I can't make my mind up.

We went for the meal tonight which was great fun in the end. There was no talk of any of the problems that are going on and dad gave a really touching speach about how he is really proud of his three sons and he is really happy that we are such a close family.
It's weird because mum and dad seem fine but Kieran was saying that they were arguing yesterday and with my mum crying on the phone today as well there is clearly something wrong.
I hope it all works itself out soon anyway.
Off to the lakes tomorrow so ttfn.

I was wrong

About my mum and dad.
Something is wrong. I don't know exactly what or to what degree but there is definitely something wrong.
I spoke to Laura this morning and she said that when she was over there last night there was a definite atmosphere. Kieran told her that mum and dad had been arguing and he thinks it's because mum feels that dad isn't pulling his weight around the house in the whole Kieran in debt situation. This is third hand now so I don't know if any of it is true or accurate but what I do know is that I just rung my mum and asked her if she was ok because she seemed like not everything was ok to me and she starting crying down the phone and told me that they were having problems but they are working through them.
It gets me really scared when my mum and dad have problems. It doesn't happen very often because they are so meant for each other - they work so well together and when they do have problems I know that it's something serious because if it was something minor then they would sort it out easily.
We are all supposed to be going out for a meal tonight. What is it going to be like with my mum and dad having problems? Neither of them is the kind of person who gets petty about this kind of thing. It won't be them sniping at each other or ignoring each other or anything like that but they will be acting normal and at the end of the day they are having problems.
I don't know if I'm looking forward to tonight or not.

Mum and Dad

Forgot to mention, after the estate agents, me and Reece chatted for a little bit about stuff going on at home.
Dad has asked us all to join him for a meal (his treat - yes!) tonight and I was under the impression that it was a celebration for him finishing teaching full time or just a nice way for us all to get together but Reece thinks that there may be an ulterior motive from the way Dad asked him to be there.
I can't remember exactly what is was that he said but it was something along the lines of "I think we all need to get together and talk" or something like that.
Now there is quite a lot going on at my mum and dads house at the moment. My younger brother Kieran is going through some really bad times. Partly it's his fault and partly it's his girlfriend's fault. And to be fair, most of what is his fault is probably her fault as well if you trace it back.
Anyway, he has quite a lot of debt at the moment and my mum and dad are helping him out quite a bit but he is still not in a good situation. He is suffering from depression which is now being medicated and he is so unhappy.
The problem is that my mum has been taking a lot on board and (from what I understand) she can't really cope with it anymore. I get the impression that my dad wasn't really aware of this (mostly because he works so hard all the time) and this may have caused some minor problems between my mum and dad. However, they have just been away on holiday together and as far as I can tell they are 100% fine, if indeed they were ever not 100% fine.
Still, there is a lot going on with Kieran and there seems to be little we can all do. He has to pay off his debt on his own so that he learns a lesson from all of this but he is so depressed at the moment it's kind of scary.
So who knows. Tonight might just be a family get-together - a treat from my dad to us but with everything going on and with Reece saying what he did last night, now I'm not too sure.
Watch this space. I probably won't be able to post about it until after I come back from holiday btw.
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New experiences

