I told my wife this morning about my 'biscuit theory'. She was worried about whether her Dad was managing well enough on the small amount of money he gets. I said "well, he has biscuits so he can't be doing that bad", I explained that everyone likes biscuits but they are the first thing to go if you're skint. I grew up in a house where we had rich tea or divestures or custard cream biscuits so we just about managed. Other houses I went to would produce a more expensive, individually wrapped one such as Penguins or Blue Ribbands. So if I was in charge of seeking out benefit fraud I would add a question to the form which reads,
'Do you buy biscuits, if so which ones?'
My wife pointed out that the system is flawed because some people just like biscuits and make it their priority to have them. 
I say Bollocks. 
(now my iPod fix has resulted in my headphone socket not working so I can't use headphones or put it through my stereo in the van etc. So if it dies my blogs may stop temporarily-although I will find a way to write it up I guess in some way.)

 I found the crematorium with little fuss. My trousers dug into me, my shirts neck was tight and so were my shoes and smart black jacket. I had my sunglasses on too as I sat in my van as the first one there. My brothers pulled up next to me saying I looked like one of the blues brothers. My brother said its usually cold in the crematorium and i said "yeah but its warm when they get the fire going". I tried to zone out for the service but seeing my cousins upset was hard. Great to see my cousin who I've not seen for about thirty years. We had a drink after nearby and then my brothers and I drove elsewhere for one more. It has made me want to write my own service for my funeral even though it's my wish not to have one. 
As my uncle reiterated, live every day as life is short.

I came back home and put some music on iTunes. These things are important to me.
I enjoyed those drinks too and I will have more tonight I think. I three my funeral kit in the bin as I will need to buy it all again next time. 

Paul the psychic octopus, who predicted the world cup scores of all the games including the final, died yesterday. I hadn't heard the original story so I don't know how he conveyed that he'd had a premonition about the world cup at all. I'm guessing that as each match played he lifted two tentacles on the left and four on the right to signify a four two win to whoever. 
Either way when a sea creature is given a 'super power' to help the world with, I think an octopus that predicts football results is taking the piss. What next a platterpus with the x factor results?.
God is a twat at times. 
Or as they say 'God moves in mysterious ways' or as I say.. Like a twat.

I finally tried on my funeral kit. It's around seven years since I last needed it. I was apprehensive about my waist size not being the same. I tried on the shirt first and got my hands through the still buttoned shirt sleeves without too much fuss. Then I pulled my funeral trousers up and with a sharp intake of breath did the button up. With my shirt tails tucked in I resembled a pub landlord with his round protruding beer belly. I breathed out and although the button stayed fastened, it was only a matter of time before something gave up the fight. I didn't think it appropriate to risk my trousers falling down whilst at a wake. Luck was with me though as in the same hidden corner of my drawers were my wedding trousers from four years ago. The trousers still fit, just. I fear if I keep going to the co-op and eating four chocolate bars for a quid in one day I will need a new funeral kit next time.
The tie will outlast me, maybe I will wear it when I'm dead.
Does anyone get cremated in jeans and a tee shirt? Or do you have to buy a suit to be dead into. 
If I am cremated and I go enter the 'big sleep' for eternity, I think I'll opt for my pyjamas.

My brother was caught speeding and had the option of paying £60 or attending a speed awareness course. You get one chance at this in your speeding career and the thinking is that you learn nothing from paying money and so it's beneficial to show you why you need to slow down. Cue videos of crashes and pile ups followed by statistics. It's probably a good idea too because of the awkwardness of having to attend the course stays with you for longer than paying money. But you have to drive to the course and run the risk of being caught for speeding on the way. The one good thing that they learnt was how to tell the speed of the road you're on without signs. If there are street lights then it's a 30 and if not then it's the national speed limit. Interesting.

