Easter Monday...Off to the seaside @ Mablethorpe

As non of us really knew what to do today, and as all of us dragged ourselves out of our beds well after 10am (whoops!), we decided to go out for the day somewhere close to home. After the traditional yelling and screaming (and the kids are even worse!) about not knowing were shoes had gone, who had moved mobile phones ( resulting in the mandatory "call it and follow the ring" malarkey), we made a flask of coffee, loaded up the kite (never used, but always taken....mmm!) we set off to make the 54 mile trip to the seaside.
Upon arrival we sat in the car enjoying the view from our favorite car park with it's elevated location, looking out across a rather grey sea under a rather grey sky....to be honest it was hard to figure out were the sea stopped and the sky began,but what the heck, we were on the coast, and the aroma of fish and chips was in the air.....lovely :-).
We took our amassed collection of 2 pence coins into the arcade, fed them to a variety off slot machines and came out 20 mins later penniless, but Lauren had managed to win (?) a nice plastic...thing so that was good. Oh happy days :-).
After a short stroll along the beach on the way back to the car, during which "mini me" decided he wanted to take his shoes off for a swift paddle, then decided that he didn't like wet sand,then decided that walking was not fun and hitched a lift with dad !, we set off back home and ended our bank holiday Monday with a traditional English supper.....from the local Chinese takeaway!.....lovely grub :-)

Easter Sunday..time for an egg hunt then !

I took 2 of the kids (Rachel and Andy Jr...or "mini me" as we call him!)to a National Trust house just outside of Grantham,Linc's, to take part in the annual Easter egg hunt.Not so much an egg hunt, as a clue hunt!. Upon paying your £1.50 for each child, you are given a sheet of paper and a pencil, then sent off on your way to follow clues, gather random letters of the alphabet (which made up the names of spring flowers!), then return to the house to collect your prize...yes, you guessed it...a chocolate egg :-)
Even though it was a pretty overcast day, with the occasional rain "drizzle", i can honestly say that the walk around those fantastic gardens was so nice, and was a great way to get some fresh air and exercise whilst i am still suffering from this awful ruddy chesty cold...again.
Mission accomplished,clutching 2 chocolate eggs, we returned to the car, then drove home for a nice chicken Sunday dinner...lovely :-)

Whoopee!...my blood test results came....but what do they mean !

Today,the postman..sorry, post lady, brought an extra special letter for me which contained (drum roll!)....my blood results :-).
The good news is that i now, after almost 4 months, have actually got them, the bad news is that apart from the results of my Cholesterol check (a very average 5.0) which i believe to be OK, i have not got a Scooby Doo (clue) what the rest of the figures are telling me :-( .Now i just have to wait until the 12th May when I get to speak to Tim Mooby (my new consultant) at King's Mill Hospital, that I will get the lowdown on what my current state of health is....watch this space ;-).

Also today (Saturday) whilst i popped down to the shops for some loo roll,milk and chocolate (this was to do some kiddie cooking with...chocolate crispies,yum!)I was suddenly overcome with what i guess would be termed an "impulse buy". Now i am not really the sort to do this sort of thing, but on this occasion it was quite spontaneous, and what is stranger is that it was not a piece of technology (my normal weakness when it comes to buying things that i could really do without), it was simply a picture, in the window of a charity shop in Sleaford, and it was of an image which almost made me cry when i looked at it.....how crazy is that ?
The picture is simple, and it is of a white dove descending from a cold grey sky.....that's all...but the unexpected and unexplained emotion that it stirred in me was immediate, and as such, i just had to buy it, for the princely sum of £5.99.
Maybe there is some truth in the saying that "A picture speaks a thousand words" after all :-)

Oh how true these points are !

I was sent this little ditty today by my cousin.I found myself reading it, then smiling, then grimacing, then smiling again :-).

See if you can relate to any of the points raised...i know that i could !

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL MY FRIENDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE

1930's 1940's, 50's, 60's and early 70's !


First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can.


Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.


As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonald's ,KFC, Subway or Nando's.


Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on the weekends, somehow we didn't starve to death!
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.


We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy Toffees, Gob stoppers, Bubble Gum and some bangers to blow up frogs with. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......


WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!


We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars.


We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii , X-boxes, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY , no video/dvd films, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were NO lawsuits from these accidents!



Only girls had pierced ears!



We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time...
We were given air guns and catapults for our 10th birthdays,
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!



RUGBY and CRICKET had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! Getting into the team was based on MERIT.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
Our parents didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade', 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla'
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL !


And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.
PS -The big type is because your eyes are not too good at your age anymore

And so to the Bank Holiday ....thank goodness for that !

