Spnak

It’s New Years Eve and I am sat here going over what has happened in the past year. Some of what has happened has appeared in the pages of this very blog, the majority hasn’t. My breakdown was skipped over in a couple of posts and rightly so, I think. You don’t come here to see and read about my inability to hold a normal life together. You want to be entertained.

I am however proud of myself that I have gotten to the end of another year. There were certain points during 2005 when t all seemed too much and dropping out of life seemed like a good way to go. But, with the strength and love of my family I am still here and getting stronger all the time.

So a quick squizz back at what really happened.

I woke up New Years Day with a hangover and I only had one more drink after that day.

I was asked to leave work and not come back until they were comfortable with my mental health… I was off for close to three months and swore that that would be the last time I would have to be put in the position of being asked to leave the building for the safety of those around me… next time I go postal and be damned with it.

We went back to the States to visit family and have a slight break from normality. We took Mum with us to let her experience the great American dream for herself. She like me didn’t want to return. Seeing my Mum’s reaction to life in America even for just the short time we were there was an eye opener for me. All her life she has been stuck with a caregiver role and now she got a chance to live for herself even for a week, it did her good. We all look forward to our next trip which hopefully won’t be too long in coming. I know my mum is reading this and all I have to say is BOB EBANSSSSSSSSSS)

We said goodbye to our landlord and close friend Robin this year. Goodbye mate and keep on rocking.

We said hello to an old friend returning to our lives.. DOCTOR WHO is back and he gets better with every episode.. mind you I still don’t get why Christopher Ecclestone left after only one series but judging by the recent Christmas episode David Tennant is going to be a classic Who. I will have my sonic screwdriver in hand in the spring when the new series starts.

I went back and started writing my memoirs of a theatre bod. It was an eye opener to see how much people enjoyed those posts and when I get the time I plan on writing more of them.

Live8 happened and was a blast to watch at the time, but for some reason there were only two or three real stand out moments for me. Things that I would look back on the recorded version and watch over and over again. U2 and Paul McCartney doing Sgt Peppers, Madonnas full song and dance routine, The Who and PINK FLOYD reuniting . Considering that this show was on for over 10 hours there should have been more than 4 stand out moments.

Well that’s my BRIEF and NOT comprehensive look back at my year. I am sure there was more to it, but at the moment I don’t remember.. so they couldn’t have been too stand out.

Check back tomorrow ( I mean it for my look to the new year)

As you can tell things have been a bit quiet around here this month. At work we are getting ready for big changes and seeing as this is the quietest time of year work wise they are ramping up the learning curve for everyone to get us ready for the systems and work procedures. By the time I get out of training or home from work the last thing I feel like is sitting in front of a computer. I have basically done email for this month ( I am anal like that and hate having unread email.. hell I even read the fucking spam)

Yesterday I decided that I wanted to make this blog a little less business looking and make it a little more inviting. So I have changed my design again and this is the one I plan on sticking with for the foreseeable future. Nothing much has changed really. I have added an Ad-sense bar. I don’t expect to make any money from it but anything helps and it will be interesting to see how may clicks I can get from it. Please don’t feel obliged to click just because it’s there, my hosting is VERY cheap and reliable and I am not planning on going anywhere soon.

On to lighter more bloggy type things… Christmas is coming and I can’t wait… you know why? Christmas TV. To me being a child of a TV generation the Christmas TV viewing was always a look forward to point of the year. The boring kids educational shows ended and the fun American shows would be shown instead. These days I am watching all the old movies that get shown at this time of year. Add to that the fact that we just got Sky+ I can record things that I miss while I am at work. So far I have King Kong, The Son of Kong and Night at the opera ll ready for a lazy day over the Christmas break.

I must get around to setting up my DVD recorder so I can keep some of these great films to watch in the future.

On that note.. I would like to wish everyone who comes to spnak.com to read my ramblings a Very Merry Christmas and a Wonderfully Happy New Year. I’ll post again before 2006… and I’ll wish you that again.. but it’s getting me in the mood now.

Until Next Time…

Never before have I sat and watched babies TV for so long without killing something innocent.

This past weekend Linda, Mum, and I went down to visit with my little brother and to help him celebrate his 30th birthday (which is today by the way.. happy birthday you old fart). We arrived on Friday afternoon and right from the get go the kids were amped and psyched for rampage and hell making. I love em to pieces and if I thought I could distract Esther (my wonderful sister in law) long enough I would have brought at least one of the kids home with us.