I met up with my family to arrange flowers for my Aunts funeral which is now on Thursday. Let me explain firstly that there was no love between my aunt and uncle, just animosity.  Each one was wanting the other to die first.
On that note we were arranging flowers and asking where the wake was etc. My mum shook her head and said my uncle was moaning about having to spend any money on catering for the family and that he would only pay for immediate family as in his two sons. So when I asked where this wake was and mum was quiet I said" it's not at there little house is it?" more silence..."I'm not going up that stairlift for a piss"
Everyone laughed and some other jokes were made. We all felt guilty but we'd kinda got the giggles which made it worse.
Now my Aunt had a good sense  of humour so we justified it that way. When writing out the card details on interflora website we had my young sister typing it in and I said " do we put lots of love?? Or do we put yours faithfully?" more giggles. My sister genuinely put "xxxxxxx" at the end and mum said "no we don't put that"
My brother chipped in " yeah Sis and don't put LOL either"

We started picking on each other then,
My sister said she didn't want a sad affair for hers.
"are you ok about fireworks?" I asked.
I don't want a funeral at all. When I hear they are about paying your last respects I just feel it's too bloody late. When you get the call that they died... Game over.
Noone wants to go to a funeral, I don't want people to see mine. 
I told my family that I wanted to be stuffed and stuck in the corner of the room in a Dracula pose, fingers pointed out and they can hang there coats on my fingers.

"WELCOME ALONG to my 100th BLOG"

This idea to do a digital diary of sorts all came from my wifes suggestion that when I die she would burn all my diaries so noone could read them. Her main excuse being that they would take up too much space in the loft. My friend pointed me towards a free blogging website and day one was thrown onto the Internet. With nothing to say I posted everyday. 
My friend clicked 'follow' I imagine out of bias  and friendship not knowing what I was writing and I thank him for that.
I started off having one visit to my blog per day. Now I have maybe 15 per day. The record is 28 in one day. These visits have come from Kuwait, Poland, Singapore, Denmark and the USA as well as mostly the UK. But this is all the info I get and I still only have one follower. 
If you read this once a week even, please find a way to click yourself onto FOLLOW so I can further discover who you are.

Let's see if you are still around at 200.

Well I found a shop that will fix my iPod screen for £35.
I had to leave it over night so I left the shop patting my pockets. I almost felt naked without it. They warned me that they would have to prise open the metal to get the screen out so I should expect a slight screwdriver Mark. No problem I thought. I have just collected it the day after and when I used it I found the one button on the front really sunken into the body. Then I tried to clean the screen and five scuff marks remain where it's been scraped whilst being put in. It's not great at all but I tell myself that it's not cracked and I haven't a need to buy a new one. It still has all my things on though so Im not going to get too down about it.
Something else that I'm doing now is taking two xbox discs to Blockbusters to get repaired for £2 each. I actually pulled one of these out of the bin to get fixed, so if this service works I have saved re buying them.
Also today the case of the missing ice age 3 DVD was solved as I tried to rethink how it was there next to the tv and then was not. I went straight to it. Under the amp under the tv was a space where you could slide a DVD case in and there it was.
So today three types of things are back usable. It just shows that I should be wary of throwing things out in a mood when they might be saved somehow.

Yesterdays blog caused the friend who walked home with me to get in touch and we tried to piece the ridiculous house parties together. He told me one of them ended due to frozen prawns bring hurled about. These things were always full of possibilities so long as thrown frozen produce was as exciting as you could imagine. It made me remember long since forgotten names, mostly of girls who I had passing obsessions with. I'd work from one to the other, hormonal infatuation keeping awake at nights and haunting my days. I was absolutely desperate all the time. I didn't really know what for. I know one thing for sure though, it wasn't really as simple as wanting to lose my virginity. I needed my Happy Ever After moment straight away from the age of twelve. Was this the first time the side effects of my parents divorce had effected my life directly, a need for me to be complete. I was thought of myself of one side of a coin and believed that the other side of the coin held all the answers.
I guess there's more stories to come as I'm going to have to go back and scour my diaries from '89, '90.
In other news we went to the newly opened Toys'R us in Bradford last night. Just as good as Leeds one. My boy took toys from the shelves and put them back somewhere else a lot of the time. The members of staff followed us making the shelves straight and  symmetrical  again after us. It was very quiet for opening night. I couldn't do that job because It would drive me crazy having people put things back in the wrong area. My wife does it in the supermarket. She'll pick up an item then three isles later will see a cheaper replacement item and put the first one anywhere. I however will pick it up and walk it back to it's original location. It's the OCD in me which like the table mats in the correct drawers at home. The White go on the right and the brown on the left. If they are the other way round I have to change them. If they are mixed it infuriates me. I have muttered to myself "White on the right, it's obvious" and walked away thinking..."it's not obvious though is it, to anyone else".
But when it's been corrected it feels like I've saved the universe from imploding on itself and the balance to time itself is restored.....so it's important that they go in the right drawers and it's important that I don't work in toys R us.

