Wish I didnt say that !

Today has been a good day, although Palace can not get automatic promotion we had a very good win at Watford today and many of the other results also went our well. Nice to see that Charlton are not going to make the play offs this year and 3 points "should" be enough for us. Lets hope Wolves lose on Tuesday V Cardiff. Ref was really poor today and the guy next to me said he was ref for the FA Cup final :-0

Who would of thought it when Warnock took over and couldn't get a win !

Before the game we went into town, picture this, we went to a shop in Berkhamsted and the young shop assistants are chatting to Max as Faye paid for a few items and amazed at his talking skills for such a young boy when he starts touching the china items so I say "Max what do we say... looky looky NO Touchy touchy" in a slight Thai accent and he starts saying it. The girls did laugh it has to be said. As I walked up the road thinking about it I suddenly turn to Faye and said that I might of sounded a bit like a perv. She agreed....... Wish I didn't say that !

Catfish

Photo is of us all last Sunday.

OK Since I posted back in September that the catfish had babies and seemed to love the Bioube. Well the tank is "infested" with them now :-0 We have 17 and they seem to be having babies every month. We are going to have to split them all up now as they keep breading and the tank is just too small for them.

Cool to have so many but bad for the tank and poor old Coppell has no space.

Off to Watford tomorrow for the footy, really looking forward to a quick journey rather then 1 1/2 hours each way. Might have to have a beer or two and I can enjoy getting to see the whole game. For some reason though the box office have sent me a concession ticket rather then an adult one. I have printed the confirmation off just in case the bloke on the door gets "Funny"

My car also failed the MOT so I have been ringing round the breakers to get a new seat belt, the baby car seat has started to tear the belt ! Audi want £150 for the belt plus they wont let me fit it so would be at least 1 hour's work at £110 the robbing bastards. I managed to get one and should get it soon but have to fit it. £45 delivered. Sorted. Do have a problem though as car is getting brakes done (also failed MOT on those) on Monday and the belt might not come until Monday so my timing on the re-test might be a bit... well screwed.

Watford FC

One Size who has thankfully left us

I had to smile as I saw the bbc pages updating last night and Watford went down 3-0 at home to Barnsley. They blew the chance to go top, we seem to be in a league where no one wants to actually go up!

We are playing them next week and seeing as they are now, by default, my "local" side I will be there in the away end.

Should we beat Scunthorpe on Saturday we will send them down and the game against Watford will have even more meaning as I can not see them (Watford) beating WBA on Saturday. What a tight league we have this year !

RIP Charlton Heston

Shame to hear about the great man, Planet of the Apes, Ben Hur and of course Wayne's World 2.



He will be missed.

WHAT !

Max has started saying WHAT at every moment he can now and we know we shouldn't so we are trying hard not to laugh because he does it just to wind us up ! He knows it gets us so he keeps saying it even though he has heard us.

It's our own fault for laughing so much the first time he said it. Even worse I know but every time he says it I keep thinking of Pulp Fiction.

Just say WHAT one more time.......... It is on youtube and here is the link you have to get through to about 04.40 before you get to the scene but it's such a class film enjoy the first 4 mins !

Coffee

Francis Francis

I have bought a new Francis Francis coffee machine and it is great. I have been using it with lots of different coffees and have managed to get a good crema almost every time. Went down to Whittards and bought this really special coffee called Blue Mountain Jamaica and it is 5 times more expensive then all the other coffees and it is good. Not sure it is really worth £11 for 125grams when the other coffee is about £2 but it is less "harsh" and really suits a Latte.

There is quite a lot to making a coffee when you start reading the internet for the best way to make coffee. Now to find out what stretching the milk means and if you should or shouldn't use flavoured syrups.

Here is a picture of Max with Skye.

Moses

borrowed from Jesuswalk.com

All hail a new king is born at Selhurst and his name is Victor Moses. A while ago I blogged about Bostock making his debut for Palace and said something along the lines of yeah he is good but it's Moses you need to watch out for....

Today I finally got my first "live" viewing of the young prodigy. I was taken back just how good he looked and how good he is going to be, he glides with the ball and does some stuff where he is away from the ball but the ball is under total control, it is a strange thing to see that this young 17 year old just shift his body and the ball seems to be gone but then it is back again under his feet. Incredible.

The only part of his game I dont like and I'm sure Warnock will beat it out of him is that he goes down like he has been shot. I'm sure it is hard for a 17 year old to keep getting hit by tackles but he does seem to go down a tad easy but then he still needs to toughen up. His game is missing a bit of speed and determination but he is young and the good times are coming.