We went out for an Indian meal on Saturday night. Indian isn’t my favorite genre of food but it was a nice meal and the company, although pretty much all strangers to me, made the evening one for Nik to remember. It was great to see him relax and not have t0o much to worry about and to let off a bit of steam. There are pictures from that meal that will get posted as soon as I get copies, but to the chap named Tony.. I told you I would make you famous… and I will. :grin::evil:

Anyway I had a really great time and so did everyone else. I do apologize to all once again for passing out Sunday morning but I really messed up with my medication and that’s my excuse.

As promised here are some pics from the weekend away.

In chronological order

Ready to take on the evils of old London town. Mum and Linda at St Pancreas train station.

This is Kieran.. he can’t sit still longer than thirty seconds.. he always has something to do.. especially coming up with ideas of how to make holes in the ceiling bigger and to move the water pipes around the corner.

She is a wonderfully two year old ruler. It’s her that makes the rules and lo and behold if Daddy doesn’t abide by them.

For Brother and Sister, they really can play nice together especially when the camera is pointing their way

Until Next Time…

Well I am here at casa da younger bruvva. The kids are more manic than I am after a three day bender with out my anti psych pills and I loves em for it. The train journey was a freaking nightmare and I am already dreading the return journey. How sad that I can’t live for the moment and am so caught up in the fears that tear at my soul… fuck a duck I sound like I am being led away to be shot at dawn… well I can hope….

We took a taxi cab across London this afternoon and were very surprised when it worked out, mile for mile about 75% cheaper to take a taxi in London than it was from home to work back in Corby.

Anyway the real reason for this short but sweet post is to tell you all about my adventure in Christmas Shopping land with my mum last night. I got off work a couple of hours early to make sure I was home and ready last night without too much stress going on. Well when the works bus took a detour through town I thought I could get off in town and meet mum and get a McDonald’s for dinner rather than any of us cooking.

Well I met her and I now know why Nik and I had such great Christmas’ as kids.. the woman can’t go into a shop and not buy something for her kids.. in this case Kieran and Jess. Mind you I am assured that Nik and I didn’t do bad out of last nights shopping mania… (I can’t wait for Christmas day).

I swear my mother could impulse buy for England and the great thing about it is that I know she won’t have to return a damn thing she bought because her impulse buys are better than mosts carefully considered purchases. Mind you just don’t mention the Jumper she bought that was advertised as a large ( you know how these Thirty somethings get a little big around the middle as the get older..lol) and it turned out to be medium… I take partial blame for that as I suggested she get the V Neck sweater and not the zippy up the front one, which after being here a few minutes found out that he wanted the zippy up one and not the v-neck one.. fussy bugger.

Anyway… that’s about all I gotta say for now… but a tip for you… if you ever get the chance to go shopping with one or both of your parents around this time of year make sure you have a lot of coffee handy and just watch the way they used to be when you were kids.

Until Next Time…

I must have the most boring life in blogdom. Nothing seems to happen and when it does I am too busy to blog about it. I must apologize to the few readers I do have who have been waiting for me to post. Linda has been unwell and I have generally been staying away from the PC when at home due to being burnt out on it at work.

Talking of work it’s been super busy so my usual slack time to write has been taken up by work type things. It’s getting closer to Christmas so it should start to slow down and make it slightly easier for me to write while at work.

This next weekend I am heading off to see my little brother and his family. It’s his Thirtieth Birthday next week and we are heading down to celebrate a few days early. I have no idea what we will be doing, but I do know I will be taking loads of photos with my new camera. Linda decided that we needed a better camera and she wanted something easy to use. So I decided on the Fuji FinePix A350. It has the 5.2mega-pixels for the detail I like. A really simple and easy to use operating interface and just enough gadgets to keep me happy. So expect loads of cute kids pics and ugly brother pics after the weekend.

I just hope I can get through the traveling. Ever since we went to the states back in March of this year I have had a real phobia about traveling ANYWHERE. I hate going to strange places and dealing with large crowds of people. I know this isn’t going to be a big deal once I am actually at my brothers, but dealing with London during the Christmas run up on a Friday just doesn’t set my heart a flutter.. it sends the bloody thing off into heart attack mode. I have my MP3 player and I’ll find a comic book or two to read and just forget the world for a couple of hours and see how that works out.

I haven’t really been keeping up on my blog reading but I noticed that Dad Gone Mad has had his snip done… and as always he sees the humorous side of it. Leta over at Dooce is almost 2 years old and has just decided to find out the joys of diarrhea.