Stinging Soup

Had bit of a role reversal yesterday, Faye sanded down the stairs, lounge windows and then painted it all while I took Max for a stroll round the roads, we then went shopping and off to the park. When we got back I made nettle soup. Had a great day, I hate decorating !

Nettle soup, yep, heard Chris Evans talking bout it on Friday radio 2 and thought MMMmmm I could do that so on Saturday morning we collected the nettles. Like a fool I forgot the gloves !

Best time to pick nettles is now and until the end of April while they are young. Try to just take the tops off so that they continue to grow.

To make it I used a Veg Stock, potato grated, 4 small carrots grated, an onion, 2 sticks of celery, some butter, Garlic, Ginger, some spinich and of course a small bag of nettles.

First of all I washed the nettles and took them off the tough stalks, I then fried the garlic, celery, onion and ginger up a bit in the butter. Chucked in the carrot and potato and some stock while I boiled or the fancy word might be blanched the nettles for 2 mins in a little water. I then added this to the pain and bolied, once bolied I simmered for approx 10 mins and added some salt / pepper and a handful of spinach to help with the colour. Left to cool and liquidised it. Heated it up and served with a spoon of creme fraiche and some grated nutmug. Bloody good it was !!
The Nettles


The ingredients


The green soup


We are lucky to have Ashridge woods near us and here is a shot of Faye, Max and Jasper the dog from Sunday.

Went to the footy on Saturday and have to say i was shocked that some fans actually booed Ben Watson for taking the penalty. Fuck knows who else was meant to take it and I'm glad he rammed it down the throats of those morons by scoring. Well done Ben !!!

Skimmed

According to the fraud people my card has been skimmed. luckily nothing has gone from our bank account. Very strange as the card that was skimmed never goes into cash point so it must be one of the following places:
B&Q Watford
Toys R Us Bedford (interchange retail park I think it is called)
Matalan Bedford
Mothercare Bedford

Thats all the of the places I have used the card but I would of noticed if they reswiped the card and was watching me put my PIN in. I work in the retail industry so do keep an eye on it.

The only other debit that has been made is for Pipex who have finally billed me for my broadband. Realised the other month that i have not paid a penny for my broadband since July last year ! My card has now been cancelled so I will have to change my details or Pipex wont get anything next month !

We have got a dishwasher now. Got a good deal from Comet on a Smeg (Saved £100) and when I went on line to check out the Smeg site it turned out that there was a free 5 year parts and labour warrenty on it !! Result so I have sent my receipt off to them and hopefully will get that. It is plumbed into the hot water :-0 had to use a 'Y' adapter to split the pipe but Faye told me today that the washing machine has started to leak after I plumbed it all back in. Job for the weekend.

Not too happy with the quality of the glasses but will check that we are loading it correctly etc.

Max had his MMR jab today but I have not seen him because I have been down in Clevedon for work. Never cried, Max not me, when he had his jab.

He needs a haircut so I might try and give him one over the weekend.
Here is a couple of pictures of him, the first one is a bit of a cheeky sneer and the 2nd one is him having a rest after some walking in the woods.




What you all got planned for the weekend then? We are finally going out on Saturday !! Got a babysitter and off with some friends to the Thai and have some beers. Footy and food for me Saturday. We are out with Matt and Michelle (Plus another couple Gary and Eve if your interested) and they are off travelling round the world soon check out their blog. It's new and is being updated ! I will add a link soon. Actually thinking of having a change of format soon and redoing all my links etc.

Got to be gutted....

In a nustshell "the worlds most desirable car (in my eyes) the Bugatti Veyron has been crashed"
See Here

Oh well at least no one hurt and after all it's only a car :-0

Have plumbed in a dishwasher tonight but can not test the thing because we dont have dirty plates and no dishwasher salt !!! I got a few free samples with it but no salt unless I dont need any with a Finish 3 in 1 tablet. Maybe I will be able to test I have no leaks tomorrow night.

Turning into your dad

Peter Kaye says that you have turned into your dad the day you have a piece of wood just for stirring paint. I still dont have that stick but what I did over the weekend is turning into my dad for me.

My sister is 9 years younger then me and I remember when she was little and used to have powdered milk (SMA) my dad used to rinse them out and all the tins would have a bit of masking tape across them with the contents written on the said tape. I made my very own SMA tin containing curtain hanging "bits" over the weekend.

I have turned into my dad.........

Next week I am going to keep all the jars and stick the lids to a bottom of a shelf that I will create using an old plank and have my very own nuts and bolts rack with removble jars.

I'm joking by the way !!!!

Clowns are evil

There has always been something about clowns that unnerves me and makes me feel like that they must be evil

Lets face the facts, have you ever seen It by Stephen King.



The Joker in Batman, John Wayne Garcy who used to dress as a clown killed 33 men and boys all evil !!! Check out wikipedia for more on Evil Clown

Palace fans also call Charlton players / club / fans Clowns.

This story from the Daily Mail does not help things: Pictures available from the Daily Mail site

'Kasper the clown' faces jail for punching schoolboy
Last updated at 19:42pm on 20th February 2007

As a child going to the circus, you might expect the clown to throw a bucket of confetti at you, or squirt you with water from the flower on his lapel.

You certainly wouldn't be prepared for him to grab you by the scruff of the neck, punch and kick you and leave you needing hospital treatment for cuts and bruises.

As these astonishing pictures show, that's what happened when 12-year-old Amos Lutz met Kaspar the Clown at a circus in Leipzig, Germany.

