Its been a while since I graced this site with my presence, wonder if anyone's still here.

There has been lots and lots happen since my last visit, firstly me & Nic are getting on great.

Jack is amazing me every day with his speech, his grasp of the world around him and his ability to grow more than I ever imagined...give him a year and he'll be stealing my clothes.

We weren't going to go away for holiday this year but we got a good deal to Alcudia so off we went, Jack loved the water both sea and pool. He seemed to have no fear of the water, I thought he might be a bit hesitant at first but no troubles there..he just ran straight to the sea on the first day when we went to the beach. We spent more time around the pool than at the beach because it was just so hot, at least the pool was near our room so in the afternoon while Nic fried herself I took Jack in to have a nap. Some days he didn't want to sleep...what a blessing my new mobile was, I had loaded some episodes of Kipper the dog, his favourite at the time...it always helped him to calm down and get to sleep.

When we got home we decided we wanted to move when our tenancy was up at the end of august, the house we were living in had a small garden and it never seemed to get any sunlight so it was always damp and not good for Jack to play in. Our new house has a big garden and lots more room inside as well, Jack loves this house so much better and so do we. It is nearer to Nic's work and as she works early in the bakery she doesn't have to get up so early and its so much better now the bad weather is starting.

In september Jack started at playgroup, he has come on leaps and bounds with his talking...sometimes he has conversations with himself, it can be very funny. It is so nice when we get paintings and stuff he has done at playgroup, he made a poppy last week and has made biscuits for halloween. I have changed my hours at work so get to take Jack to school some weeks and it's great having that time with him so I can at least talk to the staff and get a feel for how he is doing rather than having to hear it second hand from Nic or grandad who takes him most of the time.

Jack was getting excited about halloween so we bought him a spider outfit and let him go trick or treating to nanny & grandads house, then Nic took him to some of her friends as well.

I have added some new photo's, the one with the pig is the most recent...hasn't my boy grown up!

If anybody calls to make a donation during children in need next week you may get to speak to me, I will be taking calls for donations for at least a couple of hours next friday so call and give me some of your cash!!

Today has been a lot better, you see this is the problem...some days are great and others crappy. I do like Mr Brainwhispers coping mechanism... "lots of jaffa cakes, crisps and fizzy drinks". I don't have any jaffa cakes so maybe toffee viennese whirls, pringles and wine (not to mention the fact that I've already had a few pancakes, oh crap I just did mention it...forget i said that).

Today we have been mostly spending Jack's birthday money on cool thomas the tank engine top and 2 scooby doo tops, they are all soooo cool. We also bought some playdough accessories cos the little fella got some playdough yesterday, so this afternoon I have been playing with playdough and it was such good fun.

Tomorrow I think we are going to see my mum, so a chance for me to put my feet up a little and say here you go nanny, he's all yours! Thursday depending on the weather we are maybe going to twycross zoo and then friday perhaps swimming.

Fingers crossed the rest of the week is like today.

So my son Jack is 2 years old today, we decided not to have a party this year, was just to be us and the grandparents popping in for cake and to sing happy birthday. That was the plan... it then became having cake at grandparents as Nic's friend is a photographer and was coming to take some pics...the grandparents hous eis bigger than ours so more room to have decent pics taken.
Now what should be a very happy day for me became a day to seriously think about having to go back on anti-depressants. We went to Jam Jam;s this morning which was great but then when we got to nic's parents house several of nic's friends had been invited, the photo's were of Jack & everyone...but me! Nic made me feel about as welcome as a dose of the clap at my own son's birthday.
I am trying really hard to keep my family together but right now I am seriously thinking it might be worth all the hassle of being a single parent because I am in need of something to prove to me my life is really worth it right now. I spent a long time on anti-depressants years ago and i seem to be heading down the same path again.

Let me introduce Russell....

For the last 4 and a bit years I have been working for a company that has a tendency to suck the very life out of anyone who works there, the upside is that occasionally I have got to meet some great people. One such person is Russell.

Russell is a sometimes sane person who sends me random thoughts and links on instant messenger which alleviates the mind - numbing tedium that is my day to day existence (at work anyway). Many have commented on the possibility that Russell and I could be long lost twin brothers, however it is not clear to us why...after all, he is short, fat, bald & wears glasses whereas I am short ,fat & have very little hair...oh yeah, and I wear glasses.

I have told Russell his random acts of messenging madness deserve a wider audience so I will be including some of this madness in my future posts, starting with the message that greeted me at work this morning:


Russell said at 8:14AM:
Statistically speaking, 6 out of 7 dwarves aren't happy.

See, the guy is not playing with a full deck.... need more proof:


Russell said at 12:08PM:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/yahoolatestnews/stories/011609dnmetdenton.5c376ef.html?npc - A green delivery by the boys in brown.

