Work in Progress

Rare visit

2009-12-12T06:53:00.000-08:00

As you can see I am no longer here but you can now find me here these days here instead.

http://twitter.com/mrstu69

2009-07-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

Currently experiencing a great thunderstorm out side tonight, virtually no rain coming down but the clouds are crashing together and making some great sounds as I am sat here typing away, the lightening flashes are not as good as night time as it's only 5.20pm at the moment.

Work has been unbearable at the moment, there is no air conditioning where we are most of our country is still in the stone age. We work under Victorian, (Not Australian Victorian, as they are more advanced than us here), rules still where I work in my department. It has been 30C and very humid and it is not very nice, as most of the day is stood up. How people from hot climates most of the year cope I have no idea, we have a run of three days and people start to suffer. I called up our uniform stores to ask about wearing shorts and the reply that came back was, "We don't issue shorts as Health and Safety have not approved them yet!!!!!!!!". How utterly bollocks can you be about something, so we have to suffer in trousers for the time being.

yay, holiday time is getting very close now 37 days away for me, 21 for everybody else, still not sure where we are going to get to while we are over in Oz, but Brisbane has cropped up again. We did it last year for a few days and basically just explored the city and went out to Tangalooma, to see the dolphins. Might go down the Great Ocean Road, but that just might be a bit cold in August. Did it in October & that was quite nice. Oh well time and money will tell I suppose

Washing and ranting!

2009-06-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

Well the washing machine situation has been resolved we finally went out and bought a new one, oh no that's wrong Mrs Stu finally went out and buy one. I wanted to throw everything in the bath, fill it up with water, add some liquid and then stamp on it all using my feet until either clean or destroyed!

It was so difficult to buy one they were all so alike and basically did the same thing so I thought, until you start reading into all the special things each one could do. There was one model that had a program for washing trainers, that one amazed me as I just use the same setting for everything I was and up to now there has been no problems. So in the end we ended up with a 7KG front loader and it is superb and all so quite even on the fastest spin.Mrs Stu has now washed everything in the house twice to make sure it cleans better than the last one!

It has been pretty quite here recently as you can see from the postings as we have not really been up to anything at all besides getting things ready for Australia, so remembered have not got the visas yet...yipes better get that sorted pretty quick on the internet.

Work pissed me off these past few days it's not very often I get angry, but when I do you wouldn't like me! There was a project we were all involved in last year and it went so well we were put into the companies annual awards that is taking place in a swanky hotel in the city centre for employees and partners. Now there was some long hours worked to get the project ready and out. It now turns out that the people who did all the physical work and worked the hours to set everything up have been over looked and have not had an invite, while everybody else got one so three of us out of a team of seven will be at home Saturday night while everybody else will be out on a free nigh out with booze included! It seems everybody has known weeks, even the boss and when questioned he said there is nothing he can do!!!!!

I can see a work to rule staring now and pulling people out of the shit is something that won't happen again arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh going to go scream....and read blogs!

Kicking and spinning

2009-06-14T14:45:00.000-07:00

Today was the day that Mrs Stu and Little g took place in their first ever tournaments at a inter dojo karate meet. This is where all the clubs under the same style get together to kick the hell out of each other for the highly regarded bit of metal to go around their neck. We had to be at the competition for 9.45 for it to start at 10 and with 130 people entered it was going to be a long, but enjoyable day.

There were lots of various stages to go through for all the different colour belts. There was the kumite, which is basically fighting an opponent in a knock out stage and the kata, which is on your own doing a set combinations of moves and then like the kata there is the team kata, which is three people doing the same moves in unison and imagine watching this for every colour belt of white, yellow, orange, red, green, purple, blue and brown for both male and female! Luckily there were three rings for everything to take place in and everything moved on at quite a pace.

When it was time for Little G to do her kata, being the totally unbiased parent I am I thought she did better than everyone and Mrs Stu in her group was going up against brown belts who have been training for years longer instead of five months and she also did really well. After a long day sat waiting and watching the medal ceremony finally came around and both Mrs Stu, silver medal and Little g bronze medal did really well. With Mrs Stu kicking all the higher belts to nearly beat them.

So that was my Sunday, but on Saturday my loyal servant of 11 years the washing machine broke down mid cycle. Now have you bought one recently, there are so many different models out there, we had an afternoon out yesterday and my head was spinning afterwards after seeing so many. Then tonight I was searching the net and my head is spinning once more, unlike the washing machine. So the quest continues and the clothes pile up!

Hi de hi

2009-06-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

Another day another pound for the tax man, when will they leave me alone so I can have some fun with my money besides it going towards their expenses!

Another beautiful day here today although once more work is in a steel box so I don't see it all day. I need a ball like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, so my day goes faster sometimes. It doesn't help this week that somebody has called in sick and I am having to cover for him as well while he is away so I am running around like a headless chicken this week trying to get all the jobs done and out. Just hope he has not passed anything onto me as he has not moved from the toilet in the past few days.

Mrs Stu has decided to enter a karate tournament this weekend with Little G. It is nothing to serious just an inter club thing. It is an all day event with all the competitions so I have to find something for The Terror and myself to do, as trying to keep him happy where the tournament is taking place is not an option. I'll have to hope it's nice this weekend so I can get on with some gardening I need to catch up on.

The Twenty Twenty cricket is not going well for us at the moment the South Africans are knocking us to pieces as I speak, wickets falling all over the place....yikes!

Bye, bye Australia!

2009-06-08T15:41:00.000-07:00

So great to be back in work today it felt as if I had never been away and my holiday had not even taken place last week. My day was filled with so much joy tonight when the once mighty cricketing team Australia, went down with no guns blazing in their second game against Sri Lanka. It was such a joy to watch the final ball being bowled fir another wide. All I am hoping for now is the same bowlers to face England in the Ashes, that is coming up real soon.

2009-06-07T08:26:00.000-07:00

Doesn't a week fly by when you are having fun camping in the great outdoors. The kids had two weeks break this end of term and as every other school has only one we decided to go on holiday when all the others were back. So off we went to a place about 30 minutes drive from Nottingham.

It was a beautiful first few days and we had the camp site almost to ourselves with the temperature getting up to a mighty 27C driving down there so it was a bit unbearable in the car and going up and down the hills made Mrs Stu a bit sick, so she did most of the driving which was a bonus for me as I could look out at the scenery around us as we drove there, through picturesque countryside and little villages.

The tent was pitched in a perfect spot with the trees acting as shade for most of the day from the sun which made it ideal, the only downside of the pitch being it was so far from the showers and toilets. I think they put us there due to The Terror's reputation going before him of being to noisy!

We actually never did very much during the stay and just basically did nothing due to the rushing around every other day, the only day that was a bit off putting when we had to drive the sixty miles back home to Mrs Stu's dentist as she had recently had some dental work done on a tooth and it decided to flare up again so she had to get that sorted!

We had one day put to the Heights of Abraham, above the town of Matlock Bath, a 30 minute stay from where we stayed. You got to it by a ride on a cable car which was a fantastic kids for the kids.

From here you could see the town of Matlock Bath below.

Another picture from the hill across the valley shows a castle built by John Smedley, in 1862 and although now in ruins it makes a great site when viewed from below.

The Heights of Abraham are mainly full of cavers to explore, being mined since Roam times for lead but are now just a big money spinner as a tourist attraction.

Some very old graffiti they found in the caves and it was researched to find it belonged in old Parish records to the miners who worked down there.

All in all a great few days away, despite the rain on the last day when a waterfall opened up above us while we packed the tent away!

In the great outdoors

2009-06-04T01:20:00.000-07:00

As you can see the blog will not be updated this week due to being in a field in the middle of nowhere England. Usual service will be resumed very shortly.

Ups and downs

2009-05-28T09:21:00.000-07:00

Not felt quite right today I don't know what it is, I think I am coming down with post match blues after last nights debacle of a match on the once mighty reds part. First ten minutes everything going to plan, lots of attacking flowing football and then Barcelona get one break and we were done for, the plan had gone wrong, their goal was not supposed to happen it wasn't in the script and then in the second half they go and do it again by the smallest man on the pitch at 2 feet tall rises above everybody else to score a superb header. The Catalans deserved the win and all the glory and my lot, well lets start all over again!

Next week are off for a few days away camping here. Not been camping since before The Terror was born, but the kids wanted to go so we have decided finances just about allow us to go this year, with the Australian trip coming up as well. The forecast for the first few days is looking good with the temperatures expected to hit a mighty mark of 24C on Monday. I have a nice bottle of malt set aside for enjoying in the evenings when the kids have gone to bed or i can just sneak off and enjoy it anyway. Just got to pick up a few items before going, like more tent pegs to keep us down as I don't want to be flying over the Peak District, if the wind picks up.

