MADPL 21/22 – WEEK 4

Week 4 up against a group of lads who are arguably a better side than us but only because they play more frames than per man per week than our team play put together I believe we have better player if we practiced but I think those days have gone but we still compete with no practice and I think that says a lot. PJ and Ej needed to leave early so I played them early and PJ got lucky and EJ played really well and won his frame so we went 2 nil up pretty quickly. Foz went on and made it 3 in his usual way staying in the frame when it’s required and taking his opportunities when they arise. I think putting SH on next was a 50 – 50 choice knowing he has to play and looking who they had left were all strong players but he was not in the frame after the first couple visits and MC broke and needed to pot he didn’t 3 – 2 In hindsight Mike first Steve second would have got a better return but hey ho?

Again looking at what they had left I thought Pat may have to take one for the team and di but he had chances but was eventually out thought so at 3 all I decided I needed to take the next frame to hopefully get the point and then let OJ have a go at whoever he chooses as they only had 7 players. I played ok but late in the frame I missed the last yellow and it almost cost me but I gave him two visits which he ran out of position and then went in off the black with a visit remaining 4 – 3 and a point in the bag so to speak

OJ played well but gave a way a couple of silly fouls and giving his opponent free shots was too much but 4 – 4 against 8 Farmers I would have taken that before the game. I thought of a good joke here (because I am hilarious) they were one player short so really we played the “7 Farmers” [chortle] but then I thought not one of the seven are actually farmers so we actually played no farmers and that isn’t funny so I didn’t bother….hummm?

So we end the year with 5 points from a possible 8 and in the top half of the table bring on 2022

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4 more sleeps

Today I realised there is only 3 days to go before Christmas day after today and Jamie is still working, I know what Jamie worries about on the run up to Christmas and it’s a tiday house and lots of nice food to cook things I can help bring together so I set about pottering for the last couple of days and bring the house together and today went shopping for the Christmas lunch ingredients. What I had planned was to remove all the skirting boards from the hall and living room but making mess would just not be conducive to a happy Christmas so I have refrained until after boxing day (I got a new Dewalt multitool early Christmas present, desperate to use it but will have to wait)

Buying the Christmas day supplies without having alcohol on the list makes it much cheaper, so a little update on sobriety, tomorrow will be day 40 and I have found it easier the longer I am sober. I do think about drinking and that it is me that is denying myself something I like doing but I also think I don’t need to drink to have fun! Christmas should be as easy as Thanksgiving if not easier I will taxi me mum to here and home again on Saturday and I will also drive Boxing Day. My goal at the moment is a calendar month sober which will be completed on New Years Eve and once thats completed I reckon a dry January should the next one, but lets complete December first!

Me and the kids will disappear in the morning, perhaps go see Grandad and then wait for Mommy to finish work, tomorrow night and then we can all get ready for Saturday and pray we avoid a positive Lateral Flow Test between now and then.

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Dunham Massey 2021

As Christmas approaches the world is being ravaged yet again with Covid and we are praying that negative lateral flow test continue until at least next Monday because we are desperate to spend this Christmas with family especially Nannie who is due to spend the day with us on Saturday. That said we can’t not do things through fear so tonight we went to Dunham Massey Lights and it was spectacular

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Walking coz I can

So I have finished for Christmas and that means I can take Billy for a better walk than he normally gets, everyday. We went for our morning walk as usual but then after dropping Reagan off at horse riding we stopped at the bottom of Byley Hill and walked along the river doing lots of training along the way including retrieve, directional retrieve, stop retrieve etc Billy loves it even though fetching a ball is his favourite it’s all about pleasing me.

He is very good at retrieving and is pretty steady when told to wait, I am teaching him to leave a dropped dummy as we walk away from it then go back for it when told I love training him and on cold dry mornings like today there is nothing better than an hour along the fields just me and Billy.

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Christmas Pony Party

I took Billy for a walk this morning marking time until DPD delivered 4 x monitors to allow me to finish off the install I started yesterday the rest of the family went to Reagan’s riding school for the Christmas party Reagan had been looking forward to it all week and talking about it incessantly all weekend (rolls eyes) but hey she loves riding and has stuck at it even when it didn’t go so well so deserves to enjoy the good times for that fact alone!