Amos's mistake seems to have been to hurl a carton of his own confetti at Kaspar - otherwise known as Bernd Kalster, 47 - as he strolled by. Clown Bernd Kalster, 47, punched and kicked helpless Amos Lutzer, 12, to the ground at Leipzig, Germany, then claimed it was self defence.

Kaspar clearly failed to see the funny side.

He took hold of Amos and punched and kicked him, even as the youngster curled into a ball to try to protect himself.

The clown has now been arrested and charged with causing actual bodily harm. He faces the prospect of six months in prison.

Amos said: 'At first I thought he was mucking about. But I went down hard on the ground and I saw him balling his fists and growling at me behind his smile.

'He really hit me hard. He was punching and kicking, swearing at me the whole time. I was very frightened. It's not like I threw a stone at him, just some fluffy bits of paper.'

Kaspar claimed Amos had struck him in the face after the clown told him off for throwing the confetti in an area where there were 'no litter' signs. But bystanders said only confetti was thrown and nothing more.

Amos's father Stephan Lutz, 43, said: 'My son doesn't lie.

'He thought he was being jolly throwing the confetti and this is how he was repaid. The clown's a psycho.'

Fight Fight Fight

Saw an unbelievable article on the bbc site, now when we have had a few beers us Dads often have bit of a laugh about getting the babies wrestling but would we actually do it NO WAY.

Down in Devon though 1 family has actually started a Fight Club for their family toddlers.

The seven-minute footage, filmed at a house by one woman, was shown in a case at Plymouth Magistrates' Court.

In the clip, a boy wearing a nappy was called a "wimp" for not hitting a girl back after she struck him in the face.

Mad world we live in hey, Who wants to bet they are wearing Burberry.

News article is here

Faye and Max made it home OK last week.

I picked up some glasses today, I have to wear them for computer work. Feels a bit strange wearing them but my eyes do feel better and less tired. Here is a snap of me using the built in iSight on the macbook.



I have bought an external disc and I am making a media center using the macbook pro and it is looking good. I have the MacBook connected to the TV using a DVI to HDMI cable to keep it all digital, For sound I am connecting to my surround sound amp using an optical cable, connecting to the external drive (bought a 400 gig Seagate through Maplins for £86. how cheap and it has 16meg of buffer) using USB2 to connect. On the MacBook I have created alias' under the movies folder and what that does is allows the MacBook to see the external disc under Front Row.
Whats left, well I need a bluetooth mouse so that I can keep the Mac alive when the screen is shut and I need to work out what i am going to do about my photos. I dont want to store them on the macbook and also my iMac so I am probably going to look into using shared and wireless connection to the iMac albums. I have worked out that I can choose the library that iPhoto uses by pressing the Alt key when opening so I could leave the full library on the external disc and a smaller one on the MacBook. I'm also getting some High Definition movies on Monday.

Snow Joke for this car

This is a video posted on You Tube that I created earlier while working from home. It was done in my lunch hour for the benefit of anyone from work reading my blog ;-)

Here is the video

Hopefully Faye and Max will be back tomorrow, I am running out of plates and the washing up is mounting up !!!

Snow Joke

Well today I am snowed in down south and Faye and Max are snowed in at her parents.

The snow here is quite deep and I have been filming some cars, 1 car mainly because he just kept trying and trying ! getting round the corner and up a very slight hill.

Worst I have seen for a long time and it is still falling quite heavy. Hope it sorts itself out today as Faye was meant to be coming home.

Here is a picture from 22/1 at 7.33

and this is today at 7.48


This is the slight hill and 1 man is trying to solve the problem with a shovel of grit MMMMmmmm good luck.

Ifill Good

Footy News

Palace have kept up their outside chances of a play off spot with another good win today over Ipswich (got a double over them), we are now 8 games unbeaten in the league.

I dont even think that we are playing that well, and have not for few seasons, but we are still getting the points and maybe thats the sort of luck that we need.

We won 2-0 today and both goals were good goals, Lean Cort scored his 5th of the season (had to check the cpfc.co.uk website) although for some reason it seems as though he has scored more. The most he has ever scored is 6 goals so hopefully he is going to beat that !

Paul Ifill scored his first goal for the club and being born in Brighton and playing for Millwall for 7 seasons I thought he might be more "upset" at scoring for us :-) as it happened he loved it. He got the the man of the match today but to be honest he had a great spell in the 2nd half but I would not of said that he was the man of the match. Shefki Kuqi was my man of the match. He just runs and runs, he also got a great reception from the Ipswich fans and fair play to them as they brought a lot with them.

After Ifill's goal the song I Fill Good by James Brown was played. Now I sat there thinking it must be his fave song but after a while the penny dropped and I realised (with the help of a couple of people including my Dad) that it was "Ifill good"


Baby Toddler News

Max is getting better and better at walking and according to our friend Lauren that he walks like Elvis although I think he walks more like a cockney doing the Lambeth Walk.

I will edit some video tomorrow and post it.

Faye and I picked a table up today so Max came in the front of my car and he loved it up there. he was only in the front because we needed the room in the back of the cars and had to drop the seats down on both and my car has the ability to turn the passenger airbag off.

House News

Well as mentioned we have picked up a table today and it's really nice and means that we almost have a "proper"dining room. What it now means in reality though is that we have to decorate all of downstairs, Landing and stairwells. We are collecting our curtains soon and just took collection of a new mirror. All starting to come together now !

Faye decorated the bathroom last week, I did help honestly !

Next week I will post a bit more on the new media centre I am sorting out using the Macbook Pro. It is all looking good.