Yes I finally got to my first game since New years day and it was great to be back :-) I got some stick from the gents around me but not too much. The only problem I had was that I drove so that I could leave a bit earlier to give a hand with bathtime and I would not of been able to get back fast enough on the trains. It took 1 1/2 hours there and the same back with clear traffic so a bit quicker then the trains but as I say it was clear on the roads. From Berko I ended up going right round the M25 and up A3 to miss the traffic going through London and it seemed OK. Was strange going that way as it was the way I used to drive (up A3) until I moved to London. Things dont 'alf change and it seemed like a different route. The TomTom kept trying to send me different ways but I stuck with the route that I learnt as a lad and sometimes I wonder why I took the TomTom but the speed camera warnings were good. Next time though I will try the way it says once I leave the A3 at Raynes Park.

Oh and I missed the winning goal by Prince Harry AKA Watson as I left at 4.25 and he scored as I turned the radio on in the car :-( Still 2-1 to the Palace so happy.

They call me James......

Max and Skye Lilly

My name is James and they all now call me James, Max has started copying everything we say and now calls me James rather then daddy not all the time but quite a bit, See yer James he shouts as I go to work although I do get a daddy on the phone calls and when I get home. It's amazing really how good his speech is. It is so good he has even stared to copy me taking the "mickey" for example, the other day someone who was round asked for a cup of tea so in my best cockney accent I said
"Cup of rosie lee coming up" and lo and behold the boy said it as well with the accent. Brilliant really. Not sure I like it when he hears Faye call me honey and he copies that, it does make me laugh though.

His other favorite word is NO and that gets used a bit more then we would like.

Max and Skye are both doing really well, Skye seems a bit like me....... She is quite grumpy and frowns a lot :-) She is really cute and beautiful with it. Her sleeping is not bad although we have moved her to her own room, bit sooner then most but she is noisy and I snore so it is best for all.

All is OK and we are enjoying being a bigger family. As mentioned it does seem easier the 2nd time round.

I love the fact that we had a little girl and my mate said that we now have a Gentlemens family of a Boy and Girl. Not heard that saying but I like it.

I have been sipping Honey Dew by Fullers this week and if you like a beer I really recommend it. I get it from Waitrose and not bad value at £1.85 or something.

Take care and I will post some pictures over the weekend,

Back to the guitar

My Gibson SG
Recently I have been getting nearly all my blogging fixes from the Croydon Chronicles written by the very funny Istvanski , whilst on his site I got listening to a youtube video of a couple of quite talented girls (although I did think the older one was a boy for a while) playing guitar and singing. I then surfed round youtube at guitar videos and it got me thinking wouldn't it be good to play guitar and then I thought.... You know what I am meant to be able to play a couple of chords and spent a shed load of money a few years ago on a SG so I dusted it off, still needs a good clean !, tuned it up by plugging it into a tuner as I'm tone deaf and banged out a couple of chords and I mean only a few. Think it was Em, D, C, C that I used in my little "play". Still not plugged in the amp though ! I might run it through my laptop later as the amp is in the bedroom and there is a baby Skye in there so cant get it.

I also went out and bought Total Guitar in my new found eagerness to learn the guitar and will have a read through that and see if there is anything easy I can try. They do have Feeders Forget about tomorrow tabbed and Feeder are a real favorite of mine so I might have a look at that.

Skye one week on

Skye Lilly at one week

Well here we are over a week into having Skye with us and all is good !

Faye is feeding her lots and lots as she always wants feeding, Faye is a bit shattered by all the feeding but all in all we are coping loads better then with Max.

Skye's weight is already back to her birth weight and that is a great sign.

So why is it all so much easier this time? Well I think there are a few reasons:
1) Fayes labour was a lot shorter.
2) We have had more time to establish our lives with her.
3) We have a bigger house.
4) Been there and done it !!

1 - Rather then starting at lunchtime on the 29th and Max arriving just before midnight on the 30th involving a couple of trips to the hospital and lots of stress and no sleep, Faye had a twinge in the morning and 4pm felt strong contractions and when we arrived at the hospital, about 17.30, she was already 9cm dilated ! Skye Lilly arrived into the world at 20.20.

2 - rather then having everyone round straight away we have basically set our own times and not had anyone round until we was ready for people.

3 - a 2 up and 2 down full of people is no fun whereas a 3 bed house with lounge and diner has enough space for everyone.

4 - Yeah a strange one but simple things like dressing her is quicker, with Max we was both so worried about hurting him we would hardly bend his arms and it would take ages to get ready whereas with Skye we just get on with it and it is done really quick.

