Admitting Defeat: I'm Never Going To Get This Blog Fully Up To Date

Its 03:07 on Tuesday 17 May and I've come to the conclusion that I must never let this blog fall behind again. I've just been flicking through all the holding posts and trying to remember what it was that I meant to write. OK some of them I can fill in because I've made reasonably decent notes in Word or they are waiting for me to upload the appropriate photos and videos , which I can now do having worked out that I've still got a about 3 gigs unused Google free space. I'm going to have to bite the bullet though and buy some space because it's been the problem of trying to organise the photos via either Ovi or Zooomr that's caused all the problems.

So then what about today (Monday 16) what did I, or anyone else in the family for that matter, do of significance...or otherwise?

After Deb and the Kids left I hot footed it to the PC to do...what? Nothing particularly specific, catch up on Google feeds, Tweets etc. Well whatever I was doing occupied me until nearly 14:00 when finally I decided I'd best go to bed. One thing of note was that not buying cider meant I just had a few weak beers in the fridge and a few of these had no effect on me and so I didn't wake later feeling the effects of too much booze.

I tried to stay up to watch the last launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour but unfortunately it wasn't due to lift off until about 15:00 and I just couldn't stay up that long. So off to bed and time to see how long I can listen to a podcast before falling asleep. Sorry Jamila (Presenter of the Outriders podcast) but you weren't able to keep me awake and I'm afraid I'm going to have to play you again.

Deb woke me early because she and Nat had to go out and so we were having tea a little earlier than normal. Grabbed a quick showered and came down. Deb had an emergency Governors meeting at Brockington to discuss reducing staff salaries (the school's thinking of applying for Academy status) and Nat was going to help out at Cubs. If he does this for 6 months that will fulfil the community service element of his Queens Scout course.

This meant that I was left with Hannah and a slight problem. I had to leave for work at 7:00 but Deb wouldn't be home until 8:15 so what to do with her during the intervening period. I was supposed to lock her in but I agreed she could play out with the girls so long and Harleen's Dad was outside. I made sure she had her phone and planned to call her when I got to work.

I got to work around 7:30 and gave her a call; no answer her phone kept ringing until it went to voice mail. I tried calling Deb but her phone, as usual, was set to silent so she didn't respond. Next I tried Shantell's Mum Lidia but it seems she may have changed her number so in the end I called Donna who, God Bless Her drove down and checked everything was OK. Hannah also had her phone on silent and so hadn't known I was calling. Donna confirmed she was playing in Shantell's back garden so everything was OK.

I called Deb at 8:30 just to check. She was home. Nat had had a great time and Akala (Elaine) had confirmed that his helping out would qualify for the community service mentioned earlier. It seems he had a great time and Elaine said that he'd been great with the kids and hadn't been too rough. Thank God because he has no idea of just how strong he is. He'd knocked my glasses flying earlier on when we were messing round.

I forgot to mention that Brandon was around this evening the first time in a few weeks as he's been staying with his Dad while his Mum went on holiday

Work was very quiet tonight and its about bloody time, and there was nothing of consequence other than the fact that JDM said he was away next week which means we've got to change the plans we had to surprise him next Tuesday with a party to celebrate his 50th birthday. Looks like this will now happen on Wednesday. Gail and Abdul got their dates mixed up anyway and brought in food and chocolates this evening...whoops.

At least now I don't have a clash with JDM's bash and next Tuesday's Governors meeting where I think we are supposed to be going for a meal to say farewell to the Head John Simpson who's retiring at the end of term.

Cancelled Hospital, N8 Arrives, N8 Broken, Depression, Suicidal, Great Video, Camp, Sat Nav, Fog, Defeated, Homeward Bound, TWAT.

