I'm Back!

 Okay, so it's only taken 8 or 9 years to get back to writing on this blog, but I just wanted to let you know that the dark cloud that was over my head has lifted and soo much has changed since, with me and the world!

Over the next few months I'll be sure to fill you in with all that you have missed, such as the bathroom renovation which was actually completed about 9 years ago, and needs repanting already!

We have made another 2 adorable children, and the other one is nearly a teenager, so I've got plenty of cute pics to be uploaded too.

I've been doing so much in the gardens which I can't wait to show you, and work has taken a complete u-turn in both what we do and where we do it from. We accidentally set up a new business whilst trying to save the other one.

All exciting stuff to come, and that's just what you've missed. I don't know what the future holds, but whatever it does I'll be sure to document some of it right here.... SOON(ish)...

Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone!

Apathetic, or just pathetic?

This is so true. I feel like I have been crying (not literally) for the past 3 years and most certainly no one really truly gives a shit. I have never felt so lonely in my whole life of just under 39 years. I don't have any friends that live nearby, and the only friends I felt like I did have I ruined by just being a slightly less happy version of me, and for this whole year I have been trying to figure out the point of a life where the joy has been sucked away or is simply non existent.

I have read so many self help books, books about NLP etc and know that the brain is a hugely powerful thing, and learn't various tools and techniques to aleiviate stress, and "snap out of it", and just turn the happiness on, and sometimes this works, but it is always so temporary, and faked.

I know that my life should be really amazing with a fantastic wife and a nearly five year old boy, but often when he wants to start playing a game with me, or talks to me I just find him really annoying and end up snapping at him, and then feeling guilty. When I do find the energy to play with him or read him a story, I feel like I am just going through the motions, and I am unable to extract any joy or fun from the situation. This is the same when I go to a party or family gathering, I start off by being extremely positive and friendly, and often end up sitting somewhere quietly and play Iphone games so that I don't have to get involved in conversations.

I used to love my work, but now I feel like much of the roles I have fallen into such as accounting and marketing and jobs I am expected to just be able to do by magic without learning like website development and general IT and troubleshooting, which really takes me away from areas of work that I love like business strategies and planning for  growth etc.

This last couple of months I did feel that after much life evaluation I had started to appreciate some of the small things again, like eating good food, and appreciating a walk and playing with my son, but again this is short lived and I soon fall back into my old grumpy ways again. Is this normal for someone who is just about to enter 40, perhaps? Maybe it is stress related by being self emplyed with much responsibity and cashflow tight?

I have just been thinking constantly what is the point in doing anything, when the only thing for certain is death. What's the point in building anything when it will just get demolished or replaced. Whats the point in cleaning when it will just get dirty again? I just failed to see the point in any task, and anything I started to do just felt like I was wasting my time, and none of us really know how much time we have left, and here I am wasting it by feeling this way!

Anyway, I never used to feel this way, and I can't stop thinking back to various times in my life where I have been happy and positive, and enthusiastic about everything even faced with adversities such as bankruptcy, when I'm sure I was at my happiest!

After much much thought, I think that these feelings have been caused by a series of different events, none of which are too stressful when isolated, but when stacked one after the other, have led to a downward spiral of bad feelings. It's like being kicked when you're down, then run over...by a truck, and then forced to eat a jar of cockles, when they make you gag, and then stabbed, raped and murdered by a gang of hardy criminals, and then bought back to life by an angel, just so that you can be shot in every area of your body except your head and then beheaded, and then having just your head brought back to life and set into a glass cube, although everyone thinks you are dead, so that you can watch as your family gets on with their new life with a new happy husband and a happy Daddy.
Apart from all that though, I'm fine!

Amber

This was last nights dream.
PLEASE NOTE - YOU MAY FIND THIS SHORT STORY DISTURBING / DISTRESSING


"Well I might as well bring this down and have a look at it", Emily said as she reached up to the top of the wardrobe and then popped our dead baby girl onto the bed. "I hope she's not too fragile" she said, as she pulled Amber's arm down by her side. Amber's eyes opened suddenly and she cried out "I'm really thirsty daddy". I was overwhelmed with joy that my baby girl was alive as I held her in my arms, ignoring the clubbed foot, her spine sticking out the bottom of her back with fluid pouring out and the fact that her head was severely deformed with fluid pouring out of her brain. The way she looked up at me and smiled with her wide eyes, she looked beautiful; as I handed her a beaker she gulped the juice down as if she hadn't had a drink for days.
"I don't why why your bothering to feed her." a harsh voice said. I didn't look up to see who was talking to me as I was so absorbed in caring for my little girl, still trying to understand how she was alive. She continued to look up at me with a loving smile and I was simply unable to put her back down.

Do you have to wash your nuts?

I really don't enjoy having a hand-full of soggy nuts, but that that is how I always tend to consume them these days, as they are always far too salty. Is there any retailer that sells unsalted peanuts? I have certainly searched, but been unable to find any. I have chosen even the name branded nuts, (with my KP vouchers, received as goodwill from a complaint letter) which were marginally less salty, but most of the brands simply are too salty for me to eat, so I end up clenching a loose handfull of them and giving them a good rinse under the tap before eating them, as the salt levels are simply unbearable, as well as incredibly unhealthy.

It is not just nuts either; the other day I visited Macdonalds with some friends, and the chips (named "fries" because I'm pretty sure they are not made of potatoes) were also incredibly salty. I rubbed off as much of the sodium chloride as I could with a serviette, until I just had to ask at the counter for some "unsalted fries", at which point the assistant apologised profusely and gave me a complimentary large bag of fries ladled with even more of the evil white granules!

Anyway, I was just curious to know if there are any other people out there that find much of today's food way too salty, or if I just have some kind of oversensitive taste receptors?