Mommy and Lincoln went to help out but on a cold foggy day they were happy to so but really glad to get home where I greeted them with a hot bath and a roaring fire plus homemade burger for tea

I am now sat watching the Bengals vs Denver on me own everyone else has gone to bed…

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Follow that….

2000 posts wow I never thought it would be more than a few stories about our life in 2010 yet as we head towards 2022 I still love writing them. I struggle for interesting content sometimes but our mundane is what I love sorry. I worked this morning even though I technically finished yesterday but I have been working for a couple of start up veterinary surgeries which is giving me a little extra cash in hand which is nice right now. I didn’t take Billy which does disappoint me but I thought if I go get my work done early I get the rest of the day which is almost what happened, Mommy and Lincoln took Billy then Mommy and Reagan got their nails did, when I got home I took Lincoln to gymnastics Mommy met us their while Reagan went into town with her mates. Mommy Lincoln and me went for lunch at Hopley House Farm. The rest of the day should have been a bit of tidying followed by Strictly final with a Chinese take out but I had to go back to Tarvin to lock up after a mix up with keys

The day ended well with my favourite Rose Ayling-Ellis who actually moved me to tear at points through this series of Strictly…

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The 2000th Blog

Well Alan has tasked me with the honour of writing his 2000th blog!

Where do I even start? The world is a very different place since my last guest appearance in November 2012! (1000th blog)  We are just now starting to get back to normal after the Corona virus pandemic and months and months of lock-down, working from home, and home schooling.  We have a long way to go but we are getting there. If you’d have told me back then that I’d be wearing a mask indoors in public places, I’d have thought you were insane!

So, over the past few years Alan and I have moved up the ranks in our careers, I have a successful counselling business and have recently accepted a new job as senior counsellor for London Women’s Clinic, Alan is testing the waters with his new venture Akeso Consulting. Reagan has just started high school, and Lincoln is living his best life in year 5.  Sasha is still sauntering around the house, though she is getting quite old and a bit fat now, and finally our new addition Billy, our 2-year-old Springer.  We are currently getting ready for our Christmas celebrations and are desperately trying to avoid Covid at the moment, so our plans aren’t stopped by this crazy virus.

Christmas is special to us this year because last year it was really taken from us.  Not just that but both of his parents have suffered significant health issues, which nearly meant we lost them both in a matter of months, but by God’s amazing grace they have both recovered, and are nearly back to new! It’s for this reason that Christmas is so special, and I think we are all aware that time isn’t promised so we need to make the most out of the time we have.  Which is also a reason why we are working so hard to go see my family next year because it has been far too long and I miss them terribly.

Otherwise, we are just ticking along, everyone is seeming pretty happy right now.  I think Alan has the biggest struggles with work at the moment and is pretty stressed out by that a lot of the time.  He is a simple guy in the fact that he functions best with routine and stability.  He loves his job, but that job just seems a bit unstable at the moment and that just doesn’t sit well with a guy like him, particularly because change of any description isn’t his favourite ? I am so proud of him though, he is an amazing husband and father, he works SO hard for us and is honestly the glue that holds us all together, I don’t know what any of us would do without him.  Ultimately, I feel like he is happy, it’s just this work thing niggling away at his contentment, but we’ll get there in the end, he has us at the end of the day that is enough to sustain us all. 

I’m doing ok but starting to struggle with balance.  My family sacrificed so much for me to study and those first few years of working for free, that it feels very important for me to earn enough for them to see that all those sacrifices were worth it…stupid I know.  The truth is now that I’ve reached a point of fighting and clawing my way to the top of the counselling ladder, I need to transfer from clawing to living and I’m finding that transition difficult.  Although, for the 1st time in my life my parents at home are really proud of me and I have to admit that their approval drives the hell out of me…though I kind of wish it didn’t matter so much to me.  The other secret is, that yes, I work for my family but also, I like it…  like a lot? It makes me feel very good but if the cost of that feeling is me being present with my family, then I’d give it back in a second…so balance is my word for 2022 and we will see where that gets us. 

