2022

Rude boy?

A few weeks ago Jamie overheard one side a of a phone call I was on and remarked that she had never heard me being so rude to someone which sort of shocked me but on reflection I thought I may have been but the person I was talking to was so frustratingly long winded in everything he says and will not shut up once he gets going and uses 1000 words to answer a yes no question <–more–>

I was in a meeting with the person again today but this time with two people from the company I work for and after 35 minutes of listening to this guy I looked at all the other people in the meeting and they were all doing something else non of them were looking at the screen and he’d moved onto a subject that was not linked to what the meeting was about, the others tried to intervene and bring the meeting to a close but he carried on so I couldn’t bite my lip any longer “Right I’m not interested in what you’re talking about now and I don’t have anymore time so lets get another meeting sorted for Monday” which brought the meeting to an abrupt end. I am not sure what the others thought about my rudeness but I just couldn’t listen any longer. My boss was in the meeting and her comment just before she left the meeting was “It’s like pulling teeth!”

I do not believe I am a rude person but this guy just talks and talks but says very little and after a while I just have to stop him and because I have been talking to him for weeks I know the only thing that works quickly is the cut him off abruptly, I am sure he’ll get over it I know I have…until Monday afternoon I guess?

/by

A joke taken too serious?

After last nights “incident” I really did forget about it very quickly although a little unnerved at the time it really didn’t bother me once they had left the pub but today I kept thinking I could make it into a joke that I could share on our team WhatsApp by going into minute tedious detail of what I saw as the referee as though justifying myself but then ending on a punchline

A visual aid to the joke.

The Set up:

As you can see from my diagram the white ball here in position 1 was three quarters of a table width from the red object ball position 4 which was 5mm off the cushion thus not frozen (which I checked) The intended shot shown in yellow was supposed to impact the red at point ‘A’ which would result in the red being potted, the white would have made contact then with the cushion and eventually come to rest in the vicinity of position 2 in the diagram. Thus a legal shot completed

In gold you will see the actual shot played, the white hitting the cushion first before feathering the red at point ‘B’ this impact moved the red very slightly sending it on the gold line from point ‘B’ to point 3 but that gold line is clearly taking an arked route over 3mm off a true straight line shown in red this was caused by the table not being levelled before the game began. The unevenness of the table caused the ball to appear to “swerve” towards point 3 but it should be noted that the lack of speed resulted in the white ball coming to rest 25mm away from the next nearest cushion even though the table was trying its best to help the guy out…?

The Punchline

In conclusion then I think you will all agree this proves beyond argument, the mans a cunt!

Bonus Punchline

I mean, even OJ could have potted, well rattled it at least!

So in my head hilarious as usual, but in some of the team members heads a serious plea for justification, reassurance and they practically said “PM me hun” anyway I must stress this was a joke and the incident didn’t bother me at all 10 minutes afterwards…

/by

Night of two halves

Wednesday means pool and we were at home against bottom of the table Boars Head and we were winning 3 – 1 and I was reffing Mike Coe’s frame when their guy committed a foul, which I called. Their player disagreed with my decision and began remonstrating to me that I was incorrect, which I knew I was not, but he would not let up getting his team mates to back him up which was very intimidating to say the least. A quick look over to Mike confirmed my decision because if he thought I’d made a mistake he would have requested that I over turn it but he didn’t so my decision as ref is final and the frame carried on but he had riled his team mates and continued to do so and the barracking and intimidation continued for the rest of the match. When they ran out of players I chose this guy to play me wanting to face him shake his hand and then beat him which I dually di to make the final score 6 2 to Steventons, but it didn’t stop there I had to endure 3 or 4 of their team then try to surround but were stopped by my team mates who backed me up 100% saying the referees decision is final and that’s it end of story but I was called a cheat twice before they left and I later found out that they had unofficially complained to the league about the incident….?

After they left myself Mike Coe and Foz remained to chat and I have not laughed so much in ages reminiscing about mine and Foz’s childhood antics it was so very needed and I chose to stay out until 11:30 because I didn’t want the second half of the night to end. It’s a shame pool sometimes has to get so serious and a real shame that sometimes it can ruin one of my favourite nights of the week and now the only time I leave the house at night nowadays…. Thankfully tonight turned out to be a really good night and I can’t wait to do it all again next week away at 8 farmers

/1 Comment/by

Took a COVID test tonight

Over the last couple of days I have suffered from a splitting headache on the right side of my head and I haven’t had a headache since having COVID at Christmas I didn’t connect the two but Jamie kept making the comment and it got me thinking enough to take a test. It was negative but I still have this banging head, a pain toward the front on the right-side of my head that spreads down past my ear to my jaw and I noticed that I have a soreness on my bottom jaw behind where a wisdom tooth was removed and that got me thinking could that be the epicentre and the pain is travelling up rather than down?

Either way I am taking ibuprofen and hoping it will make it go away….

/by

BCS70 1970 British Cohort Study

I listened to a podcast called ’50 Years of Life in Britain’ which explores the contribution BCS70 participants have made to improving British science and society, a study I am part of and have been since birth. The first episode explains why the Cohort study is so important and how New Labour saw a graph produced by a PHD student who used the study for one of his 4 papers and it influenced the government to focus £500 million extra on education because it proved that a privileged education improves the ability succeed where as before it was only assumed. This simplifies that story way too much but I was so interested and I really want to listen to the other 5 episodes and ironically it’s about to begin the 7 day birthday week for the members so I am going to listen this week 5th to 11th April as we all turn 52 years old.