So here we are, it's Good Friday and the bank holiday has now officially begun, however i am (yet again!) suffering from an awful head cold, complete with sore throat, runny nose and headache...wonderful!.
Anyway, at least i haven't got to fight my way to work this morning, and as an added bonus i even managed to have something of a lie in also, not getting up until 08:20.....bliss !.
Now, i am lead to believe that Bank Holidays are historically supposed to be a time when folk get down and dirty...doing DIY (Do It Yourself!) repairs and maintenance to their homes and gardens.Me ? Well i am not one for spending my free time doing anything that can be left until another day....like all of the work that is still outstanding in the kitchen,bathroom,living room etc,etc, so i will be actively trying to do now't (or "nothing" for those of you who don't speak Nottinghamshire slang!).

The hospital that i am employed at is currently in the throws of a major move, from the old building which it has occupied for between the last 25 and 60 years (depends upon which dept you are housed in!), to the new, ultra modern £320 million new hospital.
Of course it sounds quite simple doesn't it ? Build a new hospital, move all of the facilities and patients into it...job done.....or maybe not!.
The reality is that unlike most "corporate" relocation's, hospitals have to spend a lot of time "deep cleaning" the "New" building, before they can even consider moving patients and medical services into it. If you have ever had a look around a new building before the cleaners have had a go at it, you will be aware that builders are not really too concerned about the amount of muck that they produce whilst building a new construction, just as long as it is finished on time.Imagine then scaling up this scenario from a 3 bedroom detached home with 16 windows, to a 600 bed hospital with over 3000 of them!, each floor,wall,ceiling and surface must be cleared of dust and paint splashes, and the building has to be "clinically clean" in time for all of the medical paraphernalia and patients to be rehoused in the wards and departments.
This week i was engaged in the task of receiving, unpacking,building,testing and inventorying of 50 new hospital "Acute" medical beds, the ones that are electrically operated and are seen in all modern hospitals.The beds that we have decided to purchase are made by a company called Sidhil Ltd, who are a small/medium sized family business that are based in Halifax UK.The beds are coming in waves of between 20 and 40 at a time each week, and we have (i believe!) ordered approx 200 of them, so i guess that inventorying them will be a large part of my working days for the next few weeks!.
I have taken a few snaps of the work that is going on in the towers at KMH, these are where the new wards will be located, and these are currently the focus of more work and preparation than i guess anyone outside of the hospital could possibly be aware of.So,if you would, please spare a thought for all of the dedicated hospital staff that are engaged in this very intense, very physically demanding, but sometimes overlooked area of hospital life, and, should you ever find yourself in one of the wards of the "New and improved" Kings Mill Hospital, just remember just how much work has gone into making your stay a pleasant one :-).

Blood test results update...update !

Well, after calling my GP's surgery today i found out that the Odyssey of my well traveled blood test results has taken another twist !.It appears that they have now finally arrived with my doctor, but (for reasons as yet unknown!), they went for a trip over to the Nottingham Trent University first!. It seems that my blood gets to travel a lot more than the rest of me does these days :-).
Oh well, hopefully soon the results will be in my hands, which is nice, s it seems that i will be the last one to get to see them !.

The mystery of the missing blood test...latest update !

After almost four months i am still not really any closer to finding out the results of my last blood test which was taken at the hospital that i work at in December 2008, however at least i now know why my GP's surgery did not receive them !.It appears that there is a surgery called "Mill View Surgery" in Mansfield, and so...yes you guessed it...my results were sent to that surgery and not Mill View surgery in Sleaford!. Oh well, at this rate my next blood test will probably be being processed before i get the results of the one from 2008!.

This years holiday Plans.

To be honest, last years holiday was pretty much non existent.The trip to Gib and back in 9 and a half days cannot be really filed under the heading "Rest and relaxation", and i am pretty sure that my family would like to be able to have a bit of that this year after putting up with my (almost?) fanatical pursuit that was the Scirocco 2 Morocco trip in 2008.
This year then, we are hoping to be able to get some "quality" family time together somewhere in the UK,possibly Devon or Cornwall, but as of this moment we have not decided 100%.
I think that whatever or wherever we decide to go in the end, we owe it to ourselves to try and have as good a time as we possibly can,and as long as we manage to pick a week when the good old British weather decides to give us a little sunshine, i am sure that we will all benefit from the experience.
I will try my best not to get too annoyed at the blatant exploitation that is demonstrated by the great British holiday host, when they add a few hundred extra to their weekly holiday rate knowing full well that most of us are obliged to shell it out without choice due to us all being controlled by the school holiday system.I recently looked into the costs of some holiday cottages and found the price difference between the start of June (kids at school) and the middle of July (school holiday season!) was something around an extra £250 per week more!...how do these people sleep at night....probably on mattresses full of banknotes i would guess ! :-).....oh well, we will just have to bit the bullet and see i suppose.