Snow and an Apple XP

Woke up to snow this morning so put my trip to Hull on hold thinking it wont be the best to drive there. Here is my car about to be started:



Have not loaded Vista on yet but tonight I did manage to get XP on just to have a play and it was quite easy BUT I did have to plug my keyboard in from my iMac (usb) to get the install to run correctly and I used to think having windows running through Citrix was "strange" on a mac..............

Get your motor running.....

head out on the highway.

Built this bike at the weekend:


Probably best with Max on it though:


Max is getting better and better at walking now the only problem is that he does not want to go in his buggy anymore. Takes hours now going round a shop !!!

On another note I might be able to blog a bit more because I have replaced my Powerbook with a nice new Macbook Pro. Hooray !!!

First impressions is that it is quicker at processing anything in iLife then my iMac (G5) but I need to spend a bit more time with my other applications. It will be brilliant when I am away with the built in iSight as I will be able to get internet access and then use iChat or Skype to video back home.

I have downloaded boot camp and might look at getting a beta of Vista installed, I dont want to buy the real version just yet (probably never !, it's out next week). I was actually at Microsoft on Friday and had a preview of some of the future applications and a quick look at Vista. Looks like OSX :-) actually some of the things in Vista (for the business) look very very good.
To be honest I was surprised at just how good some of the business applications seem to be.

Food for thought

We received a bread maker for Xmas and it's really good. We, well I !, have made a white loaf using the ingredient's and setting the timer plus have made a few diff types using bread mixes (bit easier then getting all the ingredient's) and over the weekend I set it to make dough and made some rolls. It's a Panasonic one and I rate it. Best ask in a couple of months though to see if we are still using it !!

Here is a picture of the rolls:


Max is getting better at walking and this is a picture of us in the wood:


And yes I have a beard at the moment :-0, just fancied a change.

First Steps

Well it's been a while since my last blog. We all had a great Xmas and we are looking forward to a great 2007. I got the Tomtom 710 :-)

Max has started taking his first steps and here is a video posted on YouTube it's almost 7 meg but if you are on a good broadband connection you should be OK.

I see that the UK are going to start to look into going to the moon. Once we get there though do you think the English spacemen will start drinking and kicking off while eating a greasy spoon saying that they hate all this foreign moon muck and cant wait to get home coz it's too f@cking "bouncy" and dusty. Not at all like the good solid gravity and concrete we have back home.

Take care,

Nintendo listens to Palace Fan

Well maybe not BUT they are replacing all straps now and all future ones will have a better strap.

Story on BBC here.

Wii

I have been lucky enough to have played on one of the new Nintendo Wii consoles, acually played it before it hit the shops last week.

Nice bit of kit:



I work for a large electrical company and we have one in our head office foyer to play with. It's in a sealed display with it's own TV so I have not had a chance to play it on a large screen BUT been very impressed with it. It's loaded with the sports pack and does actually make you sweat ! You run, swing, jump and allsorts. Its a really fun console although when I start thinking about it in the confines of our lounge I think it will be lethal.

I have been reading this website http://wiihaveaproblem.com and some the injuries to people let alone the TV's are quite a worry. Most seem to be from bowling so it makes me wonder that because the americans are so used to playing bowling they are releasing the controller out of their hands. I have not played that game yet.

IF I could get my hands on one it would be a hard choice of getting one or not (Not for me of course but for Max :-0) because I think I would wait for it to be established and for these little problems like the strap to be sorted. I would also be tempted to get an older TV, rather then our nice new LCD, to play it on!!

Check out this website http://wiihaveaproblem.com for the pictures and stories behind the picture.

All the best,

That was quick

Well just over a year ago I became a dad and blimey that was a fast year.

I have loved every minute of it and recommend it to all as it is the best feeling in the world and better then seeing Palace win something, not that we win too much :-), nothing will ever beat that feeling inside you get when you come home after a long shitty day and you get the cutest smile and a shout of dad dad.

It has been a year of growing up and change as in the last year Faye and I have become parents, moved home, got cars and started to look at what schools are best !

It has been a great year and the link below will take you to a rather large (CD quality 16-17 meg) movie that I have put together. I did use lower quality (web streaming 5meg) but it just never looked good because of the changes.

I hope you enjoy it........here

Free Sky TV....

All you need is a Ford Focus radio OR so some idiots seem to think.

This story has come from a Welsh paper.

I love this statement from Mr Rob Bull:

One victim Bob Bull, of Burwell Close, Pontprennau, Cardiff, woke to find the radio had been ripped out of his Ford Focus mobility car on Sunday morning.


Mr Bull, 60, who will now have to pay £75 excess on his insurance and will lose a £200 no-claims bonus, said: 'We were about to go Christmas shopping on Sunday morning when my wife Lynn came upstairs in a terrible state saying the radio had been stolen. I feel sick and fed up.


'Our house was burgled in June, the year before our donkey was stolen, and now this.

A Donkey !!

Story can be seen here

Threshers Wine Shop 40% Discount

There is a voucher doing the rounds that starting tomorrow and running through to 10th December will allow you 40% off wine and champagne.

At present they are knocking off around 33% using the 3 for the price of 2 offer. So all they are doing is giving an extra 7% BUT the free marketing they are getting from the offer is mind blowing. What a marketing genius whoever thought of the idea !!!

I have a copy of the voucher so if you want it drop me a line OR just do a google as it is out there. I can not host it because I can not FTP it to some space from work.

