Mkingdon's Blog

A Capital Weekend

14/08/201607/06/2020 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

This is a first. I’m on the train back from London blogging from my phone. The typos will be numerous….

We’ve just had a lovely and at times very emotional weekend in the capital celebrating Emily’s recent 21st. We decided to take her to watch Les Miserables in the West End. It’s a show she has been listening to for as long as she can remember. She used to pretend to be Cosette and do the Castle in the Cloud number in our front room at a very young age.

When they made the film version it became an obsession and she watched it more times than I can count.

So our journey began yesterday with the 9.23 out of Manchester and quite possibly the worst breakfast from one of those food court thingies at Piccadilly. I had forgotten I’d upgraded us to first class on the way down so that expense and experience were not necessary after all. We made use of the free coffee at least as we sped South.

We Ubered to the Holiday Inn in Mayfair for less than the tube would have cost us and we were able to check in early and dump our stuff in the room.

We had a wander across to Buckingham Palace and as you do we bought our 21 year old daughter a stuffed corgi from the shop over the road.

We then wandered aimlessly for a bit through the parks nearby and ended up in Trafalgar Square. After a bit of a sit down we wandered into the National Gallery for some culture. That lasted about ten minutes before Louise’s face told me we’d had enough of that.

We walked back to the hotel enjoying the history and architecture (hark at me, ten minutes in a gallery and I’m John Humphreys) whilst Louise moaned about her aching feet. Those dolly shoes were no match for mine and Emily’s trainers!!

Showers baths and resting happened before another Uber down to Shaftesbury Avenue. With the myriad of top class dining options at her disposal Emily had chosen to eat at the Rainforest Cafe.

We were seated quickly after I had used all my powers of persuasion to have the bartender serve Emily some alcohol. Nachos to share as an appetiser before the mains arrived.

We were stuffed and all of my dessert intentions were cast aside as my belt rebelled against my stomach.

With a few beers, wines and multiple cocktails it was £130ish. Pricey but good fun and it was for a special occasion.

We then made our way down to the theatre.

At this point Emily was shaking with excitement. After ordering our interval drinks we made our way to Row C. Well done to whoever secured those gems!!

Emily started crying somewhere in the opening number and was a gibbering wreck for most of the show until the end. The emotional peaks were the end of the first act which is a proper goosebumps and lump in the throat thing and of course the finale which if it doesn’t get you right in the feels you need to seek medical help. The theatre is surprisingly small as was the cast but the noise they generate is incredible.

Wonderful music, singing and staging led to us being on our feet cheering as they took their bows. We were so close that a few of the cast could see Emily in bits, make up down her face as they took the deserved standing ovation!

We strolled back to the hotel with the tears still flowing and as we had a nightcap in the hotel bar she still could not gather herself. Rest assured she loved it….a lot.

Sunday morning was a lazy one with brunch in a nearby eatery with terrible service and decent food followed by a look around the shops before getting on the train.

It’s been a dear do of course but an experience Emily will never forget and therefore of course money well spent.

I’m now going back to concentrating on not throwing up as I’m travelling backwards at high speed with blurry countryside to my right. Ugh.

Till the next time….

Sent from my iPhone.

Bait and Switch

07/08/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Despite me boring you all to tears with the blow by blow account of my planning adventures (and I had, believe it or not, edited out a lot of stuff) following last week’s update there were still some twists and turns to go.

The final link in the chain that did not want to get sorted was our Siesta Key booking. I consider myself fairly experienced in this DIY holiday malarkey but even I was stunned and shocked at some of the stuff I have come across.

I had spent a good deal of time on sites like HomeAway, VRBO and even Trip Advisor looking at and enquiring about properties. As I have said before, Siesta Key has very few hotels and even fewer within striking distance of the beach and village so it was always going to be a private rental.

Now, call me old-fashioned but when you see something online that gives you a price once you enter the required information, in this case, dates and number of people, you would expect that to be the price you were going to pay. There are rules about this stuff…believe me, I do it for a living.

However on more than one occasion, including the property I linked to last week, the web site offering that property at a given price then only gave me the option to Enquire Now, despite showing me a detailed breakdown of the costs involved. I waited longer than was ideal for a response and I then got quite a terse reply telling me that the costs would actually be about 30% higher than shown on the web site I had seen the property on. This wasn’t the only time it happened during my planning travels and they typically then tend to send you a link to a different website, managed directly by them where these new prices are shown.

These websites tend to look like something a teenager built in 2003 and haven’t been touched since. They offer no online booking facilities and do indeed give these new prices the tetchy owner is claiming to be correct. I honestly felt guilty for –

a) having insulted them by daring to want to book their property at the (originally) advertised price

b) querying why the price had risen by a good few hundred dollars

It won’t surprise you to know that I walked away from that particular deal without further discussion. I believe the term I’m looking for here is bait and switch.

Anyway, later that night, using a site I had heard much of but had never used, I found a suitable property on AirBnB. Crucially I was able to book there and then at the advertised price and things such as the cancellation terms etc were also clearly shown.

So, after what seems an endless search, seventeen false starts and more stress than it should have caused, here is where we will be staying in Siesta Key.

It is a little bit further away from our ideal location than I might have liked, but the more realistic price and extra space clinched it. It is literally steps from the beach and a ten minute walk to the main street of the village where all the food and stuff is. I also remembered a chat I had with a blog reader (Thanks Mark) months ago when I first mentioned Siesta Key about free taxis operating on the island, so if needed we will use those if the walk is just too much our sun soaked bodies.

Finally, surely now, we are all sorted. I have marked the calendar with important dates about the booking of dining and fastpass stuff and I can now start to fill in each day with some plans. You’ll know by now that this starts with our eatery of choice for the day and we work backwards from there. There was a minor crisis when I realised that we simply didn’t have enough days in Orlando to get all our favourites in but I think I’ve resolved that by finding some of the chain restaurants we love, such as Olive Garden and Applebees close to Siesta Key, which frees up a couple of meals for our limited time in Orlando.

With Mum and Dad now coming along, thoughts turn to maybe fitting in a game of golf with my Dad and again that is likely to be somewhere close to Siesta Key as our Orlando time is too precious.

The basis of the plan currently involves the likes of Teak, Cowfish, Market Street Cafe (Celebration), Bahama Breeze, O’hana, Sanaa, Outback, Olive Garden, Applebees and Beaches & Cream. We also somehow have to fit in the new Toothsome Chocolate Factory place at Universal…

Credit to Insidethemagic.net for the image…..

I don’t know about you but that’s made me hungry so I’m off to eat something….

Till the next time…..

Everything’s Changing….But Planning Isn’t a Pain.

31/07/201631/07/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

I had three days off work this week. I had booked them to do some decorating following our recent builder visit. However, the plasterer who needs to get our walls ready for that decorating seems to be a relative of Ronnie Biggs (ask your Dad) and has thus far not materialised.

You can imagine how upset I was not being able to decorate. Instead, those three days flew by in a whirl of nothingness. I am honestly struggling to remember anything I did during that time. I’ll take that as a good sign.

What I have had to do recently is completely re-engineer our holiday. For reasons I won’t trouble you with, we had to move the dates of our trip from March until April next year and this took a fair amount of my planning expertise to execute. Half way through that re-engineering our party size grew a little too.

This trip started out as just Louise and I, planning to indulge in the beach and endless nights at Jellyrolls. Then Emily confirmed she would allow me to pay for her to come with us shortly afterwards, which didn’t change much at all and finally, as I was in the middle of moving stuff to the new dates a tipsy conversation between Louise and my parents resulted in them coming along too.

This was a real test of my planning skills and Florida knowledge. We had pushed the boat out accommodation wise. It was pricey enough when we booked all this pre-Brexit vote, but now with the dollar rate being shite, the costs were just out of the question for a retired couple.

So, I deployed ninja like planning skills to make this work.

