Almost There Dear

Greetings

Another work one, this.  Always makes me nervous, but I'm in a bloggy mood, so here we go!

I am missing all my people. My lovely wife and youngest son, are enjoying their second night at her mum's, whilst I work my last night.   I will see them tomorrow and that makes me happy.  My other four children seem so very very far away, and it's making me sad.

They stayed with us last weekend and I really enjoyed the time we had together. We even managed to have an extra bonus day, which was lovely.  After they'd gone, I was in the playroom, and I found Charlotte's (youngest daughter) calendar.  She writes all sorts of stuff on it, about friend's she's going to see, or TV shows that she wants to watch.  On the 1st October, the entry said "I miss my dad".  It felt like she'd reached into my chest and pulled my heart right out.  I won't lie - my eyes welled up. 

This morning, towards the end of my nigth shift, Abbey appeared online and started talking to me.  It was lovely to have 40 mins chatting away about insignificant things with her.  Then this evening, Robert did the same.  He told me he broke his nose yesterday by falling over in the living room and hitting a TV stand.  I never know if they really have suffered bad injuries, knowing how their mum likes to exagerate and dramatise situations.  Either way - I hope he feels better soon.

I am going to try and get the painting of the dining room finished during my 48 hours off work that I have this weekend.  There's a lot to do, but I reckon if left to it, i'll be reet.

I spent a while "chatting" with a girl called Claire during the night.  She writes a blog called "A Little Piece Of Me".  I've followed it for the last year or so and it celebrates it's third birthday today.  She's a fellow scouser and a fellow blue, too!  Her blog has been an inspiration to me, and I heartily recommend taking 10 mins to read through it.  http://crpitt.blogspot.com/

I spent a while during the week, flattening my laptop and installing Ubuntu (again).  I gave it more time this time. Still, I'm going back to Windows yet again.  Ubuntu is so so so close to being perfect, but the complete lack of decent iTunes support and synchronisation left me wanting.  There IS iTunes support, but it's basic.  I spent bloody ages creating an "on the go" playlist on my ipod.  In iTunes, when I next synced the pod to the laptop, the on the go playlist would sync back onto the laptop.  Using Songbird (the best of the bunch of media players with itunes support), it just lost the list completely.  I've said before, In this age of technology, I shouldn't have to make sacrifices, and that is what I'll end up doing if I stay with Ubuntu. 

Sorry Mr Gates - please can I come back in?

Heartbreaker

I was reminded by my lovely wife yesterday, that it's been over a week since I've blogged. Thanks wife - here we go.

Normally, something happens, a trigger if you like - and that inspires me to write about what is happening. This week has seen several triggers, but I don't feel that I can write about them in detail as they are too private and upsetting.

Last week at work saw my boss seemingly constantly pissed off. I can't remember if I mentioned it in my last post, but some of my colleagues got a little too involved in a multi player computer game and didn't notice that the arse had fallen out of the Wide Area Network in Manchester. As a result, the bringing in of laptops has been banned. Fair enough, but it's really tough going without one. I used to listen to hours of music and podcasts. Now I can still do that using my iPod, but it's not as easy to manage. Can't wait to be in a position to get an iPhone.

My children have stayed with us an extra night for this visit. We (Deb, Luke and myself) were originally supposed to be visiting my friend Jon and his wife and son yesterday, but Luke and Matthew were unwell, so we've postponed the visit.

This past week, I've stripped the wallpaper off the dining room walls, painted the ceiling and coving, sanded down the wooden panels, and given the walls a coat of white. The wooden paneling is going to be painted some sort of shade of brown, the walls given a "pecan" coloured paint, and Phil's wall is going to be papered. I'll post a pic when it's all done.

I only wish I wasn't in work this week as it'd be perfect to get it all done.

My laptop is really starting to piss me off now. The wireless card is knackered in it, so I need an ethernet cable plugged into it all the time in order to be online. The battery is also shot to bits so if i dare unplug the power cable from it, it sweeps it's virtual legs from under it and it switches off immediately.

I'm in two minds weather or not to delete this blog as it's been so uneventful so far.

The last two nights have been very strange, dream-wise for me. On Saturday night, I had a dream that involved me bumping into a girl I was at school with, Joanne Higham, in a nightclub in Wigan. Strange for a few reasons, notably because I don't go to nightclubs in Wigan anymore, and she lives in Spain! So then last night, I had another dream where I bumped into another girl I was at school with, this time in The Concourse shopping centre in Skelmersdale. I told her that I'd bumped into Joanne the night before, and she told me that she already knew because she was there and I'd been talking to her. So - I had a dream - about a dream. I don't think I've ever ever done that before. I'm wondering what I'll dream about tonight now!

I've just cut the hair of my two eldest son's in an attempt to get my youngest to engage in a hair cut too. It just wasn't to be. I think he thinks that I'm going to chop his head clean off. His fear of it is completely irrational. He's never been hurt or damaged with a hair cut.

Speaking of damaging my son, have I told you about his first trip to Accident and Emergency? Yeah - he was involved in an incident along with stairs and a large plastic garage. The garage assaulted my son, and his head bled. A lot.

As you can see from this photo, he was still a little shocked following the injury. Once he'd been seen at the hospital by a doctor who was at best fourteen years old, he was sent on his way and told he'd be 'reet.

I'm off to have a shower and to try and persuade my wife to let us go to Taybarns so we can eat like gluttons before taking the wee folk back to the land of dragons, leeks, and bestiality.

Baaaa for now.

Proud As A Peacock

Since my last note, my lovely wife's insides have been scanned and subsequently harvested. The slight mishap with the injections fortunately didn't have any serious consequences.

