Latest news

Kitchen

Hooray, done a bit more on the kitchen. Collected the splashback yesterday so fitted that and the extractor fan yesterday along with almost finishing the tile splashback behind the sink, still need to "finish" that off. Last week I connected up the new spotlight and clock. Slowly getting there.



I do like the red star knob, we got that to get over the problem of the handles catching on that side, plus it adds some colour.

Fish

We now have 4 baby catfish ! Not sure why but since we got the new fish tank, that Biube one, they have started mating.

Exams

I have been taking the PRINCE2 exams. Was on a course for 4 days last week that ended with the foundation exam, managed to pass that one. Today I had the 3 hour Practitioner exam, blimey it was hard. I have been studying to pass and the mocks that I had I thought were fine and not really a problem BUT todays was bloody hard. Not sure if it was because of the exam conditions but it was tricky. I hope that I managed to "read" the questions correctly and get the right answers. It was the new style objective testing rather then the "old" essay style one. The examiner also did the exam as it so new and she wants to get an understanding of them, and she said it was a lot harder then the ones she has done in the past ! Apparently since changing the exam the pass mark was around 85% compared to around 75% on the old style SO they was going to make it harder, well it looks like they did !

The old way you used be able to explain the reasons for your answers but now it is YES or NO and nothing in the middle. Personally I think it is harder ;-)

I will let you know if I pass, if it goes quiet then you know I failed :-)

Used to take at least 12 weeks for the marking but it is 2-4 weeks now that a computer sorts them out.

Max and Faye went to a birthday party today. Faye managed to get a some new maternity clothes. She looks fab. Will get some of us all on here soon.

Got Max's 2nd birthday in a couple of weeks time, man how time flies ! He is now in a "real" bed and touch wood he seems fine and is staying in there ! We did have to change his sleep wear though from a sleeping bag to a sleeping suit. Oh and a major that I should of said ages ago was he is now toilet trained, Faye got him trained up a couple of months ago!

Talk soon,
James

Oi Santa, Make some toys

Todays date is the 3rd of November so why oh why have I have been listening to bloody Mariah Carey singing that she wants me for christmas and get this I only saw a Santa out on the high street in Berkhamsted. We have not even had firework night yet !

It's wrong I tell you wrong.

Oh and why is there a Superman in the photo !

Bostock

All hail the new kid has arrived.

OK so the result was not want we wanted but it was great to see young John Bostock make his debut and become the youngest Palace player in history. Some touches and he looked very comfortable for a 15 year old, I'm 20 years older then him :-( Man I feel old.

Victor Moses should be due back soon and watch this space because if you thought Rooney was something special at a young age, wait for Victor.

The futures bright our chairman is orangeImages taken from the Palace site.

Im still here, Taylors not

Image from BBC and full story here

Well Palace have finally sacked Peter Taylor. I think it is the right time for a change, he lost the fans a while ago and from the reports he has also lost the players so as I say, it is time for a change.

Who next though? Neil Warnock seems to the red hot favorite so we will see.

What happening with us, well the kitchen is still a work in progress, we have a long list of things to do on the house. I have kind of been having a break from the kitchen so need to get my head back into it asap, Faye has been painting in there so I need to focus again. Prob go to Ikea one night this week, not looking forward to it but we have stuff to take back and also need to buy a couple of items.

Baby News

Faye and I are expecting another baby, No.2 or Chilli as I am calling him/her is due on the 2nd February. We had our 20 week scan today and everything is good. Max will be 2 Years and 2 months old, gawd help us !

We could of found out what we are are expecting but we never, Faye thinks girl and I think boy.

It's quite strange the second time round because I'm not "following" the pregnancy anywhere as close as I was with Max. It is going really fast this time and we are not preparing like we did last time. Guess we best start sorting it out soon.

Max does understand all ready that Faye has a baby in the tummy and today Baby Digger seemed like a good name to him. Have to admit I quite like that too.

James

Max does an advert...

