Monday

It's Monday again. This one didn't seem as bad as the others. Perhaps I am content to be here for a while. I get the odd phone call from recruitment agencies but no interviews and no jobs online that are the kind of job I want. Also things at work are "interesting" - our previous owners have sold us to new owners. And just recently many of the top level management have left for "new challenges". All of these have currently been in the states but the changes are bound to percolate down to us in the UK.

ANBBVOTD

Planning Ahead

OK so the Google listing didn't last very long. Easy come - easy go...

Last night my wife and I went out to a planning meeting for the autumn half term holiday club we were involved in last year. (I took the week of work and was a wacky professor.) Last year the whole thing was organised and implemented in about six weeks due to various circumstances so this year we are starting a bit earlier. It was one of the best planning meetings I have been to - how often do you get nibbles, lasagne and a chocolate fountain at a meeting. We had a chance to look back at last year and also look ahead to next year. We're not sure of a theme yet but there does seem to be a lot of support for a jungle / I'm a celebrity get me out of here approach.

Some of the things we discussed were how to keep the momentum behind the club going - not resting on our laurels and repeating stuff year after year because of tradition but searching after God's heart for how we can bless the children in our town. It's really exciting...

A picture from last year's holiday club.

ANBBVOTD

Number eleven

I'm now result number eleven when searching just for "a normal bloke" (a opposed to anormalbloke).

How high can I go?

(Though it seems this was quite short lived and I am no longer at position 11 - such is life).

Update - On the 8th April 2007: Number 2!

I've been found

I've just noticed that Google has started to list my blog! Try it here. Ok so I'm the sixth entry - but it's a start...

Pride

I love my children and it is a real joy to me to see them grow and develop. I love helping them learn and experience new things. I often try to help my eldest do things related to what she is doing in school, things that I remember as interesting me as a child or still now as an adult.

I am especially pleased when my eldest gets excited about learning herself and so when I saw her reading through some library books tonight it really made me excited and proud.

ANBBVOTD

Lent

Today is the first day of lent. Should I give something up? What about pomegranates? chocolate? television? sugar? blogging? I suppose it should be something that would be a sacrifice, something that would be beneficial? I'm not sure. I think I am going to try sugar in my coffee - as this something that I have to think about as I make many cups of coffee each day and I have to make conscious effort to do this each time as I am normally on auto pilot. This will have the added benefit of reminding me of Jesus and the approaching sacrifice and celebration of Easter throughout the day.

My eldest has decided to give up using the computer. But as we are not having pancakes until the weekend she has decided that she doesn't have to start until then.

ANBBVOTD

Egyptians

My eldest is doing some new projects at school. One of the is the Egyptians. I loved doing this project at school - especially the hieroglyphics. (Perhaps that's why my writing is so bad now.)

We made a Bratz mummy:

I have also put a couple of links on my other site.

Nice Weekend

This week end has been a nice one.
On Friday night my wife went out to yet another girl's night and I had a quiet night in fiddling on my computer.
On Saturday I did the wacky games for the children's club and also supervised the sports zone. This went quite well as no one was injured this time. The wacky games involved doughnuts and wall paper and the main sport was unihoc - a lethal combination of competitive kids, leaders and hard plastic sticks and a puck. Not to mention it's the only exercise I get apart from walking to Salisbury's at lunch time. In the evening we had friends round for a meal. It was nice to get to know each other better over food and was quite a good laugh. (Though my Wife's Amy Grant obsession may have worried them slightly. Especially when she started to show off her video collection.)
On Sunday was church and taking my youngest to his little lady friend's birthday party. (He was one of only two boys and had a special party bag without fairy stuff and with a car - which he appreciated very much).
And now it is Sunday evening and we are trying to get ready for the week ahead, looking for all the school stuff that has vanished over half term and making sandwiches for lunch.

Grumpy and Tired

I feel very grumpy and tired this week. I am not sure why. I have been sleeping OK and there are no obvious problems occurring. It's very strange. At least it's nearly the weekend - that should help! I've got to plan the 1/2 hour slot of wacky games we do each month at a kids club. I have in mind things involving doughnuts, hard disk magnets and the ever present water bomb balloons and shaving foam...

More Sick

My youngest has now been sick, of course he waited till he was in his cot so he could get his bedding as well. His sicky things are in the washing machine now and he is sleeping peacefully. I wish I could say the same about my eldest who is shouting down the stairs because her MP3 player is not working!

