Oh No!! It's a man with a cold....stay away unclean! unclean!

Typical caught a blimmin cold, and I can't sleep.  The kids have got it too.  What annoys me the most about colds is that are so.....inconvenient!   You know you're not going to die, yet it's capable of stopping you doing anything constructive.  Then you also have to watch out for the cold outside making you worse.  I'm fed up of colds, they are irritating.  The kids agree too, my poor daughter was half crying/half moaning that she wanted it to 'go now',  it was making her feel rotten.  This is why I am blogging now at a time when a normal person would have been asleep for a few hours already.

I have tried hard to use the time 'ill' to do some things with the kids.  Any free time I've had since before the holidays I've tried to have little craft projects on the go with them.  Over the Christmas time my son and I worked on his Doctor Who Tardis, Airfix model kit.  We spent a lot of hours putting it together and painting the Tardis, but we spent even longer painting the Doctor and his assistant Martha Jones.  (if anyone is interested I will add some photos of our workmanship of which we are very proud)  If none of this makes much sense please look up Doctor Who and use the links I've provided.

Anyway as I said there is another craft project I have been working on.  It's very girly too. My daughter and I have been creating a little fashion brochure, and she has been designing her own fabrics.(or at least decorating ones we already have to her own taste)  I am genuinely impressed by her definite taste in clothes and how much she notices the little details like the collar and the pockets, even the buttons.  My role has been mainly advisory, but I'm good at cutting and I also designed and drew the mannequins we are dressing.  I'm loving it!  It's really interesting, not the clothes, I mean the craft and design involved.  I'm loving us working as a team too, good old quality time with the kids.

While we have been doing this, my son has been building a spot of LEGO.   He loves it!  He obsesses with a model until it is complete.  He's built 2 ships, a helicopter, a Batmobile, Darth Vaders Tie Fighter, the mojority of Spongbob Squarepants themed LEGO, such as the Rocket, the character houses, the boating school blah blah blah...there's loads more!  The latest one is a bit smaller it's a car, and a snazzy  one at that.  It looks like a Shelby GT500 (aka Ford Mustang) to me, which makes it muscle car cool.  Here's an image of it taken on my mobile phone.

A break in the weather

Just a week or so back, just as the first snow had cleared, we had this beautiful day.  It was cold, but there's a certain something about sunny wintery days that motivates you to action.  I had earlier in the day come across this little opening to the beach less than a mile from home, and had to investigate it with the kids as soon as possible.  It's now my favourite local beach, quiet and clean.........beautiful.

The photo isn't as clear as I'd have liked because I was zooming using the digital zoom.  Still, I love the activity of the waves and the sea, all so busy!

Who wouldn't want to look at the waves like that.  I think actually my son was letting the waves chase him up the beach.....and he used his real feet and legs not even virtual ones!

There's always the excitement of discovering something interesting that came in from the sea.  This skull was a major discovery that day.  After a bit of discussion we decided it was a fish skull rather than a seagull which was my first thought, but still it looks interesting and we bought it home.

This stone has been added to our collection, with its squiggles and veins.

about time too I reckon

For all of us music has had a profound effect on our development in life.  My tastes in music have changed drastically, from the early pop years, through to my funk, soul, disco and even blues years.  I still love this music, but now is is joined by rock both modern and classic.  For instance I have a favourite Beatles song, and its a more obscure one!  Now that the days of Mod's has been and gone, I can enjoy The Jam and The Who without needing to be a part of the culture.  Britpop era was eye opening, exposing me to Supergrass, Oasis, Blur, Suede and Pulp all of which have retrained my tastes.

But I go on, you see the purpose of this post is to let the music do the talking.  It is my pleasure then to invite you now to the Royal Opening of my new blog, set up to share great music!  It was once said that (you know who you are) that I had cloth ears because of my taste in music.  Well i'm hoping this will establish enough evidence to disprove that.  Please subscribe/bookmark and click the link to .......

http://whosaysihaveclothears.blogspot.com

To update this second blog should be simple, so do have a look often as you don't want to miss out!

Music Gold

Thought i'd share little bit of musical gold with you. If you can close your eyes and turn it up, do it. To me this is a like the new Crabbies Alcoholic Ginger beer, filling your pallet with a fresh yet nostalgic taste, a little dry but wonderfully satisfying and crisp.

You may missed this when it came out years ago. Or maybe you haven't heard it for a long time. Its worth a listen now believe me!

Toploader -Achilles Heel


Now go to itunes, you know you wanna.

Off my FACE.......BOOK!

It's empowering you know, cutting myself off at long last from Facebook. What they have been calling social networking, i've been viewing as unsolicited intrusion. It's weird, because I love people and am very social, but that was just making me choke under a barrage of mundane and benign tripe. I know this is only an opinion and one my darling wife doesn't share.

It's probably been like trying to give up smoking. You think oh its alright i'll just cut it down, I control it not the other way around. I thought by killing off my friends links to just a couple of family members and a school mate or two would give me back my life. (hold on thats overdoing it, give me back my ...time? yer. sanity?...yer a bit. ....my soul? hmm) It didn't work. There are too many reasons to enjoy Facebook to try to ease the relationship calmly. So i've had to do the leap of faith and kill the account once and for all, and just hope that I still have some friends after the massive (irony alert) fallout and carnage.

So here I am, me as me! Broken free! Hello-o-o-o-o? is anyone there-e-e-e-e? Am I alone-e-e-e? helloooooooooooo-oo-o-o-o? Oh damn where did I put my old Facebook account details...please let me in!!! Its cold and i'm so lonely!!