For those in the UK, not sure if it was shown in other countries, who remembers the Guinness advert where the bloke stands around waiting for his pint to be poured?

Well I got the camera out to video Max doing his drum impression for a mate at work and imported it into iMovie. If you have used iMovie with iSight you will know that as soon as you remove your camera it defaults to the built in iSight. Max started staring at himself on the computer and went a little bit "strange" I managed to record most of it and the video I have uploaded to youtube has hardly any editing on it. It is also worth pointing out that there was no music or anything going on in the house. Just a Normal Sunday morning really ;-)

Movie is HERE, it is 14 meg and about 3 minutes long

James

Kitchen is getting there

Managed to get most of the handles on today BUT have not bought enough and also have a slight problem with 2 cupboards being too close and the handles will clash so I will have to buy a "knob" for a cupboard rather then a nice handle.

I have posted some photos on flickr, must get a pro account this week !, but this is before and now. I say now because it is still not finished so therefore is not an after.

Before


Now

Update

Catfish News..

The babies are starting to venture out a bit more and Faye managed to get the above photo of one of them.

Kitchen News.

Getting there, still needs a paint, the handles screwed on, under sink area sorted, plug socket set it wall, new window ledge installed plus of course the blue protection removed to show off the nice white under them plus a 101 other little jobs.

This is the cabs going in.


This is Bill (My father in law) working on the plumbing.


And this is the hob and sink plus oiled worktops. They have had about 4 coats of oil so far with a light sand in between. Hard work but have been told numerous times that it is so important to oil it at the start. I am going to try and oil it once a day for first week then every 3 days for a couple of weeks before going to once every other week. That should sort it.



I was thinking of having oak ends but once we started looking it would of been too much. So I now have 2.9m of solid oak going on ebay !

Catfish Parents

Faye cleaned out the fish tank and discovered that our catfish have mated and we have at least 2 baby catfish !!

I will try and get a photo when I can but they are quite quick !

Here is a picture of our worktops, all ready for cutting. The kitchen is still drying so we can not paint it just yet but I have started to put some units together and set them up on the wall that has not been plastered. My father in law is down tomorrow to give me some help with the kitchen for a couple of days and it is still on course to be finished in a few days time.





Went to the football on Saturday and well, sometimes you have to ask why.....

Warnock to replace Taylor is the latest rumour, not sure if that is what I want.

Plastered

Kitchen walls have been plastered, we used a company called ATM in Berkhamsted and they have been brilliant. They did what looks like a good job and kept everything clean and tidy.



Also took delivery of the worktops. Man they are heavy, I had to help bring them in, all part of the cheaper option ! they look really good. They are Oak and 40mm depth and currently 4 meters long ! i honestly thought I was going to pass out when I helped carry them. Gawd knows how the guy can do that all day long. Will take a picture on them in the morning.

Kitchen

Sorry for the lack of posts but the kitchen has been taking up most of my time !

It's been hard work but we are starting to see the end now.

Tiles have been taken off the wall. The tiles where put straight on the plaster boards rather then a skim so now we need new boards up.


The gas man has disconnect the hob so everything could be removed out, the Ikea bits have been delivered.


A new wood floor was installed last week.



New tiles laid on the floor over the weekend.



Needs a clean but gives you an idea.

Friday the plasterer is coming, as is the new worktops and in the mean time I need to sort the electrics out. Next week my father in law is coming down for a few days to help me and Mark the man to install worktops is out on Wednesday before the gas man connects the new hob on Thursday. Be glad when it is a week Friday and we can start to look at the finishing touches.

Looking forward to Friday.......

Beer, Beer, BEER

I have taken the above photo from flickr user Yyokota, I hope he does not mind and I have sent an email.

The reason for the use of the photo is because Max has started shouting beer at everything I drink ! I could be drinking water and he shouts beer , I could be drinking a coffee and he shouts beer. Ask him what i drink and he shouts beer !

I dont even drink that much beer, I prefer a nice red to be honest... although I did crack open some Foster twists and managed to have 4 in a hour because they were so refreshing. Not getting them again as they go too fast.