Yesterdays blog about stepson wanting to impress a girl at school made me remember when I was 14,15. I was really into this girl at school. I had maybe two classes with her but those lessons were all I could think about. She seemed to also feel a similar pull towards me (puzzling). We would talk for hours on the phone in the evening and I got into trouble for running up the phone bill. But there was always something stopping it becoming a 'thing' between us. It seemed to me that actually she was a bit embarrassed about liking me a bit and she wouldn't be able to admit it in public. I just tried and tried to get off with her. She had a spell over me but she used that power to belittle me most of the time, like a cat with a mouse. 
Maybe a year later, after a house party where my  virgin mind raced at what I might get up to with her, she led me off out the sight of everyone ( slightly hurtful, but intriguing as to what she wanted to do to me), and she kissed me in a way that maybe she thought was passionately but left me more in the dark as to how to kiss well. 
This girl idol of mine put her Tongue in and out of my mouth in a fast darting action like that of a snake. Now I'd heard of a french kiss but didn't realise this was how it was meant to go. But to disguise my lack of experience I decided I had to join in before it was over. So I darted my Tongue in and out. But then I realised I didn't know whether to put my Tongue in towards hers so that they violently struck together or whether when she put hers in, I should retract mine like we were two lumberjacks cutting down a tree with one of those long saws. I tried a bit of both in an attempt to half be good at kissing. I didn't enjoy either feeling remotely. We finished and I waited for her to review which was right. But as soon as we wordlessly rejoined the others she was off into the night, presumably to snake kiss someone who she wasn't ashamed of.
Had the evenings practicing kissing my pillow or hand taught me anything, well that's for her to say. I'm still distrustful of the french kiss. I seem to remember that this was also the night which ended up with me saying I was going to throw myself off a bridge near the party. The bridge in question was about two metres high though so all that wouldve happened is that I'd have got two twisted ankles and a pair of wet shoes. 
But everything was symbolic that evening. I walked about four miles home with a great friend who listened to me pour my heart out in the moonlight and even pulled me back onto the pavement when from time to time I would risk being run over because I'd stumble into the road. But at 3am in a quiet village there was no traffic. As I said,  'Symbolic'.

I noticed my stepson had black smudges under his eyes the other day and asked if he'd been wearing makeup. He said No in an incredulous way. I said then how come it's on your face. Under such scrutiny he admitted that he had applied make up and he thought he'd got it all off. He done a few effeminate things recently and I asked if he was gay. He said No. 
I even said "it's ok if you are but if your not stop making it look like you are" I don't consider this to be homophobic or small minded of me. What I was thinking was more that I was steering him away from trouble from his peers. 
It turned out he was doing it to impress a girl at school and tonight under further questioning he said he'd learnt his lesson  and was not going to make the same mistake again because his school peers had given him no end of grief for having makeup on. The girl in question remained still unimpressed. 
In my day you just had to stand in a certain way to be called a 'Bender'. I joked with him about him wearing make up and getting stick for it and the fact that I'd said he shouldn't do it. I said "who's written on the back of your blazer" he looked surprised and said " I didnt know about it".
I said "yeah someones chalked 'Gaylord' on your blazer.. Oh hang on that was me".
This was funny to say to your mates in the 80's and it seemed to still be funny now. But again I said that it's fine if you are gay really. He said he isn't. But from what i hear the boys at school think it's cool to be bisexual, it's just another cool way of 'pulling the chicks'. 
If Being 'mincy' was cool when i was at school I probably would have faired better with the ladies. If it was also considered cool to be a wonky toothed, big eared, shit haircutted nob end I would have got off with loads, but alas those days never happened. 
My step daughter also left me dumbfounded a few days ago by saying that girls at her school now refer to 'a fit lad' as a 'BIRD', after all the grief lads got for saying that, the women of tomorrow will be saying it about lads. 

