Back!

Hi!

Made it back at last! Christmas started off well but by lunchtime on Christmas Day the flu was setting in. I was in bed by 6pm and only really mended over the weekend. Everyone else in the house had a slight touch of something that only lasted a day. Wah, poor little me, what did I do to deserve that?

Well, this will be my last post to this address, my new home will be:

http://rock-chef.blogspot.com/

Thought a change of address for the New Year would be a good start.

Hope you all had a better time than I did, I will be catching up as soon as possible!

Hardly any days left!

Christmas is now hurtling at us like a freight train, but I think we are nearly ready - except for the last of the food!

Cards are sent, presents, except for a few stocking fillers, are bought and around half of them wrapped. Yep, we are getting there!

Food wise, we are switching back to a routine that we had a few years back.

On Christmas Eve we do a large gammon and eat this with cheese, rice and fresh home made rolls. This is something that we all enjoy - quite an achievement in our house!

On Christmas Day we do not have a set meal, but allow everyone to eat tons of biscuits, chocolate, etc, and then cook a series of savoury things throughout the day to be eaten as a buffet. We find that this works well as it means that we are not telling the kids to leave the goodies alone all day, not dishing up a huge meal when no one is actually hungry and finally not slaving in the kitchen when there is fun to be had elsewhere!

Boxing Day sees the big dinner, but instead of the massive ostrich sized turkey that we often feel obliged to buy we are either having a variety of other meat - beef, pork and duck - or an alternative that the kids like the sound of is to cook a batch of small chickens and have one each! We will see how it turns out!

Most of all we are hoping that the holiday will give us time to relax and get ourselves sorted out physically and emotionally to take on 2008 - who knows what that will have in store for us?

This might be my last post of the year - if it is I wish you a wonderful Christmas and a fantastic New Year. May all your wishes, dreams and prayers come true in 2008.

Love and hugs (if appropriate)

Rock Chef

Thinking of S-E-X as a running race...

Guys, picture this.

You are at the race track, all geared up in your shorts, shirt and spikes ready for a race. You persuade a lovely female runner to race with you. She agrees and off you go, pelting down the track as fast as your legs can carry you. You hurtle around the track and complete the lap just as she finishes getting organised on the starting blocks. She is ready to go and you are just not ready to go round again - not JUST yet anyway!

Do this too often and no one will want to race you, will they?

Familiar? I hope not, but if it is, read on.


Here are a few hints that will make running with you more appealing:

• Do not try to "win" the race.
• Give the other runner a head start - warm up on the start line for a while so she can at least get going before you set off after her. Letting her complete a couple of laps first will make her much more likely to want to race you again.
• When you finally do set off, don't sprint, pace yourself. Soldiers often use a mix of jogging and fast walking to allow them to cover very long distances without tiring...
• Remember that you will probably only get to do one lap without a good rest, so try to make sure that you both cross the finish line at the same time.
• You may find that, after all this the other runner is all fired up for another lap or two. Do what you can to make sure she succeeds. Again, this will make her more likely to want to race you again.

That is all for today.

Happy racing everyone!

Another odd dream...

Well, Saturday saw the final of the UK X-Factor competition - a show where they try to find a new pop superstar, or at least someone that will guarantee Simon Cowell the Christmas Number 1 slot!

The final three were a very strange Welshman (in white), a young Scot who was good at singing like Frank Sanatra (in black) and a brother-sister act (called Same Difference) who were like High School Musical meets Donny and Marie meeting happy pills (oh come on, you really need to be told which ones they are?). Of the three they were by far the most entertaining, but they came 3rd. My kids were incensed. The show is about pop music and these two were about as pop music as it comes, but no, the Scottish crooner won.

We watched something else, I finished my bottle of wine, had a bath and headed for bed.

I then had the same dream 3 times in a row!

I had won the lottery (a rollover, so it was a big one) and had asked the kids what they really wanted for Christmas. The unanimous decision was that they wanted Same Difference to be number 1 for Christmas, so I had arranged and paid for them to release a CD!

3 times I dreamed that!

On Sunday morning, I checked my numbers and found that - I hadn't won a penny, so it was, as they say, just a dream. Oh well.