So we are now going on April 10th, with Virgin. For the first five nights we are at Royal Pacific Resort and I have got Mum and Dad into the Holiday Inn Across From Universal Orlando. Honestly, that is what it is called. The idea is I can nip over to pick them up or Uber can do the honours. They won’t have Front of Line of course but it matters little as the big rides never interested my Mum and my Dad is recognising that at almost 80 and with heart trouble, endlessly riding the Hulk isn’t the best of ideas!

Then we head off to Siesta Key for a week. Luckily I had free cancellation on our booking there so I cancelled our property there and I have now booked a three bed place instead for us all. That sounds simple enough but there have been a few false starts and it feels like 27 changes of plan with regards to our stay there. Hopefully, now we are locked and loaded here.

This video includes our property and a few others, but it is just nice to look at Siesta Key!

It is safe to say I know Siesta Key as well as it is possible to know anywhere without actually visiting it.

For our last few nights we were booked into The Swan. Alas, it was not available for our new dates so we were looking at other on site options. Again, we had free cancellation so that was not a problem. For years we have vowed to stay within walking distance to Jellyrolls to do it without me drinking Diet Coke and after flirting with other, cheaper options such as Old Key West, and sacrificing that dream, I bit the bullet and the extra cost and went for the Beach Club. Of course, once my Mum and Dad were coming the silly costs for that were not an option with the $ rate now at less than 1.3 so a plan was hatched.

They will stay at the All Star Sports at a price so low that for a few seconds I considered doing the same and saving a small fortune. I have resisted. You live but once. They can bus, Uber or be picked up from there as it is just ten minutes from us.

So thinking about it, those three days off were not spent decorating. Instead they were spent buried deep in accommodation web sites conjuring up options so complex the CIA have recruited me into their Cyber Ops team. (Guess who watched Jason Bourne last night!)

Despite the extra hassle of rearranging all of this, it has meant that I have had two bites at the planning cherry and as a good few of you will appreciate, that is a big part of the fun of these trips.

Right time to go. We are off to meet Jakki, Steve, Aodhan and Naimh (long term Disney/Dibb friends that we usually meet in WDW) for some ten pin bowling and food (seperately) as they staying in Manchester.

Till the next time…..

A Little Less 21 Candles….

24/07/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

I often see posts on Facebook where parents are wondering where the time went before telling everyone that their child is now whatever age they are. I’ve done similar many times I’m sure.

The perception is that you blink and then somehow find your kids are no longer kids, you are three stone heavier and persistently feel the need to nap. Just me? OK.

I think I know where the time goes. It passes at the same rate whether you are doing something you hate or something you love, it’s just that you just tend to block out the former and so your memory recalls only a percentage of all the days, minutes and seconds you’ve spent with your kids. It’s a bit like childbirth. Lord knows I was mentally scarred by the pain of horror of it all the first time around. How Rebecca came to be I don’t know, as after all that sitting around and waiting for Emily to pop out, you would have thought it had put me off for life!

This time perception confusion is just one of life’s mysteries, like why I’m still paying the mobile phone bills for my daughters every month even though they are 19 and 21!

Yes, Emily turns 21 next week and we have been out this weekend to celebrate that with some of the family. As usual, a Williams celebration involved food, and probably more than was healthy or necessary. The main benefit of this milestone is that she’ll be able to come to Jellyrolls with us when we go on holiday next year! This is great news as up until now we’ve had to leave the kids outside with of bottle of pop and a rape alarm.

I think she will need to carry ID well into her forties though as she has never looked her age. This burden will become easier to tolerate as she gets older I’m sure.

It is only natural for me to treat any meal out as an excuse to pretend I’m doing a trip report and take pictures of everyone and more importantly their food. For anyone localish we went to the Retreat in Adlington and it was lovely.

Here are Rebecca and Tom doing a good job of being cheerful even though food has not yet arrived.

Emily and her Nana…..

Food at last, this was Emily’s Beef Nachos appetiser (yes I said appetiser, what of it?)

Louise and I had Halloumi Fritters, but I believe there is an over the counter cream for that….

Tom, quite rightly ordered using the “which dish is the biggest” method and went for an appetiser of “Meat Platter”. He also had half of Rebecca’s garlic bread and finished off Emily’s nachos.

Most of us had the Jack Daniels Bourbon Beef Skewer, which is not a euphemism.

A few cocktails later….

I am clearly out of practice as I’d started my dark chocolate cheesecake before remembering to take a photo…

Emily had Creme Brulee, which I finished off.

Once we were back home the inevitable Disney themed cake was set on fire with twenty-one candles.

Emily’s birthday is not actually till Tuesday and she shares it with Oli. Look how happy he is about it!

Emily with her Grandma who is clearly off her nut on champagne and frosting.

Emily picked up quite a few of her presents last night with a couple to come on Tuesday no doubt. Her main present from us is a trip to London in a couple of weeks to watch Les Miserables in the West End. She may never stop crying!

Happy Birthday Pud. Here come the usual collection of photos that will embarrass you…..

Till the next time…….

Ain’t That The Tooth?

17/07/201617/07/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Years ago, when the girls were at school and we still did things like put them to bed, I remember many an evening sat on the foot of one of their beds listening to them fret about some upcoming event at school that they were not looking forward to. At the time it wasn’t appropriate for me to then spend an hour telling them about all the stuff I had coming up that I didn’t fancy either and instead I would do my best to reassure them that everything would be OK. I would tell them that worrying about this stuff would do no good and once whatever they were dreading had happened they would no doubt realise that it wasn’t actually as bad as they imagined and they would wonder why they worried so much in the first place.

These days of course my advice is seldom asked for, yet I still cast it, like bread onto a pond without ducks whilst they feign interest and resist the urge to roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders.

Last week’s blog was filled with me whining about my impending dental treatment and I have to admit that I spent a good deal of time with it on my mind. It was casting an ugly shadow over what was already looking like a crap week as we were having the house taken apart to improve it. I did not, it probably won’t surprise you, follow the golden advice outlined above that I used to impart to the girls.

As they always do, Tuesday rolled around and I made my way to the dentist feeling less than enthusiastic. Once in the waiting room I was having to do breathing exercises to prevent some sort of cardiac mishap before I was called into THE CHAIR. I assumed the position, put on the protective orange Roy Orbison glasses and paper bib and girded my loins for an abundance of pain.

“I’ll just take a quick X-Ray to see what we’re dealing with” said my dentist before leaving the room to expose me to dangerous amounts of gamma rays just like David Banner.

“Don’t make me petrified, you wouldn’t like me when I’m petrified!” I replied.

She retired to somewhere behind me to look at said X-Ray and after a couple of tuts and a sigh asked me to join her there. I stumbled across the room, confused by the out of focus orange blur everything had become to look at an image of what I assumed were my teeth.

To cut a long story short, she wasn’t happy to proceed with what she had planned as I had a shorter than expected root. Insult to injury sprang to mind, but sensing the chance to leave the place minus any pain or financial exploitation I did. The plan is to “wait and see” and review it all again in six months. I have several options at that point it seems, none of which cost less than a grand unless I have things extracted. I pray then to God of dentistry that whatever glue she used to stick my implant back in is like that Ultra No Nails stuff they sell in B&Q.

If not, well, faced with those potential costs, I think this is a good look…

You may wonder, as have I since, why she did not take that X-Ray when I went to have my implant stuck back in and she told me what the longer term solution was. My short root was, after all, of her doing when I endured the horrors of root canal work “under” her. Had she X-Rayed me back then it would have saved me many hours of fretful nonsense and it would have removed the need for you poor souls to listen to me whine about it.

Anyway, not only have I avoided something I was dreading, but I have proved once for all that I know best, my advice is gold dust and I should be heeded and obeyed at all times….girls……are you listening? Girls?! Oh never mind.