It seems Facebook is actually a good way of keeping in touch with old friends. I asked the people who I used to go drinking with if they would like to meet up one afternoon for a few drinks as something close to a reunion of sorts. It's almost ten years since I met a girl and got married etc and drifted away from the gang. It's like I always said at the time whilst sat in a beer garden,"my mates are all well and good but you can't shag your mates". It was necessary to find a mate with whom another life form was to be created, along with a reason for self worth which I didn't have at the time. I did say that I wouldn't want to be sat with the same group of people at the same pub table in ten years time and didn't go down too well at that moment but now I hope they can see what I meant. I'm looking forward to seeing all these old faces together but grayer. It's bizarre that I am the instigator but there you go. We should maybe do this every couple of years.

I received news that another family member died. A couple of weeks ago it was an uncle suffering from altzeimers and this week an Aunt. I have to say, an Aunt who dropped us as a family thirty years ago and who even so I invited to my wedding reception just to have one last time to see the loving family I thought I had when I was six all in the same room together. As I grew older I learnt of disagreements  and things said and not forgotten. So this puts me that strange position of attending the funeral of someone who couldn't be bothered with you and their immediate family who also doesn't give you a second thought. 
This also brings up the sick inappropriate thoughts that will emerge in my brain as I attend. As soon as I have anything to do with a funeral this joke goes through my mind,
"I put the FUN in Funeral" it just goes round and round and then my eldest brother will inevitably hum the theme from Reservoir Dogs as my two brothers and i walk along in our suits like he does every funeral. I guess it's like wanting to shout in the library. The truth is not welcome at a funeral especially when the truth is less than rosy. My mum said to me "I don't know if you'd like to ring your Uncle or ...."
"No way mum, I cannot do that I wouldn't know what to say, I would say something terrible"
She understood and believed I genuinely would fuck up.
(hi uncle I heard your wifes dead, yeah sorry about that, although when I say I'm sorry that doesn't mean I had anything to do with it. Apart from when I saw you at my wedding that I included you in by inviting you to, i guess it would've been thirty years since you visited me. Yes I've been very busy too, mostly building up hatred at family members that proved early on the couldn't actually care less what I was doing. Anyway I'll see you at the funeral but probably won't chat. Infact I'll avoid you as best as I can because I certainly won't know what to say to you in person. Right so I guess the next time I'll bump into you will be at your funeral ... Oh no ofcourse you'll be dead.) 
No I probably better not ring him Mum.

As we set off to go to Jimmy G's we found roadworks in place stopping us driving our chosen route over the backroads. I did a U-turn muttering to myself and drove half a mile further to be diverted a second time. So I carried on a more Main road way and ended up at a major set of traffic lights.
I'd seen people in hi vis jackets hand waving cars through the traffic lights ignoring the coloured system which make traffic lights a safe system. Then along the main road I noticed people running. Ah yes this struck a memory of signs about a big Bradford run sometime about now. So the bloke in jacket was waving cars through the gaps in runners. I couldn't understand why they ran in the middle of the road when we have pavements designed for pedestrians to travel at a number of different speeds already. The cars were not now allowed on the pavements so this seemed crazy. It was hardly the London marathon which had so many people running side by side that a road width was necessary. These runners were single file. There are plenty of public footpaths going through the fields round here so again, why do we need to use the roads?. As I grumbled to my wife I noticed there was a smattering of onlookers turning up to see people running. 
I saw an old couple together watching and clapping. 
What sort of conversation did they have this morning. 
"what are we doing today love"
"well I thought we'd travel to watch people run, you know like walking, only faster"
As I thought this the old man pulled out a camera and took pictures. I said "look at this guy, seeing the runners today in person is not enough. He wants to relive the excitement later again at home.". The man would say tonight, "do you remember earlier love when we drove to see people travelling by their feet at a hurried pace"
"oh how could I forget darling it was wonderful"
What got me the most was a member of the public running on the path just to cross the road through the runners. This man in his smart Sunday best was running behind the spectators and I said to my wife. "look he's running and  noone cares, even these fans of running are loving the road runners but to run on a pavement holds no sway with them."
My wife just said "you miserable sod, how did I get with you?".
So it may not have been my cup of tea but there's a couple enjoying there memories of pairs of feet moving one in front of the other at high speeds and not knowing the next time they can enjoy such elation in person.