It doesn't get much better than this...

Here I sit, doing light, untaxing work, with a slice of Christmas cake and a bottle of Coke nearby, and "A Christmas Story" playing on a computer. Check out Terri's post on this movie!

Life is good.

Stuff

Well Christmas is well and truly on its way - the weather has snapped to beautifully clear skies, no wind and very low temperatures. Frost was forming as I walked the dog at 7.30pm yesterday and feathery strands of freezing fog floated in the air. I felt like Shaggy with Scooby-Doo!

Last night was also the High School Prize Giving ceremony and my oldest son won his year prize for computing and also the "Best in Year" award. It was so good to see him going up onto the stage to get his prizes, [end of proud parent's rambling on].

Now that we have money again, I was able to spend lunch dashing around grabbing some presents, somehow managing to find everything I was looking for and get something to eat into the bargain!

Hey, things must really be looking up - I have actually managed to write some cards (well 3 actually) too! Amazing! Now I just have to knuckle down and do the rest!

Not long left now: http://www.auburn.edu/~vestmon/xmas_cnt.htm

Santa Claus IS coming to town...

Well, now that the crisis is over, I think I can talk about it. This was the final straw last week when I wrote about the world crapping on my head...

We were contacted by the Taxman - we owe him a ton of money and can we pay it back?

No we don't owe him any money and no, we couldn't pay that back right now even if we wanted to! He then agreed that it was a mistake, in fact he owes US money! He will try to sort it out as soon as possible.

Well, after a week with no money (their original mistake caused a total screw up with the bank) they have finally sorted it out - we have money, we can afford Christmas, Santa IS coming to town!

Santa Pooh's Grotto

I finally got started on the Christmas decorations. The main focus was setting up my older daughter's Winnie the Pooh tree in our front porch. My daughter was a Pooh fanatic, even when she was ill in hospital, at the age of 17, her Pooh Bear blankets, pajamas, hair bands, etc, were her trade mark with the nurses.



We only blocked this in during the summer so it is the first time we have decorated it.

The final addition was her biggest Pooh wearing my old Santa outfit:

Pooh Bear's Grotto is complete. My wife has done the living room. I still have to finish the hall and diningroom...

An evening stroll with the dog

Last night I took Custard out for rather longer than usual.

To start with I had to pop to my Mom's house to collect the food for her pony - she had a fall the other day and has not been able to get out since, so I have been feeding per pony, Humphrey, each morning on my way to work.

While there, Custard had is first encounter with cats inside a house. He put up his hackles, bouced around and woofed, but they just looked down their noses at him and snuggled deeper into the chairs.

After leaving mom's house I headed for the beach. It was a very nice evening, the wind had dropped,the sky was clear with lots of stars, and the beach was not far away. It was a wonderful view - to the East was the main seafront of the town with its amusement arcades, leisure centre, clock tower, etc all lit up like, well like a British seaside town, I guess! To the North, out in the Thames estuary were white lights indicating where the ships were and red light announcing the off shore wind farm that we have got. Finally, to the West I could see the lights of other towns - Whitstable, The Isle of Sheppey and the distant glow in the sky that marked Chatham and Rochester. We strolled along the prom for a mile or so, Custard enjoying the new smells, I having a nostalgia trip back to my youth when I would walk this path on a daily basis.

We reached a point that jutted into the sea, at which point a line of rocks ran out for a further few hundred yards. I could hear the water gurgling and swashing over them. Funny. As a kid, those rocks seemed so massive when we climbed on them, but they are actually only a couple of feet high! I guess everything seems huge when you are tiny!

Then we ambled back home, Custard draining his water bowl while I hunted for a cold beer.

The 3 bears................the real story

A far more accurate account of the events of that fateful morning.....


Baby bear goes downstairs, sits in his small chair at the table, and he looks into his small bowl. It is empty. "Who's been eating my porridge?" he squeaks.


Daddy Bear arrives at the big table and sits in his big chair. He looks into his big bowl and it is also empty. "Who's been eating my porridge?!?" he roars.


Mummy Bear puts her head through the serving hatch from the kitchen and yells, "For God's sake, how many times do we have to go through this with you idiots?