She had her first bath today and even that was quite easy :-) I sat there with the new camcorder so was a breeze for me :-)

We have decided that she will be Skye Lilly and no middle name but known as Skye for day to day. Thanks everyone.

On the camcorder front I bought the JVC GZ-MG175 and it is a HDD model and well after a bit more research it is not as Mac friendly as I hoped as the USB is not seen by iMovie HD but is by iMovie 08. iMovie 08 is slated and a reason why I have not bothered with iLife08. To get round it I had to use mpeg streamclip with a Quicktime add in then save as DV format BUT have since worked out that I can just connect the DV cable / firewire from my older DV camcorder to the dock and play it and to see the clip in iMovie and import it. I'm still playing and getting there with it now so will hopefully have something to show you soon. It seems as though JVC sorted it by adding a DV output to the dock on my model.

The Simmonds' PART 2

Max has been really really good with Skye and as you can see from the following shot he loves Baby Skye very much.



What do you think we should do with Skye's name, Skye Lilly as a first name OR Skye and Lilly as a second name?

Thanks for the messages,
James, Faye, Max and Skye Lilly

Just off to collect...

Image "borrowed" from www.krittercards.com

A camcorder and a BABY GIRL, hooray Faye gave birth last night to a daughter and we have names her Skye Lilly. She was born without any complications at 20.20 last night and weighed in at 7lb 15 and a bit. She is shorter then Max so a bit chubbier. As births go she was a lot easier then Max and Faye did really really well and had no pain relief.

The camcorder has also arrived so I will collect that just before I collect the "girls"

I will post up a photo a bit later.
James

Still Waiting...

Well today is the day that our 2nd baby is due. Faye has gone out for a walk with Max and her mum to try and hurry things along while I popped out to the greatest electrical shop there is... Comet, Yeah I work for them but they do have some great deals and the layout of the shop in Hemel is so much better then the Currys on the same site. I went in Currys and it was terrible for a new refitted shop.

We have puchased a new camcorder because the one we have, a Sony DCR TRV20E, a great camcorder and the spec is still really good but it is a bit "Large" nowadays.

We have had to wait for the price to drop on the smaller ones to get a mega pixel camcorder for the sort of price we wanted to pay. They have always been over £300 but Comet have the JVC GZ-MG175EK at a great price of £249.99 can not argue with that and once I added my discount (I get a couple of 20% voucher once a year) I ended up paying £199. Collect it Wednesday although it might be in on Monday so I will have to wait before using.

Hopefully will be filming the new baby for you all to see.........

Unicorn

Image "borrowed" off a google search....

Well it's only a week and a bit to go now so starting to get a bit nervy when the phone rings and I see 'home' or 'Faye Mobile', we do have a good system though where Faye calls and hangs up if it is just a chat and then I can call her back when I'm free. This works great until it keeps ringing and the reason is she forgot to hang up !


Max's speech is just getting better and better at the moment, I called home and spoke to him yesterday. He normally just says "How are you" "bye bye" and "love you" plus a few other words in there when coached on what he has been doing BUT yesterday we had a proper conversation where he told me everything he had been up to and that he was playing football and blowing his whistle when I called ! Amazing.

Faye saw a picture of a unicorn today and Max called it a Rhino Horse. Pretty clever we thought.

Snoring Ring, Sleep Knight

The ring has gone back to boots, never worked very well to be honest. Didnt think it would but anything is worth trying.

Warnock's red and blue army are still marching and it's now unbeaten in 15 matches !

Max has started playing footy on a Saturday morning now with Little Kickers and hopefully he will get signed up :-) Faye and I need to retire as this working stuff is no good, saying that though, a guy at work's son was signed by Chelsea and he was happy for a bit but then was released after just a year. It turns out that almost the whole of the team that he played in was signed and then released. What the clubs do is sign up almost the whole of a good team that are winning everything and out of, say, 200 boys about 5 get kept whilst the other 195 get released with their hearts broken. As it turns out though the guy at works son is now signed up by Reading so we will see.... and his age is 12 !

The baby is due in just 2 weeks today :-0

Balachaung

Balachaung

What the hell is that I hear you say well... For those that dont know me or might know me but not know the following (Hope that makes sense !) I am half Burmese, the good half my Mum would say and you must of guessed that to be a Palace Fan then my Dad and Grandad must of "made" me. Same as we will do to Max. Balachaung is a Burmese condiment that goes very well with Rice and can be dry or wet, I used to get it from Mum who got it from a place in South London (Just up the road from the Palace) but the person that makes it died. Now whilst I am sad about someone dying I never knew them and it does mean that I can not get any Balachaung anymore so I did a few searches on the web last night and managed to get a recipe and have recreated it this afternoon after going to a Chinese supermarket for some bits. Turned out all right even if I say so myself so I will be getting my mum to taste and see if it compares.

