Man wakes up on the sofa in his PJs on a Friday night, sober, with a hot cup of coffee, a plate of chocolate chip cookies, watching Beverly Hills Cop while his wife is out on the lash with friends, and wonders what the hell happened in the last 14 years….?
Reagan text the Family WhatsApp group from school to let us know she had attained the highest test score in the whole of year 8 in RE, which blows me away she makes me proud and really is doing fantastic at school.
Mommy informed me that she had purchased plane tickets to go ‘home’ something she has been increasingly talking about for a while and had focused on being in Denver for her momma’s 70th birthday in April. Today after days of planning and many administrative hurdles tickets were procured, “we are taking the children to America for Easter, Mommy has finally booked it” she announced.
As she told me, a package arrived at the door from Emily containing Christmas presents and many American comfort items which coupled with the tickets made Mommy beam with glee.
As for the trip both children have been to America but this will be the first they will remember and both are really excited and are now counting the days until 28th… Jamie’s Mom and Dad are already planning things to do with the grandchildren like ‘snow tubing’ to name one and one the kids (and Mommy) are fixated on because Mommy knows she will be able show them proper snow up in the mountains. It will be the trip of a lifetime for them I’m sure and it’s only 11 weeks away!
I am looking forward to it hopefully getting the opportunity to visit Dove Valley (the Broncos training facility) and the Stadium maybe take in another tour…well be rude not to! Pam and I share a birthday and it will be good to finally celebrate April 10th on the same continent! I am also really looking forward to share the American experience with Reagan and Lincoln and seeing how their perceptions change like mine did exactly 15 years ago? My first trip I left on the same date in 2008 which is a coincidence itself because it was not planned it just worked out that way and I loved it!
Playing the Boars Head over last couple of years has been a strange affair after a home game refereeing decision I made did not go their way and the Bills brothers really vented their anger towards me. Unfortunately this has resulted in quite a bit of tension between them and me especially Les who can not let it go.
Tonight we were a man short so it was going to be difficult giving a frame away and when Foz lost the first frame making the match score 2 nil to them it seemed like a mountain. Me and PJ won but in between MG was battered making the 3 2 to them with an out of form MC on next. When he made short work of his frame Les chose to play me at 3 all and although I made a couple of errors I managed to give us the first lead of the night with on to play.
MG was chosen by them and while the game was in the balance their guy committed a push shots in consecutive visits and as the referee I saw both fouls but with tensions running high and knowing that if I called either we would be arguing for the rest of the night I chose to ignore them. My reasoning was they are tough to call and unless you are watching carefully which the Bills weren’t it is arguable if the referee is showing bias. MC saw both and mentioned under his breath that the second one was obvious but in my defence I think the player knows he’s played a push shot and if he was honest would own up but he didn’t nor in the end did it matter.
MG was awarded two visits and cleared his remaining 6 balls and won the frame and match for Steventons so happy days!
Both kids in the car, I’m driving home and Lincoln says put some Queen on Dad!
OK Google play Queen
“Only Spotify premium subscribers can choose specific songs so here is something from queen radio I found”
‘Queen Bitch’ starts to play…
Reagan looks at the display and says “I didn’t know David Bowie was a singer I thought he was the Planet Earth guy?”
“No love that’s Attenborough!”
Now two thoughts spring to mind here:
1. Reagan does not waste her time listening to music preferring educational documentaries
or
2. She does not and never has taken any notice of any of the great music I force-feed my family evey single day????
January is dark wet and dreary, all the twinkly lights have been switched off and now the focus is on spring but that isn’t for another few months yet. I lay in bed listening to the rain hitting the window and the wind blowing, the thought of walking fills me with dread on days like these but my motivation, laying at the bottom of the stairs waiting. It was cold and very wet but Billy does not care he does not want much out of life just food water and exercise twice a day and that is the least I can do come shine or rain.
Work was punctuated with a funeral, Pat my uncle Neil’s wife sadly passed away just before Christmas afterwards I went to Alsager Vets where I got a lot of stuff sorted and succeeded in doing everything they asked me to do and were very appreciative and when I get to do this Mt job is great I feel good the feel good and it’s days like these that make me feel fulfilled and if they let me do it I can make the business tick….?
Reagan decided she wants her fishtank back in her bedroom and wanted to clean it out before it went back up two flights of stairs. Now she had not cleaned her tank out for 12 months leaving it up to Mommy who struggled with the stairs carrying each time so eventually just left it in the kitchen because it was easier. Over time fish unfortunately passed away as they do but there was a Shrimp who was tough as they come which had escaped a couple of times and had to be corralled and put back in I believe it may have accidentally been dropped too but you’d have to ask Mommy.
Anyway it lived on for months despite the early traumas until a couple of months ago when sadly it disappeared we didn’t see it and cleaned the tank out a couple of times we thought we saw its car ass on the tank bed. Last week a fish died that had been lethargic for a while and finally floated to the surface on Friday so the tank needed cleaning out any way.
