Putting holes in my kids

So I missed my usual Sunday time slot.  You might have spotted that?

train
I am not actually on this exact one

Right now you find me on a  train, enduring the luxury of First Class, so I have the internets at my disposal, and an impending breakfast on its way.  Such madness as the expense of First Class travel to London is unusual, as quite rightly we are expected to travel cattle class at all times.  However, due to some quirk of the system, First Class was cheaper than cattle at the time I wanted to go.  Result.

So after two minutes of typing and staring at my laptop, whilst my body lurches from side to side courtesy of the Pendolino, I now feel a little queasy.  Fear not I shall soldier on, as if I don’t get this done now, the rest of the week is more than spoken for.

So as I type Emily is on her way to her final exam, and what a mighty relief that will be for all concerned.  It has been a long six week slog for her, and anyone else in our household, as you will know from my oft documented travails around the R word.  Her reaction to most exams has been favourable, so now we wait until late August to find out what lies in front of her for the next couple of years.

Whatever happens results wise, she has, to be fair, put a decent amount of work in, and I suppose that is all you can ask.  Regardless of the letters printed on her results slip, we felt that she deserved some reward.  However, Emily has been holding us to a promise made (by Louise I must add) after perhaps one glass too many of an Old English Sheepdog.  As you know, we are short of a pet or two, so this is just what we need.  I have denied all knowledge of any such promise all along.

Knowing that she had me on the back foot, recently she has been gunning for another option, which was to have her lip pierced.  Every fibre of my body rejected the very idea of defacing her face, but Louise worked on me, and when compared to the dog option it seemed fair enough.  So last Thursday she went to get done.  As holes in your face go, it looks nice, and Emily is delighted with it, which I suppose is all that really matters.  Not to be left out, Rebecca had her belly button done too, again as a reward for efforts valiant, and to cheer her up as last week saw all her friends, and boyfriend go on holiday at the same time, so she has been facius mopius around the house, clutching her phone like some sort of life support device.  Thankfully, folk return today.

Our old pal Henry, our cocker spaniel, is feeling his age a little, and at 14, it is to be expected of course, but I fear we are entering the home straight with him now.  Our friends Steve and Di are visiting this upcoming weekend, and they, as his surrogate parents, will spoil him beyond all bounds I’m sure as usual, which might perk him up a little.  It is hard when it gets to this stage, as we have had Henry as long as we have had a Rebecca, so he truly is one of the family.  True, Rebecca does not lick her backside and eat grass as far as I know, but we can’t hold that against him!

So I have two days in our London office to do, and as I can smell the breakfast, and the swaying of the train is causing me to feel like I do when I have just stepped off of Manta, I will draw this hurried entry to a close.  By the way, if anyone sees the dollar rate surge in the next few days give me a shout?

Till the next time…..

A Shed, never ending illness and a decent erection.

People often say that no news is good news.  In the world of trying to get your garage conversion done before Christmas, this does not apply.

No real updates on that front, and there probably won’t be until the good men of Gas arrive to move our meter about a metre.  The one thing that did happen this week was that the funds for said conversion arrived in our bank account.  I am a fairly sensible soul, but there were a few mad minutes where I imagined what sort of kickass holiday I could book with that amount of cash sat in the current account.

Shed
Shed's Up

Sanity, plus a healthy fear of Louise prevailed,and it got transferred to the savings account (nice to use it for something I suppose) and we wait.

But wait, Monday brings a major development in this whole Grand Design.  Our shed arrives.  Being frankly shite at anything that even includes the letters D I and Y, we have employed a crack team of shed fitters to ensure the erection is satisfactory.  I would hate to have an unsatisfactory erection anywhere never mind in our back garden where the neighbours can see it.

Once we have the erection in a satisfactory state, then the real work starts, and I will be working up a sweat I’m sure.  Yep, we have to empty the garage of vital crap, and put said vital crap into the shed, and jetison non vital crap to the skip via the cavernous delights of the Mondeo’s boot.

However, that shall not be next weekend, as I shall be away, jet setting in gay Paris.  An unfortunate choice of words perhaps, when I admit that I shall be so with a bloke I met off of the internet.  I refer you back to the earlier post in which I outline how I won a trip to Disneyland Paris courtesy of the DisneyBrit Podcast.