It was Mummy Bear who got up first.


It was Mummy Bear who woke everyone in the house.


It was Mummy Bear who made the coffee.


It was Mummy Bear who unloaded the dishwasher from last night and put everything away.


It was Mummy Bear who went out in the cold early morning air to fetch the newspaper and croissants.


It was Mummy Bear who set the damn table.


It was Mummy Bear who put the bloody cats out, cleaned the litter boxes, gave the cats their food, and refilled their water. And now that you've decided to drag your sorry bear-asses downstairs and grace Mummy Bear with your grumpy presence, listen carefully, because I'm only going to say this once.....................................................................









I HAVEN'T MADE THE F***ING PORRIDGE YET!!!

(Made me smile anyway!)

Back soon when life stops crapping on my head!

Sport

Over the years that have been a range of scandals affecting sports of various types - steroid abuse and match/race fixing being the first to come to mind.

European soccer is currently under scrutiny for match fixing. Now I am not a fan of soccer and do not really care if the matches are fixed or not, but if things are going to be fixed they might as well do it in style! Let's look at what the next World Cup Final could look like...


Well, Bob, it looks like England are about to lose out to their old rivals, Germany.

Yes, Jerry, it is 1970 all over again, England just can't keep up with this German squ-

Hold on there, Bob, I don't believe what I am seeing here, but the Germans seem to have 6 balls on the pitch at the same time, the English don't have a chance now! The goalie just can't stop 6 balls at once.

Come on, where is the ref? He is being distracted by the German manager and his two sexy young girlfriends...

[Loud rock music starts]

Whoa! What's happening now? Bob, is this what I think it is?

Yes, Jerry, it is! The American team has come onto the pitch too and is helping out the English team! I haven't seen anything like this before! The Special Relationship really IS unshakable!

Oh no, Bob, I can't look! The German substitutes have now gone onto the pitch, and they hav got FOLDING CHAIRS!!!!!


There, now wouldn't that be much more fun?

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

This morning I was laying in bed, in that half asleep, half awake state, half listening to the early morning radio show that we use as our alarm.

Suddenly, my wife woke up with a start.

"Wha! Oh I just had a horrible dream!" She looked visibly shaken by whatever it was - perhaps the old "being eaten alive by rats" one?

I hugged her, telling her it was OK, just a dream.

"But it was horrible. The tree. You decorated my tree and it was horrible!"

Notice "my tree".

The she went on to describe how I had decorated the tree in her dream. As she talked about the details I mentally ticked off items - yes, yes, yes, ooh that's a good idea, yes, yes...

"So, if I did the tree even remotely like that it would be bad, would it?"

"Well, in my dream I was trying to work out now much I could change it each day without anyone else noticing until I could live with it".

In the discussion that followed we came to the conclusion that I might have to give up my claim on the living room and be happy with the porch and hall - the thought of me doing the tree has clearly traumatised my poor wife!

I will still endeavour to take pictures, though...

How many children...

Going back to the subject of children, I always find it interesting to compare people's reactions to family sizes.

As our family grew the reactions changed:

One child: Ah, that's nice. Have you thought of having another one to keep her company?

Two children: Yes, we decided to have two, any more and we would have to buy a bigger house.

Three children: How do you manage? It must be mayhem in your house.

Four children: Are you Catholic? No? [Thinks: "Must just be insane then".]

The strange thing is, in our experience, the amount of effort involved in having more children did not increase in direct proportion to the numbers. The second only seemed to require about half as much additional work as the first, the third half that again until the fourth just seemed to fit in without any noticable change! Others have probably felt differently, perhaps two felt like MORE THAN twice as much work as one? I would be interested to hear views on this.

[Hm, do you think that will distract them from the Christmas decoration thing? Will they forget about the photos? If I keep quiet I might get away with it...]

Christmas Decorations...

In our house we usually have 2 distinct types of decoration.

In the living room, my wife performs wonders of good taste - twinkling white lights, red ribbons, an angel here and there. It looks like something from a life-style magazine.