G'day Possums

2009-05-26T09:45:00.001-07:00

At last back again not had time to say "BOO" to a ghost this week with so much going on and all other things happening, so what has been happening that has kept me away, well nothing to be honest besides work and the home life.

The Terror has been ill this past weekend so we have stayed in the house all weekend only really venturing into the garden and as it has been a mighty 24C it has been nice to do nothing and save a few pound notes. I took The Terror to see the doctor today to see what he had and as soon as we walked in the door the doctor, said it was a case of slapped cheek and that although he has been infectious he should be cleared up by the weekend. He has just not been his usual causing chaos self so hopefully a few days rest and we will be back to destroying things once again.

It's been great with the weather picking up as there is more chance to enjoy beer in the garden rather than beer in the house and obviously enjoying beer in the garden usually resorts in a BBQ to enjoy which always goes down in my book, although apparently due to Australian law only Aussies can cook behind a BBQ and all others have to get everything else ready, some how I don't think this one is true!

Give me your blood.....hahahaha

2009-05-19T10:36:00.001-07:00

Today was the day I had been expecting it for a month and it slowly came around, it was something I had not done in 16 years due to mixed up genetic parents passing down their tainted genes to me, it was time to donate blood again!

The reason I have not been is because I have high blood pressure that involves taking tablets everyday for the rest of my life, it's not to bad two a day in the long run if it gives me a good innings at the end of the day. I called the donor blood sucking vampire people up on the off chance that I could start donating again and it seems that they have just recently relaxed the rules and I would be able to donate again with the medication that I am on, or in other words they are desperate for donors as they are so short of blood in their stock levels. I don't have a problem going as needles or the sight of blood never bother me.

The amount of questions and forms I had to fill in before hand to check everything was alright to give, and then the various checks and then the nurse had to get the sister to check everything out because of the tablets I take and then I had to drink a pint of water before hand as well and after all that they stabbed me with a giant needle and took some of the good stuff to go and make other people as grumpy as I am, my mission and good deed is complete.

A walk on the heath

2009-05-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

As is usual in England, at this time of year it was another rainy day today so there was not much to do outside and we had to venture out in between rain showers for a walk and to blow the cob webs away at a place called Lindow Common, which is only a 15 minute drive away and I have never been there in all my 39 years so it was somewhere new for me as well.

We had three options really because of the weather we could of stayed indoors, gone shopping or explored the outdoors and we decided to venture out as we only had a hour anyway as Mrs Stu had to finish school work because for some obscure reason she wanted to go and see Girls Aloud, pretty to look at but not really my kind of scene.

This is where we ended up, land mostly not yet destroyed by human hand.

Little G and The Terror enjoyed a good walk around and an explore of the surrounding woods and every possible puddle was splashed in to find treasure, as that is where the pirates buried it according to The Terror!

At the centre of the heath land is a lake or to must a big pond called Black Lake. It was good for a little walk and an explore anyway.

Hope you all had a fun weekend.

More mutterings

2009-05-15T23:13:00.000-07:00

The trip to Oz is fast approaching and it's time once want again to hunt through the net for the prices on car hire. Mrs Stu goes first and we are guessing the total stay will be around 45 days for her this time which is a long time, although I am only there for four weeks. Maybe I can make her take pubic transport until I get over there! Somehow i don't think that will go down well. She will get the car on the first day and Mrs Stu's brother in law is going to the airport to drive them home after such a long flight as it gets in at stupid o'clock in the morning & then it's a two hour drive out to there place in Hoddles Creek, so knowing how tired they will be after the flight it is for the best. Anyway the prices are working out on the extreme side for even a smallish car at the moment around £900, although I think we can get this a little lower with some surfing around for deals.

I have got into a bad habit recently of starting to watch films late in the evenings these days and most of the times I can watch them right until the end but there is the odd time like last night for instance when I am in the film and the adverts come on towards the end and next minute the films over and there is some tele shopping on instead and I've missed the ending and it's so annoying not knowing what happened to who or how the thing finished. May have to start recording everything before I sit down to watch it now.

Just hoping that there is some more cricket today, yesterday it was a complete washout with no play at all, I just hoping there are better things to come today, it is starting of cloudy where I am with a few showers today. The batsmen need to some big hits to get their confidence together before the ashes starts soon. I am liking Bopara, at the moment he seems to like a good knock and I hope his form continues. need to see how the bowlers cope again so I will reserve judgement for now. So today all I want is a bit of cricket and some peace.

The best news today would be if Manchester United can wrap up the Premiership and get an 18th equalling title to match Liverpools achievements. We have two games to go and only need a point, I have confidence, as to win it at home would be special as it's against Arsenal, who just a few seasons ago clinched the title on our ground so a bit of pay back is in order I think today.

Arrgggh metal box of rubbish!

2009-05-12T10:39:00.000-07:00

Now I know they are great for doing many things and you can add all sorts of wires and devices to them but when you have to find just one connection is when you eventually hit trouble...COMPUTERS!

Now our desktop sits in the corner of the room with everything possible plugged in somewhere and all the cables from all the devices leading into the back of it from all the various USB devices, printers and camera leads. Now there is no problem in all of these wires until you have to change over something for some reason or other. All I had to do was to re-connect a microphone into the back that had become unplugged the last time I did something in there.

First of all there was the problem of tracing the wire from the microphone to the end of it and then plugging it in and why no matter how careful when you first install your computer you put all the wires in neatly when you go back to it somebody has been there and tied them in the biggest know imaginable anyway eventually I got the microphone plugged in and doing all the tests to find that somehow i had pulled out my speaker connection so then it was back under the desk to reconnect and then out again to find I had knocked the monitor lead so I only had a blank screen to stare at....arrrgggghhhh. Anyway job done in the end after much effing and blinding along the way, just hope The Terror never picked up any new words!

Now if only life can be like this without a care in the world.

Footie woes

2009-05-10T04:28:00.001-07:00

I think he's cracked it and he is finally there if the last two days are anything to go by, The Terror, is finally toilet trained. He has just not wanted to do it at all, being a boy, like all men I suppose he wanted somebody else to do it for him but now he goes when ever he feels the need to. So much more harder than his sister she was dong it so much easy but as I said boys are lazy!

The big game today Manchester United vs Manchester City, the local derby and fierce rivalries. I had it all lined up going around to a mates house drinking lots of beer and enjoying the game, but since what I want to do goes to the bottom of the pecking order in my house I have lost out again. Little G, I found out after everybody else is putting on a show with her gymnastics club and the rehearsals are this afternoon at kick off for the show tonight and I am now left with The Terror, to entertain and as I have no sports at home as it is on pay to view! Will have to surf the net and see if there is a link out there somewhere I can watch, it usually ends up being broadcast with Spanish or Brazilian commentary though. The commentators are great in their goal celebrations though they make the goals all the more special when they shout 'GGGGGOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL'. see what I mean!

Weather and rip off prices

2009-05-07T09:37:00.000-07:00

It's been one of those drab days today, stuck indoors while what little sunshine we have here shines outdoors and then this weekend they forecast rain, life is not fair at times to the workers. Beautiful blue skies with the sun to match and when I come out the clouds start to move over and the sun goes in and now the winds picking up....I hate our weather at times.

All clear from the doctors for another six months had my three monthly check yesterday and my blood pressure is fine so he doesn't want to see me now until then, just need to get my bloods taken and tested and then I am home free, apart from the two tablets I have to take each day, which is not many when you consider the amount some people have to take in a day.

Has the price of food where you are still as high as when it was in that period when the petrol went sky high and they used the cost of that to put up the cost of everything using that as an excuse?

I did the weekly shop last night and i was studying the prices are lot more this week than I usually do and everything seems to of jumped again a few pence and lots of things. The companies soon put the prices up last year when the petrol went up in price and now they are getting their produce cheaper they are being very slow to pass the prices back on to us the shopper, it is so annoying at times.

Anyway I need a countdown clock for my blog page now for when I go to freezing Melbourne in August, any suggestions?

Little G's birthday

2009-05-05T09:57:00.000-07:00

Been a very rushed few days lately hence not a lot of time to come on here. Ut has been Little G's birthday weekend this weekend and we have been having fun with her. We never had a party this year as they were working out a bit on the expensive side so we decided to have a BBQ at home and invite Little G's friends and friends of our own and it proved to be just as expensive!

The last few days were spent giving a good cleaning of the house more that what is usually done in a week so everything was spic and span. Friday, night I called the bouncy castle poeple at short notice to see if they had a covered castle for the Sunday for an 8 year old girl, "Yes" came the reply "no problem". So on Sunday the castle arrived and both kids were excited as we had not told them what was coming and they stood in awe as it inflated Little G was not amused and The Terror went "WOW, Pirates". At least they both bounced on it enough to get enough fun out of it.