Last night was a good night.
First off let me get the boring bit out of the way - me and Reece went to the estate agents to sort out all the stuff before we go away on holiday so hopefully when we get back we should be pretty much done with the mortgage application and the survey.
Now the interesting bit.
After the estate agents I went over to Russell's flat to hang out and hopefully cheer him up a little bit in light of everything that is going on with him and Jo. I was expecting to go round, maybe play some Blood Bowl. Maybe do a little painting maybe watch a film. What I wasn't expecting was what happened. We couldn't decide what to do and Russell wasn't really up for a game of Blood Bowl so we sat and we talked. For four hours. Just talked. It was really cool.
Me and Russ have never really talked before and it was so cool to be able to just tell each other so much about ourselves. We really got to know each other last night in a way that we haven't before.
I think I made some comments earlier on about the situation with Russ and Jo that may be incorrect. I suggested that he may not want to break up with her because he is worried that he would have trouble meeting someone else. I don't know if that true anymore. I got the distinct impression last night that Russ is mostly staying with Jo at the moment for two reasons. 1. He loves her and things have been so good with her in the past that he really wants to try and make things right between them and 2. Practical reasons: if he broke up with Jo now he would have to move back in with his parents, he would still be commuting to Blackpool and finally, he would have one less person to hang out with.
I was probably a little surprised about that. If it was me, I don't think I would stay for reason 2. Reason 1 is a very good reason to stay but I wouldn't let reason 2 sway me at all. Russell's reasoning is that if he can stay with her until he gets a job in Manchester (hopefully one that pays quite well) then he will be in a position where if he did decide to leave then he would be able to get his own place and would only be working a short distance away. He also mentioned that he was going to stay with Jo until the lease ran out on the flat and evaluate the situation then and if nothing has changed then he will leave. That sounds in keeping with his reason 2 but the lease on the flat doesn't run out for 5 months. I don't think I could stay around for 5 months in the situation their relationship is in now but as Russ points out, he hardly sees Jo as it is so it doesn't make much of a difference if they are together or not.
Anyway, we spoke quite a bit about Shaun last night and neither of us can quite work out what is up with him. Russell suggested that possibly Shaun is gay. It would explain a lot if he was.
He all of a sudden won't come to Rock Kitchen with us (Rock Kitchen is a cool club we go to in Manchester). He gave some lame excuse about rock music not doing anything for him anymore but since it's all he listens to its kind of hard to believe. Russ suggested that maybe he had had some kind of encounter with another man at Rock Kitchen and now he doesn't want to go back just in case the same man is there and we all find out that he is gay.
It's odd really because if he is gay then he couldn't have a more understanding group of friends.
Also he does something that Jon (Laura's best mate - also gay) used to do before he came out. When we are out in Manchester he will sometimes just leave - sometimes with an excuse and sometimes he will just disappear - and it makes me wonder if he is doing the same as Jon used to do: heading off to the gay village to meet other men. It's possible.
Anyway, even if it is true (and it is by no means a proven fact) there is no way that I can see Shaun ever telling us but he really needs to sort himself out - we are in a situation now where none of us are going to be calling him. He has alienated us so much that we have absolutely no desire to be near him.
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Website update

Huge update on website today.
I have added a new section called "personal".
It contains the link to my blog but also a page telling you who everyone is just in case I mention someone here who you have never heard of.
I will probably add more to the personal section in the future as I am pretty unhappy with the who is who section at the moment and I need to add some details about who I am really.
Also today I have finally updated the family tree section. This doesn't mean that I have added anyone new to the family tree (no new additions to the family yet. i wonder who will be next...) but I have started to add pictures and all the descriptions my Grandad has written for me are now included.

Madness

I just went to find out how much it would cost to get my negatives from my pre-digital camera days converted into photos on cd so I can put them on my website.
I went to Asda first as they have quite a good photo shop and it costs 32p per photo there.
Then I went to Max Speilman and it costs £3.99 for up to 100 photos there and £4.99 from 100-500 photos.
Hmm, wonder who I'll be going to visit with all my negatives...

Website

Just thought I'd make a post about my website. If you are reading this then you probably came from my website so you probably have seen it already but if not then head over there: http://www.chrisheath.com/meister
I have several sections on my site which get updated fairly randomly. The first section is now this Blog which is the newest addition to my site and you are reading it now so I don't really need to go into too much detail.
The second section is my wishlist. This list is there because there are so many things that I would buy if I had inifite money that I can't keep track of them all. I add them to this section of my website with a little reminder of how much it costs and where I can buy it so that I don't forget and then when I have a little spare money I head over to that section of my website and pick something off the list.
The third section is my family tree. I'm quite proud of this section of the site. A lot of work has gone into it (huge thanks go to Robert Parish who did all the research and my Grandad who wrote all the detail). Take a look. Robert traced our family back so far that my daughter Anya is the 10th generation on there.
The next section is my photos. I have so many more photos that I want to put on there but they are all hard copies so I need to get them scanned in first. Watch this space. Have a look - you might be in there somewhere.
The final section on my site is dedicated to my favourite hobby: Gaming. I play so many games that I thought it would be nice to sum a few of them up on my website, give some details that other gamers might be interested in and hopefully give people an insight into my favourite hobby.

