life

turns out I was 31 today. what a shocker.
the day started early at 5.30 with an encounter with a giant spider. i trapped him and threw him out of the window but he was so huge he stuck to the window like some giant suckery-spider thing. yuckerooney.
do i feel different now i’m 31. no. life doesn’t work like that. in the same way that a tree doesn’t know it’s christmas day so doesn’t do anything different. my lawn looks the same on 24th Dec as it does on 25th Dec . We just stamped time on to the world, we can’t expect things to respond likewisely back.

this concerns me. what will they do to Top Of The Pops ? Is Andy Peters the right man for the job. why does anyone still listen to veteran DJ DLT aka the Hairy Cornflake. why can’t they just leave stuff alone

british trains are expensive, but at least you get punctuality, airconditioning and courtious staff.
one thing your ticket price doesn’t include is the cost of litter bins. the world of terrorism has a lot to answer for. in the end i did something i don’t normally do. i put my rubbish on the floor.
here is the rubbish, which represented over £6 worth of Virgin Trains catering fodder:

i read this on the BBC news this morning. It makes no mention of wooden ties (which are secured by an elastic loop).
“A tight necktie can be considered a risk factor in men who prefer to wear tight neckties, men with thick necks, and white collar professionals.”

my ear is still giving me jip which means I didn’t sleep very well (at all) last night. lieing awake at night is a weird thing, especially with two children in the house. esther had a nightmare at one point so i went through to see her (she was ok and just went back to sleep).
But the funniest thing of all was Kezia who woke up between 1am and 2.30am and was highly animated in her speech. She tried a dozen different ways of saying ‘Mummy’ and then a dozen ways of saying ‘Daddy’. When that failed to get a reaction she sang a note perfect ‘Happy Birthday to you’ to Esther. I was really impressed. During the day she doesn’t say half as many things.
I’m sure she also said “yes please” a few times whilst chatting to herself.

red sky in the morning, shepherds warning. it’s 5.30am and the sky is red. how relevant is a shepherds wisdom in modern urban england ? we shall find out in due course I imagine. I shall update this entry throughout the day.
update: bad things which happened throughout the day
1) woke up with excruciating ear ache at 3am and didn’t get back to sleep
2) found my computer has locked me out of most of my accounts so it’s tricky to work from home (though I have found a sneaky non-ideal way)
However, we also know that every cloud has a silver lining, so here are some good things:
1) cotton buds, codeine, oral and aural antibiotics all combine to numb the pain (and give me a slighlty euphoric feeling
2) my work email account has sprung back in to life and i can access my emails again (hoorah).

been no blog entries this weekend as I have an ear infection and am in a massive amount of pain. will attempt to catch up tonight :-/

here is elton and kezia. elton is a hairdresser in Sheffield and is one of the funniest people I know. he’s also one of the kindest. the two are not incompatible.
we had a barbeque for anyone involved in music at our church and Elton did a fine job barbequing in the rain. we couldn’t allow him in the house as he doesn’t go to our church. this picture was taken just before we threw him out in to the rain.

this was spotaneous art which took ages to set up. the little ball kept slipping out of esther’s toes when she raised her foot above the globe. i’m sure you agree that the final picture was worth the effort.

here we are with our friends the gooddys and the newells at dinton pastures.

the long awaited back lash has started against the stupid black flies which have recently entered our house. I counted 7 flies in our house (spread over various rooms)
we are approaching the eradication on two fronts – chemical and physical.
Here is Kezia enjoying the new fly swat.

Current fly count is 4 (and falling). they are dropping like flies it seems

the highway code suggests you should slow down and stop if pedestrians are using a zebra crossing. the highway code makes no comment about reversing backwards over zebra crossings and hitting people that way. a white van took full advantage of this fact earlier today and nearly sent me flying across Charlotte Street.
Had I been tieing my shoelaces or taking a quick nap, i would surely have been one less dimensional by now.

we went to warwick castle today – was most excellent.

view from a window

warwick castle is great for all the family. you have to watch out for your kids though. here is the rat catcher (right), esther (middle) and the jester (left)

90% of our waking hours today were spent on church activities.
the fun was split between music related activities and the church family BBQ.

the BBQ was christians burning steak, rather than being burned on one.

jane and kezia compare tongues

Read More »visit to my mum’s house

today it was raining. i got very qet. when it rains people use umbrellas. pavements aren’t wide enough for multiple umbrellas. this causes people to think vertically when walking. do i crouch to avoid the oncoming umbrella. do i lift my umbrella high above the oncoming walkers.
it appears the etiquette is that the largest umbrella goes highest. golfing umbrellas go way up in the air, whilst small pop up ones can get away with barely skimming the tops of people’s heads. this is fair as the golfing umbrellas cover the most area and save the smaller umbrellas from getting wet.
no one likes a wet umbrella. that’s the problem with them really.

view from the boat at dusk

this next photo was taken moments later with the bridge just closing. i missed the bridge fully open as i was disembarking the luxury superior quality craft. oh well.

tonight we had the pleasure of a pleasure cruise aboard a superior cruise vessel. we also had the pleasure of a DJ called Paris who had a gameplan. His gameplan worked as people started dancing at the required time. he told me he also has a daughter named ‘elektra’. i didn’t ask him his surname.

this morning (6.40am)on the way to work i saw lots of snails out on the street as it was nice and wet for them. walking back this evening (11.50pm) i saw snails on the now dry path way. lots of them.
my game was to walk really fast listening to my stereo really loud (Supergrass) whilst dodging the snails on the floor. there were lots of crushed ones, but I managed to avoid them all myself.
a good ‘on the way back from the pub’ game to play i think.