Personally I find Threshers prices slightly higher to accommodate the discounts it gives and usually use Majestic (If I'm bulk buying, as I am tonight :-)) or supermarkets.

Fayes labor started 1 year ago :-0

Been there

Was using my fave browsing application of the moment, Stumble, when I came across a site with the following fact: Cant tell you the site as it will help me blog when needed :-)

The longest place-name still in use is
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwenuakitanatahu, a New Zealand hill.

Been there:



Only just got SkyHD through a staff deal and they bring this deal out :-0

A TomTom 710 for £239.00 retails at £349.99. The question I therefore have to ask is.... Is it worth it? I will have to do some serious wingeing (thats what Faye calls my adult discussion on the benefits of it) to Faye and I'm still not hopeful of getting it.

Also need to find the money for my new season ticket at the Palace.
Oh yeah and something called Xmas is next month.

Where's Wally... I mean me !

Been in that cant be arsed to blog frame of mind for a while now. It's not that I have not had anything to blog about because since my last blog the following has happened:

Went to a wedding in Denmark.
Went for a midnight swim in the sea at Denmark.
Got asked to "swing" by a couple in Denmark.
Never went swinging with a couple in Denmark.
Missed a wedding in Oxford.
Went to a wedding in Hull.
Sold and bought a car.
Missed a couple of footy matches.
Been to a couple of footy matches.
Been drunk quite a few times.
Remained sober at a work meal with free drink.
Got Sky HD (with plus).
Been to Wales.
Been to Preston.
Finally had a night out with Faye in Berko.
Went to a couple of baby first birthdays.
Missed a baby first party, due to going to footy.
My sister and also her husband both have had birthdays.
My dad has moved house.
My mums husband has been in hospital (now out).

I guess though that pictures paint a thousand words so here is ALL the photos taken on our camera since my last blog. Now some are rubbish in fact most are and should be deleted and there is even some ebay photos in there. There is also a couple of photo booth ones.

I impoted them into iMovie on the mac with the settings: reverse ken burns and the time set as 0.03. It makes you go a little dizzy !!!!
Click here for video

James

Sky HD

Due to a rather good offer through my work I have today ordered Sky HD.

What was the deal, I got the box for £99, free install and also get 12 months free subscription to the HD package.

We have to wait until the 1st November for an install but I can not wait. Really looking forward to getting the most out of the TV. Looking forward to a better picture from SD (Standard Definition) as well.

Now I have not ordered the movies and sports and have just gone for very basic 2 mix thing and have NOT gone for Sky+ for an extra tenner. Now if you was me would you get the plus feature?

The problem with Sky is that it all starts to add up !

Max Art

Did this earlier but not sure if I did it before Joanna's Diary It's a pic of Max eating his jelly


I think it is really cool.

Are you Dave Gorman?

I found this blog post that I never posted and was sat in draft, I did email Dave Gorman if he minded me me using his photo / link to his page but he never got back........... originally created in Oct 06

Earlier on I was looking at my flickr page and thought I would look at Flickrblog and save the site etc. etc. anyway I scroll down and see the following post:

I recently visited the car wash tag and discovered that there is a car wash joint in Seattle Washington whose neon sign is so photogenic that a cluster has developed around it: see tags/carwash/clusters/elephant-seattle-neon/. Link here

Now show me a man that does not want to see a neon car wash sign with elephant in it ! So I clicked and looked... scrolled down and saw a photo that caught my eye on the first page.
Here it is...
URL Here



More interesting though was once I clicked on it I noticed the name of the photographer was Dave Gorman, thats funny I thought I wonder if Dave Gorman the TV guy knows there is a Dave Gorman on Flickr. Actually he looks a bit like him, well stone me it is him !

We saw Dave while we was in Melbourne during our year out in 2004 at the Comedy festival doing his googlewhack tour and a very funny guy he is too. I have also read his book Are you Dave Gorman? that he wrote with a guy called Danny Wallace and I have recently finished reading Danny's book Yes Man.

Well it freaked me out a bit anyway :-)

Anyway Dave Gorman's shots are very good and can be viewed HERE

Anyone else "know" any celebs on Flickr?

Haircut

OK I need another cut and I feel as though I should let a pro cut it rather then me again. For the last week at work I wanted to get it cut at lunchtime but have not had time. Anyway it got me thinking about this:


Why on earth do they have these poles so another google got me the answers that I knew I must have before I venture to the barbers;
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
barber pole is associated with the service of bloodletting. During medieval times, barbers also performed surgery on customers. The original pole had a brass basin at the top (representing the vessel in which leeches were kept) and bottom (representing the basin which received the blood). The pole itself represents the staff which the patient held onto during the procedure.

The red and white stripes symbolize the bandages used during the procedure: red for the blood-stained and white for the clean bandages. Originally, these bandages were hung out on the pole to dry after washing. As the bandages blew in the wind, they would twist together to form the spiral pattern similar to the stripes in the modern day barber pole. The barber pole became emblematic of the barber/surgeon's profession. Later the cloths were replaced by a painted wooden pole of red and white stripes.

After the formation of the United Barber Surgeon's Company in England, a statute required the barber to use a blue and white pole and the surgeon to use a red pole. In France, surgeons used a red pole with a basin attached to identify their offices. Blue often appears on poles in the United States, possibly as an homage to its national colors. Another interpretation of these barber pole colors is that red represents arterial blood, blue is symbolic of venous blood, and white depicts the bandage.

MMMMmmmm maybe I will cut it myself..