/by

PVA who’d ‘ave thunk?

I think I may have made a very expensive mistake I watched a YouTube video about the science behind attaching a tile to a plastered wall which I have been doing maybe once a year for the last few years and always succeeded until they fell off again sometimes after a couple of months and the best being 8 months but they always fell off so I decided the problem was the wall I was sticking them to. Apparently sealing the plaster first before attaching the tile with tile adhesive stops the plaster sucking out all the moisture from the glue before the adhesion has chance to work properly…

Oh!

I knew about sealing plaster but was not sure why but it is so obvious when it’s explained especially in the context you are working on, but unfortunately I learned this lesson a day too late having removed all the tiles from the wall by the bath yesterday which was a ball-ache to say the least and now I realise that for the past few years the 4 tiles that kept falling off would have had a better chance of staying on each time I reapplied them if I’d have used PVA to seal the wall first.

It’s too late now I (and the rest of the family) will have to live with the wall with no plaster on it until I can get Dale to come and re plaster it.

Once that is done it will need PVAing again but today I have done a coat of 50% PVA to 50% water I may do a second coat depending on if he comes this week or next and I will try to seal the bath edge too before that plaster as a belt and braces fix to the kitchen dripping water when we have a shower

Before: All loose tiles removed
Before: Perfectly good tiles still in place
After: Back to brick with one coat of PVA
/by

She’s back

Mommy returned and all is well in the Forster household again, Reagan and Lincoln fussed over her as she walked in and both jumped at the chance to come to walk Billy while we waited for our Chinese takeaway to be delivered. The Little Fockers soon was not the “family” movie I invisiged but it gave our little fockers an excuse to go upstairs to be with their mates happy that Moms home but also happy to leave us down here to watch the film alone.

Having spent the last three nights missing her but incharge of the TV, she is now sat next to me with all the remotes and we’re watching Bridget Jones Diary with a running commentary of the places in the movie that Mommy now works next to [Rolls Eyes]

….she’s back!
/by

I always miss her…

We always joke that we won’t miss each other before we’re apart and didn’t miss each after being apart but the truth is we are such a good team and love being together so when we are apart life just isn’t the same. The children definitely miss Mommy and my job is always to manage them and make sure they’re OK until Mommy calls or comes home because she has this ability to be there for them even when she’s away? She knows I will be fine and we always keep in touch even if it just WhatsApp but we’re the grown ups and I know the children are the most important when one of us is away.

Today was the second full day of Mommy’s trip to London and take working from home and being the only parent at home too doesn’t give me much time to miss her until I sit down when Reagan and Lincoln are in bed and she is not sat there to share the last couple of hours of the day with, thats when I find time to miss her. Don’t for one minute think that from the moment I open my eyes alone in our bed to the moment I close them again at night I do but life can take your mind off those feelings.

My moment came this morning when I came down from Lincolns room where I was working and as I entered the kitchen to make a brew and glanced across to Mommy’s office and it was empty and I felt sad it the moment I really missed her, the children at school an empty house just me and Billy and my thought straightaway was “This is not how its supposed to be”

I always miss her….

/1 Comment/by

Just who is Reagan Grace (Part 2)?

The best daughter I could ever wish to have she is so lovely inside and out and growing up so fast it’s frightening, an eleven year old soon to be twelve and you can see a lot of what kind of woman she will be in the future already and I hope I can help her become who she can be. I will admit though I find it very hard to know what to do most of the time when I see Mommy crushing it guiding her through each day and making being a mom look so easy, which I know it isn’t but she generally makes it look that way. Reagan and I can but heads a lot because she is lazy, unless it what Reagan wants to do, if it is not about her then it does not happen without some ‘coaxing’ shall we say?

That said what a strong young lady she is and more importantly she is a happy young lady too but she is growing up and she definately needs her Mommy to be there because she understands so much more than me what a girls has to go through to become a woman and I am so glad she can do that because that will be the most difficult to negotiate and i want to help but I will say I do not have a clue…not a scooby.

I try to encourage and be positive and be mindful that some of the mood swings maybe out of her control but sometimes I find it difficult to ignore the laziness and they might be little things but they all add up and I can not keep quiet and have to say something but Reagan will immediately go on the defensive and an argument ensues, they never fester but they can be spectacular at the time. I feel I will make her a better person if I do not let her just waltz though life feeling entitled and not realising that everyone else is picking up after her to allow her to do what she want because life is not like that

I love all of her she is my daughter and that makes me very happy

This probably sums us up hahaha

/by

Mommy living the dream

Now I know where she works because I have visited both London Bridge and Harley Street so now when she goes down to London for work I have an idea where she is. Today I dropped her off Crewe station so she can travel down there for a pretty big 3 days when she will meet all the big wigs of the London Womens Clinic hierarchy for the first two days and a couple of seminars on Saturday to finish off before she comes home again.

Jamie is the greatest Mommy for us but she is also an extremely clever woman who is making waves in her chosen career and living her dream in all aspects of her life and we are her biggest supporters waiting for her to return. I think she is very proud of what she has achieved and deserves all trappings of that success so when I saw her and her friend sat in London’s West End ready to watch the musical Moulin Rouge at the Piccadilly Theatre, one of her bucket list dreams, I knew just how happy she would be feeling!

Fly high dude work hard play hard then come home to us, we’ll be waiting!

/by