As Ying to that Yang however, the pain of the disruption to the house has been very real. Every evening has been spent moving all our furniture from one room to another, stripping wallpaper and generally not being able to relax. We’re not 100% finished but things are almost back to normal and I am telling myself the worst is over. That’s a lie of course as now we have to re-decorate the living and dining rooms. My lack of interest in such a task is only matched by my lack of prowess to do it well.

So having learned a great lesson this week about how worrying doesn’t help, things are rarely as bad as you imagine them and I am a big nancy when it comes to a dental visit, the only thing left for me to do is to create some inspirational message about all of this, add it to some suitably inspiring stock photograph and launch it at Facebook for everyone to like, share, comment on and then do exactly the opposite when they have shit to deal with.

Till the next time…..

Builder Me Up Buttercup

10/07/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

We’re busy today so this won’t take long to read. We have impending building work about to take place in the World of Williams and so today we are clearing out two cupboards that are about to be removed. You may relate to the fact that over the years these have become a dumping ground for all that stuff you think you have to keep but haven’t used or looked at this stuff since you crammed into that cupboard all those years ago.

It’s been a morning of mixed emotions as we throw away a lot of the crap in there along with lots of sighing at old school photos of the girls, drawings they did and a clay cow one of them made which has clearly been exposed to radiation. This picture is one of my favourites….

I hate the process of having work done to the house. Disruption does not sit well with me so the coming week or so will not be a comfortable one for me. We’re having a wooden floor through the dining and living room along with the removal of said cupboards, which currently sit in the alcoves either side of our dining room fireplace, which is also about to bite the dust. Louise is a big fan of the phrase less is more and so renovations tend to take the form of removing stuff and making things simpler.

So we have spent all morning cramming the stuff we “really” want to keep into other already full cupboards around the house. We need a bigger house or less stuff…or maybe both.

Speaking of removing stuff. One day last week I was minding my own business eating my lunch when disaster struck. Mid plum, I thought I felt the plum stone floating around in my mouth. Upon removing it, I felt as sick as you will when reading this, to discover it was my “implant” that I had fitted into one of my tooth holes when I endured root canal work a couple of years ago. In deep shock, my mind raced at the pain and expense this would inevitably lead to. I called the dentist immediately to get an appointment.

I had to wait until the following morning, with what felt like a hole this size in my mouth.

Eating was tricky and I didn’t sleep too well as I am a massive coward when it comes to the dentist. Thank Mr Stevens, my childhood dentist, who took pleasure from pain.

Thankfully, my dentist was able to glue that thing back in fairly easily but of course, life is never that simple. It needs a more long-term solution involving procedures that make my toes curl and my wallet weep. I am back there on Tuesday to have things like rods fitted and a crown added, which spookily costs what a real crown does. The fun doesn’t end there. Nope, this is a two visit procedure, so the misery and anticipation stretch out for weeks.

I am in no way feeling nervous about it……..

So if you had to dream up a really crappy week for me, you would have the builders in my house and my mouth at the same time. Still at least I get to go to work too!! I can’t wait.

Till the next time…..

My Work Here Isn’t Done

03/07/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Well, I don’t care how you voted, the past week has been a shambles and an embarrassment to the country. What a depressing state of affairs that those who are supposed to be in charge of shit have just confirmed that they are in fact a set of self-serving cockwombles.

Our current reality makes The Thick Of It look like an episode of Panorama. Although I would like to unleash a real life Malcolm Tucker around Westminster to sort a few of these expenses cheating, personal agenda obsessed , out of touch with reality shit gibbons out.

As for the football. I have previous experience of being Hodgsoned as I am a Liverpool supporter. Never have I experienced a more tepid, expectation lowering, confidence sapping charlatan as good old Roy. The showing of the England team at the Euros was just the shot in the arm the country needed after such a harrowing and worrying week. Thanks!

Anywho, whilst the Western world crumbled around us, last week brought us some good news. Rebecca passed her driving test!

It is to her credit that she did so in torrential rain and terrible driving conditions. Her teacher had no time for such conditions being used as an excuse for not taking the promotional photo for Facebook, hence Rebecca’s vain attempts to protect her “do” with her hood in the photo!

This passing of the test is good news for several reasons. She’s been at it a while, through no fault of her own. She had to change teachers half way through which set her back a bit, and then took a break from lessons for a few months for reasons I wont bother you with and at one stage was specialising in failing her theory test by one mark.

Anyway, on her second attempt she passed and is now trying to comprehend that she never has to do that again and is free to go out and drive whenever she likes, once she has sold some internal organs to enable her to be insured on a car.

It feels like a landmark for Louise and I too. It’s one of the final commitments we feel as parents in setting the girls up with the right life skills. This is now added to the list of all the other major developmental and life landmarks, such as –

Breathing
Eating
Sleeping (although Rebecca took longer to master this than driving by about three years!)
Not going to the toilet in their clothes
Getting them into the right nursery, primary school, secondary school….
Riding a bike
Attempting to learn about seventeen different musical instruments only then to decide they weren’t that bothered really
Their first discos
First roller coasters
GCSEs
A Levels
Proms
Jobs
etc etc etc

It’s funny that as you come up to each of these landmarks they are seen as tasks and challenges to get through and as soon as they are behind you, you feel better for it. This tends to prevent you from appreciating and enjoying the landmark for what it is.

At the risk of sounding all poncy and introspective, these things are the destination, not just the journey. You tend to rush at them, driven by the fear that your children will be slower, worse, or in some other way lesser to those other kids we all know who have parents that have all their shit together. They only feed their kids organic pulses, spend three hours every night doing homework and wholesome activities and restrict them to ten minutes a week online.

Well, we were typically too tired for all that and we bumbled our way through parenthood, I suspect, like most do, allowing Lizzy McGuire and That’s So Raven to be a fairly large part of their childhoods, happy to get to the next weekend and another half arsed attempt at a lie in. Constantly being the parents who discovered at 10pm the night before that they needed something for school the next day that was definitely unobtainable at 10pm the night before, we had times when we felt like terrible parents for letting them down. In that blur of their early years, through unending tiredness, attempts to build some sort of career and still be something resembling a parent we were hopefully somewhere above average.

With them both able to drive it feels like we must be coming to the end of that list now. Once we’ve tucked away a wedding a piece, maybe some kids, their first houses, a bit of baby sitting and interfering in how they bring their kids up we should be…wait….oh crap, this stuff never ends does it??

Till the next time…..

Man With A Plan

26/06/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Last week felt like a long one didn’t it? Or was that just me? It may not have helped that I had a life threatening cold for most of it. It’s always surprising to rediscover just how bloody awful you can feel with just a cold.

As I sat in the office sniffing and coughing up vital organs, all I could hear around me was colleagues doing the same thing. The first day of summer seems to have brought with it a plague that is sweeping through the nation. Apart from fighting off a deadly virus last week was fairly quiet. Oh apart from the political infrastructure collapsing, friends and family turning on each other and Facebook becoming a more dangerous battle ground than Afghanistan.

I’ve never done politics here and won’t start now but by Christ what a mess we seem to have found ourselves in. Good luck to those now charged with sorting it all out.

Whilst the voting was going on we had a band rehearsal. We are pretty much reinventing our whole set as we find ourselves having to replace a member of the band. It’s a gentle and amicable hand over so we’re taking the opportunity to make some big changes to the songs we do as they have been largely the same for some time now. It’s good fun learning new stuff, although when you are musically barely competent as I am, the main panic when someone suggests a song to do is the fear that you won’t be capable of playing it. Although the only thing worse than that is when you have learned a song and then it’s discovered that we need to do it in a different key and then my tiny brain has to move everything I just learned to new places on the fret board. I envy those with real musical ability!

This weekend I have been employed as a Disney planner. Naturally, as this was for Rebecca and Tom, there was no fee involved. They had thought of holidaying somewhere exotic and beachy, such as Bali, but with some more thought and of course encouragement from me, they have moved their plans to Florida. It made perfect sense (to me anyway) as their requirements were sun, stuff to do, great food in large quantities and a flight time under double figures.

