I got up early this morning so that I could get to the hospital for my 9am appointment. I left later than I wanted to but seemed to make good time by the time I had to change buses to get there. I got on the bus that goes to the hospital and then, for reasons unknown to me, decided to have a look at the letter I got two months ago from the hospital saying that the date of my appointment had been changed. I then saw that I had written it down wrongly on the calander and it was actually yesterday morning and it was at 8.50am, so not only did I get the date wrong but also the time. I got off the bus and made my way to the post office nearby, because I had some ebay stuff to send off, only to find that it doesn't open until 9am and it was only just 8.30. So I sat in a little cafe and had a cup of coffee until it opened. Whilst in the cafe I had the idea that as I was near the betting office I use sometimes, I could pick up the winnings that I forgot to get last week, and then realised that the betting slip was at home by the computer. I got the parcels posted and then had my first good bit of the day when I went into a charity shop a few doors down from the post office and bought some dungerees and a top for peanut. Then I came home and phoned the hospital, who told me that the earliest appointment they can give me is for the 5th of November, but I can phone every week to see if there is a cancelation so I can get an earlier appointment. All in all an eventful yet rather annoying morning.

Here's hoping the rest of the day goes better.

Had a fun night out last Thursday with Niki. We ate and strolled in the cool evening air, and stayed out until gone midnight. Before this gets too mushy I should explain that Niki had a headache on Thursday and it wouldn't go away and as her blood pressure had been high the day before we were a bit concerned, so up we went to the labour ward to make sure everything was alright. After a while in the waiting room, we went into triage and they hooked Niki up to a monitor and everything seemed fine. They said we had to wait to see a doctor to be discharged and they were going to take some blood for some tests. We waited and were told the doctors had to go into an emergency so it would be a while. That's when we went to the canteen for a pinini and a drink each, then strolled outside to get some money from the cash machine. We were eventually discharged and got home about 10 past 12. Everything is fine with both Niki and Peanut, although the discomfort she's getting is making it hard for her to rest and sleep, and focus on much. Still, there's only a little while to go now.

Despite last week, and this weekend, the disconnectedness goes on. Don't know why I feel so disconnected from everything and everyone. Scott came to stay for the weekend and we went out and did some stuff, it was a nice couple of days and I do miss having my kids around as much as they used to be. But even having said that I still feel the disconnection with everything. Maybe what I'm really disconnected with is me, I don't know.

I have to go to the hospital tomorrow morning at some ridiculous hour for my 6 monthly check up with my heart specialist, oh joy. I've also got to get some blood taken for tests so that my GP can do my annual check up later in the month. So tomorrow should be fun all round.

Can't think of much else to say, although I do want to apologise to all my friends on here for the fact that I haven't been keeping up with their blogs recently, I just haven't been in the right place mentally to do so.

Anyway, see ya.

Yes indeed, that's exactly what I am.

Just to let everyone know everything is going ok, Niki went to see the midwife today and was told that her blood pressure was high but as she wasn't showing any other symptoms of any problems the midwife sent her home and told her to rest instead of sending her to hospital. I had my usual counselling session today, I know they are helping but I sometimes come out of them feeling more down than I did when I went in and those session always leave me feeling a bit drained but for some reason are quite often on the same days that I have the most trouble sleeping. We had a visit today from Becca, Jay, Lauren and Scott, which was really great, it sometimes feels like ages between the times that i see them and I miss them a lot, Scott is coming to stay for the weekend which will be nice and hopefully we can go out and do some stuff, if the weather holds out.

Only about 20 days now until the baby is due, although Niki is convinced that they've got the dates wrong and it will turn up before the 8th of next month which is when she has to go for her last scan, but we shall see. We've got most stuff done ready for the baby but there are still a few bits and pieces to sort out.

I've been wondering why so many posts lately have been 'Friends Only', it seems a bit odd to me to have a public forum that you then close to all but a few people, but I understand that each of us has their own way of doing things and some feel the need to blog this way (not to be confused with the famous Aerosmith song) and I don't want anyone to think that I am saying anything against them for blogging in this fashion, I just bring it up because it has been on my mind a lot recently when reading other peoples blogs.

I used to be all things to all people, or at least I thought i did, I tried to be. I don't know if I really succeded but I know that I used to be able to move between groups of people of varying social status and backgrounds and fit in perfectly with them, I knew how to change my conversation, attitude, and even personality to some extent in order to fit in with whomever I was talking to and in whatever setting I found myself to be. Now I sometimes find it hard to fit in anywhere with anyone, I often feel alone and that I don't really belong anywhere or with anyone. Not that being a part of a collective is what I crave, but I think that we all just want to feel that there is at least one place that we can truely feel we 'belong', and I'm not totally sure that I have one right now.

It's far too humid for a fat bastard like me, I'm melting internally.

It appears that no one is interested in Klicketty Elephant anymore, sorry Nick. Hardly any visits to the MySpace site and no friends listed other than me and Tom. Still, nevermind.

MEME:-
I found this on sweetymon's blog and decided to do it:

The rules: Get out your MP3 player and select the random function. Now click next to every one of these statements about your ‘MP3’ life. Write it down below the statement.

Being Born
Truly – Twilight Curtains

First Memory
The Gathering – Shot To Pieces

First Day At School
Pat Travers – Hot Rod Lincoln

High School
Bjork - Hope

First Girlfriend
The Cult – Wolf Child’s Blues

The Parents
Queen – I Go Crazy

Leaving Home
Emerson Lake & Palmer – The Only Way

First Love
Black Sabbath – Time Machine

Getting Married
Rush – Entre Nous

My Life, My Career
Portishead – Toy Box

Getting Older
Metallica – Master Of Puppets

Well, That Was Me
Robin Trower – Too Rolling Stoned

I have no idea what any of that shows about me, apart from the fact that I can't be bothered to write anything much and instead go round nicking things from other peoples blogs.