The hall and kitchen are usually where me and the kids are let loose. This is where the second tree groans under the weight of my older daughter's Winnie the Pooh decorations, where we have the singing Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore live, where the garish LED disco ball lights go, where the home made paper chains are hung, where the dozens of multicoloured mirror balls hang from the ceiling. In other words it is the absolute opposite of how our livingroom looks.

This year looks like being a bit different - it looks like I, that is ME will be let loose in the livingroom! Yes, the haven of good taste is going to be taken over by my crass, garish, wonderful decorating! The tree will not know what hit it! I have seen the amazing new tree docorations and stuff to string across the ceiling and - ooh I can't wait!

Hahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!!!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!!!

Who knows, I might even post photos if you are really unlucky!

Infertility...

Recently I have kept thinking back to when my wife and I were first together. My wife had been married already and was undergoing infertility treatment, but the basic message from the experts was "forget it, you will never have children". Here are a few of my strongest memories from this time.

It seemed that everyone else was able to pop out babies at will. "We are thinking of having another baby - ooh look, I'm pregnant". [Plop] "Ah, it's a boy!"

It seemed that the vast majority of parents wished they did not have their kids. We would be bursting with rage - why have them if all you are going to do is shout at them and beat them while you are doing the shopping? We only wanted one and these people seemed to have about 10 each that they did not want!

There were times when we had to stop ourselves stealing babies! I remember going past a shop with a screaming baby in a pram outside and no one in sight looking after it. I know that stealing children is a terrible thing to do, but we were THAT close, believe me!

Oh, and the tests! My wife went through all sorts of horrible tests as they tried to find out what was wrong. It was awful. Meanwhile, there was only one test that I could do and that wasn't too bad, just terribly embarassing! Once they asked for a sample that was less than 15 minutes old and I live an hour away from the hospital... Eeeeeeeeewwwwww!

The worst thing was the way the clinics were arranged at the hospital. We would be sitting in the waiting room, usually for over an hour because the doctors were always running late. In the SAME waiting room would be the families with multiple births - hordes of twins and triplets! It felt like they were all sitting there shouting "In your face! We got 3 in one go!"

Well, somehow we managed to produce 4 kids, much to the dismay of the doctors who still maintained that it was not possible! I think it was a combination of luck, prayer and good old fashioned HARD WORK ;-)

Emus!

Kenady has kindly given me an AWARD:

I was really pleased to get this for a number of reasons.

Firstly it is good to know that people read and enjoy my blog.

SecondlyI love emus - they are such strange looking creatures with real attitude. If I had a big enough place I would have a pet one.

Finally, emus remind me of my childhood.

This is Rod Hull and Emu. I don't know how famous they are overseas, but any Brit who is older than around 25 will recognise them. At the peak of their fame they went on prime-time chat shows and repeatedly attacked the presenters - as a child it was amazing to see such pillars of the establishment as Michael Parkinson cringe in the face of a puppet:

before being physically assaulted:

Ah, they don't make TV like that anymore!

Now I have to give this award to someone else! Let's see:

Ali's blog is always one of the first I read each day, and is now compulsory reading as the Butterbean Countdown continues!

I always pay homage to the Princess of the Universe.

I also love reading Mindy Does Minneapolis, mainly because she continually fails to live up to the trashiness that she seems to promise!

Product Names

I have seen a lot of things over the years that discuss how a product name that is used successfully in one country has failed terribly in another country because the name already means something else in the new country. Examples of this are a drink whose name translated as "urine" or a car whose name translated as "small penis".

"Hey baby, you wanna see my car? I've got a small penis!"

No, doesn't work, does it?

Anyway, I was in one of the posher shops in town today when I was confronted by a huge display of these:

and their friends. Now I am not a coffee drinker and the smell of strong coffee makes me feel ill. So imagine my mirth when I read the name: GAGGIA.

Now where I come from, "gagging" is that feeling you get in your throat just before you vomit! What a great name! I wonder if they know that the name of their product suggests vomitting? Perhaps it is a marketing ploy aimed at models who are trying to fit into size 0 dresses?

Who can tell?

Strangeness

We were staying in a very large house with large, ornate gardens all around.