Tom is an eater of epic ability. He has never been to Florida and I suspect he may never return to the UK as it is surely his spiritual home. Due to their age, hiring a car becomes expensive so I have suggested an on-site package, with Magical Express at a value resort. Between Disney buses and Uber they can get where they want to get to for a lot less than the very high surcharges hire car companies tend to charge for those under 25.

The free memory maker now included in these packages is quite handy when travelling as a couple, otherwise you struggle to get photos of the two of you together. However, the dining plan offer has never really appealed to me and I have passed that prejudice on in my advice. Rebecca wants to take Tom to the places we have always loved such as Applebees, Teak, Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze etc and so the restriction of always eating on site wouldn’t really suit them.

Anyway, their planning is in early stages and they may change destination entirely, but again it seems the pulling power of the Sunshine State is strong, especially if you ask me for holiday advice!!

On the subject of the plans for Louise and I in March, I haven’t done a great deal more than pencil in a rough sketch of the theme park days and of course where to eat on those days. Most of our trip is beach based so the planning requirements are less demanding. There’ll be more to do once the ADR window opens up in September and then FP+ in January. Hopefully the dollar rate will rally between now and then, but my breath is not held.

So it seems my use as Taxi Dad is not what it was, but I still come in handy when it comes to holiday planning. I think that’s not a bad deal!

Till the next time…..

Full House

19/06/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

It’s been an odd time of late. I feel like I’ve been in a bit of a funk for a while without really knowing why. I suppose we’ve been through an unusually high number of changes and challenges as a family recently which may be the root cause. For all the crap I do share here, anything that’s really personal, I tend not to. That rule was made even stricter by the incredible trolling, vitriol and in some cases the very real and personal threats messaged to us after Emily’s first go at working for Disney was cut short. If you think I’ve been radio silent about that whole experience since, you now know why.

Anyway, much water has passed and if I’m to continue to bother blogging at all (and at times it’s been a close call) then I should return to sharing as I used to or what’s the point? This thing started as a personal diary anyway, so if I don’t document what’s going on then when I read it back it will be worth little.

I digress. I suppose the largest reason for this feeling of funk may be the all too familiar empty nest syndrome. You may recall that as we returned from holiday last September we did so to find two empty bedrooms where the two largest parts of our lives used to be. For anyone, that can take some getting used to. It had been coming a while, but as we left one daughter in America and waved another off to her new home with her boyfriend we just sort of got on with life. Don’t get me wrong, in some ways it was great, peaceful, less stressful and definitely cheaper, but after giving so much of our time, hearts, wages and attention to two other human beings, not having them around was an adjustment and a half.

It’s as clichéd as the mid-life crisis to document the ins and outs of that empty nest experience so I wont. Some ten months on from that return from holiday and as inevitably as my waistline increasing year by year, things have changed once again. In that time we’ve experienced a couple of things with the girls that I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but life doesn’t let you choose and after these events knock a bit more stuffing out of you, all you can do is dust yourself down and attempt another run at stuff. Personally, I’d say those two things have been the toughest things I’ve (as yet) had to deal with but that’s my job I suppose. Pardon the lack of detail. If you knew those details you would understand.

Anyway, to avoid this whole post being one big digression, I can now report that we find ourselves with a full house once again, because as of a few weeks ago, Rebecca returned home to complete the set after she and her boyfriend decided that this house renting lark was all too expensive and was severely restricting their fun and shopping activities. So we are not only back up to the full complement of Williams’s, we have an extra one for luck in the shape of Tom, Rebecca’s boyfriend, living here too. So much for that empty nest.

As much as the battle for the bathroom is real, it’s no real hardship having the house full again. Ultimately, if they are both happy, healthy and settled then despite all of our huge parenting mistakes, dropped balls and abandoned good intentions over the years, it’s all we can hope and aspire to. It doesn’t stop me fretting, faffing and fiddling in and around their lives and I don’t suppose I ever will. It also doesn’t stop us having those head in hands moments at some of their decisions, choices and cock ups but as adults now, those are theirs to make. My priceless advice to the girls is normally greeted with the same attention as a party political broadcast. I give it anyway as it will at least allow me the odd “I Told You So” somewhere down the line.

On the subject of advice, I can often be found boring any new parent to death about two things –

As your kids get older, the problems and stress don’t decrease, they just change into different problems and stress.
There is no ideal age to take your children to Disney World. Only worry when you can’t take them, and at any time you can, you should.

These new parents don’t even have to ask for that advice. I force it upon them, àpropos of nothing, uninvited with great gusto.

At least now with everyone back at Casa Williams, there may well be content worthy of some blogging which will save you all from my weekly moans about all sorts of oblique nonsense that nobody cares about.

So to bring everyone totally up to speed with happenings in the World of Williams, Louise has a new job, working in operating theatres at a local hospital and has now been a qualified nurse for over a year, Rebecca, as well as being back at home is doing really well in her apprenticeship at a local nursery and Emily has a full-time job too and is actually lucky enough to work with me now, learning lots, mainly about how absolutely shite my commute has been all these years.

I continue to work for far too many days a week, whilst not having sufficient time to research holidays, play bass in my band or write that second book which still sits there taunting me with its incompleteness.

So to end this post, with some appropriate Father’s Day advice, if you are one of my younger readers, do yourself a favour and listen to your Dad (and Mum) every now and again. We’re not always right but the percentages are high and whilst you’re at it, clean your rooms, run the Hoover around without being asked every now and again and take less time in the shower.

Till the next time……

The Top Three Things I Hate About Blogging – You Won’t Believe Number 3!!

12/06/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Did you click that link to find out what number 3 is? I don’t hate blogging of course. Imagine someone using a blog post title to encourage clicks. These days it seems that everyone has a blog. Most seem to have one or two posts on them from 2011 before they realise that it’s actually quite difficult to think of something to write on a regular basis.

It is only my compulsive, task driven, incompletion averse personality that compels me to write this thing every week. I don’t really consider myself a normal blogger, mainly as I don’t have a theme. I’m definitely not a Disney blogger although many of my posts talk about it. A Disney blogger, to me, is someone who has the patience and time to find out everything that is going on in that world and write informative, fact based posts that help others keep up.

I don’t have the time or inclination to do that to be honest and so my Disney content is only personal to me and what is relevant to my next trip. I could never keep up to date with everything going on and I’d never be able to publish that before the four trillion other Disney bloggers do. Most of my posts are just me moaning about the twists and turns of my average, middle class, middle of the road life with hopefully enough humility and bits of humour to keep them readable.

Anyway, I do have a few pet peeves about blogs in general, so let’s see if I can get to three…

Click bait titles – If you see one, (like the one I used) then click it with the knowledge that it’s being used for a reason. Every blogger wants views. Although I don’t blog to get a certain number of views I am pleased when a post I write gets more than usual. Everyone likes that sort of pat on the back. I don’t monetise my blog with ads (if you see any, they are placed by WordPress and I don’t see a penny), but for those who do, then these types of teaser titles are mainly looking to drive numbers up and page impressions mean ad views which ultimately means more cash.
Quitters – Blog or do not, there is no try. I understand this is due to my Type A personality, but if you’re going to announce to the world that you’re going to be blogging and sharing your wisdom and wit, don’t pack it in after the traditional “Hello World!” post.
Over promoters – Look, I blogged, read it, like it, share it. Everyone does different stuff to attract readers to their blog but there is a limit and if I see the same post tweeted out forty-seven times a day, I tend not to read it on principle.

I’m a moaning git aren’t I? Of course these days, blogging is a bit last decade and the big thing is vlogging. The rise of the YouTuber (along with smartphones, tablets and smart TVs) will continue to revolutionise how we watch content over the next few decades. We’re already seeing big time YouTubers crossing over now on to mainstream broadcast media and in the Disney community there are thousands of them. The Trackers are the only ones I watch semi-regularly as they produce enjoyable, interesting and engaging content presented nicely.