Home alone

My Wife has gone off to another necklace buying frenzy. (At her sister's house this time.) So I have had to put the children to bed all by myself. (Though my wife had organised tea and lunch tomorrow for us all, got the children ready for bed and tidied up so I suppose I can't complain.) Also (do you think I use backets too much (or not enough?)) my brother in law dropped off some beers for assiting him with a technical problem over the week end. Not much else has happened some working, some rain, and that's it.

Spots and Sick

My youngest developed some strange spots last night. We thought it might be Chicken Pox but this morning the have faded somewhat and are not blistery so we are not sure what it is. He has had a cold and a bit of a temperature over the last few days and so we are assuming it must be some sort of virus.

When I got home from the party last night I discovered that my eldest had developed a stomach bug and thrown up on our bed and was still being a bit sick. So after we had made the bed, comforted her and settled spotty boy we got to bed very late.

Great Party - But oh my aching bum.

I went to a party at our friend's house last night. It was really nice to catch up with friends and some family and also meet some new people.

Partway through the evening we ended up playing mini exercise trampoline based games, and this is where my bum became involved. The first game was the "two footed mini trampoline long jump bounce game". Essentially you had to try and bounce the furthest from the trampoline. I was in the lead until my brother-in-law matched my stupendous distance. And in the tie breaker he beat me by an inch or two and I fell on my rear and it still aches today!

The next game we devised was the "mini trampoline leap of trust game". This involved each person throwing themselves of the trampoline into the outstretched arms of the others and (hopefully) being caught. There were a few close shaves but everyone was caught safely.

My brother in law's winning jump.


My sister-in-law's leap of trust.

A Normal Day

Just a normal day today. Got up, had a shower, went to work, popped to town, had lunch, more work, back home, tea, put children to bed and watch telly/play on the computer with a glass of beer (well it is Friday).

Shame all the snow is melting. I like the difference it makes. Things look different. You have to drive differently. Plan things differently. I suppose this is because I like new things. I love fiddling with 'new' (new to me that is) things and seeing what they can do. (Hence this blog I suppose - I wonder when it'll be no longer 'new' and I'll have to find something else to play with...)

Now in Firefox!

My number bond tester now works in Firefox and IE! (Well I have tested it in IE7 and Firefox 2.0.0.1)

Any comments welcome.

Snow Day!!!

At last a proper snow day!

Me and my eldest went sledging on the way to see if the school was open. I seems every school in the town is shut bar hers. But they said that if it got worse we would be phoned to pick our children up. So as my eldest wanted to go sledging and I'd forgotten her shoes anyway we went back to the park for a bit and then my Wife took her with my youngest off to his playgroup. (If you can't have a snow day every so often life would be depressing indeed.)

I am, however, very impressed with the school for staying open - many families need the school to look after their children as either both parents are working or they are a single parent and working. It takes good leadership to open the school on a day like today.

I am now working from home. Which is nice as it is comfier and a lot less travelling; the only thing is that I have to pay for my own coffee.

On the way to work

It was very cold this morning but the sun, frost and mist made parts of my journey very beautiful. I paused briefly and took this photo.

Self Harm?

Our youngest has a new trick.

When he is feeling as though he is not getting enough attention he hurts himself.

For instance yesterday our eldest was rushing to get ready to go out and slid down the stairs and hurt herself. She started crying and we gave her cuddles and comfort to make her feel better. Our youngest (who was still upset from being 'encouraged' to eat his tea (i.e. he didn't have dessert, but our eldest did.)), saw that he was missing out on some attention and bashed his head against the stairs and started crying.

We wern't quite sure what to do, we were a bit shocked. Also we didn't want to give him attention and reinforce the behaviour but then we couldn't leave him so upset. I went for the asking him what he had done in a kind way and asking him what was he thinking and then giving him a hug. He seemed to calm down.

Is this normal? Any ideas on what to do about it?

Number bond mix up.

I have updated my number bond tester so that you can mix up the numbers. Try it now!

I still doesn't work in firefox though!

My youngest's first blog entry

f rrrggggggggggggg


mn

My youngest typed the above. Here is a picture of him doing it (the beer isn't his).

Change

When I think of the word change I imagine things happening slowly. In a controlled way. Caused by decisions I have made.
In fact change in lots of people's lives seems to be sudden and unexpected. Chaotic and unpredictable. Caused sometimes by happy events and often by sad events. A number of people we know have been afflicted by sudden change by the death of family members or by illness. This is a sort of change that you can't plan for - I suppose you could dread it happening just in case it did happen but I don't suppose that that would help. I'm not sure how I would cope if this kind of thing happened to me. I have had unexpected change; the most sudden and bad I suppose was being made redundant, but even then I was kind of half expecting it. Other changes have been more expected and planned: The birth of my children, getting married, buying a house and these have been happy things in contrast to the pain and loss of a bereavement.