Reagan is doing fantastic, busy living her best life.  She is such a happy little thing and is working hard at school, socialising, horse riding, playing violin, drama, and finding her place in the world.  She is such a good girl just chatters and smiles right now.  She is in such a good mood on the lead up to Christmas which is a nice change from the hormone monster she was a month ago.  I think the transition to high school was a difficult one for her, mostly affected by the year of lockdown we had in her final year of primary, but honestly, she is so clever, and like me finds the school routine easy.  She seems to be finding her feet now though, long may it last!

Lincoln is the same as he always is, stable and consistent just like his dad.  Everyone likes him because he is just so laid back and easy going, has a smile and a kind word for everyone.  He does have quite the temper but that is mostly fuelled by too much electronics, which is really something we need to tackle in the new year…balance (there’s that word again).  He is really into anime, gymnastics, cricket, video games and Sasha, that is his life in a nutshell.  He really does love school, but I don’t think he is particularly challenged by it, such a clever dude.   He is so grown now, bigger than his sister and on his way to being as tall as me!

So that is us in a nutshell, so different that we were 1000 blogs ago, yet so the same.  We all love living life together, we are a happy family, not flawless, but happy and ultimately, what else is there? The future of the world we live in is a bit uncertain at the moment, but we are good, the Fabulous Forster Four, together we can do anything.

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It’s going to feel a bit like Christmas…tomorrow!

One day of work to do before my Christmas break and I am really looking forward to be honest because I can relax and forget about it for a couple of weeks, well I say forget about it what will actually happen is my phone will still ring and I will answer it but unless its an emergency I will explain that I have finished for Christmas and then listen to them apologise for bothering me for another 5 minutes. I have set my stall out to remove all the skirting boards from the living room in readiness for laminate flooring in the new year, living the dream! Actually I will be because I intend to buy a “new power tool” Awgggh Awgggh
I am looking forward to it though it will be good to spend time with Jamie and the kids and hopefully, if we avoid the Omicron variant of COVID that is spreading the country, have a Christmas day with Nannie and a Boxing Day at hers?
It is also a big day tomorrow for my blog as this post is No:1999 and I have invited Jamie to write the 2000th post as I did 27 November 2012 for the 1000th post. I wish I had kept posting regularly when I think it took 4 years to write the first 1000 and 8 years the next 1000 because I love blogging so much, I get so much from writing posts. I also see it as a journal that Reagan and Lincoln might read one day, when they’re older obviously, they might get an insight into who I was and how I saw our lives?
Not sure thats a good thing or bad but I hope they do read it one day!
Anyway tomorrows blog will be No:2000

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MADPL 21/22 – Week 3

Week 3 and this week we are away at local rivals Boars Head and wanting to keep the winning streak going (ok it’s only one match but it’s a streak to us!) Looking at what went right last week I decided to stick with LF and OJ as the openers but this back fired when both fought hard to get into a winning position only to snooker themselves and throw their frames away. At 2 nil down I thought it needed a captains frame to steady the ship which is exactly what I did even when the referee awarded a full ball snooker to my opponent without even looking but I took a deep breath and avoided letting it affect me. 2 -1 and PL needed to be patient and just wasn’t potting well but eventually running out of lives.

So at 3 – 1 and staring down the barrel DR played a solid frame followed by MC who barring one “odd” miss made no mistake to make the score all square. JL up next playing his first frame in possibly 2 years showed it makes no difference if you have the talent He will admit that some shots were fortunate but no-one would have known watching With a point now in the bag SH just needed to be steady and not do anything rash, well, that’s what I thought, his mind was on playing the pots he could see superbly and if they weren’t there play safe. This left him 4 reds to clear up with the last needing good position to pot it and boy did he deliver to win the match 5 – 3 A great comeback and a well deserved win in the end!

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14 year MySpace’iversary

14th December 2007 Jamie messaged me on MySpace saying she was “intrigued”, and wanted to say Hello. Well, 14 years have passed, and since then you emigrated, we got married, Reagan was born, Lincoln was born, you graduated, you built a business but these are all big things. We have done so many more things, little things that are insignificant in isolation, like laughing everyday, saying I love you everyday or just enjoying being together and missing it when we are apart.

It’s only when you realise, these little things in life are really the big things and they should be cherished, that you will find happiness.

I think we realised this a long time ago and I hope we enjoy millions more little things for many more years to come

Happy MySpace’aversary Dude.

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