Happy Halloween everyone.
Today we got to go to work in fancy dress, I am just a big kid at heart so I loved it. Of course people expected me to go as a Vampire but I don't like to be too predictable. A lot of people thought it incredible that I drove to work like this but hey, thats all part of the fun.
No trick or treaters this year which is pants but it means we can scoff all the sweets. Hope you are all having fun today.
I am a passionate Ferrari fan so I desperately wanted Kimi to win the title, however I am not an idiot & so believed we could win the race but suspected that Alonso & Hamilton would be in the top 5 giving one of them the title, most probably Hamilton. How bloody wrong I was, it was a fantastic race & Kimi Raikkonen is now the Formula 1 World Champion of 2007!!
For the last few laps I was on the edge of my seat praying that Heidfeld & Kubica would not take each other off (which was looking very likely) as this would elevate Hamilton to a position where he would gain enough ponits to take the title. Thankfully they stayed on the track, Kimi won the race, Massa was 2nd in the other Ferrari & so Kimi won the title. My nerves were in tatters by the end of the race.
So it's now over for another 5 months, roll on 2008 & lets hope Kimi can do it all over again next year.
For the Lewis Hamilton fans out there, your day will come but until it does...WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!!
Its been nearly a month since my last update, there just never seems to be enough hours in the day at the moment.
Today we went to visit my mum, it was great seeing Jack with his other nanny as we don't get to see her that often. My mum absolutely adores all 3 of her grandsons & to see her happy getting to play with Jack is brilliant. Mind you, we went round the town to do a bit of shopping & loughborough is absolute pants now. Its all bloody mobile phone stores, charity shops & chain stores. It used to be a great little town with loads of independant stores that all sold different stuff & now there are so many shops standing empty & what is there isn't worth bothering with. I'm glad I moved away ( I know coventry isn't amazing but its a hell of a lot better than loughborough now ).
Not a lot else has happened over the last few weeks, I have been off work ill for the past week, I have been feeling lousy with headaches, sore throat, chesty cough, & other aches & pains. Turns out I have a chest infection, a few people at work have had the same & its not nice. Jack has also got a chest infection so while i've been off I have been looking after him rather than him going to nanny & grandads, although I'd rather neither of us were ill I have enjoyed spending time with my son. I hate having to go back to work now because I have enjoyed it so much, so if anyone out there knows of anyone that wants to employ me to work at home feel free to tell me!!! Alternatively if any of you feel like paying my bills so I can stay at home with Jack I would have no hesitation accepting your charity!!
Right gotta go, I need to watch the qualifying for tomorrow's brazzilian grand prix. In case any of you have been living in a cave for the last few weeks tomorrow is the final race in this years formula one season & we have no less than 3 drivers who could win the title, Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari), Fernando Alonso (McLaren but not for long I don't think) & Lewis Hamilton (McLaren). Lewis is in his rookie season & could be the first rookie to win the title since the start of the championship back in the 50's, Alonso is only 4 points behind so could quite easily spoil the party to join the elite group of drivers who have won 3 consecutive championships. I personally would like Kimi to win it for Ferrari but then I am biased & I don't care....GO KIMI!
I hope you are all having a good weekend, take care... VampJack x
VampJack is back......welcome to my new lair!!!
AOL well & truly screwed up my house move so I had to wait until this week to get my broadband back on, they very nearly lost another customer. The only reason I'm still with them is that I managed to speak to a customer service agent NOT based in india who actually knows what customer service is. When will companies realise that just because you can get some poor idiot in india to work for pennies does not mean customers will accept speaking to someone who can barely speak english, why do they think some companies have based a lot of there advertising around the fact that they have UK only call centres.
So on to all my news. The house move was a pain in the arse, it is a nightmare trying to move with a 6 month old baby who's teething. The first 2 days when we actually moved our stuff Jack spent with his nanny & grandad but after that it was a real pain trying to sort everything out with a screaming baby demanding attention every 2 seconds. The house itself is nice, we are no longer right near a railway so we don't the train noise all day & night, we also live away from a main road so we don't get to hear the sirens of police/fire/ambulance all night long. We have a bath which is a real luxury, sometimes it would be easier having a shower but we have really missed having a bath as the last house only had a shower. It is so much easier bathing Jack Jack without having to get his baby bath out, especially as he outgrew the baby bath a coupla months ago. He loves having a bath as well, he likes having more room to play & splash around.
While I have been away from j'land Jack Jack has learnt to walk with the aid of his Tigger ride on toy, he holds on to the front of Tigger & walks pushing it along. He is so fast when he's crawling as well, his favourite things to do at the moment is either playing with any wires he can find so we have to watch him all the time, the other thing is switching off the Sky box (not a bad thing sometimes but a pain if something good is on).
The cats are getting very wary of him now, he hasn't quite grasped the concept of stroking the cats, he thinks he's supposed to grab a handful of fur & hold on tight. Angel tends to stay away from him when she can, Bailey on the other hand is a bit more tolerant & lets Jack grab him sometimes.