I ventured into town this morning to take care of the usual things and also get my iPod screen fixed. I thought I'd ask around the backstreet shops which usually have the signs written on cardboard in marker pen. First stop was in the Market. This place did indeed fix such things and said it would cost "About £40". So i moved up the market to the second stall. I asked the same thing and he asked how much id been quoted and where from. I hoped him seeing his rival had quoted me he would be cheaper. This lad turned around to be on his mobile phone and started talking to someone about how much it was to fix my iPod. 
He put down the phone and said "About 40,45 quid". 
So my iPod would have to go to this bloke on the phone at some stage but where was he. I had some trust issues with leaving my iPod with anyone who can maybe copy all my details and cause me trouble. I moved on to the third place which had a man greet me and look at it and said "£50". So i turned him down saying i knew cheaper offers. This man asked how much id been quoted and where from. So he finally dropped his price to forty. He said it would take only twenty minutes so i said "Go for it". But then this man too picked up his mobile and spoke to a man not present in the room about the repair. Who is this shadowy figure on who they all depend to repair things? Is he in the mafia maybe 
? The kingpin of all breakages. The repairer who doesn't like his work to be viewed by the unskilled eye of the paying customer. What have I uncovered here and how long has it been going on?
Then I remembered that I'd seen something of this before......Noel Edmonds also used to commune with the faceless 'Banker' on Deal or no Deal. This man who as well as controls the boxing up of mystery amounts of cash also fixes screens in local town centre. Facinating! 
After initially saying that it would cost £50 and then £40 he left the phone saying £45. I said "you've not not the hang of this haggling business have you, I said how much and you've said 50,40,45, I'll try someone who knows the answer." And with that I took my broken screened iPod away until the next encounter with The Banker in the near future.

This morning I went into the co-op and it was decorated throughout in a Halloween style with cobwebs with plastic spiders in hanging from the ceiling. I said to the woman, "you've let the cleaning go a bit in here" and it was met with a not impressed "yeah". I shouldn't have bothered trying to make a joke. I still think it was funny and you can't tell me that everyone who goes in there makes the same joke and by the end of her shift her reply goes from "yeah" to "fuck off".

Just the other day I'd been sent to the shop for chocolate for the wife and kids and she asked if I wanted any too. I shook my head and pulled a face as if to say, Nah I'm not a big lover of chocolate. What my mind said was 'well what touring know is I ate four Mars bars for a quid this morning and I think that's plenty'.
I'm very much looking forward to my Ghost Hunt at Halloween with West Yorkshire Paranormal Group. It will be great walking round a large building at night with only the dead for company. A bit like Asda at midnight.
Speaking of the term Ghost Hunt, this is the pet name my wife has for me when talking to her sisters in London, I distinctly heard her saying that she thinks I'm a bit of a Ghosthunt, but I always did struggle with cockney rhyming slang.