When scanned, she was found to have 5 follicles. Two days later we were at the hospital again, this time for the collection. It was at this point that we had to make a decision. To enable us to continue with the egg-share programme that we had originally started on, my lovely wife needed to produce 8 eggs. Each follicle "can" produce more than one egg, so there was a chance that that could be the outcome. However, we needed to prepare contingency plans. Less than eight eggs leaves you with two choices. You can either donate all of the eggs to the other couple, or keep all of the eggs for yourself. If you produce three eggs or less, you have to keep the eggs for yourself. "We" produced 5 eggs.

We had a good chat about what was the right thing to do. We evaluated everything, including the offer of a free cycle of IVF if we donated the eggs. Something else also borne in mind was the fact that another couple, who are unable to produce any eggs, have been waiting for this day for months, if not years. All things considered, and consider we did - we opted to donate them all.

I can honestly say, hand on heart that the last time I felt so proud of my wife was the 8th of May 2007, the day she gave birth to Luke. My heart feels like it is swollen. The last 40 odd days haven't been easy, not only the physical aspect of having to inject every day, nor even the lack of sleep involved in having to wake up at a certain time to inject, but emotionally, it's been really difficult. After all that, to agree to donate them all is an absolutely incredible gesture. I will never ever forget this week.

Given what happened regarding the IVF, one of the first things we did when we had the time together was to go and book a holiday. We are going to Fuerteventura in four weeks and one day. I am very much looking forward to having a nice, relaxing week away, and I'm sure my lovely wife is, too.

Tonight sees our return to Derby, to visit friends there. This is our first return since my flagrant drunken display back in July. Not only that, but the couple that we spent most of the night with, Dawn and Glen are going to be there too, tonight. We are all staying over and I'm sure it'll be a lovely evening. Who knows - I might actually be able to resist the urge to expose myself!

Tomorrow is my mother in law's birthday. It's going to be a tough one for her. I've spoken about the "firsts", following the tragic death of my father in law, and this is another one of them. It will be a relaxed day, hopefully a busy one, so as to give her less time to reflect. The important thing is to get through the day. Fingers crossed.

Then, back home on Sunday. I'm going to strip the wallpaper from the Dining Room when we get home. Maybe. I need to discuss that with my wife first. I've just planned it forward and I'm not sure when we can buy some new paper. Hmmm. Do we even want paper? Would it not be nicer to paint it? Decisions decisions....



Speak soon, reader

Too Much Too Little Too Late

Greetings one and all.

It's been too long since I last posted, I recognise that and can only offer my most sincere apologies.

We have 3 of my 4 children who live in Wales with us this weekend. My now thirteen year old eldest looked a tad unwell on Friday, so decided she was staying at home with her mum. I do miss her.

Today has been a good day. Well - mostly a good day. In bed last night, my lovely wife thought that something was amiss regarding the IVF injections that I've been giving her for the last "ages!". This morning, she contacted the clinic who confirmed that for the last week, we should have been having 2 lots of injections instead of one. We "rushed" into Manchester, where they gave her a different injection and another to take home for me to stab her with later today.

When I say we rushed into Manchester, that much is true. However, once we arrived in the City of the funny accent, traffic ground to a halt. Who decided it was ok to a) have a rugby league final, b) close the A57(M) Mancunian Way, and c) have a shit load of (probably) racist protesters in the city, along with another shit load of protesters protesting against the first lot of protesters - ALL on the same frigging day! A total piss-take is what Manchester was today.

Eventually, we landed back home where we had a bite to eat and a nice relax before setting off for Blackpool. We only saw half the lights last time, so tonight was the night to see the rest. Also, my eldest son celebrated his birthday last weekend, so I wanted to treat him to a trip round the Dr Who exhibition. We got to Blackpool and paid a quick visit to our good friends Paul and Joanne (and their children). I was then taxi'd into Blackpool where Rob, Matthew, Luke and myself disembarked and went Dr Who'ing! Following that, we had a bit of a mooch round the town - laughing at the drunk people and commenting on the incredible number of scantily clad fluorescent hen parties that were circulating.

Back to Paul and Jo's after that, where Jo had made some pizza's for us. Paul and I visited their local chippy and got about 5lb of chips for the bargain price of £1.80. Seriously, I've never ever seen a bag of chips like that before. Awesome. Well done Mr Chang. Or was it Ying?

We left our friends at about 10 and took a quick poll of children as to weather or not we'd do the lights. YES was the answer, so off we went. By the time we'd reached Bispham, Luke and Charlotte had adjourned to sleep-ville. When we arrived back home at 23:55, only Robert was still awake. Will they lie in until 10am tomorrow? Not a cat in hell's chance.

I haven't had a drink of alcohol in earnest for some time now. I had two glasses of wine last night (and the last can of beer in the fridge), and woke up with a bit of a headachey thing this morning. Weather or not it's a phase, I don't know, but I really don't feel like having a drink of late. Maybe I've got used to not having any. Not sure. I'm sure there will be times when I want to drink, but right now - I'll pass thanks.

I started reading a book today that I loaned from my brother in law last year sometime. I'd really like to read it and get it back to him - it's playing on my mind now. Might start taking it to work with me and reading it in the lulls that happen every now and again.

Oh - we have new doors and furniture in our house. I am very very happy with them all. All expertly delivered / installed / fitted. Well done Safestyle and DFS.

It's late, and I'm hungry. Gonna down a piece or two of toast along with a lovely glass of... milk!!

Until next time....
MOOOOOOOOOO