Well, here I sit at nearly 3am having just finished my essay on Animal Farm for my English class. Not bad really as I should have handed it in last week

Not been sleeping too well of late. I spent a while feeling very down and doing a lot of soul searching, as well as talking to my counsellor, and have decided to stop the counselling for a while. I think maybe I need to do some living and then see if I want to, or need to, go back to it afterwards. I think that I'd gone as far as I could right now and need to do some other things.

I have had a bad cold for the last week, I know that it's been bad because I don't normally have a problem with colds but this one kinda laid me out a bit. Still I feel better now, not totally over it but better than I have been, the trouble is that Pete's got it now, I think Niki has avoided it so far, let's hope she doesn't get it as well.

Pete has now got his first teeth, although as he still has ones coming through and has a cold he's feeling a bit miserable right now.

Niki seems to be ok, although she has pulled her back and is suffering a bit from that, and tiredness.

Can't think of a lot more to say right now, except to thank the people that left comments on the music on my mixtape for them. I was however told by a friend that the tape didn't really reflect the true diversity of my musical tastes. So I have decided to do two more and hopefully I have been able to make these more representative, see what you think:-

MIXTAPE 1

MIXTAPE 2

Well that's all from me for now
See ya!

I am going to do a full post here soon (honest), in the meantime I just thought I'd share my MIXTAPE with you. It's a mix of songs that I like that shows my varied musical tastes.

Let me know what you think.

See ya

This is just a quick entry.

I want to start by thanking all of you for your comments on my last entry. It hasn't always seemed like it to me but I know that what I did was for the best and I'd rather be sober now than anything else.

I have a problem, I was trying to download the free audio-book of The Wasp Factory that is being given away by The Independent newspaper for Niki, and didn't manage to either get or see a copy of it today. This means that I have missed getting the link to be able to download the second part of it. If anyone has a copy of The Independent could you let me know what the link is so that I can download it. Many thanks

See ya!

So here I sit at almost half past one in the morning and contemplate my life (nothing unusual there).

Today (Friday 28th of March) it has been five years since my last alcoholic drink. I find it hard to believe that I have been sober for that long, before I stopped the very idea of going for a day without a drink was laughable and there is no way that I would have considered it possible for me to go even one year without a slip. Yet, here I am, five years later and amazed that I've made it.

Can't really think of much more to say right now.

See ya

This is just a quick post to leave a link to a short filmy thing that I've done, it's made up of small animations and things, and I've put it up on YouTube. just thought you might like to have a look, here's the LINK.

My life and the things in it:-

hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, love, love, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, love, hate, hate, hate, love, love, hate, hate, hate, love, hate, hate, hate, love, hate, etc... (but not necessarily in that order).

Maybe 'hate' is too strong a word for some of those, maybe it should be more like heavily dislike, or in some cases maybe even mildly dislike. Why do there have to be so many grey areas, why can't it be simple and just black and white - love or hate? It's the grey areas that cause all the problems, I hate the grey areas, or at least I think I do, maybe I just heavily dislike them!

Sometimes I think that I might like to reconnect with my past, but them I really don't know if it would be a good idea really. I know that there are issues there that I need to confront and sort out, but am I completly ready to do that, and in fact do I really 'need' to do it anyway, why can't I just accept them for what they were and move on with my life? I look at Pete and I wish that I could have his unburdened mind, just for a while, just to stop thinking for a while. I used to have the alcohol for that, but alas that way out is no longer an option if I want to keep hold of the tattered remnants of my life and mind, nor is the way of drugs open to me any longer, porn doesn't help and in fact just makes it worse sometimes, food doesn't work for me and just makes the whole situation a lot worse, music works to some degree but it's difficult to use sometimes and so never seems to hit the spot (don't know if it would work completely anyway). So what is there left I wonder, and I come up with the mind shattering answer 'I haven't got a bloody clue!', so no help there then.

I see myself and what I know is that I am not what I should be. I don't know what it is that I should be, but I know I'm not it. I don't know if I was ever going to be it, and have no idea how I could ever have been or can ever be it, mainly because I don't know what it is. All I know for sure is that I am not it.

See ya.

So here I sit with a cold, which has come on very suddenly and has sapped my strength a bit, in a cold house because the heating is only working when it feels like it. Still nevermind ay!

Niki has taken Pete to the clinic for a developement check up. They went away for the weekend, Niki's annual trip to Haworth for SkipNorth. I stayed at home and did some me stuff, as well as trying to rearrange the living room to give Pete more room to move around now that he's crawling all the time and trying to stand up a lot.

I posted a new piece on my other blog the other day and haven't had a single comment, which suprised me given it's topic, still there ya go

Well, I'm off to have a cup-a-soup and watch some daytime TV. See ya!

So here, finally is my list of seven habits/quirks/facts about myself:-

1. I always do the washing up in the same order and hate watching someone else do it in case they don’t do it in the same order as me, and it really winds me up if they don’t.

2. I have a fear of going deaf that sometimes borders on paranoia.

3. When I was a Teddy Boy, I went to a wedding that ended up being on the evening news because Screaming Lord Sutch was the best man.