Jack Jack no longer gives me gummy smiles when I get home from work, on 31st august his first tooth came through, quickly followed by the 2nd & we think the 3rd is about to put in an appearance. My son now has teeth! Jack has taken to using his dummy again, he did stop for a while but I think he just loves chewing it to be honest. Occasionally we get bitten, he seems to think it great he can now bite anything in the house. At meal times we either have to take it in turns eating or we sit him in his high chair between us with his own dinner. If we don't do this he stands in front of us with mouth wide open like a baby bird expecting to be fed, he also tries to grab our dinner so meal times can be real fun in our house at the moment.
BIG NEWS:
Jack Jack can now say dada. I was so emotional the first time he said it. The novelty seems to have worn off with him now but for a few days no matter what he was doing he would be shouting dada dada dada all the time. I have captured this most treasured of moments on film, i think i must have shown it to nearly everyone i've talked to at work but what the hell, its a proud moment in a dads life. Nic has been trying to get him to say mama, her mum has been trying to get him to say nanny & grandad has been trying to get him to say grandad (i think he might struggle with this one) but his daddy is his first word & no one can ever take that away from me.
It seems that in the last month Jack has made so many advancements, he really is learning so much with every new day. Can you believe he was 7 months old last sunday? Just this last week he has learnt to clap his hands & he can now wave (as opposed to randomly throwing his arms around like all babies seem to do). The nights have been a pain since he's been teething as he was back to getting us up 2 or 3 times a night, luckily the last few nights he has slept through until at least 7am and he even goes to bed earlier now as well. Nic gets up early for work and Jack has been waking up just as she's about to leave so I get an early morning wake up call each day, its not so bad though, she only works 3 and a half days a week so I get a bit more sleep on fridays when she doesn't have to get up for work.
We've been into town today to try & get Jack some winter clothes, we have a few bits but he really needs some proper thick winter coats & jumpers before the weather turns any colder. The range of boys clothes is appalling. If you have a little girl you are spoilt for choice but if you have a little boy....tough! We have been in bhs, woolworths, adams, primark & boots. They all have only a small selection of baby clothes for boys, tomorrow we are going to go to matalan to see if we can do better there, asda is nearby so we will no doubt try there as well. Okay I know that people say you can dress girls up more than boys but honestly, do they really think we will buy only a couple of items of clothing to last the whole winter? Or maybe they think what few items they have are so good that we will want to buy loads of the same thing so he can wear them each day, if so they are dead wrong, who the hell designs these clothes. I think some ceo with no morals has found that he can get clothes designed for next to nothing if he sponsors the local mental institutes.
Anyway enough of my incessant babbling. I hope you are all well, I will have to catch up with all your journals over the next week or two. Enjoy the rest of your weekend & I hope you like the new pics...VampJack x
My broadband is still not connected at my new house & my works computer resource policy forbids me from using my pc to update any blogs...but today I really need to express my grief over the loss of my friend. I wrote this entry last night at home & today I really don't know why I came to work.
Today is a bad day, I found out a friend of mine died yesterday morning. Pepsi Tate was the bass player in the rock band Tigertailz. I met Pepsi years ago when I was just another fan & we became friends. He would always put my name on the guest list for Tigertailz’ shows all over the country, one time when I went along to the soundcheck during the day he asked if I was coming to the show that night, when I told him I couldn’t afford it he told me not to be stupid because I’m always on the guest list, I explained it was the taxi fare home that was the problem. I did go to the show that night, Pepsi had insisted on it, he gave me the taxi fare home himself.
Each time they toured I would go to as many shows as I possibly could, and I was always on the guest list & each night I would get to go backstage after the show. Pepsi always recognised me every time I turned up to the first night of the tour, sometimes he’d write letting me know about the tours in advance so I could let him know which shows I would be at.
I have not spoken to Pepsi for a while as we lost touch but he still remembered me when I got in touch a couple of years ago. We’d talk on the phone sometimes & we’d write occasionally (this was at a time before email made keeping in touch easier) but I would not consider it a close friendship. This made it all the more surprising today when I heard the news, I was stunned & had to take some time out from my desk to gather my thoughts. I feel so empty, I have lost some very close friends in the past so I am no stranger to grief but today I feel a great sadness. Pepsi was larger than life on stage & that is how I will always remember him, but I will also remember him as a Pepsi Tate the man. Pepsi died yesterday morning after losing his fight against pancreatic cancer.
It is difficult for me to share my feelings sometimes but I feel so emotional at the loss of my friend that if I don’t open up to someone I think I will start to slip back into depression. I suffered with depression for years but have been okay for some time now & do not want to go back to the fragile person I was when my depression was really taking over my life.
Pepsi you will be missed by a great many people. Goodbye my friend.
