ability to morph themselves into the exact experience you are after, is the night time entertainment at places like Jellyrolls or Pleasure Island at Downtown Disney (which was still open when they visited).

As I type this, Louise is in the kitchen pursuing her hobby of ironing, and whilst she does she has Meatloaf blaring out. Right now the song playing only means one thing to me, and that is Jellyrolls. Paradise by the Dashboard Light is not a song I was really aware or fond of earlier in my life, and Meatloaf is by no means a regular on my iPod, but having had a couple of fantastic nights at Jellyrolls, this song now takes me there, and I can almost smell and taste the place, right here on my sofa in Bolton.

Disney even make getting drunk slightly magical, and classy, and you don’t really see that advertised on the telly…but it’s there if you know where to look.

So this second type of holiday is the one that sees the extra bits of Florida, the slightly more hidden gems of WDW, and you only tend to find out about these from –

  • Someone who has been there and discovered them
  • Knowledgeable folks on the internet
  • Guide books

For me it was a mix of all three, but I was pointed in the right direction by a colleague who had been a DVC member for years. He dropped the bombshell that you can wander around Disney resorts whether you are staying there or not. This opened my eyes, and the door to many hours of doing just that. With appetite whetted, my thirst was quenched with endless hours of internet use and book reading, and like most things, you only realise what you know when you try to explain it to someone else.

In the case of the family I gave the tips to, I wish I hadn’t bothered.

As my colleague often quotes now, using a Star Wars analogy, back then I was the young Jedi to his Obi Wan. I have since spent many metaphorical years in the swamps with Yoda and I am now the one telling him about new things, and old, which I have discovered, and we can easily spend too many hours in the office swapping stories and experiences from our trips.

The real trick that Disney, and of course the rest of Florida have up their sleeve is that there is still so much to discover that despite all my trips and research, I still don’t know what I don’t know yet, and if I went every year for the rest of my life (what do you mean if!!) I would still find new things every time.

I’m not really sure why I have felt the need to write this post. I think it is undoubtedly part of the countdown process, and a rock to cling to in the seemingly unending passage of days to the next trip. I still don’t feel that I have managed to explain any part of why I feel like I do, and that is eternally frustrating.

There we have it I suppose. If what Disney did was easy, then everyone would do it. For their attention to detail, unending pursuit of excellence, insistence on quality, and the undefinable essence of magic, I salute them, thank them, and ask them to put the kettle on, as we won’t be long now.

Till the next time…..



Would they notice if I didn’t do my notice?

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

This working your notice lark is tedious beyond compare.

Not only am I now handing over longer term projects to other suckers…I mean colleagues, as I won’t be here to see them through, but I am also trying to get my head around my new job too.  So in effect, I’m busier than usual when you may think a notice period is a time for late starts, early finishes and lots of internet browsing.

Naturally, I have partaken quite heavily in all three of those activities too, as I am slowly turning down my give-a shit-ability for my old/current role.  That is easier said than done though, as ten years is a long time, and I have literally done the whole blood sweat and tears stuff trying to do a decent job for almost all of that time.  Stopping that, and “letting go” is tough.

So I’m four weeks in, and have another eight to do.  Sigh.

It’s funny after working somewhere for ten years that once you have taken the massive step of politely telling them where to stick their god awful job (ahem), your mind starts to wonder about the small things, the changes in routine that a new job means.  Let me list a few, as we haven’t had a list of any sort for a good few posts now…

The commute – I could do the calculations for how many times I have driven to and from my office, but frankly even I am not that bored…give me another few weeks though and I’ll know the exact number.  Anyway, my point is that I know the route, and the exact time required in all weather conditions and at all times of year down to the nearest second.  My new job is roughly an equal distance away but obviously a different route.  On the first day I shall have to leave before I go to bed to make sure I am not late!

The school run – My current job allows me to eject the kids at Grandmas each morning for their breakfast before school.  My new one probably won’t so we shall have to trust the little bleeders to get themselves out of the house unaided to catch a bus.  At thirteen and (soon to be) fifteen you would hope we can be confident of that…..

My fitness – You may well know I am renowned for my athleticism, toned physique and all round hunkiness, and this is due to a lunchtime ritual, usually three or four times a week in the gym at the hotel next door to my office.  Alas, this will no longer be possible in the new job, so despite the upside of saving £30 a month on the membership, I may well be thirty stone by Christmas!

My ability to do the job – A strange one you may think, but I feel I have made a decent fist of the current job, and have risen meteorically through the ranks over the last ten years, or more accurately, avoided being found out and sacked.  Starting a new role, at a new company, doing something pretty different is ever so slightly worrying.

World Cup Trophy
Didn't Jules Rimet play for Bolton?

There are a thousand other little niggles, and being frank, this seemingly endless notice period is just giving me more time to fester over them.

By the time I start my new job England may have won the World Cup (and I don’t mean cricket), Wimbledon will have happened, the girls will more or less have finished another school year, and Katie Price, after becoming pregnant with triplets, will have had a third boob installed so she can feed all three at once whilst posing for her OK shoot.

So whilst I have always been quite satisfied with my three months notice period, thinking that the buggers will need to throw me a load of cash if they wanted to make me redundant, I am now on the flip side of that, contemplating insulting the MD or assaulting someone in the canteen to secure an early exit.

Minor criminal acts aside, it looks like I am here till mid July.

On a totally unrelated topic, the annual ritual of desperately trying to lose a pound or two in order that I don’t need to buy any new holiday clothes has begun.  For most of the year, my trips to the gym are really just used to allow me to eat unlimited amounts of trash at weekend without ending up being winched through my front window.  Now that the time approaches where I actually need to be seen in public in a T Shirt and shorts, I have to reign back the calorie intake for the next few weeks/months.

Alan Partridge
The Boys are Back in the Barracks

Louise berates me every year to invest in new holiday gear, especially shorts.  Yes I may have had them for many a year, but I only wear them say twice each in a fortnight, so in elapsed wearing time they are probably the newest items of clothes I own.

If you’ve seen the Alan Partridge episode involving his shorts then I have some way to go until my boys are out of the barracks!  However many of my shorts are considerably older than Justin Bieber, but then again most things are.

They are also more entertaining too, but that’s another story.

What I haven’t done for a while is comment on the films we have watched courtesy of our Tesco DVD Rental club thing.  This weekend we had a couple that were enjoyable.  We started on with Law Abiding Citizen with Gerard Butler (who Louise fancies).