Not had so much booze in a long time but the best thing was even though I drank all day I never had a hangover to suffer with the following day, now that was a first, as I am usually the one singing into the toilet the next morning, maybe it's because I'm getting older or the amount of food i consume to soak up the booze. I am now banned from taking any food until everybody else has had at least one thing to eat before I start, I seem to have a bottomless pit of a stomach at times.

Then today it rained and it has rained all day for twelve hours which means the garden is to wet to do anything on it which is just a shame, oh well lots of beer over and the footie is on tonight so the kids have to be in bed early..yippee!

Blind as a bat and cat burglars

2009-04-30T09:39:00.000-07:00

Last year I finally gave in and got my eyes tested as over time trying to read things in the evenings was getting more and more difficult until it was almost impossible and i had to hold whatever I was reading at an impossible angle to try and see what it said, squinting the eyes was also a good one as well to make out words. I got up to the mighty age of 39 and than 'bam' glasses. it's as if the eye compensates because a few months ago during day time i could read quite easily without glasses, but now i have to have them on all the time to read or play games. I must admit it is easier on the eye as everything is now not blurred anymore and is easy to read. Not sure if i could do the contact lenses just yet, think I will make do with some sensible glasses and get a spare pair of stupid ones for when the kids start bringing friends home so that I can embarrass them!

We had a cat burglar in the other night and I almost caught him as well, next time I will be ready for him! The back door has been open due to the nice weather and to allow the cat to come and go and I was walking in the kitchen when I saw him lying low trying to hide, but then he saw me and ran for his life but it was to late, Toby was not pleased all his cat food had gone!

Birthday clothes and Twittering

2009-04-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

Now I know buying a t-shirt is nothing special these days I thought, but I got this in my e-mail today -

Hello,

exactly a year ago your laFraise order was processed and shipped. We wish your shirt a happy 1st birthday!

WTF!! Is this something I have missed all my life, should I have been celebrating birthdays for all my clothes, damn I have so many cards to write to make up time!!!

I have been noticing a lot of people on here have started to get the 'Twitter' bug and have I have now joined to see what all the fuss is about. I like it that you can make quick updates and let people know what you are doing or your thoughts there and then but apart from that there is nothing special, so it's a case of waiting and seeing at the moment if I like it. So if you want to follow me, if you have nothing else to do you can find me at mrstu69, '69' being my year of birth and not a preference to anything else to all of you with a dirty mind!

Flu thoughts from abroad!

2009-04-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

I have been following the new swine flu outbreak with interest and I was reading The Times newspaper about it online when this quote in the comments section caught my eye.

"We should nuclear strike Mexico and wipe them out to stop the USA getting sick, this goverment is weak?"

bill bob, Arizona, USA

Is this not a little to far just yet, do we just nuke everybody who has just a sniffle or remain cautious until we know the full extent of the outbreak or is bill bob from Arizona right!

A trip with pictures.

2009-04-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

As Mrs Stu and Little G went to day of card making and crafting today I took the fifteen minute train journey went into the city to kill a few hours by train.

We left the station and took a stroll down the hill towards the city.

This is Piccadilly Gardens, not to be confused with the Piccadilly Square in London. Now this used to be nice until the council sold out to a property developer and they ruined the place. There used to be a sunken garden you could relax in with lots of colour with the plants all year round but now it is just boring and drab.

Now this is the fountain that they put in which is supposed to shoot jets of water in the air but it spends more time being fixed and under repair than doing anything else.

This is Market Street, the busy pedestrianised part of the city...it's just like what hell would be ;like with lots of shops (Kimmy you will love it)

This is what I like about Manchester, the really old buildings that have some character.

What better than charcter than a street busker and this one was really good called 'The Hoochie Coochie Man', we spent some time here just listening, before putting some cash into his hat as a thank you.

Like many cities these day we have our very own big wheel.

More busking to listen to and another statue. We lots of them all over the place, some good and some bad!

We had a french market in the city this weekend selling their expesive wares but they did taste nice though.

I think this is te shirtest street in Manchester, it is called Four Yard Street. Actually it's about 32 being sad I measured!

The Terror running through the arches at the back of the town hall.

Our town hall another splendid building, this was built in the days they could really build something nice.

Another statue not sure who it was as there was nothing on it to say who it is.

Well I hope you enjoyed my little stroll around the city, I did take more but I don't want to bore you with lots of pictures, I hope you enjoy them anyway.

The Reign of The Terror!

2009-04-24T11:52:00.000-07:00

Just a little funny story from another chapter in The Terror's reign of fear and fun. (AKA 2 year old boy).

Yesterday he was playing in the garden and wanted his Bob the Builder cycle crash hat on, that is a lot like a fireman's helmet and he was using Little G's skipping rope as a hose pipe to put out fires, so I decided to go and do something constructive and get the dirty clothes together for washing.

I heard The Terror, come in downstairs and he was running from the kitchen to the lounge room shouting "FIRE", need to put it out, so thinking he was playing I asked him if it was still burning as he ran back to the garden "YES" he called back and then he returned to the lounge room once more, by which time I was down stairs with the dirty clothes and The Terror coming out of the lounge room looking all smug with himself saying "PUT FIRE OUT NOW" fearing the worse i walked into the lounge room to see the sofa and the floor covered in sand! He had been using his sand pit outside to fill his bucket and then run inside to pour over his pretend fire! You just had to laugh at him at the time due to the mess he left. Lets just say his sand pit is covered today and he is banned from it for two days!

Saint George's day....hoorah!

2009-04-23T09:45:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year that once more when your proud to be English. Now it's not easy as everybody tries to ban anything patriotic and we are beaten down to an inch of our lives for daring to show any pride towards our own country....yet if you are from one of the other countries from the UK (Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland) our councils will help you celebrate your day, they will even put on a parade or a show just to make sure your day goes that little bit better. They even ban flags flying anywhere if you don't have a licence on health and safety grounds.

So today my flag has been flying with pride in the front garden and sod the council because today it is great to be English,......tomorrow may be a little different and I will take down and fold up my flag until next year.

Now it's time to go and drink my little bottle of cheap French beer I have left!

Cats and things

2009-04-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

What a busy week it's been this week I have not have five minutes to myself, like a lot of people on here everything just seems to be rush, rush, rush at the moment with only a bit of time to come up for air!

The weekend is only a couple of days away now so that is something to look forward to, I have not got anything planned but it will be good to try and sneak in ten minutes 'ME' time along the way somewhere, not sure when that will be but I can only try. Just may and have a few beers and a play on the Nintendo Wii, although that is difficult these days as the cat sees the dangling wire and thinks to himself 'great a dangling wire this is a game'. Not realising how this upsets me and gets him ready to be thrown out of the room, especially if a high score is on the way and he breaks my concentration by pulling and biting on the wires. The cat is loving the spring weather at the moment and is spending all his tie outside chasing all sorts of bugs, toying with them and then killing them. It's worse in the evenings when he comes in and sees a little moth and feels the need to chase it all over the house knocking everything off as he goes, the cat is mad!

Monday blues

2009-04-20T10:36:00.001-07:00

Another fabulous day today (Kimmy 19C today it's getting hotter) the sun is shining all day the skies are blue and at work like a lot of unfortunate others I am stuck inside all day. No windows or anything that extravagant just four grey walls to stare at for fun, so it's great when work is done to come home, put the shorts on and t-shirt and chill in the garden while getting the dinner done for everybody, that's after taking Mrs Stu to karate and Little G to Brownies.

The government announces it's budget this week and it is going to be either a big series of cutbacks for everybody or we are going to be hit hard in the pocket to pay for or the billions that they have pumped into the banks to keep the economies going in this economic downturn. I can see them making everything a 'green' issue so that they can raise taxes easier under the illusion that they are saving the planet by doing so and like every budget whatever taxes they take are never pumped back into the things that they should be pumped into. The usual culprits of the tax increases are bound to be petrol, alcohol, tobacco and their new one air taxes as the aviation industry is the big bad demon at the moment. I just hope the unelected Prime Minister,Mr Brown realises he will soon be coming up for election and after this financial mess there is no way he will be elected back into office.

Now I am going to take my cheap beer into the garden and kind of enjoy it for what it is and to try and hit the spot it's suppose to.

If you go down to the woods today....

2009-04-19T00:49:00.000-07:00

It was a pretty good day here yesterday with blue skies and the temperatures reaching a mind blowing 13C (kimmy it wil reach 18C this week), so it was time to head down to the woods for some great exploring and climbing. Mrs Stu could not come as she was catching up on school work before starting back at work after the holidays, so I had to be a responsible adult for once and not do anything to daring, so I just took the camera for something to do.

The kids are eager to go off and explore the woods.