Vlogging is not for me. I don’t have the personality or delivery to carry that off so I salute those who do it well. For me, beyond being engaging on-screen and knowing how to deliver to camera well, the real skill with vlogging is editing. If I can get through someone’s vlog without wanting to fast forward huge chunks of it I’m pretty likely to watch future videos.

On the flip side, some more traditional celebs have taken to YouTube to engage with their fans and they are becoming almost as well-known for that as they are for their original career. Tom Fletcher falls into that category and he and his extended family have always seemed very switched on to potential of social media.

I’m not an expert blogger by any means. I probably make loads of mistakes on a regular basis, but for me it’s not that important as I don’t make money from it, I don’t live or die by how many people read this guff and you, dear reader, tend to be very loyal and forgiving of some of the crap I churn out. For me, it started out as an experiment to better understand blogs (which back in 2009 were still fairly new) and a bit of a diary to track what happens as life flashes by at a million miles an hour. I do dip into the archives every now again to read in great detail what I was whinging about in 2011.

If you’ve thought about doing a blog, maybe started one and stopped, I would encourage you to give it a go. For me, and in my very own personal worthless opinion, you have to write for yourself first about stuff you care about or are just thinking about at the time and see if anyone else likes it too. I am sure over the years I’ve purposefully written stuff I know would appeal but I suspect that’s a symptom of having to think of a post every week! If any of you do blog, or are going to, send me a link and I’ll happily share it out here in a future post which may send my reader your way!

Till the next time……

Driven to Despair

05/06/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

It’s been one of those odd weeks where I’ve been very busy but now as I sit down to write about it, there’s not a lot I can tell you! That isn’t, as you may have spotted, an auspicious start to any blog post.

Having been stung by over sharing historically I tend to share less of our weekly goings on here these days, not that anyone would be enthralled by news of my ten miserable commutes to and from Manchester anyway, but you never know who reads this stuff and so the content tends to be a little different these days.

The one outstanding event of the week came on Friday afternoon, and I use the word outstanding to mean that it stood out from the rest of the week, not necessarily that is was good. Having been a blatant criminal recently and driven at 47mph in a 40mph zone, which was I should say a three lane dual carriageway, recently changed from a 50mph zone, I found myself with a lovely letter from Greater Manchester Police.

I had three choices –

Three points and fine
A speed awareness course and a fine
Go to court and fight my case based upon the mitigating circumstances above and the fact that I was driving to work and I couldn’t see the signs through my tears.

Sensibly and predictably I took option 2 and Friday was the day. Very quickly, I was debating with myself if three points really would have been such a bad thing. Firstly the weather was tremendous and having sacrificed half a day’s holiday there were better uses of it I’m sure. Secondly, the clock in the room was faulty. How else can it be explained that the scheduled four hours took nine and a half days to pass?

Thirdly, the entire content of the course could have been summarised into about ten minutes of “driving fast isn’t a good thing so don’t” and then had us read the relevant bits of The Highway Code again. I am not of course stupid enough to think that me going over the speed limit is a good thing and generally I am a safe and conservative driver. Again, it was a THREE LANE dual carriageway (as denoted by the central barrier…they told me that on the course, but I knew anyway!) that had been 50mph since time began, but the tortuous pace at which the course was delivered was only made worse by the other participants reciting back key phrases to the instructors like some motor based group of Moonies.

Sitting through four hours of –

“Do we think that an extra five miles an hour can make a difference if we hit someone?”

Then to endure a few more minutes of folks agreeing that yes it can…”cos you’re like, going faster, and it will hurt more like and that’s bad” soon became old…..after about twelve minutes.

“Now, as a group, discuss the things that make you drive over the limit”.

Dear God, I’d rather burn my car right here in the car park and walk to work. It would be quicker anyway.

The last ten minutes of the course were tortuous. I gazed out of the window at those lucky enough to be driving past (over the speed limit no doubt) whilst the clock I was watching went backwards. I suppose the deterrent is that I NEVER want to have to sit through one of those courses again…ever…in my lifetime or the next.

I’m sure I benefited in some way and for the next few days/weeks/months I’ll no doubt think more whilst I’m driving. It’s hard to concentrate though when you have a tweet to finish and your sandwich is falling apart in your lap.

So kids, the message is, don’t drive faster than you should. It’s a bad thing. Mainly as you lose four hours of your life and have to sit next to Cockney Ian who doesn’t have an inside voice or any sense of personal space who wants to tell the whole group about how he got caught speeding despite the fact that his ten minute story is expanding the length of the course and shortening his potential life span as I contemplate implanting my free pen into his neck.

Oh and if a road has street lights on it, it’s a 30mph speed limit. So you now know everything I learned!

Till the next time…..

Being poorly and purile

29/05/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

I have to admit to not feeling my best today. It can’t be the usual Sunday malaise brought on by impending work and some shite period drama on telly, as work is not on the horizon until Tuesday, so I must be ill for realz. I can’t put my finger on what it is, other than feeling less than great, a bit tired, sluggish and under the weather. I should have been a doctor you know!

As my Mum would diagnose every illness known to man in my childhood as “being tired” it may be that, as life is hectic and busy on all fronts. Work, family, band, holiday planning and putting weight on all take up a lot of time these days, along with having to commit many minutes to writing this codswallop every week, so perhaps I just need some R&R. It is such a pity then that this bloody holiday is still 290 days away.

The real problem is probably that I have now been working for a living for 29 years. I did those maths the other day and it shocked and saddened me. Who had the crazy idea that so much of your time on the planet should be spent this way? I mean, five days a week? Really? Every week? Seems a tad harsh. I know and understand that others work much harder than I do. Some may scoff at my five-day working week, tucked up in a nice warm office, sat on my arse pushing buttons, but, as I always say, the fact that someone has it worse than me doesn’t diminish my right to piss and moan.

This is bordering on classic mid-life crisis territory I know, but if you step back from it for a second, it seems crazy, or is it just me? I don’t hate my job and the company I work for are great, but I’d just rather be doing other things.

Anyway, on a brighter note, Louise changed her car this week and she is very happy. She has been driving a bit of a heap for a while and so a change was overdue. Since picking it up on Friday I’ve seen her for about seven minutes as she is constantly finding reasons to go out and get stuff that involve driving her car. She also starts her new job after the bank holiday. I’m not 100% sure what it involves other than it’s working in an operating theatre whilst folk have unmentionable procedures done to them. The fact that she’s excited at the prospect should perhaps be a concern. That also no doubt also falls into the category of jobs that are tougher than mine!

She’s out now getting some “bits” for tea, as we have parents coming. Getting “bits” usually involves spending more than we just did on her car! I am sat writing this blog post whilst watching the Radio 1 Big Weekend thing. Currently it is featuring some young man with a cap on backwards bobbing up and down behind his laptop, whilst it plays songs he’s “written” using 90% of other people’s songs. It offends me.

With apologies for the brevity and random moaning, I’ll leave you now so that I can tend to my illness, whatever it may be so that I may be fit enough to go to work on Tuesday. There’s something fundamentally not right with that it seems.

Till the next time……

Feel The Burn

22/05/201622/05/2016 by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

I don’t really have much of an ego. In fact I tend to spend most of my life admitting to how crap I am at stuff, but should there be one horn I would toot about my abilities in life, I think it would be a horn related to the researching, planning and booking of our American adventures.

This week I have been deep down the planning and research hole. I have been flexing my research muscles and powering through even when, at times, the going got tough. Feel the burn!!

As a result, this week has seen things become firm. Yes, I do get excited during the cut and thrust of some serious planning, but it is our itinerary which has become firm too during the last week and I am very pleased with how things are shaping up.

Of course, the plan as it stands now bears little resemblance to the stuff I’ve been on about here for the past few months, but such is the way of the shifting sands of trip planning.