I had high hopes for this one, and it did keep my attention with a plot full of twists and turns, however it did start to stretch the bounds of realism after ten minutes.  I have no issue with that….I have after all watched Con Air more than once, but it just turned into a very different film than I expected.

We then settled in for what turned out to be the marathon that is 2012.  I had a feeling it was a long one, but did not expect the two and half hour marathon that followed.  Again, an enjoyable action packed film that more or less justified the numb bum caused by the length of it.  Of the two films, I’d say this was the more popular in the Williams household.

I hear there is to be a vacancy on Film 2010 after Mr Ross leaves the BBC.  Surely I am a cert for that role with such insightful film reviews?

I don’t think any other post to date has taken such a windy route from one unrelated topic to another, so it is probably best to draw to a close now.

Till the next time…..

Secret Revealed…what a let down I hear you cry..

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

So I can now let you know (as no doubt you will not have slept since my post mentioning said secret) what all the secrecy was about.

I have a new job!

Oh? Is that it?  Alas, that soundtrack to my life is apt once again.  I was down in that there London last Thursday meeting with important types from the new company, agreeing stuff….and stuff.  I knew as I left the meeting that I had the job if I wanted it, so after many minutes deliberation on Thursday evening, I resigned on Friday morning.

I know this stuff happens all the time, but I have been with my current employer for ten years, and feel totally institutionalised (that word is a bugger to type by the way…try it).  The fear factor of leaving is softened as the new company is run by an ex-boss of mine (the one who took me to see United get dumped out of the Champions League a little while ago), and having worked with/for him for many years, I shouldn’t have to start all over again in the prove yourself stakes.

The new role is quite different to my current one, with new things to understand and learn, and I am in no way suffering a crisis of confidence that I shall be discovered to be a charlatan (or any other mid 90’s Madchester band), and realise that I was consigned to work all my life with my current employer.

I’m not going to bore you with company names etc.  You barely care as it is, so besmirching any brand names on the internet is not needed.  An audible sigh of relief around the internet is heard.

So this week I have been telling the managers that report to me, and then my team, that I am off in July (yep, 12 weeks notice…what fun), and I was mightily flattered at the reaction.  They had the good grace to at least appear upset, and shocked, and being serious for a second, I did not expect anything like a reaction of this type, so that’s nice.  I haven’t been a complete arse for the past ten years then.

With my never ending notice period, by the time I actually get to my new job, I only have five weeks at the new place and then the countdown ends and we are off on holidays.  Don’t fret, I have already checked that the holiday dates would not be an issue!!

As a weird coincidence, my new MD (the ex-boss referred to earlier) goes on the same day, perhaps even the same flight we suspect.  His villa is on the same development too.  I feel slightly responsible as I convinced him to go two years ago when we worked together, promising his kids were not too young (hey, they are 21 and 27…joke!) and now he seems to be hooked too.

A period of notice is a weird place, with my natural work ethic and give a toss-ability hard to shake, and I have to keep reminding myself that I really shouldn’t care anymore.  It will take time I think.

Emily
What's that, I'm a prefect? Great!!

Other news this week, also of a good nature, is that Emily has been accepted as a prefect at school.  For Emily, the benefits start and end with a special coloured tie, which denotes her newly acquired super powers to the rest of the proles at her school.  Beware her wrath fellow schoolmates.

Planning wise for the upcoming hols, little has progressed lately with all the job kerfuffle, as my concentration span can only deal with so much at once.  I did get pointed at an iPhone app that looks to be an excellent addition to any control freak, OCD WDW lunatic (hey, that’s me).  It was wizzo off of the Dibb who drew my attention to it (Thanks Paul).  The WDW Lines app shows you in real time the current wait times and fastpass return times, also allowing you to enter the wait times etc as well.

Lines App
Walk the line!

As I type, Buzz Lightyear has a twelve minute wait!!  This app alone guarantess that I will actually take my phone with me, rather than leave it in the kitchen drawer at home to avoid any contact with work whilst on holiday!

It just so happens that the company I am going to work for actually do all this stuff.  iPhone apps, mobile marketing, mobile vouchers (think Orange Wednesday campaign) so in time I might even understand how it all works.  Anyone who is paying attention, might have worked out that this is where I got my hands on the iPad last week.  Still no sign of the free one by the way.

And so as this post comes to a lovely full circle of completeness, I have my fingers crossed that whatever shower get into power next week, it doesn’t destroy the the dollar rate, as I have park tickets and spending money to worry about….and if something as trivial as a new government were to queer the pitch I shall be less than pleased.

Till the next time…..

The briefest of apologies to Mr Jobs

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Dear Steve,

I know you will no doubt have read my previous post in which I was less than enthralled at the prospect of your new iPad product. I know you are a regular reader of this blog along with all the other movers and shakers in Apple land!!

On Thursday of this week, I was in that there London, for reasons that I shall explain at a later date.  A strange series of events meant I had my hands on one of your new fandangled iPads, and used it for all of about three minutes.

It may well be an oversized iPod Touch, but it is a thing of beauty Stevie boy.  You guys know your design, and it had to be wrestled from my clammy mits.  As long as that free iPad arrives this week I am sure we can now be friends again?

My “first dibs” on the iPad mini idea still stand though.

Probably best to send me an email or similar, as if you phone me I won’t be able to hear your voice.  My view on that hasn’t changed!

Thanks

Craig.

Till the next time….

Sinderby, Snotty Spaniels and Secrets

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Let me deal with the secrets thing first.

Well I can’t tell you, otherwise it would not be a secret.  All I will say is that I am working on something that I hope comes off, and if it does it should be better for me and the family all round.  More news as it breaks…you shall be the first to know.  Actually you won’t as Louise would be quite upset were that to be the case.

I have to point out that my lovely silver sexy Macbook has gone to the great big recycle bin in the sky, and I have been landed with, I mean I have been lucky enough to get a HP EliteBook in its stead.

It seems OK, but the keyboard feels very different and it keeps putting a \ when I just want to do a capital letter.  Frustrating, and I therefore distance myself from all typos in this ere post.

Snotty Spaniels, you know about.  We ended the last post with us making an emergency dash across the M62 to drop the little git off with our friends who were to let him recuperate in the country air of North Yorkshire.  Luckily we had planned to go and see said friends last weekend, so this meant Henry could have a week in the land of James Herriot, and then come home with us, a week later.