It is a ver ypopula place to come and the park rangers have done a great job trying to combat the eroson caused by all the people who visit the area and enjoy it's beauty.

It's better to go off the beaten track as that's where all the good trees are to climb, Little g managed this today climbing across it but as i said be a responsible adult for the day only, I had to just watch, life is not fair at times!

This place dates back thousands of years and as the sign says it was a warning point where a large bonfire would of been lit as a signal to warn that the Spanish Armarda was on it's way to try and invade us.

Looking out across a vantage point in the woods showing the green of the grass now that Spring is upon us and the Cheshire countryside in the distance.

How better to finish off the day than this......

....and after all that there were no bears!

Holidays!!!

2009-04-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

Well the much earned cash that has been saved up is once again going to be burned to thin air, I'm talking jet fuel here as once again we are off on our holidays for four weeks to a nice hot summers holiday to Melbourne, Australia.......oh no wait a cotton picking minute there is no sunshine down there at that time of year it's the middle of winter where everybody freezes for a few months, except for mad Englishmen who still go around in t-shirts whatever the weather. Once again I am giving up the English, summer that is booked in for August 7th-9th where it will might get up to a high of around 22C and then every other day it will rain!

For the second year in a row we are taking the nightmare journey to see the in laws! Mrs Stu feels she has to go and see her sister due to all the problems this year they have had with the fires and having to put down two of her horses. This time there is a change to how we are travelling, Mrs Stu, teaches children so in her authority this year they have an extra week at summer so in total she has off nearly six and a half weeks just for summer and she doesn't want to waste it so she is travelling as soon as she can to make the most of her time with her family. In my place of work I am on the maximum 32 due to the length of my service and if I took off all those days then I would be wiped out for the year and I am not doing that again, so the compromise is that Mrs Stu flies out first in the Wednesday, evening that school finished and I travel 16 days later and then we both come back at the same time as the coming back is the harder journey to make we find. Now I don't envy her as she will have Little G who will be no problem as she is 8 this year but The Terror, is a different matter and he is a law onto himself at times and we usually take it in turns like tag team fighters to look after him and keep him entertained. We are flying with Emirates this time as they are the cheapest and quickest from our airport and they have a great in flight entertainment system which we are hoping to act as a kind of a babysitter. it's either that or unleash him onto the other passengers to cause havoc.

It's going to be kind of weird not travelling with them and being at home on my own. Mrs Stu has started drawing up a list of jobs for me to do before she goes, like painting the hall and staircase and the lounge room as she says it would be far easier without all of us around! My plan is to hit it hard and fast so I have more time to chill out on my own with the cat, I can see some serious game console time coming here and a few beers. All I am hoping is that the seats are not to cramped and I can get an exit aisle as being 6'4" and cramped is never good on the legs at least with the kids I have an excuse to stroll up and down the plane to stretch, knowing me I will settle into my seat, turn on the films and then I will be gone until I land 24 hours later!

Work, photos and AFL

2009-04-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful day to be back at work after a great six days off in total and finding you have to sort out other peoples problems as they are unable to sort it out themselves while you are away for a few days. I am not saying I am the ideal worker but I would never leave a problem for somebody else to sort out without telling them first and I even had to get my hands dirty to resolve it.

This past Christmas I got Mrs Stu a new camera, a proper one at last with the option to change the lenses and the like. The last camera was pretty good but this one for image quality knocks the socks off the old one and it is better on so many levels and so quick as well with continuous taking. We had a great few pictures of The Terror jumping in the air with his tongue hanging out. Most of the pics I have been posting are with the new one as it pics up so much detail and when we process them onto film as we like a hard copy to look at rather than the screen in case anything ever happens to them at home or the computer dies, the colours are so much more vibrant.

Now being married to an Australian, I decided to follow/barrack a team in the Aussie AFL, a few years back and being the sweet gullible person that I am I opted for the Richmond Tigers, the same as my wife and for the pass few seasons and I have been following them and to put it nicely they are utter crap, but once I pick a team I stick with them through thick and thin and I am not use to supporting a losing team I am used to success by following Manchester United in the English Premiership, I think she sold me a duff team!

Sunday happenings

2009-04-12T23:36:00.000-07:00

Today is my fifth day of in a row and I am slowly starting to relax, if that's possible with two young kids around. It is the most time of since last August and then it was just the two days at Christmas, so to have an extra couple of days to spend it with the family is great as I am not back at work until Wednesday. I have just not had the holidays to take as I used them to go to Australia last year for a month and that wiped me out and the other days I have are used for kids emergencies!

Easter has come and gone and the kids now have a huge pile of eggs for them to eat, which under our routine of eating nice things will last them a long time as we like to see them eat more of the good stuff than junk, although the only food The Terror wants to eat is a cheese sandwich. I thought this Easter, the first time in 39 years I was not going to get an egg at all as Mrs Stu was not able to find me one when she went the day before Easter Sunday trying to get me one! At least my mum bought me one :-)

Yesterday was spent out and about again so I am not going to bore you with lots more pics and I will only post two of where we went.

We travelled once again to a place we had never been to called Gawthorpe Hall .

It took less than a hour and we travelled though some beautiful green countryside to get there up and down the hills, one hill was especially great as it was full of wind turbines and although static they just look great, some people say they spoil the view but I think they add to it especially when they are turning in the wind.

This is another modern property and was only built a few years back in 1605, so a relative new build. It is one of the best properties I have ever been to inside with much of the old furniture still in there.

The kids enjoyed another Easter egg hunt around the grounds with a prize at the end of a chocolate egg to add to their collection. What annoyed me most about the day was the parents who let their kids eat their egg after the hunt and then threw the rubbish on the floor. I admit there was no bins, but so what pick it up and carry it away it's not such a hardship to do!

Then when we got back I quickly got the grass cut while listening to the ipod and then decided to get the bbq ready for the summer season, it had a right good scrub down with the power wash and then all the cooking plates cleaned and oiled again, the burners got lit again to test them and then I had to turn it all off again and have pasta bake as we had nothing in to cook on it, so today it's a visit to the supermarket as the weather should hold to cook on it tonight

Splashing in puddles with pics

2009-04-11T01:45:00.000-07:00

As it was glorious sunny day here yesterday (actually I lie it rained all day) we decided to go on an Easter egg hunt being held locally at a place called Quarry Bank Mill. Now this building dates from 1790 so it is weathering a bit well. In fact it is in better condition than most new homes built these days and as it was only a ten minute drive away what better place to go to.

The front of the cotton mill, excuse the picture quality as they were taken from my mobile as we couldn't have the other camera out due to the rain.

The rear view of the mill as you can see quite impressive, the people used to have to work 12 hour shifts six days a week including the children. I have no photos of the inside as taking pictures is not allowed and I respect there as it is something you have to see for yourself and not to rely on the internet to get that feeling of what it is like.

The mill keepers cottage viewed from the gardens where the workers were not allowed to go. These have only just reopened after years being hidden by the undergrowth.

Anther view of the mill from the back.

A view from the mill high up in the gardens.

The stream flowing through the gardens that powered the wheel that turned the machinery in the mill itself

Some of the gardens that have been renovated they still of a lot to do to make the gardens what it was in the past, but they have done a fantastic job.

Doing what all little boys should do on a miserable rainy day, splash in puddles!

Mission done and bad cat!

2009-04-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

The mission Mrs Stu had tasked was an easy one this time nothing to serious just to get in and get the job done and be out again, whatever the outcome I knew it was going to be wrong anyway however it turned out. The Terror and myself got to the appointed location but unfortunately there were ten others ahead of us and we knew we were in for a long wait. One by one the men and boys ahead of us went to their fate with some success and some failures, there were some failures but there were mostly nods of success to the two men standing carrying out the deeds. After a hour of waiting and trying to keep The Terror, entertained it was finally his turn to go and when the task was finally done I returned home to the words that I knew were coming whatever the outcome "They cut his hair to short I'll take him next time!" My reaction...Mission Successful!

That lousy cat caused me pain again last night, he comes and goes on his own now (No Doanli, the cat flap is still not fitted!) up until a certain time and then he stays in for the night. Well at his appointed time of being in he decided to break curfew and stay out. Mrs Stu and Little G were out in the garden calling his name and he still wouldn't come and the clock ticked around and my evening chilled back watching the footie was spoilt by the announcement that I had to go and have a walk and see if he was about. Hmm great I thought, so with no luck I returned home and finally went to bed just after 12 locking the doors as the fear of leaving them open may mean everybodies cats come in during the night. I hit the pillow and was out only to be constantly woken by Mrs Stu saying she thinks she can hear a bell can I go and check. Eventually at four I got sick of this, got dressed and went downstairs to watch some tv and open the back door. Ten minutes later the cat wanders in wanting something to eat and now all of today all he has done is sleep on The Terror's bed all day.....bad, bad cat!