After 27 years will finally discover the fate of Ken and Terry!

Yes, I am talking about my favourite ever SCREAM comic from 1984 - Not for the nervous!
Rather than write about it here, see my blog at http://www.toys-toys-toys.co.uk/2011/09/do-you-remember-scream-comic-from-1984.html
Enter if you Dare!

Not fit for purpose!

If there is one thing that drives me absolutely crazy in todays world, it is products that are just simply not fit for the purpose they were designed for.

The motivation for todays blog post is that I have just spent the last hour of my life out in the garden attempting to start a chainsaw which is my 3rd replacement. I actually had convinced myself that this time would be 3rd time lucky, to the extent that after assembling and fuelling the chainsaw, I even set up my saw horse, popped a log on the top and donned my safety helmet and ear protectors before attempting to start the chainsaw.

How silly and naive to think that Draper could get it wrong 3 times. By the way, it is a draper Expert 45579 37cc petrol chainsaw. In case you were thinking of buying one, then don't (unless you enjoy wasting endless hours of your life assembling chainsaws and pulling on a cord until your hands bleed)! Just look at the reviews on Amazon and you'll see it's not just me! (I shall add my own in due course).

Anyway, whilst waiting for this Amazon agent to return from his afternoon break and realise he left me on hold (only been 17 minutes so far) I might as well rant on a bit more.

Not so long ago, I purchased a food blender when Blake was a baby to blend up his food. The first time I used it I chose to chop up some porridge oats, and the thing literally broke into pieces. It wasn't "cheap" either, just mid - range. I never used it after that and after it sat in the cupboard for a couple of years, i threw it away.

Just last summer, I bought a large Yeoman garden fork. Again, it was their flagship model that even had the wording along the lines of "Heavy Duty - for tough garden jobs". After just a couple of weeks of light regular use the handle snapped off! I got this replaced at the garden centre, and again after a couple of weeks of light digging, the handle snapped. I wrote to Yeamans who simply advised that there products do not carry a guarantee, and fobbed me off, so that is the last time I shall buy Yeomans, and recommend that you don't either.

Well I won't bore you with the intricate details of other examples, of which I can assure you there have been many. If you really won't be able to sleep at night unless I list them all, then drop me an email and I'll be happy to provide a list. Don't get me started on laser printers though. That's worth a blog on it's own.


It's not all bad though, 10 years ago, I bought a filter queen (a suction cleaning device commonly referred to as a hoover) second - hand for about £300 which works brilliantly every time, outperforming kirbys and dysons, sucking up coach bolts and anything in it's path. We have to be careful in Blakes room as it sucks up all the small toys! I have used it many times to clear up mountains of sawdust when doing DIY, and also use it to contain all the soot when cleaning the chimney.  It's only ever been serviced twice professionally and once by me, so this does prove that sometimes the manufacturers do get it right. They even sell spare parts to maintain and repair the filter queen just like the good old days.

Well 32 minutes later and Amazon have promised to refund me for the chainsaw (hopefully at the price I paid for it a few months ago) so I shall just learn from the experience and go off and buy a Stihl. Now whenever I make a purchase, a huge deciding factor is whether the manufacturers are faithful enough in their products to provide a guarantee or warranty, and if it is a lifetime one, even better. If the company provides spare parts for their products then that is a good sign for me too. I really hate the disposable world we live in, and hope that some day in the future manufacturers will realise that designing quality products won't just benefit their pockets, but also the environment, the service industry and their customers.

A quick look in the front garden

Despite half of the seeds failing this year, (last years mouldy beans) Blake's beanstalk house has produced some tasty beans for our tea this evening and they make a super healthy treat between meals. If you're wondering why some of the grass is missing, I started to extend the path, but like most things I start it remains incomplete.

Blake's beanstalk house

 Despite total neglect and crap weather, we actually seem to have a lot of tomatoes growing this year. We planted cherry and plum tomatoes, but I stupidly mixed them all up when they were younger so I didn't know which ones to pinch out. So a surprising result that we have any fruit at all, be nice if and when they turn red.

Our green tomatoes

 The raspberries are producing some delicious juicy fruits this year and they seem to have spread everywhere, although they don't stay on the bush for long and seem to mysteriously vanish whenever Blake pads past them in the morning.

One of the apple trees

 Yes they are tiny carrots, but due to further neglect most of the carrots were completely slug ridden, so we thought it best to salvage what we could now and remember to put down slug pellets next time!

That reminds me when we were on a bike ride last week, Blake insisted that Mummy should put the snail he had collected on his journey into the grit bin (salt) to "be with his friends". And as I was taking a picture of the carrots above, he was roaming around the kitchen with a santa hat over his face so I couldn't resist getting a picture of him too.

Logs, logs glorious logs

We took delivery of a load of logs today ready for snuggling up in front of a cosy fire as the winter nights draw nearer. We have decided to keep a load of them indoors this year to save trapsing around outside in the snow to fill up the basket.

A nice full logstore

A nice full alcove. Smells sooo nice!

It is a mix of Ash and Birch; it smells lovely and I can't wait for it to get cold so we can light up the fire.

And a few left over for an emergency!

 So whilst trying to make some space in the shed for the left over logs, I decided to cut up all the kindling too. It's mainly tree branches and roots that have been left for a year to dry out and then cut to size with some secateurs. The green wavy bits on top are offcuts from the romantic arch I made for the entrance to the secret garden.

Kindling

A nice tidy(ish) shed!

 So I'm quite chuffed that I can now actually walk right to the back of the shed for a change! I even stacked up the pallet timber neatly, ranked by length at the back which will be used in the bathroom for the natural finish we desire. That tiny amount of timber at the back has come from about 30 pallets as it is difficult to salvage every piece as the wood is often so dry and brittle, and fixed together with 6" nails.