See ya

So, here I am sitting typing a blog entry. Didn't think I'd do this earlier and don't really know why I'm doing it now. I have an empty space in my head which is bouncing around and stopping me thinking of much. I have done some stuff and would like to tell you but just can't bring myself to. Not because it's bad but because it was good and I was happy doing it (although there have been some down things as well), the trouble is that I don't feel up enough to blog about happy stuff. Don't know what's causing this wave of down right now but it is starting to effect things in my day to day life more and more.

Niki and the baby are fine, apart from aches and pains and not sleeping too well, but there's only about 5 weeks left to go until the baby is due, so some of that should ease up afterwards.

I'm going, I will be back.

Well now, I can't remember how long it's been since I last posted a blog entry and can't be bothered to look at the last one to find out, but I know it's been a little while.

Anyway, the weekend was a good one. I went to a festival (albeit a small one) in Wye in Kent on Saturday with Scott and Mr Kelly and his son. The reason we went to the Wye Fayre was to see a band called They Should Have Been which has an old friend and ex-Klicketty Elephant member, Alex on bass guitar. He sorted out tickets for us and we had a good time. It was unfortunate that they had some problems with the generator for the main stage and the band didn't go on until about 3 hours after they should have, but once they went on it was pretty good. The music is a lot different to the stuff that I would expect Alex to be playing but it was alright, a little dated in places and some of it sounding a bit too much like show tunes for my liking but all-in-all not that bad. The weather was good, the food and drink were bloody awful (except the chocolate from the Fair Trade tent), but at least the toilets were clean. Not a bad day out really, despite the fact that I now have a bright red fore-head from standing around in the sun for hours. If you want to find out more about the festival, and I would say it's a festival that may well be worth going to as it's getting bigger and better every year from what people were saying, go to the site, here's the link:-

WYE FAYRE

Me and Niki are both doing well and so is the baby. Niki had, what we thought was going to be, her last scan last week and everything seems fine but the consultant wants to do one more scan in about 3 weeks just to be on the safe side. Niki is having a bit of a problem with aches and pains, and also sleeping but apart from that seems to be fine. I'm starting to get worried that she might be right about me being pregnant too, I'm getting aches and pains and tiredness as well, my farmers have been playing up a lot more since Niki got pregnant, and last night I had a sudden mad craving for chocolate moouse, anyone that knows me well will know that I have never had a huge sweet tooth but lately I have been eating more and more chocolate. Maybe I should ask the doctor to check

I know it's taken me a while but I've finally set up a MySpace page for Klicketty Elephant. There are a load of pictures on it and four songs. The first song is from the original tape that me and Old Nick did in his bedroom, what seems like, a million years ago. The other three are live tracks from a gig we did at The Ruskin Arms in East Ham, one of which (Drink A Lot) was being played live for the first time. The sound quality isn't brilliant on the live tracks, but I'm not sure if that's the recording or just the bandD Anyway have a look if your interested and leave a comment either on there on on here. Here's the link:-

KLICKETTY ELEPHANT

Anyway, I'm off to do something about cooking dinner. See ya!

No quotes from now on (basically there's no more left in the book I was nicking them from).

I want to start off by thanking everyone that went to or got involved on-line with the baby shower. We were completely blown away by the gifts that we were given, and I also want to thank anyone in advance that has sent us a gift that we haven't received yet. If you want to see some pictures of the gifts and a thank you from Niki, have a look at her blog HERE. I didn't go with Niki to the baby shower but I also had a great day because my brother Bob, his wife Kim and their daughter Nicola all came down from Milton Keynes for the baby shower and then came back here for dinner afterwards. I don't see my family that often now days and it was really good to have them here.

I had decided not to post anymore rants about the 7 Ages Of Rock TV show, but I just wanted to say that having watched it all (although I really don't know why) I found it to be a rather dull and badly put together series of documentries with lots of omissions and errors. I also have the feeling (or rather I should say that Niki and I came to the conclusion between us) that it was made more for the American market and aimed at people who wouldn't already have too much knowledge of the subjects covered. On the whole I found it all rather disapointing.

I'm still feeling a bit down and have also been feeling a bit tired and grotty, and I still don't know why really. I didn't have a counselling session last Wednesday as my counsellor wasn't well, so I'm hopeing that this week we can try to get to the bottom of my current state of mind.

I finished another cover version which I posted on the Kizlode MySpace site, if anyone wants to have a listen. This one is The Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop.

I haven't got much more to say really, but here's some stuff that I found saved on to a file on my computer that I use for odds and ends to post on here and haven't looked at for a few weeks.

MEME:-
What is your favorite word? Axilla.

What is your least favorite word? C**t.

What turns you on [creatively, spiritually or emotionally]? Music.

What turns you off? Prejudice / narrow mindedness.

What sound or noise do you love? Music / sex.

What sound or noise do you hate? Girlie screaming.

What is your favorite curse word? F**k.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Rock god.

What profession would you not like to do? Anything where you see people die a lot.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? I’m glad you’re here, now everything is perfect.

LINKS:-
Pirate woman picture (I'd love to meet her, or a woman just like her).

Smegma (great band name)

Guitarist video No.1

Guitarist video N0.2

The Simpsons on classical guitars video

Well that's all for now, see y'all.