PS Max is lots better and if you buy a thermometer I highly rate the ear one by Braun, saves loads of time and I wish our other one broke sooner so we could of got one sooner. Max broke the other one by moving his arm ! Strong boy I tell you.

SUBDERMATOGLYPHIC means

of or pertaining to the layer of skin beneath the fingertips' - Of course it is !!!

Why on earth would I know this or even "google" it is quite simple in a strange sort of way, We bought Max some foam letters that stick to the bath, 26 in total no letter the same. Yep now it's coming together, Subdermatoglyphic is the longest such word. I have also discovered that the term for such a word is called a isogram.

This seventeen-letter isogram is actually attested in a dermatologists' journal, but it was placed there at the suggestion of a word-buff, who asked the doctor to use it in print in order to claim it as the longest isogram.

Where would we be without the internet hey.

Max is actually quite poorly at the moment and has a high temperature, quite sure it is down to his teeth and the doctor has said not to worry and to just call if the fever does not go by tomorrow or goes above 40.

Try This

Saw this rather strange gif here while browsing using an extension of Firefox called StubmbleUpon. StumbleUpon is very good and you can get it here

School Boy humour

On the BBC sports pages - Murray V Henman in the tennis
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/5383914.stm

Scroll down to 08.20

School Boy humour

On the BBC sports pages - Murray V Henman in the tennis
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/5383914.stm

Scroll down to 08.20

Well we now have a dog called Jasper, he is 9 weeks old and is a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel. Faye picked him up last week when I off in Portugal on a stag doo.

Here he is:


Portugal was very good but don't think I am going to go on another weekend stag doo, a bit too long but at least I have a tan :-)

Max has started getting his first tooth now and is coping really well with it i.e. still sleeping through the night and not being wingey. He has started to pull himself up all the time now and quite often when we go in his bedroom he is standing up in his cot !

My mum came round the other day and we showed her a load of photos we sent over to snapfish to get printed and out of all the photos she wanted this one:



Yep a bog standard shot of big ben that I took when we took our niece out not one of her son or grandson !

Looking at for a new car as the 206 is just too small so have started to look at a MG ZT-T they look good, bit of speed (about the same as the 206 anyway) and a big boot the only thing worrying me is that there no dealers left as they are no longer in business. Other choices at the moment are A4 or 6 Avant, Volvo V70 or Saab Estate.

new template

Have a problem that you can not see page james1972.blogspot.com from certain computers / browsers.

going to try a new template, will try and work out what OS and browsers see what, ok when going to a RSS feed and you have the full page.

test blog

seems to be problems with my "home" page.

Testing

Always double check !

Today we received our new bedroom furniture consisting of a solid oak double bed and bedside cabinet for each side.

I took down the horrible metal framed bed that we have had for the last 4 years and chucked it in the garage ready to offer on a email list I have joined (freecyclers on yahoo groups) keeping the mattress though to use for the new bed frame because we have not had time to sort out, when I say sort out I mean bounce and lie on, a nice new mattress.

Putting it up was easy because the cabinets are assembled apart from putting the handles on correctly and the bed was easy enough but it was hot.

So after sweating buckets due to the heat we grab the mattress and chuck it on.... Oh dear, it does not fit after a few huffs, puffs, lots of tape measuring and a lot of nervous laughter we confirm to each other that somehow we have managed to think that we have had a double when we actually have a kingsize, or I should say HAD a kingsize. So as I type this I sit in our bedroom, that looks a lot bigger now with the futon mattress on our new double until we sort out a new mattress. A school boy error if we have ever made one, can not believe that we never measured or double checked (do you notice that I am using the royal WE) the bed sizes. We thought about getting a kingsize but thought it was not worth it because our "double" was big enough and we didnt want to spend a small fortune on new sheets etc. At least the duvet now covers all the crap from under the bed plus I guess the new mattress will be cheaper. Faye turned round at the end and goes "I wondered why the fitted sheets never fitted" MMMMmmmmmm, Why didnt we double check?

Back to work

Well tomorrow is my first day back in the office for a couple of weeks, seems strange because I would usually be coming back with a tan or at least some stories on how good or bad some country is BUT this time I go back and have nothing really to chat about.

Managed to get a few things done on the house but nothing that great, cleaned the garage out ready for the builder to smack a great big hole in it, moved a TV point. Also noticed that the TV cables to each room are quite poor quality so need to get CT100 cable and hopefully my picture will improve (at least thats the plan but want to test with a small amount of cable before buying lots). Sorted out a big hole in the floor where a load of woodlice were coming in to shelter, did our bedroom (well Faye did most of it) and ordered new furniture that comes end of the week and did a few other bits and bobs. Was hard really doing anything other then play with Max BUT hey thats what dads are meant to do.

Will have to take another week off now though to actually decorate the downstairs but going to wait until the door to the garage and new fireplace have been done.

My wireless has gone bang, Had an Apple Airport Express but it is dead now and after reading around on the web it seems as though it is very common for them to die. I am not sure that I will bother with another apple one. I loved the fact that I could stream my music downstairs to the amp from my iMac but I never really used it that much so need to work out the money and see if I am just better off buying a cheaper one for the laptop.

Oh and this cat that kept creeping and craping around our house is back. We thought we had finally solved the problem with Coffee granules but then we remembered that the owners had gone on holiday so the cat was probably in a cattery. Turns out it was so will see if the coffee granules work. We used some "proper" stuff and apart from costing lots never worked that well. My mum said about orange peel today so will give that a go as well. Any other suggestions?

It's all good

Well what can I say apart from I'm good and I'm not at work.