19th September 2007
Tigertailz
Pepsi & Jay
My journal entries will resume once my broadband is up & running, today I don't care what my bosses may say about me updating the journal. Some things are just too important
Pepsi live 2007
So here we are, our last weekend in this house. On tuesday we collect the keys for our new house just a few minutes down the road. The new house has a small front room & kitchen, we would have preferred a bigger place but it has 3 bedrooms which we wanted & it also has a bath!! There is gonna be a fight for that bath on our first night there as we have spent the last 18 months in this house with only a shower. The road we will be living on is a dead end so it will be quieter with not having to put up with cars racing past at all hours. We also have a small conservatory which will be nice in the summer, unless of course next summer is like this..a complete washout. We have 2 cats which is always a problem when it comes to finding a house to rent but getting rid of them was never an option, we will just have to make the best of what we have. And at least we have not had the terrible floods that a lot of people have had to endure this summer, sometimes we moan about not being able to afford to buy our own house or not being able to rent places we like because they won't accept pets but we have been very fortunate this year. I would be absolutely devastated if I had lost what so many others have, my heart goes out to everyone effected by the floods. I was never the sort of person who attached themselves to any place, to me if anything had happened to my house or flat I would have just moved on without a moments hesitation but having Jack has changed my outlook on life completely.
Talking of my little Jack I hope you like the new piccies, as you can see he really is a little devil now! He is an absolute nightmare, we can't take our eyes off him for a second as he is always crawling everywhere, chewing everything. Ever since he could crawl properly he has been trying to stand up on his own ( and consequently fallen over so much ) & he tries walk which ends up with him doing a strange hybrid mix of walking & crawling on his hands & feet. He can pull himself up on his own now (as you can see in the piccies) & he manages to stand for several minutes, all he needs to do now is develop his balance & he will be walking (and then the fun starts). Jack can also sit up properly on his own now, he just gets very frustrated that he can't stand unaided. Today we were in the post office & there was a little girl in a pushchair next to us, Jack & this little girl were staring at each other (Jack is definitely a ladies man already) & we got talking to the girls parents, she is 10 months old (the girl, not her mum) & she is so much smaller than Jack. When he was born he was tiny but he seems to be growing at a rather accelerated rate. He was 6 months old on thursday this week, I can't believe it has been so long, it seems like only a few weeks ago since I brought him home from hospital. My little boy no longer seems like a baby, we have so many photo's & video's of him but I wish I could have captured every minute of him growing on film. it seems like such an old cliche that everyone says how fast kids grow up but it is so true.
Nic has worked full time over the last 3 weeks but we now have 2 weeks off so we can move & have time to sort the new place out before having to go back to work. When she goes back she will be working 3 & a half days a week, she has not been as grumpy as I thought she would be with going back to work. It has tired her out having to get up early every day but its been the same for me as I have been taking her to work nearly every day. I feel so drained that if we hadn't got the time off work for moving house I think I would have had tp book some time off. I have been getting up at 6:30am every day, taking Nic to work, dropping Jack off at her parents & going to work myself, I really don't like getting up so early every day.
I will be sticking with aol when we move (stop laughing at me, sometimes its better the devil you know), hopefully they will get the line active quickly, I really don't want to be spending too long on dial up waiting for my broadband connection. Dial up is such a pain in the ass, its too slow & you have to be so much more cautious with regards to surfing the net. I used to work for ntl (please do not send me hate mail, I hated them as much as any customer ever could) & used to regularly have people ringing up complaining about premium rate phone charges because they used a dial up connection for the internet & didn't take care what sites they went on. I will let you know how the move went once my broadband connection is back up & running.
I have just finished reading Robert Rankin's The Toyminator which is a great read, very funny & it raises some serious questions (where do all the chickens come from?), he has a new book out called The Da Da De Da Da Code which I intend getting very soon. I have just got Born To Be Mild by Dave Armitage & The Gospel According to Chris Moyles, will let you know if they are any good. Also not sure if I have already shared this with you, but if you like a good thriller then you might want to check out Alex Barclay's Darkhouse, it is a great book & I will be checking out her follow up novel The Caller soon.
Well it's time to say goodbye for now, I hope you are all enjoying the sunshine which has made a rare appearance this weekend....VampJack x
Today is the last day before Nic goes back to work, temporarily she is having to go back to her old hours starting at 7am. I'm on lates this week so I can look after Jack until I go to work when one of our friends is going to be looking after him, when Nic's parents are back from holiday later this week they will be doing the babysitting job. I'm glad for Nic that she's going back, she's been getting fed up with staying at home but she will be more tired than normal so she'll be short tempered this week, joy of joys. Having said that, as I will be getting up early to look after Jack & then working late I will also be a grumpy ba$**rd this week. So the message here is ..... don't come visiting this week!
Last night Jack was crying in his sleep, all I wanted to do was pick him up & cuddle him but he was fast asleep so I didn't want to wake him. It broke my heart listening to him crying, what was he dreaming about, the farley's rusk factory burning down, prohibition on milk, ferrari not winning....it was so sad.
Nanny came to visit yesterday, I wish she could come over more often to visit but as we don't have room for her to stay its a little difficult. We have seen 2 houses in the last couple of days that would be suitable for us, we have another couple in the pipeline for this week so hopefully by next week will know where we are going.
Right i'm off cos Nic wants a paper today, she wants the Bananarama cd in the Mail & i desperately need a coffee.
Take care...VampJack x