Our (second) original intention (after abandoning Miami) was to land in Orlando and then drive over to Siesta Key for a week or so. Upon spending more time than even I wished to trying to secure some accommodation there it soon became apparent that Siesta Key is a bit odd. Firstly, they don’t really do hotels. Everything tends to be a condo or cottage type thing, which was no problem for us as staying in one room can be a bit of a tester once everyone spreads all their crap around the room ten minutes after arriving. The extra space appeals to us when it’s an extended stay of more than a few days.

The real problem was two fold.

We seem to have picked spring break as the time of our visit.
As this makes our desired week “in season” nearly every renter only offers Saturday to Saturday rentals which didn’t fit into our plans at all.

Now, spring break did strike a bit of fear into my heart. I imagined this sort of thing at every turn…

and that would be terrible, wouldn’t it!?

I even did some googling to find out how bad it might be and found mention of things such as bikini contests on the beach. Now that sounds OK, but I would need to invest in a new one before we go. Anyway, it turns out that Siesta Key isn’t a college kid mecca and having also chatted to an owner or two there, they confirmed that whilst a bit busier, we wouldn’t be battling hormone riddled, booze addled college kids. Just middle aged ones similar to ourselves.

With regards to the Saturday to Saturday thing, well, eventually I admitted defeat and changed our entire plan to fit in with that. It’s funny how quickly, with the help of the internet you can get into the detail of something when you need to. From that first google search of a destination, (which for me is typically a map of the area and a read of some trip reports and blogs of those who have gone before), you start to get a feel for the place. Then, with the help of some lovely blog readers who got in touch about Siesta Key, the peeling of the onion continues revealing more and more info as you go.

By the end of the research, which is typically when something is booked, you easily recognise street names and the buildings and feel like a resident, as you’ve spent so much time on street view on Google Maps. Just me? Ok……

So now, our plan is thus.

We will be going to Universal from the airport for four nights at the Royal Pacific Resort. We want to wallow in the Potter stuff having ran through it on our last visit (or so it felt) and be able to dip into the parks for a few hours as well as cocktailing by the pool.

Then we drive down to Siesta Key for a week in this lovely little thing.

Then for the remainder of the trip we have booked into The Swan at WDW for some on site, without really being on site stuff, during which we’ll celebrate Louise’s birthday in the US for the first time.

A car has of course been reserved for the duration and all of this happened using some built in muscle memory action that launches into auto-pilot when required. It is enjoyable and some of the best (albeit expensive) medicine you can take. The happiness gained from this expensive planning drug is one of those unanswerable mysteries of life, like why does David Walliams pretend to be gay when he isn’t, and why do people find that funny?

Now, normally I am a “do it all yourself” type of planner. I have never used a travel agent as to be frank, with most of the high street ones, I feel like I know more than they do and I will definitely put more effort into getting me a better deal. However, this time I have been helped enormously by one, but to be fair, he is a Florida specialist. I’ve been Dibb and Facebook friends with Robert for ages and since he started to work at Ocean Florida he has from time to time tried to help and tempt me with great flight deals that he knew about.

I have always stayed strong (skint) and resisted but when I was looking around I thought I’d see if he could help at all. He was great. There was absolutely no hard sell or pressure and he even told me which bits I’d be better to book direct and which he would quote for. With that advice, both RPR and The Swan are reserved with no deposit. That’s at Booking.com if you are interested.

So I thought it only fair to give him a plug here and should you wish to receive similar help do get in touch. Oddly, as another person with the same name existed at Ocean, he has to use another name, so do ask for Thomas at www.ocean-holidays.co.uk or his Facebook link is above.

It’s always a bit gutting when all of this is sorted and all you have is a poorly credit card and a long wait ahead of you, but of course with a Florida holiday there are plenty of other things to be doing. Now, decisions around theme parks and dining need making for the Orlando days, and unusually for us, we can now also make plans for places such as Trader Sam’s and Jellyrolls for alcohol related activities with all of our party being over 21.

Our countdown has just dipped under 300 days, which seems like an eternity but again with many years experience of countdowns I know that sooner than we realise we’ll be at Manchester airport again paying too much for an average breakfast before putting all the weight I’ve just lost back on again in two weeks. It’s the Circle of Life.

Of course, via this blog, you can share my countdown in all its gruesome detail for which I apologise now.

Till the next time…..

Rip It Up and Start Again

15/05/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

Forget everything I said. All those previous posts and considerable amounts of planning are all for naught. For a mere mortal such a monumental change might be too much but I have rolled with said punches admirably and adjusted quickly and seamlessly like the trip planning Jedi I aspire to be.

I spent most of last week down south due to work. It’s never great being away from home for days at a time but I used my evenings to good effect giving some thought to our holiday plans. As time has moved on, flights now are searchable and I was looking at many options in line with all the previous thinking which was (to recap) a flight into Miami or somewhere close, some time on the beach in that area, a drive up to the Vero area before ending the holiday at Universal and Disney.

I had a few different flight options on the go, some into Miami but others even including into Key West as a left field option. However, upon running said flights past Louise a veto was played, as those flights, on the outward leg were not direct. Louise can control her fear of flying to some extent, but the ordeal of landing and then taking off again is typically and understandably a step too far. So, this is how it came to pass that all the plans had to be re-evaluated.

The only direct option really was flying into as well as back out of Orlando. We were always going to fly home from there, but landing there meant that Miami was no longer really an option. We could have reversed the entire holiday I suppose and started in Orlando and made our way down to Miami, but we still had the same issue of either driving all the way back to Orlando to fly home or do an indrect from Miami.

So with all that in mind, and wanting to keep the basic structure of the trip the same, the plan now has changed to –

Fly into Orlando, looking like with Virgin on the 14th of March.

A week or so on the West Coast of Florida, somewhere we have never been to in all these years (other than a few days at Naples). My current preference is to stay in Siesta Key.

We could do Busch Gardens whilst over there.

Back to Universal for a healthy number of nights at the Hard Rock.

A few nights onsite somewhere around the Boardwalk for Jellyrolls etc.

Fly home from Orlando on the 30th of March.

My idea to stay in Siesta Key is driven by a couple of folks we know having done so in recent years and then being very complimentary about it and with a cursory bit of research the fact that it looks to be exactly what we are after. Lots of beach and sunshine in the day time with then a walkable night life with a good variety of restaurants, bars and shops to wander around of an evening, without of course the loud night club scene that we are way too old to tolerate!

Plus it looks like this….

I will also be able to take my new hobby of beach volleyball to a new level…did I not mention my long standing interest in this sport?

I know that St Pete’s and Clearwater are options too, and are a little bit closer to Orlando for that bleary eyed drive after landing, but, Siesta Key looks more suitable for our needs. Of course, again if anyone has experience of one or all of those places I would love to hear from you. I think the north of Siesta Key is the place to be, in and around Siesta Key Village, but do tell me if I am wrong!!

With that rough plan now built around fairly firm flights the search for accommodation begins. Siesta Key looks to be short of hotels as such and a cottage/townhouse may be the way to go. I haven’t done enough research yet to know for sure. Again, for those in the know, should you wish to point me at places please do.

So, like some sort of irresistible tractor beam Orlando has pulled us in once again. However, it will be a different type of trip for all sorts of reasons, dominated by more leisurely activities, with only a sprinkling of theme park elements. The force is strong in MCO!

Till the next time…..

Mkingdon+1

08/05/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

We are having a family gathering today to celebrate Rebecca’s 19th birthday and so with apologies, I don’t have time to have an original thought and come up with a decent blog. (Do I ever??) Some of you may of course point out that there is very little original thought in these things anyway….but still….

So like most TV channels do these days, with their +1 channels, showing the same stuff an hour later, I shall instead let you re-enjoy the content from last year for her 18th in the form of video…so it’s plus one year rather than an hour!

You should be out enjoying the sun anyway!