The picture above is taken on the built in isight so not great quality.
The receipe I based mine on is here in full but I used the following:

100g dried shrimp
10 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1 cup crisp-fried sliced shallots
1/2 cup peanut oil
1/2 cup sesame oil
1 Tbs ground dried chillies
2 teaspoons salt
2 cm/1 in square of dried shrimp paste
1/2 cup vinegar (I used Rice)
"chunk" of ginger blended in the processor or grated will do.

Put the dried shrimp into a food processor and process, I gave them a good "cutting" down.
Fried the fresh garlic,until golden and drained on a kitchen towel. It then starts to crisp up. Dont over do them as they will go black and horrible. I tested a couple before placing them all in. I used a wok and wire drainer.

Pour off 1 cup of oil.

Reheat remaining oil and fry the dried prawn for 5 minutes, stirring constantly, goes a bit frothy but keep stiring. Add the Ginger, Add chillies mixed with the vinegar, salt and shrimp paste. Fry until crisp, stirring constantly. Allow to cool completely before mixing in the fried onion and garlic, stirring to distribute evenly.

I then gave it another blitz in the processor to cut it down a bit more.

It stunk the kitchen out but was worth it.

Silent Knight, Not great to be honest it just does not seem to work so will take it back this week after 2 nights.

Palace - Come on, Now in the playoffs. Thats it for me though for a month or so :-( so I will be sending my season ticket to my brother. Have already bought my ticket for next year though :-)

Not so Silent Knight 2 and 3

BOSTOCK

It does not seem to be working at the moment, the benefit of doubt is that I am having bad sinus pains so that might a problem BUT I'm not sure if this snoring ring is working or indeed will work. It does say to stick at it for a bit so I will.

Wanted to go to the Watford V Palace FA Cup game today but Watford have only given Palace 2500 tickets and they sold out last week. Would of been good to see some of our prospects playing. I might be able to get in the home end but we will see if I fancy it later, Have done it a couple of times before and it is no real fun watching in the home end. Although being in the home end in Germany when England won 1-5 was very good !

I am only about 15-20 mins from Watford on the train rather then my usual 2 hours to Palace so would be a nice trip.

Have also bought my season ticket for next year so don't really have the money for todays game anyway.

Good luck Palace.

Istvanski the ring thing was bought from Boots for more money then it is worth, £30, would of been cheaper then all the potions that i am currently trying though.

Silent Knight Night 1

Well... Faye who most of you know is due next month is not sleeping great, we guess it is natures way of preparing you for the sleepless nights ! was up quite early, 5am, and said that I did not snore even while on my back and that is unheard of !

I did some google searches last night and could not find anyone that had "honestly" tried the ring but lots of people knocking it so we will see in a few days. I'm a bit s unsure of it all and it might be a fluke that it worked so i will try again tonight and let you know.

Snoring

I snore and have done for quite a while, I have tried everything and last night used a nasal spray, breath right strip and snoreeze throat strip and still snored. I have been to see a private doctor you said that an operation to tighten the throat would cost £3500 be painful and still not guaranteed to work, he put it down to allergies.

Tonight I am going to try a Silent Knight ring. It is a small silver ring that goes on your little finger and according to the website, and I quote,

Silent Knight Ring uses acupressure - tried and tested over the past 3,500 years!

The raised part on the inside of Silent Knight Ring acts, when correctly positioned, on one of the meridian lines in the little finger of the snorer. It uses age-old principle of Accupressure, specifically the principle of Tuina (pronounced 'twee nah') which is a form of Oriental bodywork used in China. It's a combination of massage, acupressure, and other forms of body manipulation.

You might have heard of Reflexology, where pressure is applied to the hands, feet, and even ears to treat a variety of conditions. Tuina is a form of reflexology that has a history pre-dating ANY conventional western medicine by thousands of years.

To make Silent Knight Ring work for you all you have to do is put it on about an hour before you go to bed, correctly position the Accupressure Stimulator (full instructions are included) and give the ring one gentle squeeze to apply pressure - that's it! Tuina and Silent Knight Ring are working together for you to cut out your problem snoring completely!

have a good night's sleep at last! Order your own Silent Knight Ring NOW

will let you know how it goes.....