Got the new TV and the Toshiba 32WLT66 is bloody brilliant, Love it.

I have now changed the hair and have a short back and sides again rather then the long style that I used to have. It was time to change after seeing how old I looked !! I had a mate over from OZ who came round after the V festival Chelmsford and I looked so old from the last time we saw him while we traveled that I thought I had to sort out the mop, Mark looked better and he had not washed for 3 days !!!!.

I always used to worry, and used it as an excuse, that the Maxster would not reconise me but I had no need to worry about that. I even managed to cut my hair all on my own apart from Faye having to cut my bum fluff away from my neck, now am I going to get more hits because I said bum fluff, I hope not but I bet I do !!!

Hopefully it looks OK and means I saved a few quid towards the apple mac media centre :-)

I am meant to be doing lots of decorating BUT being with Max just shows how much Faye does each day because we have had no time to do anything !! I cant believe how little time we have had because of Max, It's mad with all his little classes that he does.

Today was cool and we went to a music class that he loved and apart from the baby that picked his nose all the time we had a great time and I wish I was there for all the lessons.

Here are some pictures:
First one is a great family shot of us all:


Here are 2 of the music class: Max and Jake try to esacpe


Think I was on the wrong side:

Bloggers come and go

Went for a walk the other day using the new baby rucksac we got and it is great, it makes moving around really easy



Have had a family round for the last few days and have had a great time showing people the new house and drinking a bit too much.

My Bro in law came round last week followed by my in laws and then my sister, her husband and my niece. everyone had their jobs :-) but I have to thank my father in law the most because he moved my electrical points around to make way for our new fireplace that should be coming at the end of September (on his Birthday !!!).

Here he is with Max on his day off



A blog I read was in the Sunday Express today :-0, Charlotte Howard is a great blog and can be seen Here but check out the article here

On a sad note though a blogger that I "started" with and was the first person to ever comment on this site looks as though he has had enough and stopped. I hope not as it was a good read. Wyndham

New family member

Well Faye went to see the puppy and has put a deposit down on him. We have waited for a while for the right one to come up and he is from a family rather then a breeder and is used to kids. He is also the right colour i.e. Black and Tan, seems to be a hard colour to get hold of although he looks like he has a touch of white on him.

We get him mid September, He is a King Charles Spaniel and this is a picture of him.

Baby and a puppy. Now lets see those page hits increase :-)



Also got a chilli plant today and it has lots of fruit on it. Sampled it today and it tasted very good.

Lets see yer puppies

My brothers dog gave birth yesterday and here is 2 pics.

The litter was 5 girls and 2 boys. All the staffies are doing well.

Wouldn't mind a Staffordshire Bull Terrier to be honest but we wont be getting one because we may have news tomorrow on if we are getting a puppy. I say we but it's more Fayes dog then mine although I am sure I will get some walking duties. Faye is seeing a King Charles Spaniel tomorrow.

Dont think I can change her mind.

Staff Pup

Staff Pups

Max is crawling, well almost.

I'm happy but also sad because I think we have just bought the TV at the wrong time i.e. as Max is about to crawl.... I hope it does not get messy !

Faye managed to get some footage of Max today while I was at work. Does not look too long before he will be off on all 4's

The file size is about 3.5 meg and I used iMovie to export it so best have quicktime installed. You can see it Here

All the best,

Top of the league

Eagles.... We are top of the league and I know it's only 2 games so I am going to be calm. We played pretty bad against Southend in the first half but had a great second half and deserved to win. I can not believe how well Kennedy got the crosses in and for once it was great to watch set pieces. The crowd was still tough though and I heard a few boos at half time. Makes me laugh to be honest. Give them a chance and get behind the team.

It was good and looking forward to a tough game against dirty Leeds on Sunday.

We have bought a new TV today and it comes a week Monday when I am off work. Will post some pics of it in the flesh but here is a starter for 10 thanks to Comet.co.uk


I am starting to count the days down. Toshiba 32" LCD MMMmmmmmm

All the best,

Eagles are flying and the bugs are a buzzing

Good weekend all round, 3 points for Crystal Palace V Ipswich and we had a street BBQ.

I never went to the footy buy my Dad said that we played well. First time I have missed the first game of the season for 14 years :-0 (not including 1 when I was traveling)

BBQ - What a great idea, after only 2 weeks of living in Berkhamsted we got an invite through to join the other 8 households in a street BBQ, We live in a kind of close off the main road (will post pics soon). All came bar 2 houses that couldnt make it and we have now settled in and feel like we have known everyone for ages now.

We all took our BBQ's out and got some tables and chairs and you cooked your food and drank lots. I got the daddy of BBQ's out again (Photo from last year on Flickr, never thought of taking some of the BBQ :-0) and had a few jibes about it being gas but then I was able to drink lots while they all waited and waited for the coals to get to a good temp :-)

Stumbled in the house at about 3am after becoming best mates with everyone, Have not felt too good all day and will be off to bed soon !!!

May of found a couple of babysitters !

The flys are doing my head in at the moment, there is loads of them and we have discovered that our main bin is only collected every 2 weeks because they take an organic wheelie bin the other week. How much organic waste can you produce. I wish they collected my main rubbish every week during the summer in this heat. Have bought some fly spray to "attack" the bins with and industrial strength freshener to spay in there.

New home now with ADSL

Welcome back to the real world, we have broadband and have unpacked most of the boxes. We moved in just over a week ago and while 1 neighbour was kind enough to have an open wireless connection he turns off his ADSL when not using it so we only had sporadic internet.