Just for Doanli.....

2009-04-07T23:24:00.000-07:00

Doanli, here is your cat pic you have been asking for. I will try to get more if Toby will stay still enough to pose for me. Are you happy yet........lol

I hate school holidays!

2009-04-07T10:33:00.001-07:00

First off all may I say greetings to my visitor from the Yemen who has paid a visit according to my statistics box at the side that I have installed and also to the visitor from Mexico, I say hello.

Does anybody have a taser or a stun gun, maybe even a cattle prod I can lend while the school holidays are on over here at the moment as there quite a few of the loud mouths that I would like to silence each day for a few hours! I am quite sure that when I was young I never had a mouth as big as the kids playing outside today, I'm sure they have megaphones surgically implanted at birth and as they grow older they get louder. Mrs Stu has said I have to show restraint as they are only kids having fun, but as soon as they get to noisy then that spoils my fun of whatever I am doing. So annoying that the parents up to a certain age and none of these kids are above 8 are left out unsupervised, they are just left to run wild.

That's the problem today a lot of parents will not take responsibility for their kids and will blame their kids actions on everybody else rather than their own parenting when that is the obvious choice. I can remember many a time a neighbour complaining about me being noisy and my dad grounding me even if I was in the right, as he said I had to respect elders and not cause a nuisance. My kids are not angels but I am bringing them up to respect others and their property and if they do get to noisy then I bring them in and we can suffer.

Sorry rant over i am turning into a grumpy old man at the ripe old age of 39!

A Sunday out with pictures

2009-04-05T23:16:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a quiet day spent relaxing and visiting a National Trust House close to us, well about 45 minutes away that is. The place was called Old Rufford Hall, and was actually quite nice. The picture below shows two stages of build, the black and white bit dates from 1540 and the brick bit is relatively new and dates from 1652!

The back view of the house showing the gardens.

The kids enjoying the walk at the back of the gardens.

The back view of the house

Some more of the gardens

The entrance to the gardens

The courtyard out back

After we had finished at the house we walked along the canal to where we saw all the house oats parked up

The inside of the house was great with some really great things on show set out with all the original furniture from the house and display cases showing old guns and swords with their history. Unfortunately no photography is allowed in the house due to flash damaging the old things and obviously so people will go and see them instead of just looking on the Internet

Just a question

2009-04-04T01:55:00.000-07:00

We are currently finding money very hard to come by over here and our Government have once again decided to put up the cost of the taxation that we pay per litre on fuel by another 2p and it is now standing at a mind boggling (I like the word 'boggling' at the moment) 94p per litre which works out for those who visit in your own currency, Australia $1.95 a litre, and US $6.32 a gallon. Now I am not up to date with other countries current fuel costs so a little survey just how much are you paying at the pump right now for your fuel, are we the highest?

Who took them, be honest!

2009-04-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

We have had a beautiful day here today with the temperature up to a mind boggling 16C. Can you believe that for England, everybody is out in t-shirts and shorts today. It's not a very nice sight at the best of times but even I have my shorts on for now!

Have you ever put things down inside the house and can never find them again? I have now lost my glasses and just can't find them anywhere! They went back in their case at the end of the evening where i usually keep them at the side of the computer as I only need them for reading and then the following evening they are gone. After grilling the top subject about them, The Terror, he denies all knowledge of even seeing him, but seeing as he has a memory span of the goldfish at the moment on what he does that is understandable, yet he can recite his TV tunes backwards, maybe less TV I think for him. and then the over two culprits in the house Mrs Stu and Little G also deny all knowledge. (The cat is not on the culprit list....yet) I have turned the house upside down and they are not there. How can something just vanish into thin air, there will be pain for somebody when I do find them, or just a stern finger wagging at them!

Under the thumb!

2009-03-30T10:22:00.000-07:00

A most productive Sunday, what started out as a beautiful, day with the sun out all day and beautiful sunshine, ended with having to decorate the bathroom all day. I had bought the paints sometime ago as it had got to the time again that it needed a lick of paint, Mrs Stu decided that it was time to do it today as we had nothing else to do and we meaning 'me'! All day was spent cleaning everything out of there replacing the sealant around the bath, all the gloss work redone and all the walls repainted in a day as well as fitting new taps as well.

I got lots of help as Mrs Stu found lots of places she had to go visit, take Little G to her friends and to leave The Terror, with me to help, until she picked him up later on to go to a friends house! Which was a lot of fun as he stood in the paint tray and walked it around the bathroom and managed to paint my head as well in 'Mint Crisp'. Where do they get these names for paint colours why can't it just be simple like pale green which is what it was, is there a committee that sits down and discusses it to see what ridiculous colour would appeal to women. It was actually great them being out as I could just have the ipod on loud as i painted....actually it was not so great i would rather of been in the garden with a beer and the ipod on!

The cat has found out he likes to chase flying things....

andwhen life gets to busy it's time to kick back and relax!

A walk in the park....with more pics

2009-03-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

The Terror running free towards the fountain

This is the fountain he was running to, I think it needs a bit of work, with a few more nice plants putting in.

Exploring the spring plants

Just in the park with The Terror while Mrs Stu and Little G are doing their karate gradings for the first time, so while they are doing that I have taken The Terror out as he was getting louder than the forty people doing their gradings! Now we are exploring the fresh air and having father and son being daft time. Mrs Stu almost never went to her grading as she fell over my boots and twisted her knee a couple of days ago......oh dear!

*UPDATE* They have both passed their belts and are now on the long slope towards a black belt, with lots of time and injuries it will take to get there. I should know I've walked the path a few years ago now and when I was there again there was that itching again to get back into it and start again. The reason I stopped was time there was never enough in a day for me to go and do it. I use to love beating people up....joking, but it was fun as well as physically exhausting at times, maybe it's time to look into it once more.

Rain, rain go away, come back.....

2009-03-26T10:44:00.001-07:00

What is it with the weather and the like they say global warming and it is as cold and as wet as ever, I have booked summer once again this year for July 18Th, so if you have days booked off either side then change them now. After this date it is a downward spiral to winter again!

The other night I came home from work and as I was cooking for the mass horde Little h came up saying he wanted to play outside and doing anything to have an easy life while trying to get something done without the constant call of "Daaaaaadddddddddd, can I.....", I let him play out in the garden. It was only a light shower at the time so I put his coat on him and hood up and let him out, the fresh air would do him good. Two minutes later he was back saying he couldn't play on anything due to it being wet, so being a good parent that I am I gave him a towel and it kept him outside for a full thirty minutes trying to dry his slide and toys so he could play with them!

The cat is starting to piss me off now in the mornings, he will come into the bedroom at five, jump on the bed, walk up me and then start patting me on the face to get up and feed him or let him out. he is heading for my bad books again mighty quick!

Champions!

2009-03-24T11:20:00.000-07:00

At last the mighty England cricket team finally wins a trophy of note and what better place to do it than in the land down under! It may be the women's cricket team but I bet they would give our current men's team a run for their money. They could even take on the men's Australian, team after their defeat to the South Africans the other day (losing by an innings.....the shame of it!).

So rejoice in the fact that England are World Champions!

Weekend mutterings

2009-03-23T11:28:00.000-07:00

Another quiet weekend has come and gone nothing much to report on the home front over here. Little H has finally grown out of his cot and we finally got him a "BIG BED" as he has been going around telling everybody. It was time we upgraded from his cot as he is eighteen now and his legs were sticking out of the end!....only kidding he was two, but saying that even two was old but he fitted in it and couldn't escape in the mornings so he stayed in there. He was so excited when it came and couldn't understand how come he had to wait a day from Friday until Saturday until I built it as he wanted it "NOW"!. It is a raised bed just so we can store some toys under it for him and he can use it as a den as well, although his sister seems to of taken command of it now and sees it as hers.

We have just had mothering Sunday, over here and Saturday was spent running around getting last minute gifts, cards and flowers, I took it out of their pocket money as the gifts were or their mother! Then Sunday it was out for a nice pub lunch, where I got to eat meat which is a real luxury for me these days, it was a beautiful Sunday roast with all the trimmings. Living with a vegetarian and cooking the meals i usually can't be bothered cooking two different meals so I put up with the same to stop the hassle, the food is getting better now and actually tastes quite good when you cover it in a sauce of some kind as when I started eating veggie some of the things tasted quite bland and cardboard tasted nicer!

Hot and wet!

2009-03-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

Having some great Spring type weather over here at the moment, it got to a mighty 16C today, which was not much use to me as I was stuck indoors all day in my windowless box that I call work. Inside has always been colder than the outside but the people who control the boilers for all the units around including ours decided to turn of the heating today, the penny pinching bastards to save them a few pounds, whereas we are still paying the rent for the place they decide if we have heating or not!