Now then....

Max drives us up North

We went to see our new niece yesterday up near Barnsley / Sheffield, we could not get Jasper in the kennel so we decided that we should buy a new tent and try camping with Max and the dog.

Had a great time although it got very cold and rained during the night. Only cost £5 for all of us and the dog ! Max thought it was great and really enjoyed being next to the chickens and sheep. He loved all the tractors !

My Niece is very cute and you just forget how small new borns are.

Max ready for bed?

On the way up we stopped just outside Loughborough at somewhere called Beacon Hill, Max found a chair made just for him !

King Max


I have also managed to rip all the tiles off the kitchen wall, had to call my plasterer up though to get him round to have another look because it looked a mess. I might also add that i did try and take the tiles off neatly.

Oh dear

He said it was not great and he will have to put new boards up before plastering over the top of those. He said that he could not believe that someone would put the boards up and tile straight over without any plaster. Must of been the original builders. I want nice straight clean walls with no tiles so need it sorted. The plasterer though has said he wont charge me more because I have given him time to sort it out :-) Will let you know what he is like. He is due 31st to do the job.

This week I have the units all coming from Ikea on Thursday and everything is still on track to be finished around the 7h September. Wish I could just crack on get it sorted but I cant get the plastering done prior.

New Niece

Say HELLO to my new niece. She is called Connie Isabel Crossfield. Not sure on the exact spellings !

She was born on Monday 6th at 07.50 and weighed in at 6lb12

Mike Reid

"G-g-g-g-go!"

"Runaround... now!"

Bit of a late post, I was sad to hear that the legend of a host on Runaround Mike Reid died.

He is better known though for this classic in Eastenders.



Nice to see though that a local band in Berkhamsted will still carry on... Bass player, Matt Tinsley, said "We will most definitely carry on under the name Frank Butcher and the slags. We feel as though Mike would of found it funny and would have recognised that we named it in good spirit. We are all fans of him." Catch him at their web page on myspace here Also read down the comments for a jpeg of the article.

It's Over

I have been picked to be a beta tester for the FM LIVE game from sigames, here is the
link and between that and watching the last couple of Prison Breaks see you all soon !!!!

I will post about the game and the other links soon........

Kitchen

CURRENT KITCHEN

Well we have finally started to order the bits for the kitchen. So far we have a sink and tap physically in our hands and have made an order for the units from Ikea. We ordered them over the web rather then actually making the painful trip to Ikea.

We have gone for the high gloss white Abstrakt ones and I will try and post some plans up. We are getting the worktops from somewhere else though and have gone for solid oak ones.

Update more later. I'm addicted to Prison Break at the moment so have to watch that now !!!

James

Harry Potter

Faye got the book and I read the back page......... It was all a dream :-0

Nothing in life is FREE !!!!

OK so we now have two 16 year old girls that say they have been duped in to carrying drugs.

Yasemin told Channel 4 News on Thursday night they were tricked into carrying drugs to London.

Speaking by telephone from prison in Accra, she said: "There were basically two boys over here who gave us two bags and told us... it was an empty bag.

"We never thought anything bad was inside... and they told us to go to the UK and drop it off to some boy... at the airport."

"It was basically like a set-up. They didn't tell us nothing, we didn't think nothing, because basically we are innocent.

"We don't know nothing about this drugs and stuff."

First of all you get asked to go on a "free" holiday and then to carry 2 empty bags back to the UK, what the fuck do you think are you going to be carrying? I'm sorry but I say lock them up for 10 years at least and lets hope they dont have kids !!!

I'm sure at 16 years old I will still be helping Max out and lets be honest if we ever let him go on a "free" holiday to bring back an "empty" bag then we also deserve to be sharing porridge with him.

Fuckwits and I do try really hard never to swear on this site !

"I'm carrying back an empty bag but it is weighed down a bit by 300K worth of Coke." Well it ain't empty then is it !