My wife was I'll with a cold. She lay through the early evening on the couch whilst everyone tried to go about their usual business. My wife shushed us and said would everyone keep the noise down. It was about 8 pm that even the two year old was being told he was talking too loudly. The tv was off due to my wife in and out of sleep.
Maybe... This makes me look a twat, but I think it's really bad to sleep in the front room as it causes everyone else to live in the bedroom. So these two things are the wrong way round to me. The poorly one should be asleep in bed unless they are well enough to not have to annoy the other four by prohibiting them from normal healthy services. Who falls asleep at 8 and doesn't go to bed when I'll? Women it would seem. If I was that I'll I'd be bed. So at 9pm I put on headphones and watched Rec2 which I was really enjoying. My wife snored loudly for an hour and I didn't shush her once. 
She stirred enough to make some conversation so i paused the film and took headphones off. I couldn't continue then as it would be ignorant. But did she go to bed, no. She lay looking asleep and so I could do nothing but sit in silence not knowing if she was coming round or not. After an hour of this I gave up the fight. 10 pm it was when we went to bed. I find that rude everytime but dare I say so, no. 

My good friend had the vicar round last night to arrange details for the Christening of his newborn girl. It got me wondering as to why we, by that I mean society, do these faith related offerings at certain times. I mean we all celebrate the birth of Jesus by joining in with Christmas. Now my unreligious friend was having a third christening. Do we do this to get our kids a place in heaven incase it exists? The bible makes it obvious that it's not as easy as that. But if we are hedging our bets then we should also join all Muslim religions and whatever else. But just involving ourselves with one religion we don't actually believe in seems at best disrespectful. Yet lots do it. I find it fascinating. I don't know what I believe. I tried to convey this via text to my friend but when I read it back it came across judgemental. So then I had to apologise because I may have seemed like I was pointing the finger. I wasn't, I know it's what we feel we should do.

As I sat on my sofa I heard a music start up which I took to be upstairs at first. It suddenly increased enough to sound like my neighbour. What made it strange was the song was 'the power of love' by Huey Lewis and the News. The 80's hit from Back to the Future. In other words not the song that you would blast out loud. Although this has been played loudly in the film American Psycho when Christian Bales character has a killing spree in his home. Anyway it became apparent that this song was a car stereo driving past my house and started to fade. It was a weird thirty seconds.

At lunchtime during work I checked my emails and upon outgoing iPod away it fell glass face first flat onto the concrete kitchen floor. I picked it up hoping there would be nothing wrong but it had shattered but not come away out of phone housing. Luckily it works as normal but glass needs replacing. So far forty quid is what I'm quoted to repair it and that's ignoring Youtube's answer to do it yourself.
My tears would not have helped fix it so I had to shrug it off. If the worst happened I would buy another and that's the bottom line. I looked at iPhones the day before but I can't justify £30 a month on a phone bill. I'd like an iPad and I've found a Chinese website where they are sold under another name for £130 but still I can't allow myself to buy one. 

We had all got sloppy locking the back garage door over time. There's no access to the house and there's nothing worth stealing really but it should still be locked each time. My wife said that we should install a Yale lock in this door so that when we close it it locks. I said " I know a cheaper way... Just lock the fucking door"
She laughed and said that really hadn't occurred to her as she said that. I just saved us thirty quid. I said I am here to save her money. She wanted a new sofa the other week and I told her we already had one, I saved about £1500 that time. 
I even slowed down her looking for holidays by saying I didn't want to go. That saved a good £3000. 

Today's calendar quote says " it's never too late to have a happy childhood" how wrong is that?, when you are no longer a child it's too late right? Or am I missing something? 
I realise that they have to have 364 of these a year but I could make up better. 
It's like "you can't have your cake and eat it" I had a cake and I ate it!  Stupid meaningless quotes. 
"It ain't over until it's over" " if it ain't broke don't fix it"

Off the top of my head I can certainly match that
"it's not inside out, it's just outside in" 
"it's better to have NEVER loved than to have loved and lost and spent twelve months after being dumped at the bottom of a glass while that bitch flaunts around town with the new bloke who looks like a right dick"
I guess it's too long for a page a day calendar.

Awoke after ten hours sleep so everyones in a refreshed mood. We cleaned the house including mopping which shows the level of effort put in. Then we sorted out toys to give to the childrens ward and rearranged toys that have been least played with into main pile. Then the easel came out for painting followed by the kitchen sink being played in which ended up with my boy and my floor covered in water. His big plastic dinosaur is very popular with him today and it seems to never be too far away. The suns out now but we won't be doing much today although a visit to my Grans is overdue.