I shall make one small observation. For those of you with young children, wondering when the madness will end and you won’t be constantly exhausted, worried and a general basket case. Don’t hold your breath. As a small example of the different ways your older children may torment you, last night, well technically this morning, about an hour after going to bed my phone rang. I didn’t wake in time to answer, and so saw I had a missed call from Rebecca. Knowing she was out celebrating, we of course wondered why she had rung and if she was now in some ditch or en route to some drug den having been kidnapped.

Texts, calls and Facebook messages were unanswered and so Louise and I spent a lovely forty minutes or so in a mild state of panic. Of course, we then got an apologetic text telling us she had dialed me by mistake and all was well.

It took about another hour for the adrenaline to wear off and for us to get back to sleep. Sometimes, I yearn for changing nappies!

Till the next time…..

Pointing Towards My Incompetence

01/05/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Welcome to May. How nice it is to look out of the window and see those lovely blue spring skies with temperatures well into the teens. Wait…..what???

It is because we live in such a diabolical climate that we are such a testy and irritable bunch most of the time. Sitting with the heating on watching the rain pound against the window does nothing to lift the spirits after such a long and weary winter.

We live in a house that is fairly old and having stood for over a hundred years enduring a climate which typically includes about 300 wet days each year, it has of course developed its fair share of issues. These issues are the house’s way of expressing its own disgust at the shite weather it had the misfortune to be built in. It has younger cousins sat in lovely sunny temperatures in other parts of the world that post selfies on the internet to taunt our house.

Since we’ve been here, which is over three years now, our gable end (that technical term is the absolute extent of my building jargon) has had issues. We’ve had bouts of damp which is no surprise as this wall stands unprotected against the worst that Bolton’s weather can throw at it. I’ve been in denial for all of that time that it needed re-pointing. Most of that reticence has been down to the cost of what sounds like a horrendously expensive job of course, but some of it has also been down to the fact that I don’t really know what pointing is, beyond it being something I can’t do.

This is where my Dad steps in. Jobs like this roll off his back like the perpetual rain does off our leaky wall. It helps of course that all of his working life was spent in the building trade rather than sat at a desk poncing about on a computer. It was only when he went into the office as estimator and then Director that he was afforded the luxury of working inside.

So whilst I have ponced about on my computer my Dad called a friend and arranged for some scaffolding to be put up. This is black magic in itself and I went to work one day with a bare wall and returned with a structure more complex than Spaceship Earth at Epcot attached to the end of my house. Over the next few days my Dad made his way up and down said scaffolding with whatever mixture you need in order to point something, making things better. My Dad doesn’t believe he is the age he is of course, so did not give this a second thought!

Once the pointing was done he then went on to spray the wall with some magical mixture that waterproofs it for the next couple of millenia. Suffice to say that our gable end now needn’t fear the weather or indeed nuclear holocaust within my lifetime. I have no idea what we would have done without my Dad’s intervention and expertise, other than employ some bloke to do it and sacrifice our entire disposable income for the next decade to do so.

So we’re grateful for the help and in return all I can offer is to continue to sort out his iPad every now and again. Slightly less manly but no less essential skills.

This lack of spring hasn’t stopped Louise going into full spring clean mode and I sit typing this surrounded by clutter from our various cupboards that I now have to sort through and place into a “bin it” pile and a “save it forever” pile. Somehow it seems that my Mum saved every single book for every single subject I ever did at school. Amongst them is a Life Story project from primary school which is looking a little worse for wear now, but includes gold such as this….

Looking back at the quality of this, it is no wonder I went to have such a high-flying career and went on to write several best-selling novels…oh, wait…..never mind.

Till the next time…..

Expensive Eyes And Ageing Thighs

24/04/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

I’ve just been for an eye test and to sort out some new glasses. I haven’t done so for a good few years and being crap and old now it seemed I had a choice of getting new glasses or to have surgery on my arms to allow me to hold things far enough away from my failing eyes to be able to read it.

Knowing now what the costs of said new glasses are, as I need varifocals and all sorts of coatings and add ons I think it would have been cheaper to grow a new human and farm their healthy eyes instead. I did get a second pair for a heavily discounted price and chose to get some sunglasses in the hope that at some point in my life I will again be in some sunshine. My current pair have that thing where they turn dark in sunlight and I have hated it since the day I picked them up. I appreciate the UV protection but resent looking like half of Peters and Lee at the first sign of daylight.

This aging process is pretty much all rubbish. Not only is my eyesight like that of a 100-year-old bat, my metabolism is now so slow that last week I walked past a Labrador called Chocolate and put on four pounds. Also, why am I perpetually exhausted? I didn’t feel this tired with two kids under eighteen months to deal with and one of those didn’t sleep AT ALL until she was about twelve (Hi Rebecca!). These days if I have the audacity to be awake beyond midnight I spend the next day mainlining coffee and sugary goods to stay awake at the wheel.

I have long since been doing the audible rise. You don’t know what is? Well, if you are of a similar age to me you will. It’s when you get up and have to make a noise to do so. My body is supposed to last me at least another 30 odd years or so but with current trends I am not sure how it can.

Today of course sees thousands of folks running around London for a distance that I get tired driving. I wish you all well and do please post some more about it on social media. I think you are seriously underplaying it 🙂 I am in awe of your athleticism and dedication. I ran a bath recently and had to ingest three cans of Ralgex to get over it.

So with my new eyes on order I await the ability to see with baited breath. If you work in marketing at Vision Express might I suggest a rebrand? Two to three weeks isn’t what I would class as Express to be honest and I think there is only Carphone Warehouse who need a new name more than you do. With what I have just paid for my new glasses you can now fund a national TV and billboard campaign announcing your name change to Vision At A Leisurely Pace.

Of course at this point I should post the oft seen internet Meme which says something like…

I know that in another ten years or so, should I be blessed with still being around, I will look back on today and wonder how I moaned when I was so young/thin/athletic. I do that now on those days I referred to above when the kids were very small. At the time, I’m sure I felt like a zombie and that it would never end. I blinked and it did and now they are grown and I miss them being small.

In a week with yet more high-profile deaths, which, like most of the other notable passings this year were at an age far too young to be anywhere close to acceptable I should embrace my shoddy eyes, aching limbs and lack of energy and be grateful. Or at least see a doctor! Which reminds me, I’m at the dentist first thing tomorrow where I can give someone else lots of money to attempt to save my failing body from the ravages of time.

I should go for a nap, or a lie down in front of some crap TV now, but some fool has ordered some flat pack furniture which got delivered today. It now sits in the hall mocking me, daring me to attempt its erection. That’s a whole different story about getting old which I shall not cover here.

Till the next time….

My Weekend With A Hairy Ass.

17/04/201617/04/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

After a very busy week at work, the weekend has been similar. There has been zero progress holiday wise, mainly due to the lack of flight availability as yet. The brain has been percolating possibilities in the background of course, but I have nothing further to report. I do object to working full-time when it restricts my ability to spend endless hours researching my holiday.

The busy week was made more taxing by the events of Thursday evening. For those with no interest in football and perhaps those who do but are not Liverpool fans, it may have passed you by. For me, as a life long fan, watching that roller coaster of a game through my fingers and at times tears of despair left me emotionally spent, yet happy after one of the most dramatic and spectacular comebacks ever seen. Sure, I may be over egging that, but grant me that as we’ve had little else to celebrate for a while.

Straight after work on Friday I was off to the latest Mustard gig at a local pub where we play very regularly. After getting home at around 12.45am, I slept for a few minutes before getting up to get ready for our trip over to North Yorkshire to see our friends Steve and Di, who live in Sinderby near Thirsk.

It was bloody cold, and at times wet, but we managed to dodge the showers during the times we were not eating to give Oli a decent walk in the country side.

He got nice and muddy and worried a sheep or two before we stopped off to donate some Polos to a couple of donkeys.

The visit to Steve and Di’s, as they usually tend to, included a lot of chat about holidays and Florida (as well as lovely food and alcohol) as Steve and Di are long time DVC members and very experienced travelers. As much as I thought I had our plan sorted, at least in my mind, our conversations have now raised a trip to The Keys as a contender. I do feel that our previous half day excursion to Key West didn’t really do it justice so I may need to ponder on that one a little more.