Gone for Pipex again and hope to get about 6.5 meg :-0 it's at 2meg at the moment and I have to try and remember to turn the router off and on every now and then so it re-syncs or something. Very pleased at having to wait just a week for it.

The house is great and it feels good to be out of London and living in Berkhamsted. Do a flickr search for some photos until I get round to taking some Berko search. It seems a great place where people say hello and dont want anything other then a hello back. The neighbours seem good and we are having a street BBQ this Saturday. Where we live is in a sort of close where there is only 8 other houses so we can "close" our bit off with out affecting the main road.

Have had a chat about the boundaries already with our neighbour because he came round on the day we moved in to mention that it needs replacing, well, my half did. Never ever heard of shared ownership i.e. he owns the good bit albeit short fence and own the crap bit that runs down so I got my solicitor to look into it and it turns out that I have to look after the boundary so I am going to try and get him to move "his" fence down to the crap bit and then I'm putting up a 6 foot one.

Here is a photo of Max his tent the other day:


Off to sunny Preston tomorrow for a meeting on Thursday. Taking my naff old powerbook so hope to get an internet connection.

Also going to drive the Agila because my ABS light is always on so it is going to the garage. beep beep

Flickr alternative for commercial use?

Bloggers of the world I need an image hosting service the same as flickr i.e. tag searching and grouping but for commericial use.

I have searched and joined some image hosting sites but none seem to have all the extras that you get with Flickr SO can anyone help?

On another note the Simmonds' will be reunited this week, we ended up living 180 miles away from each other for a week and a bit, we exchanged on the house last week and complete on Thursday. Hopefully the next post will be about the joys of being reunited.

Faye and I went to a wedding on Friday so we have met up but I have not seen the Maxstar now since last Sunday :-(

Dont forget about the image site though ! See sometimes I do work.

James

Hello all, how have you all been?

We are still without a home but hopefully in 2 weeks we should complete so fingers crossed. Will be happier when we exchange to be honest. Not enjoyed being away from Faye and Max but we have managed to spend some time together because my boss has been really good and allowed me to work from home (Fayes parents) a lot recently. I have actually been working quite hard and not just saying that because some people from work read the blog !

Back down south on Sunday though as I have to do some time in the office, makes it sound like prison !

Max was in complete shock when he saw me for the first time in 5 days and wish I had the video camera, I sneaked up and walked in when he was having his bath and his jaw dropped and he stood there for about minute just staring, trust me its a long time just staring when you are talking to him, but when I went to hold him he started crying. He was just in total shock and never knew what to do.

He said mum mum about 2 weeks ago and has never said it again but I filmed him on Sunday doing this....

3meg film here

Yes the boy says Dad and has not stopped saying it :-) very chuffed. He is also sitting up really really well and started to roll quite well. Did it sound like he says Happy Birthday Daddy?

If you click on the flickr link on the right I have loaded some photo's of Max having his first Jelly. A bit like this one:

I get the cubes and he gets all fresh organic fruits with sheets of gelatin. Yuk just looked at wikipedia to make sure gelatin was what I meant and not dynamite we gave him.

Gelatin is a protein product produced by partial hydrolysis of collagen extracted from skin, bones, cartilage, ligaments, etc. The natural molecular bonds between individual collagen strands are broken down into a form that rearranges more easily. Gelatin melts when heated and solidifies when cooled again. Together with water it forms a semi-solid colloidal gel.

Full blurb here

I sent an email today in reply to the "What I did on my summer holiday" By Theo Walcott Esq aged 8 1/2 email that is going round.

I though it was quite good and profound so will share it:
Taking Theo was like taking your swimming trunks on holiday and going in the pool with your trousers on. If you have trunks use them they might be Speedos and be a bit embarrassing and your not sure how they are going to cope BUT they are better then wearing nothing.

Foo Fighters Hyde Park - June 17th

Went to the Foo Fighters in Hyde Park yesterday and what a great day.

4 of us, Faye, her bro and his girlfriend went. We went in about 4 going past the HUGE crowds trying to get in at entrance X8 and walked round as we had the "golden ticket" for entrance X3. Strolling in through the gate as there was hardly anyone in the queue we went in and got a wristband.



Strolled round for a bit and grabbed some food and had a sit down watching Juliette Lewis and her band. I can not work out if she is attractive or not. One minute I think is is then I'm not sure. They were quite good but I start thinking that we are miles from the stage and that not everyone around us has a wristband on. After a couple more minutes of quietly thinking this over in my head I have a thought that we must have to go through another entrance and we are just on the outer ring. Well we was !!!!

We walked through to the inner circle past all the people trying their hardest to get in "honest my mate has my ticket", "The dog has eaten it" etc etc.

Result we are in the inner circle and about to listen to a band I have wanted to see for ages; Queens of The Stone Age. They did not disappoint and were brilliant. Looking forward to seeing them in a smaller venue sometime soon ! I never realised just how good a voice and playing guitar Joshua Homme had. The bass player also went on guitar and was awesome as well. Awesome, I never use that word BUT it describes them.



Have to mention that Angels and Airways was on before QOTSA but nothing to write about !

Motorhead came on and Lemmy was good, never been a Motorhead fan in the past apart from the Ace of Spades but they put a really good show although I used the time to do a toilet and beer run (quite well organised for such a big show, thats the toilet and beer not Lemmy)



Then the main event and the Foos rocked as they always do ! Great show and Dave really played to the crowd and after waiting 5 hours from the time we got there to 9pm when they came on it was worth it. He never got on the drums but a rather older chap called Roger Taylor did and his mate Brian May helped out on guitar while Taylor sang Tie your mother down. Very good and a fitting end to the show.