Concert for life 12th April 2009

Just to remind you that this years Concert for life is being held at Rock city in Nottingham (UK), and starts at approx 5pm.Tickets are 10 quid in advance (contact me if you want some!) or 12 quid on the door.This year's charity event is to be 'Concert For Life' supporting the 'CLIC Sargent' charity building a home from home for families with children who have cancer, as part of 'Billy's Appeal.

To learn more about this event, just follow the link below:

http://www.thejuliecottonfoundation.co.uk/

Went to GTI Spring Festival 2009 at Santa Pod on Sunday

What is Santa Pod ? Well, for those of you who have never heard of it, it is NOT a new device that apple are releasing this Christmas (Although there is still time!).Santa Pod is in fact a drag racing strip in the UK just outside of the village of Poddington (Northamptonshire) which each year hosts (Amongst other things), the GTI Spring Festival, or to put it more broadly, it is home for the day to thousands of VW mad people who come together to to look at,talk and drive...well Volkswagen's of any sort...but mostly water cooled (Golf's,Scirocco's etc,etc).
This year I was yet again accompanied to the event by "Mini Me", AKA Andy Junior, who of course wasn't too fussed about what the day had to offer in the way of auto jumbles, drag racing and picture opportunities.....just as long as there was a steady flow of ice cream, candy floss and sweets...and drinks, and ...you get the idea !.
After taking around 1 and a half hours to drive the 65 miles down to the venue, we had a quick look around the stands, then Andy announced that he was "Starving", so we went over to a catering van and after a wait for a couple of Min's whilst they cooked it, we tucked into his chosen snack...fish and chips!....at 09:12 in the morning!, oh well, kids know what they want, and once this one has his mind set there is not much chance of changing it!.
After our fishy breakfast, we then had a great time watching some of the members of the public thrashing their motors down the track, and occasionally blowing up their transmissions and engines! (one of the drawbacks of having a go at the "run what you brung" event!).We spoke to a few of the lads from the Scirocco Register, Gave Glen his new(ish) tripod to replace the one he lost in the Pyrenees mountains!, then popped over to the grandstand to watch the highlight of the day, the awesome "Jet car", which is basically a piece of fibreglass, with 4 wheels and to this is strapped a jet engine this = very fast 0-60...sorry 0-250, and LOTS of noise to boot !.I have some vid on my mobile of its run, so i will post this once i get organised...eventually !.
Anyway, got home just after 3PM, cooked dinner (roast beef and Yorkshire puds!), then settled down to watch Andy play on the XBox with his newly acquired game "King Kong" which he got with the £5 grandad gave him for the day out. Nice :-)

Of course, one thing that i do think about around this time of the year, is what happened in 2008, when, just after our 2008 visit to the Pod, we had our slight accident which resulted in the car being almost written off!. Better luck this year we hope!. Take care :-)

Happy Birthday to my wife and daughter !

Belated best wishes to my wife (was on the 26th!) and early greetings to my daughter (28th!) as they celebrate their 12th and 43rd birthdays (I will let you figure out who's is which!).
Due to her afore mentioned recent birthday, my wife is now the proud owner of a new Wii Fit Board (although she is having trouble getting on it due to it being constantly in use courtesy of the 3 stooges (kids), and was apparently reduced to tears (of laughter!) the first time she tried the hula hoop work out. I say apparently, as i was at the time languishing in bed with a touch of "Delhi belly" and feeling rather sorry for myself !.
Thankfully i am feeling a lot better today, and should now be OK for my daughters birthday which is tomorrow when she is expecting a new phone as her current one is "ancient", well at least 2 years old, but you know how the march of technology waits for no man......or even no 12 year old.
Happy birthday to you both anyway, and when i am feeling a little better i will show you all how do the Ski Jump properly ! lol.

If you want a straight answer...don't ask a politician !

This was found on a government question and answer site called "They work for you.com". The question was straightforward, asking approx how much government money was spent on research into treating Leukaemia. The answer was not quite so simple!.

Ask a sensible question....get a rather long answer !

So how much was that again ?

Leukaemia drug offers sufferers 'new remission hope'

In the headlines this week,news that a new drug may soon be available to sufferers of CLL type Leukaemia.See link below:

Telegraph.co.uk (March 22nd 2009)

Oh come on!........this is just getting silly now :-)

Hot on the heals of my posting of the rather excited child with the N64, i have now found a REMIX of a television advert!....whatever next?



BANG, and it's gone !

Who likes Nintendo ?

Just had to share this little gem with you all. I found it today during my daily trawl of the net for interesting and informative video's...then i thought "sod it,why not have a bit more humor instead"...and this is what i discovered !

Apparently this was manufactured from an old home movie of a couple of mad children who's parent decided to video them when they opened their Crimbo pressies....the rest,as they say,is history !



Myself, i prefer the Wii ! lol :-)