Henry the dog
Het up Henry

So this weekend just gone, we spent the lovliest of times with Steve and Di in Sinderby.  After an uneventful journey, apart from Rebecca acting as iPod DJ all the way there, and inflicting the very best and worst of Emo culture upon us, we arrived to see Henry distraught at being seperated from us.

We were also blessed with the weather, and for the first time this year actually dined Al Fresco.  I have no idea who invited Al, but he was welcome.  The rest of the day was spent wandering around a pretty little town/village called Leyburn, where Louise and Di spent what felt like three days in a soft furnishing shop whilst Steve, myself, the girls and Henry waited ever so patiently outside.  I had never heard a dog tut until Saturday.

On the way back to Steve and Di’s we stopped off to feed two donkeys (Steve and Di do this regularly, we didn’t just stumble across them), and they were in a field right next to Marmiom Tower.

Marmiom Tower
Through the arched window...

We then retired to a nearby beer garden to sample the delights of the local brew, namely Black Sheep.  Again, a first for the year, having a beer in a garden named for that purpose.

We then retired to Sinderby for a lovely meal courtesy of Di, quite a lot of wine and beer, and for the second time in a week, a session huddled around a fire pit.  I must admit the temperatures dictated we didn’t move too far from the flames!!

Henry spent the evening being a right pain in the backside, as he located what we think was a hedgehog house, in the back garden, and would not leave it alone.

One by one, the girls first, we retired to bed, with us all giving in to droopy eyes by midnight.

Sunday saw us mainly eat to be honest.  Bacon butties all around for breakfast, followed by lunch at the local boozer, which is a true country pub with stunning food.

Henry in the car
Say Cheese

After a brief stop off at Tesco in Thirsk we find our way home via the A1 and M62, with Henry on his way back to Chez Williams.  He has had a busy week, and a very hectic weekend which may explain why, for once he did not whine all the way home.  Instead he fell asleep almost immediately and looked like this until Bolton.

The rest of the week ahead is full of meetings and secret things which I really hope will all come to fruition by weekend or at worst early next week.  Don’t worry, it won’t be anything as exciting as I’m building you up to expect!!

My head is all over the place to be honest, which probably accounts for the rambling (more than usual) unstructured form of this post.  Apologies.

I’d like to thank the keyboard on this laptop for making this post twice as difficult to type as normal.

Till the next time…..

Tardy Remissness…

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Well it has been far too long since my last post.  Apologies.

It seems much has happened, but nothing really of earth shattering importance.

As I mentioned right at the end of the last post, I spent a couple of days in the South West “on business”.  Bristol and Stroud don’t really conjure up those cosmopolitan images of exciting business trips that some must endure, to New York or Hong Kong, but at least it got me away from the office for two days.  Adding on the lack of a Friday due to Easter it made for a very pleasant week….well as pleasant as a working week can be.  I do wonder what it might be like to have a job that you actually enjoy and have a passion for.

Don’t get me wrong, I have passion for what I do, to the extent that I want to do a decent job, and get upset when folks either get in the way of that or don’t want to join in.  For all my joshing, I have worked bloody hard for the past 23 years (Oh God that is depressing) and have reached a fairly decent position….but I can’t hand on heart say that I love my job.

I think a lot of that is down to the fact that when I’m gone, I won’t be leaving behind Nobel Prizes and earth changing legacies.  More a list of modest acheivements and regrets that I didn’t try harder to be a pop star when I still had hair!!

M6
Yep, that's the way home.

Anyway, back to the story…whilst in Stroud I again stayed at the Ragged Cot which is a cut above the usual Travelodge style place our budget dictates we stay at.  As well as some (honestly) useful meetings, we did just seem to eat for 24 hours, which can never be a bad thing.  Mental note – actually start the pre holiday diet fat boy, rather than just keep talking about it.

Then of course we had the Easter break, and I must say that a four day weekend should be the norm.  If any party stood at the next election with that on their manifesto I would not only vote for them, I’d be out there now canvassing!!  Forget the small issue of an unsustainable economy, it makes perfect sense to me.

Those familiar with the Pavlov’s Dog theory will perhaps understand my theory of Bank Holidays.  After the bleak winter months, at the first sign of temperatures above zero, and an extra day or two to fill, the entire nation throws itself into DIY.  Some do it as they enjoy it.  I however rank DIY just above removing my eyes with a rusty fork.  Still, the theory held true as we spent most of the long weekend painting.

Louise was of course to blame, as she did her usual trick of starting a job, knowing that I am unable to cope with a half finished project.  So after many days hard slog we now have a chocolate kitchen wall (yes, just one, and not real chocolate…just the colour), which to be fair has made a huge difference to the room, and our whites are sparkling.  That as a result of my non stop glossing.

Chocolate Wall
Bring on the wall!!

I did count the weekend a success though as I managed to avoid setting foot in B&Q.  However as we drove past it during the weekend we did spot the rest of the western world queuing to get on the car park…proving my theory of course.

So back to work, but only for four days so not all bad.  On Wednesday an ex boss of mine called me offering a ticket to Old Trafford that evening.  He is an Everton fan, and I support Liverpool, so this may sound a little odd, but his new company “does corporate” there, so for the sake of a night out and meeting up with him for a chat I of course accepted.

There was a real sense of foreboding as we walked from his office at Salford Quays to Old Trafford, and every United fan who looked at me seemed to be seeing some sort of “I support the enemy” tattoo on my forehead.

Still, it is always a nice experience to see a big football match live, and for someone with my allegiances, imagine my delight to see United go out after leading 3-0 on the night.

Old Trafford
Enemy Soil, literally.

Some may think that you should always support the English team in these situations, but those are people who simply don’t understand the rivalry between Liverpool and United.  I have many friends who support United, and we get along fine, and even can exchange some ribbing both ways after a game.  I am old enough and sensible enough to seperate the two, but the hatred for United as a concept is deep seated and irrevocable I’m afraid.

Friday brought a mini crisis only resolved by having some true friends (who happen not to support United).  The crisis was that I have an ageing cocker.

For those who don’t know, he is called Henry, and is the family dog.  For some time he has been plagued with nasal issues…namely a lovely stream of excess snot.  This is managed by some regular medication from the vet, which seems to be funding his annual holidays and retirement fund.  Over the last few days though it has reached a whole new level in yuk.