I prefer the smaller events but rocking with 85,000 was good. I did feel a bit sorry for the people on the outer circle as I am sure that it was not that they didnt want to pay more for inner tickets but that they could not get them.

Look at the people crammed in behind Faye.



Here is tip: Always sign up to mailing lists if you like bands, I do and thats why I get to hear about advance pre-sales.

Homeless

No internet other then at work and I have just got really busy at work SO wont be too many updates.

Well.......we left London with nearly all the stuff going to storage last week (7/6/06), some of the bits had to come with us as there was no room in the van that they came in and I was not hanging around for them to come back for a few bits, so we piled the cars up and headed off to Rickmansworth.

We are staying at a girls at works place as she has it on the market and is not living there. It has been on the market since before Xmas so should be OK, OR SO WE THOUGHT !!, She sold it on the day we moved in and the people buying are 1st time buyers and want to be in by end of June so we are now pushing like crazy trying to get our exchange and completion done.

Our house completed last Friday and even that was a pain because my solicitor did not get the money until 4.20 so we never got ours until Monday morning. Would of been really bad if we was in a chain !

As it is now though we are thinking of moving out next week. I have spoke to a mate and can store some bits at his house (Including me !) Faye is going to her parents next Thursday and I will go to my mates then I'm off anyway on a stag doo in Newcastle. Will then stay at my Mums and travel to work OR if possible go to Fayes parents and work from home. They live in Oswestry. I have just started a new project at work though and it is for engineers based in Preston so I might go up there for a few days as well.

Can not wait to be settled again. should not be too long.

Got caught smoking yesterday and felt like a child. Smoked at half time during the footy and was outside when Faye came down with my mobile as it was ringing :-0.
Hangs head down
she was very VERY disappointed with me.

I have been a bit stressed and I'm still not a proper smoker i.e. I only have them when stressed or out on the beers and never during the day, thats from 20 a day.

England Flag Day

THIS DEPT OF TRANSPORT INITIATIVE HAS BEEN RE-LAUNCHED, MAY & JUNE 2006.

Press Release
Due to the nature of the quality of driving in England the Department of Transport has now devised a new scheme in order to identify poor drivers and give good drivers the opportunity to recognise them whilst driving.

For this reason as from the middle of May 2006 those drivers who are found to be driving badly, which includes overtaking in dangerous places, hovering within one inch of the car in front, stopping sharply, speeding in residential areas, generally being a fool pulling out without indication, performing U turns in appropriately busy high streets, undertaking on motorways and taking up more than one lane in multi lane roads.

These drivers will be issued with flags, white with a red cross signifying their inability to drive properly.

These flags must be clipped to a door of the car and be visible to all other drivers and pedestrians. Those drivers who have shown particularly poor driving skills will have to display a flag on each side of the car to indicate their greater lack of skill and general lower intelligence mindset to the general public. Please circulate this to as many other motorists as you can so that drivers and pedestrians will be aware of the meaning of these flags.

Department of Transport

Here is an example I have found and you should look aout for:

Agent Dowie takes his seat

Agent Coppell moved from Palace to Brighton and took them down
Agent Tuttle played for Palace and took Millwall down
Agent Bruce went to Birmingham and it took a couple of seasons but finally did his job and took them back down, he also gave us Johnson and then gave us back Morrison so in total from that deal we made about 12 million and kept Morrison :-0. What an Agent.

AND NOW

Agent Dowie goes to Charlton or the Clowns as they are somtimes known, lets see what happens :-)

All change on the renting

Blimey will it ever be resolved !! After getting a place for 6 months we got a call from the estate agent that we are buying through, "the vendor has found a place and it is empty and they want to complete in about 5 weeks" MMmmm brilliant BUT Oh shit we have just taken on a 6 month rent. Well a call to the renting agent and they said no worries it happens and never took any money from us !! So if you ever rent / buy in Berkhamsted use an agent called Regency Estates.

We are now going to put all our stuff in storage and go to rent a place off a girl at work for 1 month or so. Quite a result as she is selling the house but not living there so we can move in and stay a few weeks or a bit longer, it's in Rickmansworth so where I work so quite happy.

Just trying to get the removal companies to get their costs down a bit at the moment. All looking good though for next Wednesday to move.

Why Dowie, why?

I'm glad that Jordan is serving Dowie a writ. BBC story here. At the end of the day he left Palace to be nearer his family so was mutually released from his contact at Palace and then he turns up at Charlton (Who for some reason think they are our rivals, your not). Not good and not right, on the Palace sites they are saying he is worse the Steve Bruce when he walked. At least Steve Bruce asked for permission to talk to Birmingham, not that he was allowed but thats another long story !

AJ has signed for Everton and I wish him all the best.

Never a dull moment being a Palace fan !!

Happy birthday Blog

Well this blog is 1 year old today. Does not seem that long ago that I set out to start a blog but I have enjoyed it. I did have to change the format/design a couple of times. In the end the simple view looked best ! I also have lost the baby news, footy news, fact of the day etc. and I do miss doing that BUT it really does take too much time.

I picked the following blog graph up from Slothblog (who's site's birthday is also coming up !) Jane has managed to get a lot more site vists but does write a great blog. As does another blogger that started just before me, Wyndham the triffid so happy blogday to you both



Have a look here for more information on what the dots mean.