Reagan did a good job and we carried the tank up to her room, after tidying up I took Reagan and Lincoln to church youth group and returned to hear Mommy scream and then laugh out loud ” You’ll never guess what I have just found in the kitchen sink…?”
Yep flapping happily away near the plug was the Shrimp…Jesus it’s alive!
Wait what did you just say Jesus has risen, now that is one Hard-core Prawn not seen for weeks survived two tank cleans and half an hour alone in the kitchen sink and swam like Mark Spitz when Mommy released him back into his home back into hiding.
Maybe not the second coming but certainly a miracle of survival and worthy of an episode of ‘I shouldn’t be alive’!
Tonight sees the Denver Broncos close out their 2022 season with a meaningless game for both teams against LA Chargers at Mile High. Neither team benefits from winning or losing but for the home team surely pride should be enough to motivate and earning your jobs next season!
When I went to bed on 12th September I had so much hope that I would be finally watching a team capable of making the playoffs with an elite quarterback and offensive-minded coach but by 04:30am little did I know I had just witnessed what was to be the blueprint for the whole season. We lost the game by a single score, our defence was playoff calibre but our offence and special teams were not? The offence never got going all season, every week I thought this was the week and it never was averaging 14 points by the end but losing each time by a single score.
It was so frustrating and especially because the season promised so much, we expected that big leap when Russell Wilson arrived we thought we just needed a quarterback and everything would be fine but the NFL is not like that, a whole new coaching staff (mostly young) and a rocky head coach trying to find his way and it was a catastrophe and it took a mauling by the Rams on Christmas day for the owners to make a change but by then it was too late. We were eliminated in Week 13 after 9-10 loss to the Ravens condemning the Broncos to yet another post #SB50 season without playoff football, so we look to the off-season after tonight and who the owners can install into the vacant HC position.
The new owners Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group have a lot of money so that will not be a problem going forward but with the salary cap it will not solve everything and Wilson’s contract is already an issue if the new HC can’t come up with a scheme that takes him back to elite levels. The choice then is very important to get right and chucking my hat in the ring here Jim Harbough would make sense because he will cost money whereas the Saints would want draft picks, which we already lack, and money for Sean Payton’s services which I just think that would leave us hamstrung for years…
So tonight at 21:25 I will be watching the game because good or bad, win or lose the Broncos are my team for life and as Jamie said earlier, watching them lights me up every week and I look forward to it! I watch things like Broncos for breakfast podcast every day and consume as much team information as I can during the week. The game itself might be a chance of a rare win with the Chargers resting first teamers to rest them up for next week and a loss would mean Denver would suffer an 0 6 AFC West sweep which would be embarrassing considering a Josh McDaniels lead Las Vegas Raiders would be 2 games above us!
#DBFL #GOBRONCOS #DENVERBRONCOS
Practicing using the tools I have (nothing worse than someone with all the gear and no idea) anyway I managed to create a cross today using skills I will need to create handmade windows for me shed.
A router table would have improved things, it took a lot of setting up and there is some burning where I was being careful, a table with stops would have eradicated that but for my second test piece I am pretty happy with the results.
After a week back at work, I had looked forward to getting back into my shed and do some more woodwork and although I had to take Lincoln to gymnastics I was going to spend the rest of it practising creating lap joints.
I did pretty well managing 4 joints that were so tight they stayed together without glue or fixings and were satisfyingly difficult to pull apart. It proves to me that with my new saw my mitre saw and chisel I reckon I can make a window at the very least.
Tomorrow I am looking forward to repeating the exercise ?
Yes, I shout DOOR a lot when it’s cold outside and someone opens the door and I especially shout it if someone leaves a door open. It comes from when I first started work at Saxon Sanbec in 1986, there was a huge sliding door used to get materials in and products out, there was a personnel door within the huge door and it had a spring to close it. In the summer, no problem but in the winter the wind would stop it from latching shut and if it didn’t shut, any warmth built up in the factory would disappear very quickly. It was a busy door and the sheet metal shop was closest so all day at least one of us would shout DOOR! at anyone who came in walked away from the door thinking it would shut itself. So, all day every day throughout the winter you’d hear it 20+ times a day.
Since then I have had “door tourettes” whenever someone leaves a door open, I feel I have to shout it! At home I might shout DOOR as soon as anyone starts to open a door, as a joke to get them to tut frustratingly and yell back I have to open it to get through it but most of the time it’s because they either stand there with the door open or even worse leave it open. Middle of winter heating on the door is left open for an hour, after arriving home from school, before either me or Mommy discover it. The thing is middle of summer 30? outside we want the door open to get some air flow….and they shut the fucker?
Just lately Reagan has started to open the bathroom window and leaving it open, I think since she was asked last Saturday to clean the bathroom as part of the New Year clean which she did really well but since then she also really gets annoyed if anyone uses something and doesn’t put it back where she wants it to be, and she puts them back where she wants them to be! I think condensation to her is messing up her clean bathroom so she opens the window but opens it as wide as it’ll go…! The house was freezing tonight when she did it so the log burner and the heating had been a waste of time for the hour it had been on….I shouted but not “door”
We all turn into our parents but it takes a while to understand why!