The vet was visited again on Friday evening, and it seems that my glossing antics may well have irritated his hooter (not as much as it irritated me having to do it).  The plan was to get some more pills (he wants a three week holiday this year I guess) and if possible to get Henry out of the house for a bit.  As he probably wouldn’t appreciate sleeping in the back garden, we called our good friends Steve and Di, who looked after him when we went away last summer.  They agreed, and this meant we had to do a hand off just off junction 28 of the M62 on Frday evening.  There was nothing illegal involved here, Steve and Di live in Yorkshire, so this was a suitable middle ground.  By the sound of things Henry is having a ball, and hopefully his hooter will be smeg free soon so he can come home.  When the kids get a cold, we’re going to use the same trick to palm them off to Yorkshire as well.

Speaking of friends who actually do support United, to round of this latest post, we entertained Mike and Amanda last night.  At the risk of sounding a little odd, I met Mike on the internet!!  This was many years ago now.  We were both members of The Dibb, and realised we live not far apart, and made that huge leap of actually meeting up in the flesh!

We have many things in common, such as a love of Disney/Florida and a hatred of our jobs, but a realisation that we must endure the latter to have any chance of enjoying the former.

Having spent many an evening around their fire pit, we have taken the plunge and invested in one for ourselves.  Wow, a fire pit and decking….as Rik from the Young Ones would have said “Stop being so blinking Bourgeoisie Neil”.  Even though I am not called Neil.

Fire Pit
Help, the decking is alight!!

Again having avoided B&Q for another weekend, we enjoyed a nice evening staring into the fire and poking it with a stick.  Nights don’t get much more exciting.  So much so that Louise wandered off to bed well before Mike and Amanda left, which was in no way related to the amount of red wine consumed.  She was just tired.

So today is to be a true day of rest, before the diet starts tomorrow (other phrases in the same category…the cheque is on the post, we don’t mind looking after your snotty dog and I have no homework Dad honest).

Till the next time….

Best laid plans….

by mkingdon, posted in dibb, mkingdon, Walt Disney World

So, with all the excitement of having a new trip booked, this week has been a flurry of activity and research, finalising all the details of our itinerary.

This was tricky, as I had the inconvenience of having to go to work every day, which seriously impacted on my ability to do important stuff, like find villas and hotels.

Somehow, I have managed to come up with a workable plan, and my what a plan it is.  To say I am happy with it would be….well, it would be absolutely accurate.

First job was a villa.  There are one or two villas knocking about on the internet these days, so choosing one can get a little tiresome, after you’ve looked at the three hundredth website.  My criteria were simple –

  • 3/4 bed
  • Decent sized deck round the pool for Louise to burn herself stupid
  • Located in Sunset Lakes/Lindfields areas
Villa
Living la Villa Loca

A few hundred hours of interent use later and a suitable villa is located.  It is a marvel to me that not only can you see exactly what you are getting via the internet, but within a few minutes you can actually walk down the street via the wonder that is Google Street View.  I now know exactly where it is, and the best way to get to the 192 etc.  This is of course helped by the fact that we’ve been so many times that I know the area as well as my own street at home!

The next step was the quickest and easiest.  Booking a night on site at Universal is pretty straight forward.  Having now tried the Royal Pacific and the Hard Rock, the clear winner for us was the HRH, so a few minutes of keyboard tapping, and we’re in.

I mentioned last week that our DVC friends were contemplating their needs, and in the end it turned out that they did indeed require their points this year.  Despite this mightily selfish act, I agreed to continue our friendship on a trial basis, for now.

So now, the tricky stuff starts.  Without the magical (and cheap as chips) DVC points, how are we to round off my “special” trip?  Well, in steps Jakki (TinkTatoo off of The Dibb).  We had been chatting via email about our plans, as we usually meet up whilst in Florida.  As at this stage I was unsure of what points if any I might have at my disposal she very kindly offered to call Disney and see what might be available for the dates I was after.

Rather cruelly, my wish list options were available, which sort of made the whole waiting to hear about the points all the more unbearable.  Being female, Jakki then used subtle and clever mind tricks to get me to tell her which of the options she had investigated would be my preference.  The technique used was “So which of those options would you go for, if you got the points?”  See, how am I to compete with such witchcraft?

Having told her, she then prompty offered me the use of the required number of points from her “banked” allocation for next year, at a price that could not be obtained anywhere else.  I was slightly, ever so, taken aback by the act of kindness, and I think I have thanked Jakki enough times to make her more than a little uncomfortable.

So, what did we get.  Well, to tell this tale properly I have to rewind a few years, to a previous trip, and the four of us are sat in World Showcase at Epcot, having a drink.  We are sat in the corner bit where the African outpost thing is, and I’m looking over the Lagoon across to the Yacht and Beach Club.

Beach Club
Where them millionaires stay!!

“When we come for my fortieth” says I, all confident that we would be, “We’ll do it in style and stay at one of them there posh places, that only rock stars and millionaires can afford”.  Yes a slight exaggeration, but it makes the story mildly more interesting.  The family give me a knowing look, and continue to take on board enough fluids to avoid a collapse somewhere around Norway.

So, just over a week ago, I’m thinking that my ever so bold statement was to lie in ruins, due to us not going at all, and here I am a few short days later, on the brink of achieving said ambition.  There was a very nervy half an hour whilst Jakki, now having my instructions and wishes has to phone up Mr Disney to secure it.

Sensing my nervy anticipation, Jakki does the right thing, and rather than go and collect the kids from school, she leaves them stranded at the side of the road whilst she makes that call instead.   Apologies to Aidhon and Niamh (I work on the premise that the more variations of spelling I use for for Jakki’s kids, I am bound to get it right sooner or later) for making you hang about, it was for the greater good.  The deed was done, and I got some odd looks as I did a little jig around the office.

Just tell us where the bloody hell you are staying, I hear you cry….if anyone is still reading/caring at this point.

We have four nights at the Beach Club Villas.  All that build up for a nine word sentence???  Well, yes.

Kitchen Sink
That sinking feeling

The location is, in my opinion, perfect, the hotel itself a delight, and the pool is epic, and the girls will love that.  The added attraction of having a Kitchen Sink every day also appeals on some level.

So with all the basics now in place, I’ve also made a couple of ADRs.  Kouzzina (the place where Spoodles used to be) for the night of my birthday, and Yak & Yeti at the Animal Kingdom as this is a firm favourite with Louise.