So that's it. With the introduction of this Blog it is my intention to add a personal section to my website that tells you who I am and who my friends and family are so that you know who I'm talking about when I mention someone's name here.
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Golf cart madness

While I've got some spare time I'll fill you in on the golf cart story as promised.

A few weeks ago I went away for the weekend with work on one of these team building things. The day in itself was pretty fun - we were investigators into a murder mystery being played out by actors and we had various tasks to achieve during the day as well as trying to solve the murder. FYI it would have been a lot more fun if our Sales Director (who was on my team) could learn to chill out. We were all off enjoying the day's activities so much that we missed vital clues and he went way overboard and wanted the actors to replay the whole lot for us. All I can say is "chill out man".
Anyway, that evening we had a nice meal and were provided with a casino (fake money) and a free bar.
You always know a story is going to go badly when someone mentions a free bar. It's like in a horror flick when the girl is alone at home and the doorbell goes late at night - you just know there will be no one there when she answers the door but you also know that pretty soon there's gonna be some smackdown.
SO, using my cunning roulette winning system (yes it does work - I won't fill you in on the details here but suffice to say that rather than being a guarenteed system it works by leaning the odds into your favour and it always works better if you have a larger stake) I ended up with a huge amount of fake money. Unfortunately it was extremely fun winning all this fake money and I drank more and more in my happy state.
For anyone who wants to know, the final winner of the roulette table was in fact my good work college Stuart. He was the one person out of all the people playing roulette who managed to win lots on luck. We were pretty even at the end and with one spin left he went for red and I went for black (both of us all in) and it came up red.
After a few more drinks I felt the need to be sick and make a swift exit. I walked for about half an hour outside and felt surprisingly ok so I headed back over to where the party was still going on. This was my first mistake. For future reference, if you get to the stage where you are nearly sick in an evening then you have already had too much to drink. If you are lucky enough to avoid being sick then go home and go to bed and count your lucky stars.
On my way back to the party I ran into Stu and Jonathan (who also works with me and Stu). These two had apparently come looking for me and when they didn't find me they took control of two golf carts which they were racing around. They were accompanied by Lindsey and Karen - two of the girls at work who were occupying the passenger seats in these golf carts. I (in my drunken and extremely suggestable state) tried to acquire a golf cart for myself but couldn't start one up so I hopped onto the back of Jonathan's. This was my second mistake. If you are drunk and someone is doing something silly, sit back and watch - do not get involved. It will be much more fun to watch anyway.
SO, I hopped on and Jonathan set off. It wasn't long before he was jerking from side to side to try and dislodge me. I took the first oppertunity to hop off as I was seriously concerned for my well-being (golf carts go really fast when you are drunk and hanging on to one for dear life). At this point Stuart came to my rescue. I jumped inside his cart opposite the passenger seat with my back to the windscreen. This was my third mistake. Having survived thus far I should really have walked back and gone home. But I didnt.
Stuart set off back. We had finished our fun and we were off to park up and either go back to the party or go home. Unfortunately security picked this moment to make an appearance. Not wanting to get caught (obviously) Stu slammed on the brakes. You can probably guess what happened next. Being sat on the dashboard with no seatbelt and not really holding on too tightly I was thrown through the windscreen at a fairly slow speed.
The windscreen was plastic and rather than breaking it just fell out with me on top of it.
Then we legged it.
Five minutes later all five of us were bundled into Stu's room and someone pointed out that I was bleeding from the rear of my head. Of course this was extremely hilarious at the time and I had a nice cut down the back of my head which took about a week to heal up.
Imagine Yvette's surprise (Yvette works in our technical department and is Stu's girlfriend) when she returned to her room to find us lot there. She was not impressed.
After this I made my final mistake which was to try and return to the party. I had effectively survived this long and should have definitely returned to my room. Something which Jonathan desperately tried to get me to do but I shot off into the maze which was the hotel and escaped him (haha!). Of course security were now posted outside of the party so it was a bit like mission impossible trying to get back in. In the end I found a route around the back of the building and upon my emergence was found by security and rather than be escourted back to my room I promptly asked "could you escourt me back to my room please?"
So in the end, the company was charged £60 for golf cart damage (which I'm sure is a load of rubbish since that window could easily have been popped back into place) and each of the five of us was charged £20 in our salary for this month. As Stu pointed out, Clarity made a tidy profit of £40 on that one.
What you should also bare in mind was that the few people who were still around and about at 4am (I passed out at about 1.30am) were responsible for the company being charged £70 for noise pollution and our M.D. broke down a door for which we were charged an undisclosed amount.
In the end everyone was happy - the hotel made LOTS of money from our weekend there, Clarity covered the cost of golf cart damage by charging us and of course we were happy because we had such a great night.
The things we do when we're drunk.
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Russell and Jo update

