2004




		25/1/2004 Ok, been a while since I updated this so I think now is about the right time. Towards the beginning of December Samantha decided she wanted to go and stay with her mother again. I chewed it over for a few days, looked at all the pro’s and con’s, including her recent behaviour, her school attendance and such, and how unhappy she was making Daniel with her behaviour, then spoke with Linda, her mother. We decided she could go and stay on a trial basis starting Christmas Eve. The house is just not the same without her. I dropped her and Daniel off as arranged and then came home. Picked them up day before Boxing day to go to South Wales and go and see a Pantomime at Cwmbran with the rest of my family. Great night out it was to. Every onebody should go to Panto. A few days later I left Daniel at my parents for a week and dropped Samantha off at her mums. She seems to be enjoying it though and is settling in to her new school nicely. Just before Christmas a lady I know decided to ask her husband for a divorce, in order that we could start seeing each other. We had known each other for a number of years and just to add to the complications she was married to a friend of mine. For the past five weeks or so things have been a little strained, not so much between Claire (that’s her name) and I but more between her and her husband. He’s a nice guy, and is trying to be decent and do the right thing, including not falling out with me. I agree with him that it would be a shame if we lost our friendship over this but couldn’t really see any other way around it. He has managed to prove me wrong though by being very pleasant throughout. Claire and he have a four-year-old son and for this reason if no other it would be better if we could all stay friends. I hope everything goes as well in the future as it has so far. Anyway, since we decided to give it a go, I have had a few changes. I’ve been busy with clearing out and moving stuff and decorating and all sorts, and she hasn’t even moved in yet. Last Saturday was hard; I thought I could safely move a wardrobe downstairs on my own. I was wrong! The first two steps were ok, and then it decided to go a lot faster than I expected it to. It catapulted me downstairs at approximately 1,000 miles per hour (it felt like that speed anyway) and across the hall at the same speed, where I had a brief rest against an occasional table, resulting in three broken ribs on my back from hitting the table and two in the front of my chest from wrestling with the wardrobe on the way down. Not a mistake I’m likely to make again. Broken ribs and coughing, laughing, walking, sleeping, sitting, standing, etc don’t mix. Everything hurts. 29/2/2004 It’s been over a month since my last up-date and even longer since I posted to the site as I’ve been allowing for discretion to play a part in my life for a change and will not be posting at all until certain things are sorted. I intend to carry on writing just not uploading for a while. I’ve just had to re-write half of this as it’s been so long since I last did it I found that I had already said most of what I was typing in now. The good news is that Russell and I have not yet seen the need to fall out, this does make life a lot simpler. It’s easier to arrange visits and such when you know your not going to have your life threatened. Claire has now been living here for the past three weeks, and apart from a row I had with her mother, everything seems to be going well. Not so sure her mother is ever gonna invite me over for tea though. ;-) We have started a new regime, and that included joining the National Trust, now we’ve got to get more exercise to make sure we get value for money from the membership, besides, Jack, Claire’s son, loves feeding the ducks. The only place we have been so far is Dunham Park, but it is still zero degrees outside most days at the moment and she has only been here three weeks. It’s early days. Too cold for the ducks today so we went to Bingo while Jack was with his dad. Didn’t win anything but it didn’t cost much either as it was all free, including dinner. You should have seen the queues though, I’m sure they didn’t expect it to be as popular as it was. Free dinner and a chance to win money for now’t, how could it not be popular? I’ve spoken to Sam a lot over the last couple of weeks, I wish she was a little happier, she loves being with her mum, but she made the mistake of thinking that things would be different now. Unfortunately they are not. I am keeping a close eye on the situation though. My ribs are now pretty well healed, just the one sore one now, just as well too, I’ve got bloody flu now. I forgot how many coughs and sneezes you pick up with having a little one around the house again. I wonder if I’ll live? We have managed to get the house mostly straight after all the moving, or to put it another way; we can now get in every room. And out again. Lol. I sure as hell could have chosen a better time to break my ribs and come down with flu. I had a week off two weeks ago and went down south to see my parents and introduce them to Claire. Visit seemed to go ok but it’s hard to tell until you’ve had