Minor disaster in the Mr-Stu household last night. Mrs Stu, was out doing something with work so I thought great, kids to bed and a few beers and then a movie. So little g was having a shower and when I came down to sort Little H for his bed I walked into the kitchen to find a pond in the kitchen, first thought was the shower was leaking somewhere so examining the ceiling to see where the waterfall was coming from there wasn't any. Turning then to the next logical source of leakage it turned out to be the washing machine! When I had loaded the washing machine, doing my good deed for the day, with Mrs Stu's and Little G's karate suits I had not put them in correctly and had left one of the tie cords hanging out which broke the seal around the door. So while I had been sorting things out with the kids the water had been running out from the machine across the floor, I then found out the kitchen has a very slight slope so that the water ran across the floor and under the fridge/freezer! So while trying to get all this mopped up, with water pouring out of the machine, the cat decided this is a great game we are playing and to attack the mop which he took a dislike to. Anyway everything got sorted in the end. The washing machine still works again, the fridge is back in it's place after being shifted out and put back. The cat finished second best to the mop after he found out he gets wet. I lost my Mr Stu time and I have to buy Mrs Stu a new karate suit after the tie cord tore off damaging her suit. Roll on weekend!

Just some pics to fill the space

2009-03-17T11:21:00.001-07:00

Just a few pics from the weekend as I have an empty head tonight and not much to say.

Here is young Toby, taking his first steps in the big wide world.

Here is exploring the garden showing his backside to Mrs Stu's cushion for her garden chair, it is on the floor doing no good just like her team the Richmond Tigers!

It is just a stick now he is playing with but in a few months he will be playing the flute no problem!

A pic of the boy weighing up if he is going to give the birds any bread or eat it himself!

Morning blues

2009-03-16T00:29:00.000-07:00

It's nice being woken by your 2 year old with him calling out on a Sunday, morning "Daddy, I'm awake now, get me up" and then go into a rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. I don't mind that sort of a wake up it's quite nice but when it starts at 2 a.m. then that's another problem! Inevitably he ended up in our bed, and why do children take up so much room, I end up sleeping on a very tiny strip right on the end of the bed, and then the cat makes an appearance and jumps in as well. It's going to be much easier in the future to wear ear plugs and sleep on the sofa downstairs for a better nnight sleep.

The cat had it's first taste of freedom this weekend and got to venture out into the big,bad world that we have out there. I have some pics to post to show him exploring once I get from my camera onto the computer. It was weird watching him out for the first time, going around sniffing everything and then when he got braver he started to climb and walk along the fence and jump on the shed, he vanished for 30 minutes at a time but still came back, so hopefully that will be a trend he follows. We are not all home again until Thursday now, so he is going to now go stir crazy until we let him out again then! Not sure if this is true but does anybody put butter on a cats paws the first time out?

Hope everybody has a great working week and if not the weekends almost here.

As for England's cricket results they would be better sending out an old age pensioners cricket team to take on the West Indies, as they would put more spirit into the fight!

Pass the pain killers!

2009-03-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

At last the working week is over for me I thought it would never end, it just went on and on and on and on this week. I think it was just me really and I got bored so that just made it all the worse. Anyway the weekend is here and I have fun things to do like put in a cat flap for Toby, but I bet N0.2 child will try to see if he fits through it at some point to liven things up!

Made a bad decision the other night I went to a friends to watch the footie, as I no longer have the sports on mine and as the offer of a few beers were on the table as well, how could one refuse! It was a great night and the beer and then the whisky flowed all to easily. I knew I should not of done it on a work night as the next morning I suffered for it, getting up early. Every noise was a lot louder than it should of been, I couldn't even put my ipod on to listen to the music my head was throbbing that bad and the usual 30 minute walk to work took nearly 60 minutes. The famous last words were spoken "never again", but that was two days ago and the weekend is here....so cheers hope everybody has a nice weekend.

The cat is pure evil and a pic for Doanli!

2009-03-10T15:34:00.000-07:00

The pic above is of a lovable, cute little cat or else this is the pose Toby, likes to give to his admiring public. This is not how I see him. At the moment we are fixed in a power battle to decide who is top dog....I mean cat...no I don't I mean dog.....no I don't, even I'm confused now..anyway there is a power struggle going on!

He is still locked inside the house until he has his last injection this week and then he will be let loose to wreck havoc in the neighbourhood with all the other cats, but how he will do it without any balls is anyones guess. Toby's latest thing to piss me off is to sneak in our bedroom when we are asleep, jump on top of the chest of draws at the side of the bed and to then wait! He waits until ther is movement under the duvet (doona!) usually my feet and then launches himself claws first onto my feet and after he has got the reaction, namely a pillow being thrown in his direction then he is off. I'll have the last laugh as I won't feed him. Saying that he is curled up in a ball at the side of me as I write this as cute as can be.

To prove Toby, has another side to him I will leave you this picture to show you the dark side of him!

Just click on the picture to see the hate filled eyes!

kitchen garden

2009-03-09T04:26:00.000-07:00

Well what was meant to be a day outside attacking the garden ended up being a day indoors mostly due to the weather. It started off nice with the blue skies lighting up the morning but that soon changed to showers and gale force winds all day. Not to be out done though we went to the garden centre and got various trays of flowers and decided to make up some hanging baskets on the kitchen table. In the end you would of thought a farmer had ploughed a fiend through there instead of two children putting together two baskets. Anyway fun was had by all and the cat got in on the job as well by taking a liking to the sweet peas and eating them as fast as the kids planted them. He eventually took a flying lesson of the table though to get rid of his help!

Jumping and digging!

2009-03-08T00:13:00.000-08:00

The weekend finally arrived this week to try and blow the boredon couds away that have been hovering around me all week. Little G, does gymnastics on a saturday morning so first thing it was up and out with the parent taxi to take her there. it has been great going to see her again as I have not been in quite a while as it is usually Mrs Stu he does that job on a Saturday, while I have the delight of Little H, who as a typical two year old does not know how to sit still and do nothing for 60 minutes!

After watching Little G, for a while I took Little H, to the idoor kids play area, this is one of those places inside a building that has all the slides and tunnels made out of scaffold poles and then covered in three inches of padding to prevent the little ones from smashing their skull open! Their was a young part for kids under 4 and the olderbit rather obvous for kids over four. Little H was way to big for the under 4 section so with my encouragement we explored the older section as they had bigger slides and things which are a lot more fun. When your playing chase though and trying to catch a little one who can squeeze through everything and beng 6'4" myself it is sometimes very difficult to catch him. We had a lot of fun though and that was the whole point of going.

With the weather getting better it means that it is getting time to do the garden once more, oh joy of joys how i love doing the gardening! Today is going to be spent getting plants for putting in the garden, which always look so nice in their pots in the garden centre, but it's like I have the garden hand of death the leaves just shrivel as soon as I touch them, plants come to our house to die, maybe this year a little TLC is in order!

Spring and cricket!

2009-03-06T15:24:00.000-08:00

Well at least it's Friday and the week is out of the way, I can feel spring in the air today, walking home from work the first shoots are starting to poke through the earth, and the trees are starting to releaf again, we even had a great blue shy today it was a mighty 8C and t-shirt weather.

Last year my car broke and since it was a heap of junk at the time it was not worth repairing it, so since then I have had to walk to work everyday. It's not that far, just over 2 miles I think and it takes just a little over 30 minutes. it is the only 30 minutes I get to myself these days, but it is the most boring route you could ever walk! On the longest stretch of the walk just over a mile and a half there is just nothing, no nature, no wildlife just boring bushes and the passing cars aiming at the puddles to soak you after there has been a down pour. On one side there is a giant mound of earth that hides the airport car park and on the other is another mound of earth hiding the motorway and all I'm faced with is the dull faces of the drivers and their passengers each morning, they could wear clown faces to liven my journey into work up or something each day!

At least it's Saturday tomorrow...in fact Saturday comes in five minutes. Another glorious day for English cricket as the captain makes another test century, noticing the minnows of cricket currently playing in South Africa as well today the Aussies seemed to start rather well for a change, lets hope it's not something that continues!

Go away it's boring here!

2009-03-05T09:18:00.000-08:00

Do you find yourself getting stuck in a routine that you are unable to get out of at times? My life at the moment is on boredom mode during the week with nothing much to do. It goes a bit like this, get up, get kids dressed and fed, get lunches ready, get kids to school/nursery,work, home again, make dinner, clean up, get kids to bed, clean up again, flop in chair and fall asleep.....repeat this step Monday to Friday.