How are we supposed to cope when bad things suddenly happen? Do we retreat from the world so it can't hurt us any more? If we have a faith in God to we blame him or cling to him? Or both? How do we help those who have been devastated by this grief,we can comfort them and pray for them, but we can't make things better?

I don't know.

Zoo Trip

We have an annual pass for the zoo and often go for a hour or two. Today was a lovely sunny day so we went for a walk in the zoo for exercise and fresh air. It's nice to have the pass as we don't feel we have to see every animal on a visit just to get our moneys worth. Sometimes we just go and play on the play park!

My eldest at the zoo.



My wife and youngest at the zoo.

Box O Fun

You can have the most fun with the simplest things. We noticed that William was using a box he had been given to play in as a car so we made it into a more car like car. He did like it and played in it. But I have a sneaking suspicion that he would have played with the original box more.

My youngest in a box my eldest and I made into a car.

Seeing Friends

I took the opportunity to see some old friends who moved to Paris a few years ago. We see them when they visit England but have never been to see them. As I was staying just outside Paris they invited me for an evening meal. It was very nice to see them. We chatted and ate - a very welcome relief from hotel room boredom - especially as I didn't want to finish my book before the journey home). Their flat is right in the centre of Paris (they can see the Eiffel tower from their back door (does this mean people on the Eiffel tower can see them?) and, although has had a recent water related disaster, is very nice.

Getting to Paris - French public transport.

Getting to Paris was very easy - I just took the train from home to Waterloo and then caught the Eurostar. But when I got to Paris things got a bit harder. For some reason the signs for things like stations etc... seem to be hidden or, if not, very small. I knew I had to take the Metro line 4 - and then the RER line C to where I was staying. But could I find the Metro station? Well I did but it took far more aimless wandering than I would have liked it to. Then I had to find a place to buy a ticket - I could find lots of mainline ticket machines and booths but no metro one. It was there however - down some stairs and around a corner. I then purchased a ticket - the easiest bit - though it was so cheap that I thought that I must have the wrong ticket, but then station on the ticket matched the name of the station I was going to so all seemed well.I made it onto the metro and to the station that I had to change at. But could I find a sign for RER trains? No. Could I find a train that went to the station that I wanted to go to? No. It got so bad I had to ask at an information point. They were very helpful and told me I needed to change at another station. (On examining my tiny metro ticket I did find it did have the name of the station to change at but as I don't know the names of all the train stations I didn't recognise it as such. At the connecting station there were several undecipherable screen displaying where the next train to my destination was going to leave from but I had to almost leave the station before one made sense. They seem to give all the trains four letter names like VICK and JILL - tres weird, especially as these names don't seem to tie up with any of the maps on the walls of the station. But after all that I got to my hotel safely and my reservation was ok and I made it to my fourth floor room with no further drama. Though today on the way home things stayed a bit strange on the public transport system. My colleague dropped my off at the station, but when I went to buy a ticket the lady said in very good english) (how did she know?) that there were no trains to Paris Gare du Nord from this station, or even connecting trains. She seemed very sure and said that I would need to walk to a nearby station. And then suddenly there was an announcement on the tannoy (I don't know what it said.) and she ran off into a back office. About a minute later she returned and said that there was now a train that I could catch. And that it was going from platform two. (I don't know if she rejigged the timetable just for me but it seemed like it.) I got to Gare du Nord but could I find the Eurostar terminal? You would something like an international rail terminal would be hard to hide. Especially as I could see where the train was, but they managed it. It took minutes of wandering around before I found some poorly marked stars leading up to a balcony that lead to the check in area. So all I need to do know is navigate the tube and British rail system - which even though it is expensive, dirty and unreliable - is well signposted.

Paris Nord - Can you see the signs?

Trip to France

I have been in France for a couple of days and I didn't feel like spending the €10 it would cost for internet access from my hotel room and so have not blogged. The reason that I was "on holiday" as my eldest liked to call it was that I was training some of the people in the company I work for's French office. I do enjoy doing this as it is a change from my normal everyday work routine and it is also nice to get a different perspective on the company I work for from different people, but it is hard work. I am currently typing this as I travel back from Paris - Gare du Nord to London Waterloo and then it is going to take me at least another hour to get home! It has been hard work, as although the people have been training do talk English very well, it is not their first language and so I have had to explain things a lot.

The view from my hotel room.