Suddenly there was a loud crash outside, so we all rushed to see what it was. There, right in the middle of what had been an ornate patio area was a large lump of some sort of rock. After a pause we decided that we had better have a go at clearing up the mess, but no matter what we did we could not move or break up the rock.

While we stood there thinking, someone appeared from the cellar with a bottle of something and poured it over the rock, which promptly began to melt in the way the expanded polystyrene does when you put the wrong glue on it. In a few moments all we had was a small puddle which we thought would soon evaporate.

Not so, it started to bubble and expand. Then it split and a man crawled out - a man who appeared to be made of shiny black stone. He then set to work lifting things out off the bubbling mass, statues of varying size - horses, trains, etc, which he proceeded to take into the house and arrange on shelves and in corners. We tried to stop him but he just pushed us aside and carried on.

Then Kirk Douglas came leaping over a wall, dressed as Spartacus. Sword in hand he attacked the man, but was unable to make any impression. Fearing that our hero would be injured, I rushed into the house, found a large sword that went with one of the suits of armour and went to help him. The sword did no damage but I was able to cause a diversion so everyone was at last able to get into the house and barricade the doors.

Then we sat down to decide what to do next. If it was a movie there would be a weakness that we could exploit to save the day. Looking at the bottle that the liquid had come from we found that it had contained some sort of bacteria. Ah ha! We had Anti-bacterial washing up liquid in the kitchen! A quick test on one of the statues that were in the house proved that this was the secret, so we all loaded water pistols, super soakers and squeezy bottles with washing up liquid and, following behind Spartacus, burst out of the house and destroyed the man that had come out of the foam.

Now was that a strange dream or what? The next night my dream involved nukes and Sean Connery!

The Eight meme

Kiki kindly tagged me for this - here goes!

8 things I am passionate about:

1. My family
2. Playing my guitars
3. Dogs
4. Reading
5. My work
6. Cycling
7. Food
8. Um, "being married" if you get my drift...

8 things I often say:

1. Quotes from The Simpsons
2. Can I have a quesadilla with cheesy nachos and a Coke
3. Did you HAVE to drive that close you *&%$!
4. I am hungry
5. Can I buy a new set of strings?
6. Is it that late already?
7. Where did the weekend go?
8. Sorry I did not mean to turn it up THAT loud
   

8 books I have read recently:

1. Bill Bryson, Down Under
2. Stuff about the Black Prince and the Battle of Poitiers
3. An alternative history about what might have happened if the Spanish Armada had succeeded in conquering England
4. Stuff about the Polish army in the 17th Century
5. Stuff about doing maps on computers, related to my work
6. Something by Terry Pratchett
7. The Penguin Dictionary of The Bible, with maps by me(!)
8. Stuff about the Romans

8 things to do before I die:

1. Play in a band again
2. See my kids through to adulthood, hey maybe even see a grandchild!
3. Take the coast to coast train journey across Canada, taking a few detours to visit people
4. Write a book
5. Write and publish a set of wargame rules
6. Learn to play the piano
7. Learn to play the drums
8. Finish painting all of my toy soldiers

8 songs I could listen to over and over again:

1. Strangers in the Darkness by Gary Moore
2. Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd
3. Stormy Monday by The Allman Brothers
4. While My Guitar Gently Weeps, as played by Jeff Healey
5. The song that Ray Charles sings in The Blues Brothers
6. Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd
7. Helleluyah I Love Her So, as played by Humble Pie
8. The karaoki version of Ebony and Ivory from the movie Undercover Brother

8 things that attract me to my friends

1. A sense of humour
2. Intelligence
3. Similar interests
4. Can't think of anything else - I just tend to click with people or not!

8 things I have learned in the last year

1. How great blogging is
2. That Doctors can do whatever they like and not have to answer for it
3. How much my wife loves me
4. Lots of stuff about maps and computers
5. How little we really know about what happened in the past - so much British history seems to have been made up by the Victorians
6. Lots of new stuff on the guitar
7. I have got one particular, really good friend that I met a couple of years ago. This year I realised that we actually met once over 25 years ago, had planned to meet up again but never did until recently.
8. I love bagels

Phew, made it! Anyone else want to try this one? I won't tag anyone because I am nice ;-)