feedback six months later. Unfortunately my dad couldn’t be there, but at least she met my brother, his wife, son, and my mother. Dad will have to wait till another time. I went down primarily to have the car serviced and new brakes fitted, this was done a lot quicker than I expected which meant I could come home on the Saturday rather than the Sunday as I had first allowed for. All in all, Claire and I seem to be working out pretty well. We’ve not had the need to row yet and I would like to keep it that way. We have decided against moving from Radcliffe, purely on financial grounds. It seemed to make sense to stay here with a lower mortgage payment and have a little spare cash to do the things that make life worthwhile, (Holidays, shopping, etc). That’s more or less all my news for now. Will update again soon. 8/3/2004 Back again. Had a great weekend. Went down to Birmingham to see Samantha. I took her friend Chelsea from across the road down for the day as well. Samantha seemed to enjoy herself and I know Claire and I did. Not a bad shopping centre in Birmingham. As soon as we parked, Sam and Chelsea went off to the Sea-Life Centre and Claire, Jack and I went off to browse. We didn’t spend an awful lot, apart from the thirty quid I spent in Waterstone’s, you just got to love a good book shop. Found out the ‘Flu’ I was suffering from was actually a chest infection, stemming from my broken ribs adventure. You’d never of thought a wardrobe could be so bloody dangerous, unless you were jumping off it of course. ;-) The house is beginning to get straight at last, it’s a mammoth task that Claire seems to be taking in her stride, good job one of us is tidy. Jack seems to be settling pretty well, he seems to be getting used to being in a noisy household, not me of course, I’m so quiet and unassuming. Hahahahaha. Not so sure how Claire is settling though, she really is used to a much quieter households, where father and sons don’t hit each other in passing as a show of affection. Guess she’ll get used to Dan and I though, we’ve had to get used to her and her quiet little ways, lol, not that it was so hard to. You’d hardly know she was there most of the time, apart from the fact the laundry basket keeps filling up. Did you know that you’re supposed to have more than one towel per month, even if there are only six of you using it? Not only that, but apparently your bed should be changed more than as a Christmas treat! I’m astonished. And another thing, did you know that girls need more than two pairs of shoes? And then even when you have twenty-seven pairs you don’t have the pair you need to go with THAT outfit. 25/3/2004 Had lots of fun today. I was working in Birmingham (place with lots of people with REALLY intelligent accents) and thought I would go and see my daughter after work. Managed to keep up with time really well. It was just great to see her. The only fly in the ointment was a trip we took to McDonalds. They charged my 5 pence for a little tub of tomato sauce. Apparently it is new ‘company policy’. Well I have myself a new company policy; I will not be buying anything from the so-called ‘golden arches’ for a period of no less than three months. I hope they enjoy the extra 5 pence they made from me! Then to cap off the day I decided to come home via the M6 at 18.00 hrs not a good time to be on the motorway as any regular traveller will be able to tell you. And that was only the start of my trouble; as soon as I managed to get to 70 mph the back wheel froze on my car throwing me into the next lane of traffic. Fortunately it only stopped turning for around a second and then it freed up again. I managed to get off the motorway and called the AA. What a great service, they were there within an hour and then got the car straight to the garage for me. Shame I had to get the train home but you can’t have it all your own way. 2/4/2004 Yet another busy week, only got my car back today, it has been nice though, having my own little taxi driver. Been spending some time at Claire’s house as we are trying to get it ready for sale, our aim is to get it on the market for the Tuesday after Easter. So far so good, we seem to be doing ok on time. Mind you, things always look ok at first don’t they? They only tend to screw up after. 6/4/2004 Picked Sam up from her mothers yesterday. It’s nice to come home and have her here when I get here. Just like old times. When I say just like old times I mean I had to tell her off for being late in and threaten to ground her. Still it is nice to have her here really. I do miss not seeing her every day. Jack did exceptionally well at school today. He was awarded a ‘Gold Star’ award that included a £5.00 gift voucher. He was awarded it for good behaviour, hard work and general attitude. Both Claire and I are really pleased for him. In the last couple of months he has turned around from being the hardest kid in school to teach to being the sort of child that teachers like. We will be taking him out in the next week to spend his gift voucher. 