Just got back from my Grans who's 90 and she's been told that she has arthritis for first time. I hope I live as long as her and have her level of fitness. It's nice that she's familiar with my son who I look just like compared to the pictures on her wall of me as a youngster. So with that visit to see Gran and donating toys to the childrens ward I feel I've had a good day. 

After six snakebites my body gave me a two minute window to reach the bed. My wife complained out of the darkness that I'd just set off to bed without warning. I was too tired to re explain the rules of drinking and how strange things happen when one is under it's influence.
There was no frostiness left over in the morning thankfully.
Went to town and got ideas for Christmas because that's what your forced to do if you enter a shop. We called at the library and as we were looking at the kids books which always appear sticky, ripped and dribbled on my lad picked up "Where's my shoes?". I looked in the front to see the date Sept 12th. I said "it's ok, this one's not been licked for a while so it'll be dry now". 
He didn't want to take books out anyway.
The two lads were quiet last night actually, but 24 hours later and I'm waiting for him to go now.

Due to tiredness we went out for tea. My boy weed in his undies before we reached the pub so we went home. Once cleaned up we set off in the opposite direction to go to Pizza Hut. It was busy and with my son being restless it was quite stressful for me. Whenever I'm in a crowded place I'm a little stressed but wrestling with a two year old makes it  worse.
Step son has a friend staying over tonight so it could be stressful if I'm kept awake by them. I'll have a few snakebites to try and relax. I followed a foisty smell to step daughters room and sure enough there was clean clothes mixed in with old. Also in the mix were smelly flannels and crisp and chocolate wrappers. These are all the same crimes that get repeated. I'm having to take a deep breath and ignore it as much as possible because I feel wound up about it. There is a little bit of payback in my unplugging wires from her TV and hiding her iPod. 

Baileys Irish Cream made a valiant attempt at keeping my wife asleep for the night after a stressful days work. By 9 pm I was on Splinter Cell with her comatose till half eleven. She went to bed, shortly followed by myself. 
My wife was awake at 1:30am and sat downstairs. It was around 4:30 that she stomped angrily into the bedroom and knocked a glass of water over. If we had owned a cat, I think it wouldn't been kicked at this point. Her anger radiated from her and I felt guilty for seeming to be asleep so I was awake then. I got up and went downstairs to lay on the couch in solidarity. My wife came from fighting with the bedclothes and we talked about her work/insomnia problems over a cup of tea for an hour. She's permanently wired anyway without work being too much to take. 
We probably grabbed an hours power sleep until 6;30.
Let's see if taking kalms on a night can help, failing that I'll slip her a horse tranquilliser.

My email account had a security alert and so blocked me out. I've sorted it now so hopefully that's ok. My son won't eat his tea and his pretend whine has forced me to put him to the table with his tea and leave him to it. It sounds like he's praying in a foreign accent and then stopping to listen for a reaction. Wow it's amazingly annoying but I'm staying calm.
My wife is having trouble at work but they don't seem to care. I keep telling her not to give a shit, just clock in and out and let them change things to make it run better. But she is more of a proud worker than that and won't allow that attitude to play out. 
Work will always try make you work beyond your duty, we are all suppose to care as much as the people at the top even on crap wages. I'm lucky with my job, because I like it I don't mind doing extra. 
Watching childrens tv adverts it doesn't seem to have got any better. The toys have more electronic parts maybe but they also seem more plastic, I guess that is from being made cheaper. It's all the main products such as Thomas The Tank Engine and Postman Pat etc. but it looks rubbish. Old toys are better still. More love went into making them.

My stepson returned from the hospital with his above eyebrow cut glued by the hospital. I thought that if they glued it too tight he would have a permanently raised eyebrow or a 'Roger Moore'. They said he can't get soap on it for ten days, no bloody problem there then, he's managed thirteen years so far. 
In other news, my mate at work has got one of the new iPod touches and he's all over it during work. It's great to see him like that after all the grief he's given me when I pull mine out.
So that's three out of four stood with iPods whilst at work. The odd lad out is exactly that, ODD, he doesn't have Sky or Internet at home even. Who doesnt have Internet at home?
Him.
Although he's the only one actually working because the other three of us are comparing apps. My boss must be getting pissed off now everyone has a gadget to stare at.