All this hard work this week reminded me how much the art of booking a holiday has changed thanks to the wonders of the World Wide Web.  When I watched my Dad book holidays, it was either a trip to the local travel agents to watch them tap away at their VDU for a couple of hours to tell us that the hotel in the brochure wasn’t available, but there was one almost built next to it that was.  Or, in later years, on the phone (with the appropriate teletext page on Hold) only to find out that the fly drive for three bob and a conker was actually ten times the price on screen.

Now, holiday makers, if so inclined, can plan every detail of their trip, and, as with most shopping experiences now, crucially get advice from like minded travellers on the quality and suitability of things well before you arrive to find the top three floors of the hotel unfinished, and the pool full of wildlife.  Being a border line control freak, this appeals, and long may it continue.

You might think with all this activity that not much else had happened this week.

Well, outside of holiday planning world, work has been just another notch up on the busy scale, and I visited hospital for a change, but this time to visit my Dad, who has since been home and gone back in again.  He has had a minor operation to remove around three pints of “stuff” from a cyst on his liver (I hope no-one is eating whilst reading this!), and as soon as I have finished writing this I’m off to see him again.  He’s been in pain for weeks with this, so hopefully this will get him back to normal, and crucially for his, and my Mum’s sanity, back playing golf.

Emily has done her mock GCSEs this week, and how she has done is anyone’s guess really.  The few utterings to come from behind the fringe suggest she thinks she has done OK, but we’ll just have to wait and see.  I attended school for both the girl’s parents evening type things, and was relieved to find that they are both hard working and not mentally sub normal (they get that from me!!).  Rebecca says it doesn’t matter though as she is going to be a rock star.  Fair enough.  By teaching her to play bass I am more than entitled to the large mansion once she goes platinum.

To round off the week, on a hopefully happy and more relaxed note, we are off out tonight to celebrate Louise’s birthday.  The four of us are off to a local Chinese to see if we can eat them out of crispy duck.  I have the big pants washed and ready to go.

Next week sees me on my travels with work to the exotic lovelieness that is Bristol and Stroud, so with the upcoming Good Friday holiday, I only have to endure two days in the office.  Happy Days.

Till the next time…..

Lost in 3,000 fringes.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Youmeatsix and Forever the Sickest Kids. Whatever happened to sensible band names like what we had?? Kagagoogoo, Bow Wow Wow, They Might be Giants and of course The Goombay Dance band.

Youmeatsix signing
what do you mean you've never heard of them???

Friday saw two very excited girls travel to Manchester to not only watch, but also meet one of these “bands”, and to say they enjoyed it would be like saying I enjoy a buffet. An under statement of huge proportions (did someone say huge portions?).

However, as with most things in life this did not run entirely smoothly. Having had weeks of build up to this event, with daily countdowns (honestly, who is so sad as to countdown to an event like that!!), and preparatory trips to Manchester earlier in the week to secure the required golden (well , purple) wristbands to ensure entry in to the signing, the girls were a little excited.

So when my phone rang around 3.30 pm on Friday I was greeted with a hysterical Rebecca, who after repeating herself a few times, I managed to gather that she had lost the tickets!! It took me a good five minutes to calm her down, and for her to breathe again, before I conducted an operation akin to air traffic control to find out where they were.

Louise’s mum had met the girls after school to pick up all their school stuff, and take it back home so they did not have to go to the gig with their school bags or indeed in school uniform (this was not an ACDC gig). So I had Rebecca on my mobile making wailing noises, whilst I called my mother in law on the landline, at our house to try to locate the tickets.

It took a little while to explain what was happening, and even longer to communicate that they did not look like tickets, more like A4 pieces of paper….cos that’s exactly what they were!! Anyway, to save you the twenty minutes of stress and panic, eventually they were located inside a school book, deep within Rebecca’s school bag, and the day was saved. Rebecca got the tickets and made her train with minutes to spare.

As well as the photos here, you can, if you really want to, see the full album on a popular social networking site, although you may need to befriend Emily to do so.

Emily called me at around 5.30pm, hysterical for entirely different reasons, as she had just been met and hugged by Max and Josh from Youmeatsix. The exuberance of youth!!

Josh Youmeatsix
Josh, singing, not signing.

Roll on a few hours, and I am the designated pick up taxi for Rebecca and her friends (Emily was going back to sleep at her friend’s house via another taxi/parent). Our cunning plan to co-ordinate pick up locations was scuppered by Rebecca’s battery dying on her mobile almost as soon as she arrived, so I had to park the car up, and take my almost forty, obviously someone’s Dad frame into the sweaty masses as they poured out of the main entrance.

All Stars
Same difference

Stood amongst the obviously quite illegal fake merchandise sales folk outside the Manchester Apollo, I quickly realised that all 3,000 attendees of this event looked almost identical. Large fringe, checked shirt, skinny jeans, All Stars and a backpack. The chances of recognising my own daughter were slim, and what seemed like an eternity passed before Rebecca had the brains to phone me using her friend’s phone and tell me she was stood right behind me, across the road at a bus stop.

The journey home was a loud one with the girls still in concert shouty mode, as they regaled me with tales of (insert Band member name) doing something cool. My iPod was hijacked, and the likes of Hall and Oates, Jellyfish etc were banned as we had a playlist (DJ’d by Rebecca) of Youmeatsix and other similar looking types.

As if all that wasn’t exhausting enough, the weekend continued with Rebecca attending the X Factor Tour at the MEN on Saturday. Her new friend (Vicky, keyboard player in her band) invited her as they had a spare ticket. As cool as Rebecca obviously is these days, she returned with a Jedward poster, claiming them to be awesome. Oh dear.

Perfect Strager Poster
Poorer for the lack of white vests

Us normal old folk stayed in on Saturday and watched Perfect Stranger, with Bruce Willis (not a vest in sight) and Halle Berry. It was watchable but the film did not really live up to the cast, and Louise didn’t make it to the end before having to retire to bed.

Sunday of course, like nearly everyone in the UK, was dominated by the paying of homage to respective Mothers. In our house this looked like Louise and I being up before the kids, me wrestling Emily from her pit to come and give Louise her card and presents, and then a day of cooking.