Forgot to mention that I spoke to Russell last night and he has decided to wait until the lease runs out on the flat, get himself a job in Manchester again and when all that is done he will assess the situation with Jo. If nothing has changed then he says that will be it.
It's a damn shame because they are a great couple but she has just started putting him after her job and it's really affecting their relationship and it's definitely not fair on Russell - he has had to compromise so many times for her and she (to my knowledge) has never compromised for him.
Anyway, I'm seeing Russell tonight (I won't be seeing Simon again as he and Claire are spending a romantic evening together before he goes on holiday in Italy) so we might talk about it some more. It's more likely that we will just play some games and have a couple of beers :-)
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Good morning all

I say all, when in fact I know full well that a total of zero people read my blog at the moment. I've mentioned it to a couple of people but due to the lack of any comments either on or off the site I'm guessing that they haven't had time to have a look yet.
Anyway, last night I went to see the guy about the mortgage, we passed with flying colours and got "elite" status which means we don't have to prove our earnings for the mortgage application. Reece didn't really need to come which is quite annoying because the whole reason I went there after work was so that Reece could be there as well. Anyway, we have to go back again tonight to finish off and then hopefully while we are on holiday things will proceed nicely.
Later that evening I went to Simon's house - we got a takeaway and watched a movie (swimfan sucks btw) then played some cards.
Just in case Simon reads this, Claire is a top notch girl and you will no doubt make each other very happy.
For anyone who doesn't know Simon and Claire, they started dating early on at university and survived the seperation of him spending a year in America and her spending a year in some other far-flung country (the name of which evades me right now). I have no doubt that they will end up getting married one day and I wish them all the luck in the world - as I said, they will make each other very happy :-)
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Success!

Well, partial success anyway. We have finally made a breakthrough with JES at work. It's only taken 2 and a half weeks.
FYI I am off to see an independent financial advisor tonight to hand over the first of our cheques for our survey and mortgage arrangement. Should be fairly straight forward stuff. Then I'm off to Simon's house (think I mentioned that in a previous post - sorry for the repetition).
Really need to meet up with Russ at some point to have a chat with him about Jo. It's such a bad week though - I want to see Simon as much as poss before he ships out to Italy on holiday since he's straight off to Cambridge when he gets back. Maybe the lot of us can go bowling or something tomorrow night and then afterwards I could head over to Russ's with him and have a chat over a couple of beers. Will give him a ring tonight.
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Student loan

Well it's finally happened. I'm finally earning enough so that I have to pay back my student loan. I don't have a clue what size my loan is now - I think I borrowed between 12 and 15 k while I was at uni (the minimum amount you can borrow for a three year course anyway).
This month I'm paying back just over £50. Add that to the £20 golf cart damage ("what golf cart damage?" you ask. thats a story for another day...) and I'm already £70 down this month. Ah well, ce la vie.