4. I love sweetcorn but can’t stand corn-on-the-cob.

5. When I was a kid I used to have a fear of shrinking to just a few inches high during the night while I was asleep, and so I would set my bedroom up so that if I did I could get of my bed and out of the room.

6. When I worked for the Post Office I found the body of one of the building’s engineers that had died.

7. I was once asked to join the dance troop The Blobendales by a friend who was in them, but said no.

See ya

I was going to start off with the seven habits/quirks/facts about myself that I was tagged to do by melinda_blog in the comments on my last entry, but I'm having a bit of trouble thinking of seven things. I promise I will do it ASAP.

It's today (by today I mean Monday 18th February) and so, off I go, at 9.20am (having already put the rubbish out for the bin men, had a shower, had breakfast and bid farewell to Niki and Pete, all without noticing the weather) to my hospital appointment, hoping that it will be a little more productive than the last one (more on both in a while). I step out into the overly bright sunlight and discover that it is a day upon which it is traditional to tell everyone, and demonstrate, exactly how you do everything in repetative song form. Yes it is a cold and frosty morning.

We're all doing fine considering the fact that we got back just before 6pm on Sunday night from a stint in Sutton looking after Cats and Rabbits. It was a little more difficult than it has been in the past, partly because this was the first time we had Pete with us and partly (on my part anyway) just because we're getting older and less able. Pete loved the cats, although I'm not sure that they loved him as much and I'm sure at least one of them had a few bald patches when we left from Pete trying to play with it. He was a little less interested in the Rabbits and looked somewhat bemused by it all.

And so to the hospital. I had an appointment to see a doctor a few weeks ago about my recurring problems with the farmers. It was, to say the least a bit of a waste of time. Firstly after waiting for ages only to find that my notes hadn't been passed to the doctor when I came in, I was eventually seen and told by the doctor that he couldn't examine me because the bed they use is only a small lightweight one and it wouldn't take my weight, so to come back in a couple of weeks and they would organise another bed for me so they could examine me. So, as I said, I go back today. I got to the hospital about two minutes before the time of my appointment, on the white notice board is written the fact that the doctor I saw last time is away and another doctor is covering for him. After waiting for about half an hour a nurse appears and writes up on the white board "3/4 hour delay from appt time", oh great I think. After about forty minutes waiting, the fire alarm went off, nobody moves and the nurses carry on calling people for their appointments between the electro-honks of the alarm. The alarm carried on going for about ten minutes and when it stopped there is a spontanious cheer and round of applause from the people in the waiting area. After about one hour, I finally get called in and the new doctor tells me to hop on the bed, I question this and he said "It will be fine" so up I get. I am examined, prescribed for and sent out in about ten minutes, then have to wait twenty minutes for the out-patients pharmacy to fill my prescription. And I've got to go back in four weeks to do it all again, oh joy. Anyway, on the bright side, it turns out that it's not farmers that have been giving me problems all this time, it's anglers or fishers or something like that. Apparently these fishing buggers have been setting up their rods on a regular basis and the mess they leave causes all kinds of uncomfortableness.

I broke with tradition for me and actually went to the dentist for the first time in about five or six years the week before last. It turns out that I need a couple of fillings, three extractions and a crown fitted. So they've started with the crown and I had a temporary one fitted on the Friday of that week which fell out after 3 days, so I had another temporary one fitted last Wednesday which fell out on Tursday night. Luckily I had to go past my dentist on the way back home from the hospital, so I popped in to find out if I could book an appointment to get yet another temporary crown fitted. Amazingly they said if I could wait for ten minutes I could have it done right away, so I did and it was. My dentist said "If this one falls out, as long as the tooth isn't hurting don't worry about it, it's only a couple of weeks until you get your proper crown anyway", still there you go. It's still there at the moment but will probably be gone by Wednesday.

Well I think that's about all from me for now, see ya!

What a couple of weeks it's been.

Starting of with going to Milton Keynes with Niki and Pete for my brother Bob's 50th birthday. Lots of stress leading up to it, changes and things so that we didn't know exactly what was going on some of the time, but on the whole it was a good day despite the distance and time taken to get there and back and family stresses.

Then on Friday I went to my friend Bob's funeral, again stress due to changes and uncertainties as to what was going on leading up to the day. It was a good service and, although I would have preferred the circumstances to be different, I did catch up with some people I haven't seen for quite a while.

Then on Sunday morning my daughter, Becca, gave birth to a little baby boy. Making me a grand-dad again. He is a beautiful baby and everyone is doing fine.

Then today I find out that my son, Scott, wants to drop out of sixth form college.

Anyway, as far as everyday life goes, Niki is doing ok. She's gone back to work now, so Saturday's are boys days for me and Pete. Pete is doing fine, he's started getting around on the floor a bit (not so much crawling as shuffling on his belly, dragging himself around turning round and round in circles) and we've started giving him some solid food (that's if you class pureed apple or rusks mashed up with baby milk as solid). He's doing ok on it, but it has made the changing of nappies interesting, to say the least

Well that's all from me for now, bye.