First of course I delivered my breakfast speciality, of Eggs Benedict, before spending most of the day making Moroccan Lamb, as reciped by Jamie Oliver. Louise and I had this some time ago at our friends (Mike and Amanda) so we thought we’d give it a go. Our prep was less than perfect, as this entailed me being on the phone to Mike in Tescos on Saturday trying to remember the 312 ingredients, lacking a pen and paper. I did OK, and when reunited with the recipe on Sunday, I only seemed to have forgotten the fennel seeds, which surely cannot be essential to any recipe???

There was a lot of prep, and for some reason it turned out way too spicy for our invited audience (Mum, Dad and Louise’s Mum) so we had to do some remedial work at the last minute to calm it down. I enjoyed it anyway, and Louise’s Mum was only at A&E for an hour or two!!!

With what turned out to be a very hectic weekend behind us, we crawled to bed very early on Sunday and watched the Lost Boys, followed by a recorded Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. This was a cruel trick to play on my mind. Watching a programme so clearly linked with the start of the weekend on a Sunday made for a very confusing end to the day. I could just do with another Saturday and Sunday right about now.

Till the next time….

Alice, Archie and a Sugar Rush

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

You do not find me in the happiest of places.

I stare at my diary for the week, and my heart is filled with dread and horror at the utter nonsense I have to get through this week.  Presentations, disciplinaries (three of them!!) and generally stuff I really resent wasting my life on.  The desire for sunshine is immense right now, but alas not quite as immense as the gaping hole where my bank balance should be, so on I trundle, countdown-less.

Peter Capaldi
Angry Man!

The weekend shot by in record time it seems, and I find myself back at my desk again, tired and unrefreshed.  Last night however I did watch a superb film, which I caught by accident.  In the Loop was brilliant, witty, frenetic, and seemed to be over in about ten minutes.  A sure sign of a good film.  The character played by Peter Capaldi was pure genius, and is surely how everyone wants to behave at work, just for one day!!

Sunday also saw me escort Rebecca to her friend’s house to visit their new puppy Archie.  He’s a Bichon Frise (small white fluffy dog), and has cornered the market in cuteness.  Rebecca in turn adopted her puppy eyes in a desperate attempt to get one of her own.  Not a chance!!  We tried the puppy thing a few years ago, with a lovely Basset Hound called Truman, but heartbreakingly we had to rehome him as we just didn’t have the time he needed, as we both worked full time at the time.

I am never going through that again!!  In no way did I get emotional at the time, and “get something in my eye” as I handed him over.

Archie the dog
Cuteness be thy name

In what is sounding like an action packed weekend we also went to see Alice in Wonderland at our local cinema.  What a kerfuffle!  With our usual detailed advanced planning we decided to go about thirty minutes before it was due to start.  I tried in vain to book tickets on the website, and only encountered errors.  I even tried the quaint method of phoning them up, but still problems intervened.

In the end we just jumped in the car and drove there.  The queue we encountered was of WDW proportions….on New Years Eve…..for Soarin’.  Still, if I ran a cinema how could I have predicted such a large attendance on the weekend of the launch of one of the biggest films of the year!  Add to that, all the ticket collection machines were down too, so everyone had to join the queue, even if they had booked on the error ridden website!!  With this in mind it should have come as no surprise that only three staff were serving.

We resolved to queue but get tickets for the 7pm show, and adjourn to a local eatery to while away the intervening hours.  You can see how this was turning into a very expensive trip to the cinema.  Frankie and Bennys received our custom, with all the waiting staff in fancy dress to “celebrate” the launch of Alice in Wonderland.  If they knew about it, how come the cinema didn’t?  A steak ciabbatta later and we’re back at the cinema (via a swift detour to Asda to secure cheapo sweets as I needed petrol anyway), and lo, another queue to enjoy.

So after a lovely thirty minute wait we watched all the people we were queuing with earlier exit the film, and look at us in a weird way, wondering how and/or why we were in the queue for the film that they saw us queue up for earlier, with them.

Eventually we enter, and having queued we bag a good seat, and the pick n mix begins.  The film passes in a haze of fried eggs, chocolate raisins, white mice and mini eggs, and I hit a sugar induced coma just as the Jabberwocky appears.  Who said the drugs don’t work.  The film itself was better than I expected if I am honest.  I have never watched any version of an Alice film all the way through, from the animated Disney one to the cruelly low budget ones, such as a dreadful 70’s version with Fiona Fullerton.

I was pleasantly surprised to get into it (after what felt like a slow start) and actually enjoy it.  Good job, saying the whole trip cost north of £100!!  Tight, me, never!!!!

The other main theme of the weekend was Louise coming over all spring cleaner on us.  Apparently it was required that we and Emily swap bedrooms, which Louise did more or less unaided on her day off on Thursday, but the weekend meant a massive clear out of years of crud which we have accumulated nicely.  Needless to say a trip to the tip was in order, and about seven hours of pulling stuff out of wardrobes, looking at it, and then trying to push it back in again ensued.

No wonder the weekend went quickly!!  How I managed to fit in a good few hours of Call of Duty I will never know.

I also received a lovely email from a Dibber, who had spent the weekend reading my trip reports.  He was very complimentary about my ramblings which is always lovely to hear.  My ego knows no beginnings!!

This was an extraordinary email which really touched me (something in my eye again), as it outlined their own personal battles to get to Florida after Travel City went bang, and many other challenges seemed to be attracted to them.  Needless to say the troubles were overcome, they went to WDW and it changed their lives.  As the message ended with him telling me he’d just booked again, I lost all empathy and cursed the swine for being able to go this year when I can’t!!!  🙂

For clarity that was an attempt at humour.

Till the next time…..

My Brain is a mixed bag

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

It really has been a very varied week this week, and I seem to have a thousand thought streams coursing through my brain.

Louise finally came home on Monday, and despite not having anything as handy as a diagnosis, she is much better, and is slowly getting herself back to normal.  Thanks for all the concern, best wishes and messages.

The over riding theme of the week has been time, and a lack of it to be honest.  I have oft tweeted recently about the appalling state of the roads on my joyful commutes to and from work, and this seemed to reach a peak of crapness this week.  Not only are the roads between my house and work being used as a traffic cone showcase, when I do find a stretch of road free from obstacles, I appear to be driving behind cars that don’t posses a fourth gear, and cannot travel over 25 mph.