Steven

So I promised you the low-down on Steven my friend who lives in Spain.
Basically, we met when we started Grammar School together. We were good friends for the few years he was there and before we started our GCSEs he left and moved to Spain.
When we were together all I can remember us doing is laughing. We just used to laugh all the time. He could make me laugh and I could make him laugh - it was that kind of friendship.
Anyway, he moved to Spain and barring a couple of letters in the first few months of him living out there, we all but lost touch.
Fast forward 7(ish) years and I'm at uni. I've completely lost touch with Steven. No way I can think of to get in touch with him again. I knew vaguely where he lived in Spain but it's quite hard to track someone down in this situation.
If I backtrack a little, the reason that he moved to Spain was that his mother remarried and they went off to start a new life over there. So I don't know exactly where he lives, his surname might have changed and I don't know if he's still living with his mum or if he's got his own place now.
I do the usual Google searches for his name, his mum's name, what his name could now be if he changed it etcetc in the desperate hope that he might have set up a website somewhere. Nada.
Then I came up with the brilliant search idea of searching for his step-father's name (which would definitely be the same) along with the general region that I knew them to be living.
Eureka! A hit! I had tracked down a financial paper that Steven's step-dad had written and published onto the web (or something along those lines) and yes! it had an email address at the bottom.
I emailed him straight away and he replied shortly with Steven's email address. Success!
So we got back in touch. It actually turned out that Steven's mum and step-dad had broken up years ago but fortunately he still had Steven's email address on file.
Our first meeting was December last year (Steven came across to be at my wedding). It was kind of weird meeting up with him after all that time but I definitely felt a connection that you can't really explain in words - it's just there. I spoke to him about it and he felt the same way.
Since then I have seen him a couple of times and we are visiting him in Spain for the first time in September.
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The P.C. World adventure

I promised to tell you the P.C. World story so here it is. Take note: DO NOT SHOP AT P.C. WORLD

So my mum and dad arrive back from their holiday last Saturday. They took their digital camera with them and have quite a few phots to show us. They have upgraded their camera's memory since they bought it quite a few years ago so the camera's capacity far outways its ability to rapidly copy the photos to a p.c.
Yes, I am of course speaking of the dreaded serial connection. Hardly heard of in these glorious days of USB but back when aye wer a lad serial was as good as it got. Now don't get me wrong, my mum and dad's digital camera is really good. I've borrowed it loads and when you look at the pictures on my website you are mostly looking at photos I have taken using their camera. The only problem is that their holiday photos took nearly an hour to copy to their p.c.
I wasn't having that. I didn't spend three years at The Spooniversity of Bradford so that I could wait an hour for photos to copy from camera to p.c.
My initial though was that there would be a new cable available for the camera that connected via USB but when I looked at the box for the camera there was a handy little diagram showing all the different ways you could connect your camera to your p.c. and one of those ways was using a card reader.
For anyone who doesn't know, digital camera's have little memory cards in them that your photos are stored on. These cards are removable and I had just found out that there was a card reader that would basically convert the memory card into a USB drive. Cool.
SO, my first stop was ebay. There were some available for a fiver but unfortunately it turned out that I couldn't get one by the end of the day so I started ringing round local shops. None of them could deliver so I turned my attention to P.C. World.
Ever since I was at school I have hated P.C. World. Back then it was because they charged far too much for everything they sold and because whenever we took a visit to P.C. World we were able to confuse the staff by asking them technical questions.
I was willing to forget this and give P.C. World a chance so I hopped onto their website to see what they had. I immediately found a card reader that was pretty much exactly what I was looking for. It cost £10 but I was happy to pay the extra £5 to get it sorted on the day. I ring the P.C. World (premium rate) hotline to make sure they have them in stock and I am reliably informed that indeed they do.
I headed over to P.C. World and asked where I could find the card readers. I was pointed to the camera section at the back of the store and I headed over there. Things started to go wrong immediately. There was no one at the counter and despite the fact that I clearly wanted serving and despite the fact that I could clearly see several members of staff stood around chatting, no one came to serve me. I was rescued several minutes later by a manager who noticed me and immediately had a go at the chatting idiots.
One of them came over, I explained what I wanted and that I knew they had them in stock and could he please get me one. He had a quick look on the shelf and told me they didn't have any.
I explained to him that I knew they had some. I had rung ahead and checked and please could he look elsewhere for them. At this point he said that yeah he supposed he could look in the back for them. Lazy muppet.
He came back about 5 minutes later and had clearly just been for a cig.
I left the store and immediately rang the hotline (premium rate) again. The assured me that the store I was stood outside had exactly 5 of the product I desired in stock. I took the girl's name and went straight to customer services and explained the situation to them.
They insisted that they have never had any card readers priced at £10 and the one I had seen was obviously an Internet offer. I asked him why I had been told that they had them in stock and I was told that the hotline system is not live. IF this is true then please explain to me what the point of it is?
Anyway, I asked him to humour me and look on HIS computer system to see if they had any in stock. He did his search and low and behold up come a list of card readers priced £10.
After a quick apology it appeared that none were in stock and all he could find out back was on for £15. I left empty handed.