Phoned the Hospital and rearranged my appointment for the 17th of February next year. At 8:40, shortly after Deb had left to drop Hannah at school and go to work, there was a knock at the door and my new phone was delivered. Let joy be unconfined I’ve finally got a Nokia N8! I spent the first hour checking it out and playing with it before I decided I was ready to insert the sim card. I removed this from my N82 along with the removable memory card. I didn’t need to put a card in the new phone as it has 16 Gigs of internal storage but I wanted to transfer the contents of the card into its onboard memory. This would alleviate the necessity of re-downloading the podcasts and videos I had stored on it. THIS WAS WHERE IT ALL WENT WRONG!!! You know when crashes are blamed on human error, because the pilot is so familiar with what he does that he thinks he’s done something but he hasn’t, well I experienced something similar. I picked up the memory card and inserted it into the SIM slot pushing it home to ensure it fit. One Hundredths of a second later I realised what I’d done, but even now I don’t know why I did such a stupid thing, but it was too late. The card was in the slot and there was absolutely nothing I could do that would remove it. I tried easing it out with a pin but only succeeded in damaging the SIM slot. My beautiful new phone had now effectively been turned into a Nokia iPod, f**k f**k F**K! I have never felt so stupid in my entire life and the adrenaline was pumping through my system as the repercussions of what I’d done came home to me! When Deb called to ask if the phone had arrived and I had to explain what I’d gone and done I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me especially as she couldn’t keep the amusement out of her voice. Whether or not it can be repaired; forever after she and the kids will now refer to the N8 as the “brick” that Daddy made. What made things even worse was that everything that still worked, of course, worked perfectly. The camera and video were super as you'll see from this First Film -



The phone acquired a GPS lock in seconds and, after I’d remembered the password to allow it access, so did the Wi-Fi. It worked just fine allowing me access to the internet.

Eventually Deb and the Kids came home and discovered, in detail, exactly what as massive screw up I’d made. Despite this, the Kids were completely captivated by what the N8 could still do and were fighting with each other to get their hands on it.

Nat had to leave for camp so I put the approximate location into the phone which would allow me to test out the free Nokia Maps software. Again this worked superbly and we obtained full off line voice guided navigation. Unfortunately it was very foggy when we left home and as we travelled toward Kirby Mallory this got worse and worse. We easily found the general location, after a hic-cup when I entered the road name and we discovered that the software had plotted our route to a street within Leicester with the same name. We eventually got to the right road but by this time visibility was appalling so despite repeatedly driving up and down the road and stopping to ask directions a number of times we were unable to locate the entrance to the camp site. Eventually we decided it was no longer safe to keep looking and returned home. When we got back I phoned one of the scout leaders and explained what had happened and agreed we’d drop Nat off there in the morning. Even in the daytime the entrance proved difficult to find and it was pure luck that Hannah spotted it as we, once more, drove passed it.

I can’t say I slept well that night; I tossed and turned dreaming of the complete disaster I’d created because of a moment’s inattention! I sincerely hope it’s a long time before I experience another day like this one…Twat!

Back at Home, Vipers, Playing Hinckley, Defeated, Neil's Rant, Training Times, Bruce and Zak's Dad

There’s no rest for the wicked; we’re no sooner home from Cornwall than we’re off to see Nat play rugby for Leicester Vipers against Hinckley.


Oh dear such a shame, after lots of time together the Vipers pack have really got their act together and can hold their own against anyone, Nat’s the hooker, but unfortunately the backs are suffering from a two edged blow. A number of the experienced players have either left or are out with injuries and there are a lot of newbies who’ve never played rugby before. Against a well trained experienced team like Hinckley the Viper didn't stand a chance. Whenever the pack won the ball the backs lost it and then Hinckley would storm through them to score another try. It’s best to draw a veil over the final score!

On a note closer to home, Nat continues to suffer from an injury (we thought it was a pulled tendon later turned out to be a bruised kneecap)to his leg and it’s causing him a lot of pain.

Poor Deb she really caught the brunt of Neil’s (he’s the Vipers trainer) frustration with the teams performance when he turned on her and accused Nat of being par f the problem because he can’t come to training on a Wednesday. Deb doesn’t take that kind of shit from anyone and point out that as we’ve explained before, repeatedly, if the training session was was held just one hour earlier he’d be there every week come rain or shine but as it stands it’s training or Scouts and Scouts comes first with him every time. Don’t recall anything of any great import during the rest of the day other than Nat’s friend Zak has now started playing for the Vipers and his Dad and he had got a lift to the game with Jacob’s Dad Bruce. We all ended up chatting and like Bruce he seems to be a very nice guy. Next time I must find out his name, I never ever remember to ask people their names!