I suppose everybody else feels the same at this time of year as well in the northern hemisphere, with winter almost over and spring not quite here there is not much to do without spending money. (Is there nothing free anymore?) At least Saturdays and Sundays are more relaxed but due to the current economic climate finances are strained and having to save for holidays as well, so evenings out have to be put on hold for a bit. My highlight this weekend will be a nice Indian, takeaway to enjoy. My mouth is watering at the thought...yum

The Great Escape

2009-03-03T10:21:00.000-08:00

Phew!

That is the sound of total relief after finding out I wasn't one of the ninety who got made redundant at my place of work yesterday. We have been expecting the worse and thought that this time our section was out of the door, but to be told there were only two going from our section in total was a bit of a relief. One of those had already taken a job elsewhere and the other for whatever reason has decided to go and live in New Zealand, I think there was a good pay off in the offering so that helped a bit in the decision to go. Once again another cull survived not sure how many more I can survive as there has been numerous once since I started many, many years ago and i seem to keep dodging the axe!

Now we can get our holiday booked in August, to sunny old Melbourne so my wife can go home and visit the family. It is going to be a total differnt visit this time as the places we usually go and visit have been destroyed by fire and the landscape is going to be so different. Usually it is every two years we visit , but Mrs Stu, feels she has to go home this year and see her family. They have been like a yo-yo these past few weeks moving to safety andthen home again depending on the winds and the fires. We now just have to find some cheap airfares to get us there, at the stupid highly inflated prices just because it is the school holidays. It is looking towards Emirates as they are the cheapest again after going up a lot. Last year we flew QANTAS and they were great which was unexpected as Mrs Stu said they use to be very snobby.

It has been great here today weather wise...grey skies and rain all day with cold winds, what more could somebody ask for!

So Slow Day

2009-02-28T12:14:00.000-08:00

Can you hear that......... no neither can I that is the sound of silence after the son is in bed and Mrs Stu and the daughter are out, the silence is just great so I am just surfing on here catching up and enjoying a beer with the cat for company....bliss!

Very slow news day here today as there is not much happening, besides doing the house work, that horrible stuff like cleaning clothes and the house and doing the bits of shopping I needed to pick up the day has really dragged by. Although the kids made up for it by being really louder than usual, surely there must be some law where you are allowed to gag them for a couple of hours or to use sedatives......only joking!

Went to the shops to pick up a few things, drove to the multi storey car park stopping at every red light, parked up, went down the stairs (getting fit not using the lift), got the basket, filled it with the stuff I need, got to the check out, stand in queue......realise money is at home....so put everything back on the shelf, walked back up the stairs, into the car, back home and out again. Repeat the previous but pay at the end, and you will get some idea of what an exciting day I have had today.

At least it is almost over. hope everybody else has fared better. :)

Mad Cat

2009-02-27T11:42:00.000-08:00

What is it with cats are they all mad? We have now had Toby (not my choice of name) three weeks and the more he settles in and goes stir crazy the more mad and hyper he gets! The vet said we can't let him out until he has had his second round of injections so for two more weeks he will use up all his energy dashing around the house like a mad feline, at the moment he is jumping on top and getting behind everything he can to explore including the tv and computer with their mass of wires and important connections he keeps pulling out.

I have been trying to keep him distracted by finding him things to occupy his mind, but that usually involves me getting up and playing some daft game with him and getting clawed in the process. Like the four inch scar he put down my arm the other night! His best toy up to now involved a piece of string that he would just chase around, as long as I walked around with it behind me, but now I have found a new toy that sends him mad a laser pointer, oh what joy to send him scuttling back and forth through the room or up and down the stairs while I sit back and enjoy a nice, ice cold beer!

Which reminds me it's Friday, night so it's time to go open a nice cold one. Hope everybody has fun and has a great weekend.

Here there and everywhere

2009-02-25T06:14:00.000-08:00

I never realised on my blog that I had the word verification button turned on! I would go to other blogs and see this silly verification thing and curse it every time I typed something in wrong, not realising that I had it turned on myself....duh! Anyway it is now off so hopefully there will be no further problems with posts. It must of all been linked to google mail going down, me thinks!

G, my daughter has now started up another after school activity she wants to do so now this is her list for this week:-

Monday - Brownies (started this week)

Tuesday - Karate

Wednesday - Swimming

Thursday - Gymnastics Training

Friday - Gymnastics Evening Extravaganza

Saturday - Gymnastics Training (morning), Gymnastics Evening Extravaganza (evening)

I got tired just writing that list, we have not pushed her into anything and have just let her go with the flow and she seems to like everything except the swimming which she wants to stop, but that is the only one we really want her to do. She can swim a fair distance now so at the end of the school year we may stop that one to give her some time to rest.

Then when H, gets up to age it all starts up again we may have to employ people to chauffeur them to all the events they want to do and now Mrs Stu has started karate as well twice a week and me....I'm the unpaid dogsbody around here!

A day at the seaside with pictures

2009-02-23T23:41:00.000-08:00

An invaders view

The courtyard

Broken boats

A view from the top

A picof the bay from the castle walls

A boat on the beach

Walking the walls to the castle loking out towards Wales.

The approach to the castle

The pics are a bit jumbled but you get the point of what they are about just a great day out with the kids and Mrs Stu!

2009-02-21T02:11:00.000-08:00

OK this is something I have pinched from sasmagicalmysterytour for an inventive Saturday morning, it works the brain anyway.

1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit 'random'. The first Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Quotations Page and select 'random quotations'. The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to Flickr and click on 'explore the last seven days'. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Picnik (or photoshop or whatever) to put it all together. Then tell us about your album.

5 - comment with the link to your album.

Azadegan, are one of the great unheard of Russian heavy metal bands, styled on the lines of the 80's group Sigue, Sigue, Sputnick! Relatively unheard of outside their St. Petersburg, home they are now taking Russia and the former Eastern Block, countries by storm and their new single 'better thing than to arrive' is undoubtedly about to storm the charts!

Well that's my effort if you can come up with something lets see it then and the link to your page.

ARRRRGGGGHHHHH

2009-02-20T07:49:00.000-08:00

Disaster struck on the most enormous magnitude last night, I have not known anything like it since the last piece of the jigsaw went missing, (do people still do jigsaws these days or is it just kids now?). The Sky+ box broke! Now out of all my gadgets I have and use this has to be the hub of the household, that everybody uses, but last night it went down.

Sky+ is like a video recorder but a whole lot more, you can record live two channels at once, you have the weeks ahead viewing guide at your finger tips, where you can set reminders to record and even series link all the epsodes to record soyou don't have to set it everytime it is on. You can fast forward through the advrts, there is this and just so much more. You can watch something from your recorded stuff while two programs are recording, you can rewind tv if you misheard something or missed that all important Aussie cricketer getting out your abe to rewind it and watch it again and again.

Anyway it was on the telephone to Sky, to try and resolve the problem because all our recorded stuff we could not see as it was not letting us get into our planner and when I had been put on hold, I was finally put through to somebody in India to resolve the issues and she was great except for what happened. She tried several things I had to do while using the handset and trying to reboot the system but to no avail and then she said the last option was to do a full reboot that would lose everything recorded on it.AAAAAARGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

This did resolve the issue and got it up and going again but everything was gone! Every single episode we had not had chance to see, including six episodes of Lost we had not got around to watching yet, now i am going to have to buy the series to find out what happens as we have seen every episodes up to now and I knowit is as confusing as anything but we have watched it this far and just need to see the conclusion.

Well I hope everybody has a good weekend....me I am going to enjoy a nice beer and watch that movie classic Alien vs Predator!

p.s. Toby, is back and fit and well...minus his balls!

YIKES!!!

2009-02-19T09:45:00.000-08:00

It's cross your legs time for the blokes out there, the females will all have a sly smile on their face after I tell you this. The adopted cat Toby, has to have his balls cut off! When we got him from the animal sanctuary we had been told he had been sorted out in that department but it was not to be. We had not checked because they told us he had been done.

They were not sure when we got him if he had, had any of his injections so we got him in to be sorted and get a health check and when the vet checked he still had his balls. We called up the place where we got him and they said when they got him they were unsure as the bloke who brought him in said he had been done when obviously he had not. They never had a problem with this and said bring him back and they will sort him out...ouch!

He has now gone back to the rescue home and the house is now quiet with Little H asking a million times where has the cat gone and you give him an answer and then five minutes later you get the same question, the joy of kids. The trip to Conwy is on hold tomorrow now as we have to pick the cat up and we have now changed it until Saturday after Little G, does her gymnastics class.

Poor Toby!

Wednesday mumblings!

2009-02-18T10:49:00.001-08:00

I have taken three days off this week, using up the last of my annual leave before it finishes at the end of March, to spend some time with the kids and the wife during the half term holidays here right now. Today was spent at Chester Zoo for a few hours. We try to take them once a year to try and broaden their horizons and to try and teach them about the animals. H, who is two only wanted to see the crocodiles and that was all he would talk about going there, when he got there he was excited about every animal there from the small to the large. Lots of new buildings and habitats have been altered since last time to make it more like the animals natural habitat. It took 30 minutes to queue up to get in as everybody had the same idea as us to try and entertain the kids for the day. It was a good day all and all and the kids loved it so that was great and H, came away with his toy crocodile from the gift shop and G, got a fossil!

