The long day before

After building two kids bikes, one for a seven year old and three year old and finally mastering the art of break adjustment, I deserved and enjoyed two cans of Stella 4%. Not exactly party mode but I did finish building the bikes at 12am after starting at 10pm (I was distracted by Christina Aguilera in Burlesque). I was also winding down from doing the Christmas rounds. You know visiting friends and family, traveling from one house to the other, seeing different smiling faces pleased to see you.
For the first time in a long time I'm going out today (christmas eve) but only for a few drinks, be back home by 8pm. Drinking with my mates and kids godparents. Should be an evening of fun and laughter.
The cycle begins again, you put the kids presents under the the tree and try and make as little noise as you can. While sipping Santa's brandy/rum/scotch delete applicable or add your own! And is it worth it? Hell ya it is to see the look on your kids faces that reminds you of your faces when you where their age and believed.
But again the kids are happy to have their loved ones there and easily forget the presents.
Just one more thing i'm glad I had some vouchers from work for Waitrose because I bought about 6 items which come up to £48.50 but I had change! My vouchers were worth £50. Wish I bought something for £2 and went to another superstore!

Hope your Christmases are what you hoped they would be. One love

Sunday nights

Since Lisa has started work on a Sun evening, from 6pm to 11pm, I can chillax on the settee, with the duvet up to my neck and watch geeky sci films like Star Trek (2009) and not get frowned at and called a geek!
Sipping my hot chocolate in my heat for feet socks (you know the thick ones with the funny picture grips, mine say coach potato) and looking at the decorations and the seizure inducing flashing Christmas lights, makes me feel all festive. That and the fact it's a three day week for me next week makes me feel even better.

Choices

I look back on my life and the choices I've made and wonder what if.... What if I didn't quit my Electrical apprenticeship all those years ago and carried it on. Would I have not met my finacee in a night club, on a night on with different work mates? Or would I have mate her anyway? Great scot, guess it's the Back To The Future conundrum.
It makes me wonder about parallel/alternative universes, and a Red dwarf episode/book (rimmer comes to mind)whereby the choice you didn't make gets played out in an alternative universes.

Look where you are today in your life and think about the choices YOU have made to get you where you are today. Have you made the write choices? Are you happy with your choices? Be mindful in what you do now as it might bite you in the butt in the future!

poker face

My first poker game in about a year last night and it showed! Did a bit of research online to do with poker hands, Royal flush, Flush etc, before the night. Being a beginner when I first started last year and only playing a few times on facebook, it took me a while to get into it. That the drinks and happy trees flying around didn't help! £5 a game, with the very first warm up game being for a £1, you would have thought we were playing for £100,000! The two £5 games and warm up game saw me loose...yep you guessed it £10 well £11 really. I started slow but grew with confidence as I bluffed and played my hands well.
What I really enjoyed though was the banter and we might even do a skydive later on next year after my friend saw this video. Ok we wont actually be doing that but it looks awesome. It will be more like being strapped to somone else and jumping from a plane. Always wanted to do that and it will come true in May, watch this space....

Guess I better get some poker practise in!

Didn't think I'd like that

About to walk my dog, Taya in a bit. She's a

cross between a Staffordshire terrier and a Springer Spaniel! I know strange combination. She has a stance of a staff and the energy of a springer. As I think about the dog though it makes me wonder why im so enthusiastic about taking her on long walks.....
Its taken my fiancee about four years to convince me to have a dog and she finally wore me down January 2011. She convinced it is was for the kids, my two were fearful of dogs even coming up to them and sniffing, no matter what the size, and that if we had one they would get used to the dog and fear will be eradicated.
So I gave in and we drove around Gwent and the surrounding area. We finally found one at a dog kennel, a border collie, which seemed nice enough and active to deal with my three and seven year old hypper active, energised kids.
I was in work one day and Lisa texted me saying she has locked the dog outside and made an sos call on facebook, asking for any who wants a dog free of charge can pick ours up. Shocked I phoned her and she told me that the dog had been rounding Daylan up like he was sheep in a herd and nipped at him a few times, because of his random child movements. Basically the Collie was working of instinct was herding my boy and really didn't know how to take him. It had to go! And fast!
Never again will we buy a dog with an unknown history.

Anyway I digress. We bought Taya at four months old for £50 from a friend of a friend we knew the history of the mum and dad and the temperment of Taya. Full marks on all fronts.
Kids were happy with dog the and vice verser.
As the months have gone by I've tended to walk her on Weekends as no one else can be bothered! But what I have found is that I actually enjoy walking the dog or rather the walking. If I take the kids with me we go over the field were I take a ball and one of those ball throwing gadgets and play for an hour. If its just one man and his dog we go on monster two hour walks, where I can clear my head, get some exercise for myself and Taya, look at my local area and see people I know on the way.
I wasn't a fan of walking the, especially with a pink lead, but I guess a negative has come out of a positive, and I've found something enjoyable which I never thought would be.

Who knows?

What makes a man, who has a seemingly happy marriage with two teenage children a fantastic career and great future, commit suicide. In the case of Gary Speed, former Newcastle, Leeds, Everton, Bolton, Sheffield utd and Wales player this is what he had and that was what he did. On the Saturday before his untimely death, he was on football focus, a BBC sport show focusing on, yep you guessed it football. Gary was smiling and joking with the pundits and even had some thoughts and plans for the future. Why then take his own life?

1 million suicides occur around the worked each year with some 20 - 30 million attempted suicide each year 20-30 million! The world must be a dark dark place if that many people attempt or commit suicide . Where is the support network, do people actually know about then and if so why not seek help. There has to be an underlying reason why people commit suicide and one of those reasons is depression. Depression is not a sign of weakness or something we can just 'pull ourselves together' it is an illness which sufferers should not be ashamed of. If you can't talk to friends or family try to speak with a professional who has dealt with this condition before or someone who had or still is going through the symptoms of depression and see how they coped or how they are coping with it the condition.