To cut a long story short, I found a card reader in a local computer shop which was priced £15 and after a small problem getting it to work I finally installed the reader into my mum and dad's p.c.

The moral of the (very long winded) story is that P.C. World are a huge corporation who do not care about your business. They will give you terrible service and lie to you if they think it will be less effort than helping you.

//rant over.

Russell and Jo

Russell is a very good friend of mine. Ever since I left university we have hung out with each other as much as possible and our friendship has grown progressively stronger and I expect it will continue to grow as the years progress. Russell used to be quite quiet and never really spoke to me about anything but as time has passed he has really come out of his shell and now when he has a problem he is quite happy to talk to me about it. Part of the reason for him coming out of his shell is no doubt his relationship with Jo. He met Jo online a few years ago and they met up, hit it off and have been going out ever since. Russell even moved from Manchester to Blackpool to live with her, leaving his friends and family behind. Before long Jo was transfered to a pub in Salford (very close to Manchester) and Russell was left on his own in Blackpool. Recently is has become very obvious that Jo has no intention of returning to Blackpool and this caused quite a few problems between Russ and Jo as you can imagine. Add to this the fact that Russ works a 9-5 and Jo works every other hour God sends and they hardly ever see each other.
They discussed it and they decided that Russ would move back to Salford, commute to Blackpool until he got a job in Manchester and Jo would actively look for another job so that they could actually see each other from time to time.
Russ texted me last night to tell me that Jo spoke to him in tears to tell him that she loves her job. Russ probably correctly concluded that this means that she will never leave her job.
This puts Russell in a very difficult situation. Jo has basically just told Russ that she values her job more than their relationship and she is quite happy to continue in a relationship with Russ just so long as he understand that he will hardly ever see her.
Obviously Russ has no idea what to do - he loves Jo so much and in no way wants to have to break up with her. Add to this the fact that Jo is the first ever girlfriend Russ has had and you have a guy who is also worried that if he breaks up with Jo, will he ever find anyone else? Objectively I can say that yes he will almost 100% find someone else but I have been there. I was in a relationship about 7/8 years ago where I should have ended it much sooner than I did and part of the reason I didn't end it was that I was scared I would never find anyone else. In truth, it was 2/3 years later that I met Laura who eventually became my wife.
I'm digressing slightly but my point is that I know where Russ is right now and it's not a good place. Deep down he probably knows that Jo is really pushing it and that he should be acting on it but every bone in his body is telling him to sit back and take it and maybe one day everything will be ok. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't.
Unfortunately there is nothing I can say to Russ to make it all better. He has some hard choices to make and no one can make them but him.

Simon & Claire

So last night my old friend Simon came over with his girlfriend Claire. I had a great time catching up, exchanging stories (I must tell you about my pc world story) and even playing a couple of games. Laura, cooked us up some gorgeous food which was enjoyed by all.
Simon really wanted to play Risk and he and Claire were having a laugh and a joke about how Simon always wins when they play. We started playing and on my first turn I won. My mission was to take all of Africa and all of North America and I did it in one go. It would have been really funny but to be honest it kind of ruined the game a bit since it was over so quickly.
We then played a game of Age of Mythology (the board game) and before long Simon came in and built his Wonder which ended the game a little early but the game was certainly more enjoyable than the one turn Risk game :-)
I'm seeing Simon & Claire again tonight as they are off on Friday and I won't see them again in a while.
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Tonight