Toby, the cat, is coming on great since we got him ten days ago, nothing seems to phase him at the moment except the vacuum cleaner, he just gets on great with everybody except when he gets these destructive times which usually lasts about 30 minutes, but as I've said before I think this is because he still can't go out. The only really annoying thing at the moment is when any wires are hanging down or your doing anything with a wire attached he thinks it is a big gane and tries his best to get to it to pull and play with. He especially likes headphone wires to pull on at the moment, even when they are in my ear and attached to my ipod!

A miracle in English cricket!

2009-02-16T23:47:00.000-08:00

Two English cricketers both score a century in the same innings.....a miracle....bring on the Aussies!

That is all.

The week ahead

2009-02-15T23:17:00.000-08:00

It's been a rather quiet weekend over here all in all with nothing much happening, the most exciting thing that came my way this weekend was changing the headlight bulb over on the car and what an awkward bastard that turned out to be! It had this little fiddly spring clip that needed removing first and if your ands were bigger than a babies then you had no chance whatsoever of doing it. What should of been a two minute job ended up been a 30 minute swear induced session. Damn you car designers!

Only got two days in work this week...yippppeee. It's the school half term so I am taking some time off to do things with the kids. We have nothing planned yet apart from a visit to Conwy, in Wales. I have not been there in such a long time it's going to be great to go again. You see if you go to the link it's a great big old castle and although now it has fallen down a bit it has been made safe for visitors to explore and return to their childhood once more and reenact being a knight in Medieval times repelling all the Welsh who tried o attack the English. Anyway that is in my mind of what I want to do, the wife on the other hand may want to do something completely different there!

Weekend

2009-02-14T02:07:00.000-08:00

It's the weekend and usual it is going to be one of those big fat boring ones. We should rerally be going out for a meal being Valentines Day but with two kids that is a little impossible right now, so we will have to try and spend some time together tonight once the kids are in bed. It's amazing how little time we get together these days, due to work and the kids after school activities but when we do it is great.

Decided we have adopted a mad cat or do all cats have weird personalities? One minute he is a nice cute cat sleeping peacefully and the next minute he is running across the sofa diving on my head trying to scratch my eye out, I have a nice war wound scratch under my eye right now. I think it's because we can't let him out at the moment as he has to get use to us and he needs his injections before he ventures out into the big bad world out there.

Hope everybody has a great weekend.

Chips, wonderful chips!

2009-02-11T06:20:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again when the only award that matters is announced, yes folks it's the best chippy in the country award details can be found here.

People go on about all the health foods and the like but when it comes down to it at the end of the day there is no beating a fresh, hot, golden chip and a nice piece of fish. Yes, all the other foods are great and have their positves, you need your fruit and veg but when your to lazy and just can't be bothered doing anything or your coming home from the pub what better than a bag of chips to fill you up.

We found a good one and we stick to it, living in a city we have lots of fish and chip shops but we always tend to go to one because they just cook it right and not left to stand for ages as unlike in Australia, ours are not usually cooked to order but cooked and kept warm.

Horrific

2009-02-09T10:15:00.000-08:00

Up here in the cold of England, it is so difficult to contemplate the huge loss of life and damage to everything that is happening in Australia right now. My wife being an Aussie, has been on the phone to her brother in law out in Hoddles Creek and although the fire never reached them it was a very worrying few hours when the wind might of changed at any time and brought the inferno on top of them.

My sister in law got herself out, the kids and the horses down to Lilydale to relative safety, while my brother in law stayed. After seeing all the news coverage and everything he now agrees that if it gets close again he will be out of the area as fast as possible, way before it gets close. All the people who died in cars while trying to escape it was horrific and to listen to peoples accounts of what happened, makes your heart go out to everybody.

There is not much we can do up here but the wife being from Melbourne has donated to the Red Cross.

New addition

2009-02-08T23:41:00.000-08:00

Don't ask me why it's underlined I hit a key on the keyboard and now I can't remove it....damn you line!

Meet Toby, he is the newest member to our clan. We adopted him this weekend and up to now he is an one year old terror causing havoc. He is locked in the kitchen at night, but this morning I found him looking into my eyes in bed at 4.30am this morning, how he got out of the kitchen i will never know!

Next time gag the boy!

2009-02-05T09:30:00.000-08:00

Must remember next time when I take my two year old son swimming to gag him. We had finished swimming and got showered and the changing rooms were fairly full with most of the cubicles having people in them getting changed as you do. So I quickly wrapped him in a towel while I got dressed, I go to towel him down and as I am doing it he shouts out at the top of his voice as I am drying him "Stop touching my willy!". It is not really something you want your son to say these days as everything is taken out of context and it is so easy for someone to tag you something when you are not.

Next time I'll staple his lips together!

An announcement.......

2009-02-02T09:48:00.000-08:00

IT SNOWED.......

Well the country shut up shop today with all London's heathrow airport closed and all London buses stopped due to the conditions that the snow brought with it It is a once in a twenty year thing when it hits our fair shores and it is free as everything else that you get these days you have to pay for. There were two crashed on the way to work as people can not drive over here unless it is dry and sunny.

It was great enjoying a hour out in the snow with the kids tonight making a snowman, complete with stones for eyes and a carrot for the nose. The snowman has been taken down and rolled into the back garden and reassembled due to a snowman not been sacred in this country and liable to have it's head kicked in by some hooded scroat as soon as your back is turned!

I have a very unfair advantage when it comes to snowball fights as i have to admit i make a great snowball, I squeeze the snow so hard together when I make it that it has it's positives and it's negatives, the positive being when it hits it hurts a lot, but when it misses it doesn't break up and then it is used on me, which hurts a lot!

Only thing about tonight instead of being inside a nice heated house I have to venture out to do the weekly shop.....any offers of help out there to do it instead.

Another post this is getting a habit!

2009-02-01T08:15:00.000-08:00

It has been trying very hard to snow here today just a little flutter here and there, there is a big snow storn being blown over from Russia at the moment heading towards us and the weathermen say that there is going to be a good few cm's/inches of fall. In the next few hours if it does hit then we might as well close up the country as even a light snow shower stops everything in it's tracks, but we will have to wait and see as the weathermen always get it wrong.

I am in a minority of adults in what people of 'my age' think as I just love the stuff, I think it's great acting a kid again and building snowmen and throwing snowballs, all the while tring to avoid the yellow snow!

Went into central Manchester today as the Chinese, celebrated the new year by bringing out the dragon. We took georgina and little hayden down to see it and he was mesmerised by this giant dragon running around in front of the town hall to the beat of the drums and the loud firecrackers going off it was a good way to kill a couple of hours on a Sunday. As soon as I have got the pics and worked out how to post some pics on here then I will post a couple.

Hope everybody else had a great weekend.

Be quiet

2009-01-31T02:22:00.000-08:00

Batten down the hatches, clear the decks there be trouble coming!

Georgiina, my daughter aged 7, has invited five of her friends over this afternoon for a singalong on Singstar on the Playstation and generally to act daft for a few hours. It is going to be a case of earplugs in and sit in the corner and smile. I am taking bets on jusrt when the first arguement will start! Had to tidy her bedroom last night while she and her mum went to watch Mary Poppins at the theatre, I get all the good jobs. It had got into a state so I had to tie a rope to the door handle and then to my belt so I could get out again when I was first getting started. She has so much crap it's unbelieveable the stuff she finds outside and collects, from stones to leaves to twigs. Anyway it all found itself in the big dustbin and the room is just spotless now. It was great spending 1.5 hours of a Friday night cleaning. As you all know Friday night should just be a chill out and a beer night.

I think I will take the boy and vanish for a couple of hours until the dust clears and peace resumes once more.

Let's start again

2009-01-28T23:19:00.000-08:00

Well it's been a long time away in the darkness but now I am back I don't know for how long we shall have to see. I had decided to start posting back on the now dead JournalSpace,( I bet nobody get their money back from the site admins for their accounts when it crashed either!) but that was not to be and the new layout is just to hard to get to grips with, so I tracked most people down to Blogger so here I am to start affresh, writing more of my dribble!

Life has been good up to now in this world economic downturn, just hoping to keep my head down and avoid the dreaded redundancy plague that is gripping the planet at the moment. Work is still pretty busy but, hey who knows.

Well just a quick post at least I am now off and running again, just now have to track everybody else down on here.

Oh look no furniture!

2009-01-28T13:26:00.000-08:00