We all have been depressed at some point in our lives. Maybe our partners have left us, lost a job, lost money gambling etc. How we cope with this depends on the type of people we are and thus the length of time the depression lasts for. If you have been sad/depressed in the past how many times has someone said 'shape up'  'pull yourself together', you don't know how lucky you are...' blah blah, not realising that you are actually hurting inside and external circumstances in most cases have no baring on your feelings, which may have been with you, suppressed in most cases for years.
This is possibly why there are so many successful (if that's the right word) and unsuccessful attempts at suicide. Depression is just not taken seriously by people or maybe they think everybody should adopt the british stiff upper lip. So sufferers tend to 'deal' with it and put on a brave face, instead of relieving this pain, which could manifest itself in physical pain, such as loss of sleep and appetite, mood swings, low immune system leading to more illness and so on.

Maybe this was the case with Gary Speed, who knows I doubt we will ever know, but with all the trapping of fame and fortune he was still a man who felt that taking his own life would ease the burden on himself, but has it began with his wife kids and other family members and friends?

What is also worthy of note is the fact TEN football players have now sought professional help due to Gary Speeds suicide.

RIP Gary Speed

Morning luck?

Wake up blurry eyed warm body next to me. Shall I try my luck? Cold in the room warm undercover wondering hands. Shall I try my luck? It's as good a time as any or is it, as the alarm clock chimes. A little stir, a murmur. Shall I try my luck. A warm in brace a little small from from her beautiful mouth, squeezing my sides tightly. Shall I try my luck? Stroking her back down her spine, another smile. Shall I try my luck? Drifting back off in this full in brace not a care in the world. Do I care about luck?  Stroking my back eyes start to smile interest peaking. Is she trying her luck? Alarming starts ringing, birds are singing, kids storm in. Well out of luck!

Must be another way

Why can't I be content with my working life. Get a career or line of work and stick to it. You know 'ive been a this or that for 20 years'. Well if your doing that and your happy carry on. But if your not happy with your job or your life for the matter then change it. One thing I dislike is when someone bitches about their job constantly, but doesnt follow it up with action just stagnation! What you scared to try something different. You might like it excel in it, earn lots of money in it but most of all you might enjoy it and have pleasure getting up in the morning for it. At the moment I'm trying to live a certain way, whereby my thoughts or should I say my inner voice gives out positive messages. These message influence how I talk and react to people, how I carry myself and so forth. So if I say to myself I'm in this shit job with low pay because I'm dumb, ugly and this is what I'm worth then that's where you will stay and think you are. Think about have you ever had a negative thought in your brain or told yourself something and did that or believed that thought so much you acted on it without realising you did. Without realising it as an escape I would, before going to bed i'd imagine myself as a populated person in my mums house which was always surrounded by people constantly. Going on adventures and generally having a gd time. Consequently I was a popular person in real life and built on that for some time before believing that I was a loner and started shrinking into myself. Have you ever thought that you couldn't do something without trying it and so never did that particular thing. But when you eventually tried it, as it was constantly on your mind you found out you could do it. Did you realise your subconscious mind was holding you back? Clinging on to the old ways hoping, willing you to stay in the comfort zone. Not realising when you perform these new tasks regulary it will become your comfort zone, and spout another journey into the unknown. Charting new discoveries of self and personal freedom.

what a day

Well Christmas is 23 days away although, if you looked out your window in October, you would have thought christmas was just after Holloween! Ruins it for me really it should all be banned until at least 12 days till Christmas. Ok don't get me wrong I guess people get excited (or have nothing better to do) but it must be confusing for their children, if they have any, or other peoples children who happen to walk by and say daddy/mummy is it Christmas already?
As a side note my son, whom is three years old and doesn't stop talking, asked his mother the other day after observing the neighbours father Christmas 'climbing' the wall and said 'mummy why is spider man on Mandy's wall'! Kids you gotta love their imagination.
Shops are at it as well as the television, with Christmas adverts in the beginning of November, but is this related. I mean people putting up decorations only and shops and TV adverts. Do people see the adverts/shops all christmasy and think 'time to put the pine tree up'. Don't get me wrong I love Christmas especially seeing the kids happy ( i have two boy and girl), having that warm feeling inside, probably from the baileys, and spending a bit more time with the people you love, and sometimes the people you only see once a year. You know who I mean. That uncle or aunt you see once every two years or your cousin who thinks that your house is theirs for the few days they stay, eats and drinks you at of home says their goodbyes not to be seen again for another couple of years.

Personally I like to do my visiting on Christmas eve so that I have Christmas day for my immediate family. Watch the excitement my kids faces as they run into our room and open their stockings. See them run downstairs with wonder at seeing the half eaten carrot, mince pie foil minus the mice pie, and the glass once filled with brandy literally licked dry. God, Santa and his reindeer's love their food and drink!
I spend my Christmas day playing with the kids, toys and helping my better half cook the dinner, while sipping on some alcoholic beverage. In fact why is it acceptable to have a drink at anytime in the day at Christmas and wave it off with, 'it's christmas', when any other day your friends or partner would be reaching for the phone and called the AA! They say that Christmas is for kids now and to some degree i can see the point. What with consumerism having the latest gadget or must have toy. Or the constant toy advert on kids TV. But I personal think its a family thing. Time to reflect on the good and the bad and ultimately thank Jebus or who ever you worship/admire/stork etc you have made it through another year, and wonder what the new year will bring.

Merry Christmas.... oh wait there is still  three weeks left!