I'm meeting up with my old friend Simon tonight. We have been friends since I started grammar school (12 years ago). He has been at Cambridge for the last four years so I haven't really seen him so it's always good to catch up. This is especially true since he is starting a new job in London in september after which I will see him very little.
I feel a little guilty as my dad was supposed to be coming round tonight and I had to cancel on him. My dad works as a teacher so he doesn't get a lot of time to come round to visit as he uses most of his spare time to mark work and to tutor. I know he understands because he is a cool dad and I will make it up to him by spending lots of time with him when we go on holiday next week.
It's weird how friendships can drift with time and distance but since Simon and I finished grammar school 5 years ago we have managed to always meet up when he is back in town. I will make a promise here and now to make the utmost effort to visit him in London but I know that it will be difficult with a wife and baby girl and a full time job to occupy my time :-)
It seems like I never have the time to see everyone I want to see nowadays. I wish I could spend more time visiting my family, especially my grandparents as deep down I know that they won't be around forever which seems like a really morbid thing to say but I love them very much and wish that I could see them every day. Hopefully they will be in good enough health to come and stay with us while we are on holiday in the lakes although I know my Grandad has been unwell recently.
I'm totally looking forward to the holiday to the lakes as it'll be the first time in a while that I've had a week off and after that I can start to look forward to the holiday in Spain to visit Steven, my other old friend who I will hopefully be able to write about tomorrow....
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First post that has any details about what I did yesterday

I suppose since this is a diary I should really write about what I did yesterday rather than worrying too much about the ins and outs of it all.
Yesterday was pretty much just a usual day at work. I fed and changed Anya and made up the bottles for Laura before I went to work to save her one or two jobs when she woke up. I had just spent all day sunday playing Blood Bowl so I felt a little guilty and wanted to do something nice for her.
Work was pretty much an unsuccessful day. We are trying to install the Java Enterprise System for the office network but it's really not wanting to work. I think this is the third week we have been working on it (eep!).
Last night was again pretty uneventful. Watched some tv and went to bed quite early and boy did I sleep. Went to bed at 10pm and didn't get up until 8am!
This morning I had obviously slept in a little later than I wanted and didn't have time to feed Anya or even make up the bottles but I did manage to wash them out and sterilise them.
I wish I could do more for Laura since she is so obviously unhappy at the moment. Hopefully when we have moved house and we are closer to her friends and family she will be happier again.
Found out today that I have lost 2lbs since we last weighed in. Probably I should fill you in on this whole weight thing:
I'm definitely overweight. I don't know how serious you would say it was - I did weigh 14st12lbs and then we started this whole weighing in thing at work. In the first three weeks I lost 6lbs which is pretty decent but over the last three weeks I have totally been slacking and have only lost 2lbs. Hopefully I can pick it up again this week, do lots of walking when we are on holiday in the lakes next week and then when I come back I may (you never know) be under 13st. Only 4lbs to go which should be an achievable target. For the record, I just ate a big bag of crisps for lunch which will not have helped. I was hungry...
So anyway, you can probably guess that most of the rest of today I have been working on my website and setting up this blog.
Just had a phone call from Laura: apparently her Grandparents have been round to give us a travel cot for Anya which cost about £50 or something. It was nice of them to buy us it but they had a huge go at Laura about our drain being flooded. Can anyone explain to me why it is any of their business if our drain is blocked? Let alone why they feel that they have some kind of right to have a go at Laura about it. I am slightly concerned that they feel they have some kind of hold over us now because they are paying for our solicitors and stamp duty when we move house (probably a total cost of about £2,000). They did this when we got married as well - they paid for various things and then started trying to manipulate the wedding. It's a real shame that they are so interested in controlling everything. It's like their version of love is to use their wealth to buy themselves control.
I probably sound a little ungrateful since they are giving us so much money but I can't understand why they can be so generous financially and then be so unloving towards Laura.

First post with any detail

I'm not going to spend a long time explaining who I am and what I do etc. I will create a new portion of my site to contain that kind of information rather than bore those who already know by putting it all here.
So I'll just start by saying that for the most part I will be posting during the day which means that each post will contain details from the day before as well. Also its unlikely that I'll post every day and its almost certain that I wont post at weekends. I'm sure I'm explaining this very badly but hopefully you will get the gist of what I am saying when I say it....

First *real* post

Now that the test post is out of the way I can get started on my real blog.
I dont have a clue who will end up reading this (if anyone) so I am going to try and view this more as an online diary for myself.

First post

This is my first post on my new blog. Will it work? Who knows....