It didn’t help that the day we went saw temperatures only usually involved in the frying of chips. Patience and tempers were tested and we soon retreated to the welcome air con of the car and drive back north to our hotel for shade, swimming and drinks. Yes, clearly going to Key West in August is likely to be on the warm side. Even a planning genius can make the odd schoolboy error. As Louise often reminds me, and she did again this weekend, I was the one who booked us into the Sun Viking Lodge in Daytona a few years ago. I won’t bore you with the story again, I’ll just say, if you are thinking of staying there, don’t!

Having got home very recently, the relaxing pants are now on, and I intend to do lots of nothing for what remains of the weekend before another busy week to come. The fact that we have returned home with most of the Coffee and Walnut cake we couldn’t eat last night means that the outlook for this evening is a good one.

So that’s your lot, I’m knackered and in need of nothingness.

Till the next time…..

The Votes Are In…..

10/04/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

I’m so grateful for your responses to last week’s post. I had so much great advice from many folks who are clearly more expert (obsessed) with US travel than I. Via every medium available on the internet I had replies and help, so thank you for giving a toss about my trivial travel plans.

As far as the voting goes the results were as follows.

I didn’t know what to expect, but I suppose I was slightly surprised to see California come out on top, or perhaps more specifically, Orlando not to.

Beyond the voting I got some very detailed, well thought through advice with one very kind soul even sending me their planning spreadsheet for their California trip in 2014. Thank you Sue! It is very nice to know, as I suspected, that many others are sad enough to have their holidays in such detailed Excel formats!!

Beyond the US there were great suggestions for destinations such as Dubai, Mexico, Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados, Tokyo and Thailand along with many suggestions of a cruise.

So what did we decide to do? Well, I have to say that Louise and I were leaning towards California and the results of the poll and the comments I got were encouraging us in that direction. However, with a little bit of research following up on some cautionary advice from those who have been before, it had to be discounted for the simple reason that in February, or even March, the temperatures are too low. Looking at various weather sites it would seem that we’d be lucky to see anything in the 70’s most days and for us a holiday can’t involve fleeces and long trousers during the day!!

However, at some point very soon in our holiday future, we WILL do California. Your feedback has confirmed that we must.

As far as cruising goes, that is a bit of a non-starter. Louise is very strange and along with her irrational fear of flying she also has a bit of a thing about the sea and boats…no matter how big they may be.

So we were then looking at either one of the other destinations listed above or a return to the familiar embrace of Florida. As much as Louise likes a beach and a sunbathe, even she had to admit that a whole holiday of that may not be for us after all these years of “doing stuff” for most of the holiday, So, with absolute predictability, that is how our journey back to Florida has come about. We have decided to push our dates back to March, as we got advice (thanks Di) about Florida in February being on the chilly side and so seeing that March seems to be in the mid 80’s most days, that is much more acceptable. Those extra few weeks before we go will be tortuous, but one thing I have learned about countdowns is that they always eventually end!

So, with that decided, I then moved on to making some rough plans. With warm weather back in play, the beach came back in to focus and so with startling speed, a day by day plan formed in my mind. I was actually quite shocked at how quickly and easily this came to me. A sign of where all my thoughts, time and money has gone for many years.

With flights not yet available for next March, nothing can be booked as yet (booking flights first is the law) but this has not stopped me from looking at lots of hotels around our pencilled in locations. So far, we’re looking at something like –

Flights into Miami

Four nights in Miami/Fort Lauderdale

A two hour drive up to Vero Beach (either at the Disney resort itself or another hotel in the area) for three nights there.

Over to Orlando for four nights on site at Universal

Four of five nights on site at Disney, ideally around the Boardwalk area, or if budget dictates somewhere like Old Key West.

Flight home from Orlando

See, easy this isn’t it? I believe flights should be available from around the end of April to mid May for our travel dates (current thinking is mid March departure) so until then I am coiled like an oily spring, consumed with pent-up planning tension waiting for the sweet release of hitting the book button. Such is the life of an obsessive such as me and you, judging by your responses last week!

Thanks again for all your help. I was delighted and surprised by your interest and generosity. If anyone has any recommendations for hotels in and around Miami or indeed the Vero area, should we not go the Disney route, then please do let me know. Should anyone have DVC points sitting on a shelf they may not need then again we may well be interested in those too.

Till the next time…..

Ask The Bill Payer’s Permission….

03/04/2016 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

I’ve been blogging now, pretty much every week since 2009. Over that time I have covered every single topic available along with most of the emotions known to mankind. The content has been diverse (which is a polite word for “all over the place”) and I have ranted, gushed, moaned, bragged and been heartbroken at different times, sometimes all in the same post. However, today sees a first. I am to use a button that I have not yet pressed in all of these blogging years.

But first, some background. A few weeks ago I blogged about the annual event of us craving a holiday once winter starts to fade. We had house stuff to do as well and so the decision was not made. In recent days a top line plan has emerged that will see us to do both. Louise said that we both agreed that the house stuff is to come first which means that our holiday plans have been pushed back a little into early 2017 and it is looking like February. This is one of the joys of not holidaying with school age kids which goes some way to compensate for the fact that they’ve grown up now.

Now, at that time of year few places on the planet will deliver the skin scorching temperatures required by Louise if she is to sunbathe for 23 hours of each day. With the entire globe at our disposal I have exhausted all relevant possibilities and am now considering two locations….America and the USA.

With those lower temperatures in mind, our original plan of a more beach based trip seem to be foiled or foolish. I know for normal human beings the mid 70s would be fine for a day at the beach, but Louise needs skin melting rays to feel the day has not been wasted. This rules out (I think) the Miami/Naples/Keys type of trip that I had in mind last time I blogged about this stuff.

So here is where I need help (some may say I have needed help for some time). In my mind, (and lets face it, that’s all that matters. Louise is picking the stuff for the house so it’s only right I choose the holiday!) I…or rather we, are looking at three options, which are…

The usual Orlando based holiday.

However it will be anything but the usual as it is very unlikely that Rebecca (and Tom) will be with us. Emily will travel with us I think. I’m not sure we (I) want to do a fully Disney based holiday this time. I suspect there will be Disney stuff involved, but not the daily focus we’ve had in the past. Strangely though, having said that, I quite fancy staying on site for a chunk of the trip. We do want to spend an extended number of days on site at Universal too. We don’t feel that we’ve done the Potter stuff enough and we love staying at the Hard Rock. So in summary, option 1 is an on site Disney resort (I’m thinking Old Key West) followed by four nights at the HRH.

California

We have threatened to do this for years, but have always drifted back to Florida. We *will* do it at some point. We always say that just after booking for Florida again. I suspect the reason for that is familiarity and ease. We know Florida so well that the level of planning and preparation is much reduced and we can just turn up and engage auto-pilot, feeling like we have returned home.

There would need to be a high level of research and prep to undertake a Californian Adventure as (I think ) such a trip is much more sprawling. There is also the small matter of the very long flight, which for a very frightened flyer in Louise, is its own challenge. Once there, I also think it involves a lot more travel as the things we think we want to do are a long way apart. Having said that, my knowledge of the place is so rubbish that I only have a handful of things in my head that I think we’d want to do. Those are Disney at Anaheim, maybe Vegas, Alcatraz, a beach (see, I don’t know what the temperatures are in California in February), Six Flags and the curly steep road in San Francisco.

Somewhere Else Other Than The US

I have nothing to add here.

So here is where I need your help and this is the new thing I waffled about at the beginning. I have attempted to use the poll feature, so please cast your vote below, ask the bill payer’s permission, and do not vote if you are watching on catch up etc etc etc.

I reserve the right to completely ignore the results of the poll but I am genuinely interested in your thoughts of you all. Most of you are seasoned US travelers and probably know more than I about Orlando and definitely California.

Till the next time…..

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