And in case you are still not convinced:


Russell said at 2:08PM:
BACON HITLER - http://img.ffffound.com/static-data/assets/6/c97c5e25fa0469b4b6814f11dd60b282956e69f7_m.jpg


Now for those of you that like this guy's style maybe you should check out www.halloweenman.com as he is the editor of this little slice of comic heaven/hell (delete as appropriate). Not one to be shy he asked me to plug this site, I think it is something to do with glorifying his existence somewhat.

Anyway we never did get much snow so I never got my snow day and despite more of the white chilly stuff falling on this fair isle today I doubt it will happen anytime soon. Take care peoples if you have to venture out into the cold, icy wilderness that is your home town and come back soon.

Well the weekend is nearly over and once again I didn't notice it happen as I have been so busy. We are supposed to get more snow over the next few days and guess what...snow showers earlier have already turned my dreary home city into a blanket of white so right now is about the best time to view coventry when its white instead of the usual grey.

I'm hoping the snow will last and possibly get worse so I can go and take some nice pictures. I have a cousin in Australia that I recently got in contact with after years of not seeing each other and he says its nice seeing the photo's of the snow that everyone is sending him but he wouldn't swap it for his life in australia...lucky bugger!

Snow, snow, snow, snow...I love snow.

Nic woke nice and early today (well she would as she has to be at work by 7am...crazy woman), she peeked out into the street and let out an excited whisper...well Jack was asleep in our room. She reckoned I wouldn't be going to work today but if only, no work = no pay so off i went.

It was mental trying to drive through the deep snow as even the main roads were deep in snow n' slush. I told my boss we should have a work snowball fight to encourage inter-team relations but oh no, that was just not allowed.

A disaster averted (hopefully)

Life in our house has not been very good of late, in fact it had got to the point of agreeing we would be splitting up when our tenancy ends at the end of february. It has really seemed like the end of the world, for reasons of privacy I will not go into the full details here but needless to say I saw visions of me only seeing Jack occasionally ( the UK courts seem to think only mothers are fit to be parents whereas the fathers must be bottomless pockets for the mothers...and before i get loads of nasty comments about this remark just remember its my blog and my views ). I was absolutely heartbroken as Jack is my world, nothing else has any meaning without him.

After a rather frosty time we talked & have decided to try one more time to make things work, we are both at fault it is definitely not one person more than the other. We are not trying for the sake of Jack although but of us decided we wanted Jack to have a happy family upbringing rather than what has become the norm these days of shuffling him from one parent to the other. Neither of us ever saw ourselves as single parents and if possible we want to avoid this happening so fingers crossed.

I have enjoyed being at home with Jack this week, as Nic & I have trouble getting the same holidays work I have ended up taking this week off, except friday when I have to go in. Monday I had to go to the dentist, initally I was going to take Jack but recently he has been a little clingy so thought better of it and grandad had him for a couple of hours. We have been playing cars, watching kids tv (good but not as great as kids tv when I was growing up), we went to Jam Jam Boomerang yesterday which is a kids soft play centre near Coventry airport, it was heaving with mainly mums and grandparents but a couple of dads were there. Usually we go there as a family or with friends so it was nice to spend some quality time, just me and my son. When Nic got home from work yesterday she did some painting with Jack, his first painting so we are going to frame that later. Today I took Jack to get his hair cut, the lady who cut his hair sprayed some water on his hair after cutting it, Jack reached for the bottle and she handed it over......very silly thing to do, he turned the bottle on her immediately and sprayed her! That'll teach her a lesson.

Tomorrow I don't know what we will do, I might take him to the transport museum in the city centre as I have never been in there, if it's nice I might take him to the park. I would have preferred the chance to take him to the park more but the weather has just not been good enough.

One of the best books I have read in a while has to be Val McDermid's The Grave Tattoo. I have discovered a new website recently as well, readitswapit. Over the last few years I have been selling all my books on ebay after reading them, this was always a hit & miss affair as I rarely got much for my books (ebay is so pants now, greedy ebay decided to let businesses trade on their & lots of crap japanese/hong kong sellers list as UK sellers..typical greed once agains destroys what was once a great site). With readitswapit you list your books and you get an email if someone wants to swap with you, you can then view there books and either agree on a swap or decline the swap...you can also ask other people to swap one of their books for one of yours, its great. I have got a few more books to read now and all for the cost of a book i have read and postage. Unlike some other swapping sites you can swap straight away without having to send your books off to other people to gain points before you can request a book. I am getting rid of more books this way & always get another book in return that I want...why don't you take a look.

Take care all and I hope your New Year started better than mine, hopefully things can only get better...VampJack x