My journey starts next Friday morning and I shall be tweeting all the way there and back, so if you care, then please follow me! The prayers for fine weather have begun, alongside the hopes that the delightful French decide that next weekend is the one this year that they will not be striking over something important.  I’m hoping to travel light, but this is balanced against the worry that it will be bloody cold, and I therefore need to take three hundred layers.  This will of course be the reason for any unsightly bulk around my frame on any photos.  As you know, I have a fine physique.

Thursday evening saw Louise and I drag my disease ridden frame to the girl’s school.  Louise started at 5pm, for a meeting about Rebecca’s exchange trip to Nuremburg in November.  A quick summary is, it will be cold, it will be expensive.  Time well spent.

I joined Louise at 7pm for the next meeting, this time for Emily.  As she has just started Year 11 aka GCSE year, we had to attend a briefing on how to help our Year 11 children through this difficult year.  No bugger did similar for me.  When I was doing my O Levels (giving my age away), it was a solo effort, and all of my revision had to be slotted in around the 1986 World Cup.

Now it seems we have roughly as much to do as Emily, and we were told how to spot and deal with stress.  We were also shown how to use mind maps as a revision technique, along with a long session on how to plan and structure revision, course work, controlled assesments, and some sort of social life.  Jesus, if I wasn’t worried about it before, I am now.  Emily seems unfazed by the whole thing, and only appears from behind her fringe to ask for food and/or money.  As long as she knows I am here for her!!

I arrived home, tired, scared to death for the year ahead, starving and close to death’s door at 9pm!!  Smashing.

Now I know I may have let on more than once that I have not been in the rudest of health this week, but I have fought on valiantly, and made it to work all week.  I did give in and leave early on Friday, as the illness was peaking, and once I’d come out the other end of my meetings which ran from 9.30 until 2.30 non stop, I was neither use nor ornament to anybody.  The fact that some arse had been incompetent enough to have a bump on the M61 and made my journey home last over an hour only added to the magic of my Friday afternoon.

Where the wild things are
Wild Thing, you make my heart sink

Friday night was spent watching a couple of DVDs, interrupted nicely with some sniffing and coughing.  We watched Where the Wild Things Are and It’s Complicated.  The latter was much better than the former.  Where the Wild Things Are was just weird to be honest.  I can watch a kid’s film with little problem usually (no comments thanks), but this was just a bit boring to be honest.

No real plot to speak of, and this meant that the film just doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

It’s Complicated was better, if predictable.  It was one of those non challenging films that you can just let wash over you.  With a cast of Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, you know you are in safe hands, and the plot is just about original enough to keep you interested.

Fair play to Alec Baldwin.  Being on the chunkier side, he had no issue in showing of his Party 7 (not six pack), and I for one applaud him.  If I had any weight issues I too would make a stand and have my kit off at every opportunity too.

My plan for the weekend is to do nothing….at all.  I have less than no energy, so this seems to be the correct plan.  Having felt rough for two weeks now I am getting seriously bored.  I haven’t been able to get to the gym due to this, and if this carries on I shall be approaching Baldwin territory, and I don’t mean Mike.

So next week (and the week after) are four day work weeks for me, having booked Friday and Monday off for Paris, and that is just dandy.  I’m not sure when and if I will be able to blog you again, with being abroad and stuff next weekend, but I would imagine Monday will be a good time to regail you with tales of missed trains, over eating and Space Mountain.  Frankly, I hope it is more Space Mountain than Brokeback Mountain…no offence Adam!

My aim during next week is to finish off the trip report for our 2010 Florida jaunt (don’t hold me to that), so that I shall be free to quickly document the Paris trip, in a compare ands contrast fashion.

As I type this, Louise is unusually out doing the BIG shop.  A task I normally undertake every Saturday.  This is because when Louise does it somehow the shopping bill is tripled.  We go to the same supermarket, and seem to eat the same food, so it is quite some acheivement.  I await her return with trepidation, a headache, sore throat and an impressive collection of snot riddled kitchen roll.

Have I mentioned that I feel unwell?

Till the next time…..