12/5/2004 Well, I’ve not updated for a while due to not having time for anything other than work and sleep for quite a while. Last weekend however we did something about that. We went to Paris for the weekend. We flew out of Manchester on the smallest jet plane I’ve ever seen, checkout the picture in the photo album, at least now we know I’m not scared of flying. We landed in Paris in time to be driven to our Hotel by a stunt driver, I mean taxi driver, I’m glad that I did not decide to hire a car, the roads in Paris are hell. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Paris, but if you ever do go watch out for the zebra crossings. They seem to have no laws governing them at all. They look like UK crossings, except that they are on every junction. When you get to the junction, you’ll see that some have a green man/red man lighting system. But even these don’t seem to follow recognised rules. Having been there for two days I think I managed to get the rules worked out. I.e. if the red man is showing don’t cross, if the green man is showing, cross with a St Christopher, a prayer, a quota of good luck and as fast as you possibly can. And if you decide to use one of the ones without a redman/greenman light, just make sure your insurance is up to date and your will is in a safe place. While I was there I noticed something unusual, all the white vans seem to attract vandals, checkout the picture again in the album. We did go to the Eiffel Tower, but as the queues were long and it was raining cats and dogs, decided not to bother standing in the rain just to get a better look at Paris, maybe we will go again for the Tower alone. If you look at the pictures you’ll see how wet it was. It was so wet Claire decided to treat herself to a Smurf coat, just check out the pics. ;-) I must say that the high point of the trip, other than having Claire with me of course, was our evening out to the Moulin rouge. What a fantastic show. The music was great, and I hardly even noticed the fact that the female dancers were only partially dressed. Honest I didn’t. We also went to a place called ‘galeries lafayette’, just a big shopping centre, but in the windows they have live models in the displays. This was entertaining, but not as entertaining as the protesters that turned up to complain about their exploitation. 15/5/2004 Just got back from a trip out. Claire wanted to go to a show today on the Wirral. I managed to get her to drop Jack and I at Blue Planet aquarium in Ellesmere Port on the way. Jack had a great time, not so sure he was all that impressed with the fish, but he loved the fountain in the car park and the moving walkway through the Plexiglass tunnel was of far greater interest to him than the 8 foot shark inches away from his head. I did manage to talk him into touching the stingray though, and got the picture to prove it, watch out for it being posted on his page when I get chance. Good to see the weather has turned nice now I’m back in the UK. Perhaps it always rains in Paris? ;-) 6/6/2004 I’ve not had time to do any entries on here for a while, its not just that I have a boring life for a change. We went to Lyme Park for the day a couple of weeks ago. I had great fun teaching Jack how to fall in a stream whilst fully dressed, code for teaching him how to use stepping stones. His mother just stands on the bank panicking and telling me to stop, she is not a great lover of open water. Even if it was only four inches deep. Daniel’s friend Jordan took Daniel and I to see Van Helsing on the Sunday, not the best film I have ever seen but well worth a morning out. I’ve been to the cinema a lot just lately; I went to see The day after tomorrow last week, another good film. And we can always hope that it tells the Yanks about the phenomena most of the world now accepts as ‘global warming’. Only time can tell. Just got back form seeing the new Harry Potter film, The prisoner of Azkaban not a bad film at all, it even manages to compress the book without losing too much of the story line. My eBay stuff is doing well again now I’ve started again. All I’ve got to learn now is to stop spending so much on there and to start selling only. As you can see from this diary entry, I’ve started trying to put hyperlinks direct into the diary, save you having to look through to the links area every time I mention something. Lets see how long I keep this up to date. Claire and I are still together and doing well, its surprising how much all of our lives have changed over the last year or so. I may even be growing up at last. I’m not making any promises though. 3/7/2004 Arranged with Claire and Sam to go to the jewellery quarter in Birmingham today. We went to have a look at the prices of wedding and engagement rings, it was nice to involve Sam. We managed to find a lovely Tanzanite and diamond ring. We had to buy it of course and I had to ask her if she was REALLY going to marry me. Fortunately she said yes. So that’s today’s big news, I am now officially engaged. We had a great time though, it was really good to see Sam, it feels like I never see her these days. We took the opportunity to buy here birthday present while I was with her, (she had asked for a book so we bought her book tokens) 5/7/2004 Finished work early today as my parents are up for the day. The idea was that they would come up to Rachael’s house and surprise Livvy when she got home from school to find her grandparents there. Daniel had his college interview though so Claire had to pick him up and I Picked Jack up from school. And we arrived at Rachael’s only a few minutes apart. Livvy was amazed that everyone was there, particularly as we had only been there the day before. Although my mum had met Claire already, it was the first time dad had met her, it seemed to go pretty well though. 