I was calling at my mums on the way home to pick up my coat which I'd forgotten at the weekend. We got talking about mine and sisters ghost hunt we are going on Oct 30. My mother has always mostly brushed aside all possibility of ghosts existence and yet will tell stories that she can't explain and that still appear to scare her. It's a matter of annoyance with me and makes me want to have some kind of experience which is good evidence of the existence of some other realm of existence. Mid debate my wife rang me to say that my stepson had gashed his head open. I rushed home to find him with a groove above his eyebrow which was not exactly flooding at all, but I'm sure it was sore and I expect it will scar, so he went to the hospital to have scar damage reduced. The hospital feels like a second home at the moment.

Another weekend and my son is Ill. His back teeth are coming through on top of his cold. They say that teething does cause unwell symptoms amongst babies etc. He's amazingly clingy today but his breathing is under control at least. His face is very hot though. I escaped to Farm Foods to get frozen goods. It's cheap to shop there so it has a lot of lowlife citizens in who look rough. Even the checkout morons throw your purchases down to the packing end with a speed that makes you feel rushed, naturally this process makes me anxious so I just threw it into my basket, then moved away to pack. This was a successful process that I will do next time.

5pm back from the hospital again, this time we saw the out of hours doctor. He said we could double the dose of medicines to bring my sons temperature down. 
The last two visits to the hospital has made me want to give toys to the childrens ward which we don't use. They are so valuable to the boredom of waiting even for the adults as there's no way of knowing how long you'll be there. The toys I came across were broken chunks of electronic shit that I wouldn't pull out of a skip. But even they bring joy to the Ill kids. We have boxes of toys that are almost untouched. It's not right to just throw them out.

10:20pm and my wife has gone to bed after sleeping on sofa. I was drifting off a little after our large tea we made and my two bottles of badger bitter. Four years and we are total lightweights at drinking and even staying awake. My boy must run us ragged. He had a temperature today though so I feel I've been wearing him like a necklace he's been so clingy. He finally ate at half eight and had medicines and went to bed just in time for us to watch tv for an hour. I tried to stay up playing Splinter Cell Conviction but at 10:45pm I too was in bed.
At 3am my boys voice was cheerfully telling me he wanted to come in my bed, I put him back, then again at 3:30 and 4:00 and 4:30, when he said he needed the loo, which is just a taste of things to come when in taking him to the toilet in the night too. At one point as I'm wrestling with him, my says bring me up a fresh water please. She had not helped with him once through the night shift. At 7am it was commercial radio that woke me and my son up coming from my step daughters alarm clock. 
So yet again tiredness is going to rule my day and have me in bed early.

Sure enough I was up at 5:50am with little boy watching Ice Age 3. He surprised me yesterday by mimicking the music to the 20th century fox logo, and just now he imitated the stringed incidental music over a dramatic scene that I'd not even noticed. You always think your kids are bright but the nursery always compliment him on being advanced.(I can't take credit for that unfortunately). 
2nd October. It's our wedding anniversary today, four years of marriage.  I have to admit that I'm rubbish at it. It seems to me now that it's the feeling of security that I need and not the interaction, which is good as we have nothing in common (although we do live in the same house and eat meals together). I must do her head in but I can only be myself. I need to ignore the teen angst that is paraded through the house. A few drinks hopefully and maybe some tea in a pub later. I feel better for having had a good thrash on my games consoles, it keeps me in touch with the child in me, or ME as it's also known.

A little spare time presented itself so I completed Halo reach. Lovefilm had brought Splinter Cell Conviction so I did a couple of hours on it. Once I'd had enough I put on Four Lions, it's very funny and controversial about some Muslims idiots and terrorism. It's always the case that I'm too tired when I get a chance to stay up because my wifes gone out. My son went to bed at seven pm which is unheard of. I expected him to wake up but he's down for the night, so I expect he'll rise early.