My usual sunny dispostion was stretched beyond breaking on Tuesday (I think), as a long and tortuous drive home ended with me picking the girls up from my Mum’s, having to call at the shop for baking ingredients for Rebecca’s Home Economics lesson the next day (she prepped in plenty of time as usual), only to find the supermarket had no caster sugar, so we had to then drive to other retail establishments to procure some.

Reading that back it doesn’t quite capture the absolutely valid reasons for my stress levels.  Anyway, I’d had a tough day, and crap journey and just wanted to get home.  All this faff meant it was after 7pm when I did, and my sense of humour and good nature expired at around 6.15pm.

I should add that Rebecca was then inconsiderately ill for the rest of the week, didn’t go to school, and therefore didn’t need the bleeding ingredients after all.

This leads nicely onto the next theme of the week.  Homework.

Not mine of course, but the work given to the girls from school.  It does seem to me that there is a expectation that parent’s won’t just have to ensure that homework is completed, no, they have to take an active, and often leading role in it.  This week, I have tackled –

  • The Great Fire of London (not literally)
  • The Nitrate Cycle
  • Percentages
  • Made a time capsule from the 1660’s
  • Built a scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in a shoe box (I kid you not)
Nitrogen Cycle
Not a Raleigh Cycle..a Nitrate one.

Now, I’m sure the girls are not at prodigy levels, and neither are they dullards, but looking at the tasks set, there really is no way they could get this stuff done unaided.  I work hard enough at my own job, thank you very much, without having to come home and tackle any of the above.

Of course none of this is helped by the girl’s uncanny knack of leaving every peice of work until the last possible moment.  Those of you that know me at all, will perhaps realise that I like things to be planned and organised as much as possible.  Examples of this are not allowing responsible grown ups in our travel party to keep hold of their own passports and/or theme park tickets, as I KNOW they will lose them.

Therefore this last minute Larry approach doesn’t do for my stress levels.

Next on the list this week…..we watched District 9 one night.  I think it was Wednesday.

I had heard quite a bit of buzz about this film, but wasn’t sure of it’s contents.  It really was excellent.  I would describe it as….

Unusual, original, touching, thought provoking, entertaining, relatively action packed and enjoyable.  Jonathan Ross has nothing on me!! (Apart from a few million quid).

District 9
An Alien Concept

Courtesy of another seamless link, Jonathan Ross leads me nicely onto the next topic buzzing through my head.  It won’t surprise many readers drawn here via a Disney web site to know that the topic is Florida. (Ross is a big fan, and regular visitor).  First it is important for me to point out that there is absolutely no chance of us affording a trip this year, however, this does not stop me pining for one.

Having had a trip to plan every year (once I had two) for, more or less the past decade, I am going through a sort of grieving process at my loss.  Louise isn’t helping.  Having not had the best start to the year, she is in “I need a holiday” mode, and she was in fact responsibe for me spending large chunks of the week, (absolutely not when I should have been working) checking flights, hotels, villas and all things Florida.

You see how Louise needing a holiday instantly prompts Florida research.  There was no requirement for a discussion around destination.  That ship has sailed…about a decade ago.  Alas, said research only confirmed my thinking that a trip will be beyond us.  Damn that Atlantic that we need to fly over.  Flights are just not findable for the £7.50 my budget will allow.

Still, we shall not write things off completely at this stage.  The event for which such a holiday would take place is a siginificant birthday for me, and that is in August.  So many weeks exist between then and now, where a lottery win could appear, or maybe some kind benefactor (maybe a Mr J Ross?) who maybe stumbles across this rambling and sends me a nice chunky cheque as gratitude for passing a few minutes of their lives in fine fashion.

So a busy week then, and I even managed to go to the gym three times!  A record for recent times, and my waistline is a constant reminder.

However the most stressful part of the past two weeks has not been coping with the house and kids alone whilst Louise was busy being ill, it was keeping Louise’s bloody Cafe World going on Facebook!!  A sign of the times.

Now, which flight web site have I not checked yet?

Till the next time……

Blinked and missed the week.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Having been a single parent all week, I can’t believe how busy I’ve been, and therefore how quickly time has flown since last weekend.

Louise is still in hospital, waiting for anything like a decent diagnosis, and is pretty fed up.  My car knows the route to the hospital without any assistance from me, and the days seem to fly by in a dizzying routine of work, visiting, eating crap, and collapsing into bed.

Work was nothing notable, although I did have a very interesting meeting with a lady called Suw (yes it really is spelt like that), to discuss the phenom….phunom….new thing that is social media and how we should be using it as a company to communicate with our customers.  Few things work related capture my interest these days, but this meeting was one of them.  The fact that things such as social media consultants exist blows my mind, and it echoes what the headmaster said at the girl’s school recently.  Apparently 40% of the pupils now in school will do jobs that don’t exist yet!!

Wham
George Michael is gay??? Really???

I believe that, as when I was at school, and Grange Hill was on TV, Wham in the charts and you could buy cans of Quattro, the idea of having a job that involved managing web sites would have been crazy, mainly as no-one would have known what a web site was!!  Anyway, that is what has happened to me, so goodness knows what the girls will do for a living.

Having just made myself sound about 206 years old, I should point out how young, credible and hip I am by telling you that I managed to actually purchase an item of clothing for Rebecca today, without her being there, that she likes and is willing to wear.  Fo Schnizel…as the young folk tend to say.

Forgive the brief nature of this entry, but my brain is frazzeled, my body weak, and I need to consume some mindless TV and/or play copious amounts of mindless X-Box games in an attempt to relax and unwind.

I shall hopefully post again during the week with news of Louise’s return home.  Fingers crossed.

Till the next time……

A&E and a few other vowels.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Louise is in hospital.

As we speak (well technically, we are not speaking, unless of course you are speaking whilst reading this, which is impressive muti tasking, and pretty unlikely, but I think you know what I mean) Louise is on ward F5 of the Royal Bolton Hospital.  I have no idea what makes a hospital Royal though, as I certainly don’t think any royalty have graced it.

Anyone who has known Louise for a period of time will know that this set of circumstances isn’t the most unusual in the world.  Indeed our annual passholder car park pass is again coming in handy, and it is always nice to be greeted by your first name and a wave as you enter A&E.  She has had a plethora (that in itself isn’t an illness) of ailments and operations over the years, and we are very well rehearsed at the trip to A&E scenario.

Friday saw another one.  I was at work, and Louise sent me a text that she was on her way to A&E having spent Thursday night in incredible pain.  As routine as this type of thing is, I was still less than happy that she had driven herself there.  Anyway, I left work and made my way to A&E, where we began the well known routine.