8/7/2004 Just got back from being away again, stayed at my mums though this time. It was nice to have a home cooked meal, and she can’t half cook. Dads on holiday as well at the moment so I got to see him as well, not seen so much of them since they moved. I’m absolutely shattered, got stuck in a traffic jam on the M4 yesterday for 4 hours, if I’d have know it was gonna be stopped for so long I could of at least had a sleep. 6/8/2004 We took Jack and Samantha along to Catalyst today, in Widnes. They really enjoyed themselves. Its rare to find a fun day out that can amuse a five year old and a thirteen year old. I’m still trying to give up smoking, not very successfully at the moment though. This meant that on the way home that special urge came over me, that and the fact that Claire was being hard work, (she didn’t want to go to McDonalds), what sort of woman is she? I get withdrawal if I don’t have a McD’s at least three times a week. And that’s when I’m cutting back. Almost as hard to give up as cigarettes. Anyway………. Due to lack of McD’s and nicotine, we stopped in Runcorn to browse the shops and get some food and fags. I called into the QVC shop to pick up a pair of sunglasses for my dad, same style as mine, means I’ll have to wear mine only when I’m up north though. Cant be seen in the same fashion accessories as my dad. 13/8/2004 Took Sam back down to her mothers today. What an adventure. I suggested to her mother that we might meet near the train station in Walsall as she lives in Walsall now. Then it got interesting. She doesn’t know where the train station is so suggested that we meet at the bus station. Now I don’t know if you know the area or not, I didn’t. but for the sake of peace and quiet I acquiesced. A quick look in the map showed me that the bus and train station were around 50 yards apart, as the crow flies. I parked at the train station and elected to walk over to the bus station. Now it turns out that the bus station, like most other bus stations in the UK, and unlike most railway stations, has no parking. This meant that Sam’s mum was parked on the main inner ring road, which she didn’t know the name of, giving us clues like, “I’m near the station, down a side road”, or my particular favourite, “I’m near a big brown building”. We found her in the end, and I had to give Sam back. Perhaps I should have sent her to the shop when we first got married, she’d never have got home and I’d have saved myself a whole lot of aggro later. 17/12/2004 Today we held Christmas. It has been great fun. In fact it has been so good we may do this every year. It takes all the pressure off you, we’d done all the cooking and shopping and were sat down eating our dinner while every-one else is going mad and doing their last minute shopping. We have Sam up, Daniel and Jack here and it has been brilliant. 18/12/2004 Ok, I admit it, it’s taken me a little while to write this entry, I’ve been busy. Today I got married. I know I was anti-marriage for some time but when you do meet that ‘one’ special person there’s no point in waiting any longer. Not that we have particularly waited, we’ve been together for nearly a year now and I see this as formalising our lifestyle. It’s been a great day, Claire looked stunning, and you can see the pictures in the album section of the site. The only thing that did go wrong was me losing her ring. It was like a nightmare. Now Claire was very understanding, I think I was more upset than she was. Before we left for the registry office, I carefully put both wedding rings in my jacket pocket. Then I decided to put my buttonhole on. Now, not wanting to crush the buttonhole prior to getting there, I carefully placed my jacket over the kitchen chair. Putting my jacket on before I left, I carefully tapped my pocket to ensure I had placed the rings in my pocket, and I could feel them, so I was content. It wasn’t until we had been ad the registry office for some time, and Claire was about to head in that I was asked for the rings. Imagine my horror when I put my hand in my pocket and could only find my ring box. Everyone thought I was kidding, like I’d kid at a time like that? Anyway, to cut a long story a little shorter, I ran from the office, and not because I was getting married, drove home like a demon and started running round the house, all the while wondering if I should go and buy a new ring, looking for the second ring box. It was on the kitchen chair, it must have fallen out when I draped my jacket. And I didn’t hear it fall out due to it landing on the padded seat cushion. Then raced back to the registry office to find that everyone else seemed so much less worried than I was. Claire was great about it.