Step 1.

Try to explain to the thirteen year old doctor a forty year history of operations and procedures, guessing at dates, and wishing we’d written all this down.

Step 2.

Wait

Step 3.

Finally, Louise gets some proper pain relief and colour returns to cheeks.

Step 4.

Wait

Step 5.

Blood tests and Xray.

Step 6.

Wait.

Usually once the pain is managed and they can’t find any real reason for it, Louise is sent home, and wished well until the next time.  However this time she was admitted, as sometimes happens, for tests and stuff.

That was Friday.  Sunday morning has arrived and there has been little action to be honest, and the promised scans etc look like taking place tomorrow.

Rebecca at Hospital
Fringe with iPod

We visited last night, and took Louise the essentials.  Not Lucozade and flowers.  More like Clarins face wash, moistureiser and two Toffee Crisps.  Louise hadn’t eaten since mid Friday.

As this is week 2 of her Weight Watchers campaign (losing a healthy four pounds in Week 1) this nil by mouth apart from two toffee crisps should see further impressive results!

The girls took their own essentials, however Emily forgot her iPod earphones so they had to share.  We all have to make sacrifices at times like these I suppose.  The girls lasted a full ten minutes at bedside before becoming too loud and annoying for a very tired and morphine filled Louise so they were despatched to the shop for their own safety.  I lasted about an hour before I had the same effect, and was sent home.

So we’ll have to wait and see just how long Louise will be in, and in the mean time I am becoming a black belt at the washing machine, and will be ironing and stuff later.  Not that I don’t do this stuff normally of course!!

Add in the fact that I have to do the “big shop” too, and I could play the woe is me card.  However, it could be worse, I could be the one lay in hospital next to some less than dazzling company, from, (allow me to be a snob for a second) less celubrious areas of town, not knowing what is causing all this pain, and wondering what will happen next.

Plus how rubbish must it be to be in hospital at the same place you go to work everyday!!  Anyway, at least it means Louise’s boss can easily make sure she really is ill and not swinging lead or any other heavy metal.

Emily at Hospital
Other fringe with iPod

So as Sunday morning drifts into Sunday afternoon it is time to get the girls out of bed, unload the washer, load the dryer, hand out random chores to the girls, make sure they are doing that homework they have said they were doing all last week, then go to the supermarket, come home, put shopping away, make the girls some tea, have a row as they haven’t done that homework still, then go and visit Louise, and try not to get on her nerves too much, and come home.

Plus somewhere in all of that I have several hours of XBox to fit in.  I really don’t know how I shall!!

It’s not about nappies anymore…

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

There are certain times in a parent’s life when you see a definite shift in your relationship with your kids.

You know the sort of thing…when your twelve year old daughter gets pregnant and runs away with a forty three year old circus hand from Wakefield.  Thankfully, (touches wood, and I don’t mean anything smutty here) we haven’t come close to anything of such magnitude, but still this week a less shocking wake up call caught me off guard.

I have talked previously about Emily’s boyfriend, and my extreme regret that I did not hate him.  Well, sadly this relationship came to an end this week, and I had to endure the sight of Emily’s upset, knowing that no amount of kind words, tea and sympathy would make any difference.  There are no pills for a broken heart!  This sort of event has really snuck up on me, as in my mind Emily is still a little girl.  I appreciate that most fourteen year olds have a drug habit, mixed race child and a council house these days, but Emily is (perhaps in my rose tinted view) still a young fourteen year old.

So landmark events like a break up can bring home the reality that –

a) I am getting old

b) The girls are too, and are developing their own lives.

However, other very small things can also hit home too.  On Thursday the girls went to Manchester, on the train, on their own, straight from school.  Not a life changer, I admit, and indeed they have been before under their own steam, but I don’t know why but this sort of cemented the fact that they are quite capable of reading a time table, and not falling beneath a train!!

All Time Low
They wore more at the signing

Anyway, they went to attend a signing at a record shop.  They met All Time Low and The Blackout.  As some sort of weird contradiction, I have indeed heard of both of these, and can even claim to have some ATL (see, I talk in abbreviations I am so hip) on my iPod.  As I was driving home from work on Thursday I sent them both a text to

a) make sure they were still alive

b) see how they were getting on

Rebecca called me back.  Well, I think it was Rebecca, as that is the name my phone showed me.  The voice on the other end was somewhat drowned out by a thousand pubescent girls screaming random names.  Rebecca herself spoke to me in a voice so high one of my ear drums burst.  Just as I thought she could not get any higher she moved up a gear, in both pitch and volume, I think, telling me something about (insert name of ATL lead singer) saying “Hi” and telling her he liked her T Shirt.

Emily, being all cool, replied to my text in abbreviations I’m not sure I fully understood to tell me she had met The Blackout and they had all signed her schoolbag.  I am writing to their management to request a full reimbursement!!!

Anyway, back to the small event….you remember???

After picking them up at the train station (and dropping their friend off, why is it always us who do all the running round???) I stopped at the local chip shop so they could get a healthy and nutricious meal.  On auto pilot I park up and start to get out of the car.  At the same time they did the same, and look at me in a  ‘We are quite capable of getting our own chips” way.

So they did, and as I watched them cross the road, and walk to the shop I realised

a) just how tall they are getting

b) that I almost didn’t recognise them with their masses of hair, fringe and that loping teenager walk.

So after realising that my worth to them is diminishing with every day, and planning just when to get my mid life crisis sports car delivered, I consoled myself with the fact that twenty four hours earlier I had sat on Emily’s bed, with her hugging me tightly whilst the tears flowed.  Emily was also quite upset about her break up, and I didn’t cry for too long!!!

So maybe my usefulness is just changing.  No longer do I need to change nappies full of brightly coloured nuclear waste, and wander zombie like into the kitchen, in just my underwear, at some silly hour to warm a bottle of milk.  However, I do run a decent taxi service, can (almost) fund their dizzying social life, and every now and again be a shoulder to cry on when disaster strikes.

So I’ll keep doing that until I have to remortgage the house to fund their weddings (in Florida….it is my only condition), and hunt down and destroy any other spotty little herbert who thinks he has the right to break either of their hearts.  Frankly, there isn’t a boy in existence worthy of either, so good luck trying lads.  I’ll be watching.

Till the next time……