Andy's Blog

A new month is upon us and.. oh my tis gonna be a full adventure packed one this year!  June, it has to be said, definitely had quite a few more downs than ups and really took a nose-dive as it approached its ultimate whimper.  The blog, as ever, suffered from a lack of updates but sometimes life is very rude in its attention grabbing; and these really weren’t things I could ignore.

So I start the new month off looking for some ‘new adventures’… let’s leave it at that for the moment, and contemplating a month of pain(s)…. of various unique flavours.

The little buggerage that is cancer is having the local quackery peek, poke and “hmmmm” at it first thing with a view to finally giving it its marching orders;  scalpel and eye-watering equipment at the ready!

Before one can even clench one’s but-tocks at that thought I shall be throwing myself, and number one sprog, into the competitive art of funny poses and grunting in a japanese accent.  I would call it Karate, but that really is doing the fair martial art a disservice… at least on my part.

What’s more worrying is that I shall be pitting my questionable skills against a large number of other practitioners, with some very VERY dark coloured belts, all in the name of becoming world champeeen!

Get that over and done with and I will age an extra year almost immediately… literally!  Nope, not in some abstract sense of the word, I will actually have aged another year.  That is if I haven’t already aged prematurely when number one sprog officially enters his teenagedom the week before.

There’s a bit more to tap out into this post, but I can’t seem to compose the correct combinations of letters and punctuation marks into something vaguely coherent.

Ah well, cometh the end of July and I’ll be pretty much offline for a few weeks; no on-line presence, no work, no karate, no updates, no cancerous lumps bumps ‘n other stuff? no idea… we’ll cross that bridge when we get there though.

First day of the month!

 

 

Risk is something we manage every day on an almost unconscious level; Do you pull out from the junction now, or wait until that red car passes by?  Sip upon the blessed caffeine bean straight away or blow on it to cool it down just a tad?  Stand and block an attack or step forward and sideways to go on the offensive?

All made fairly quickly and without being verbalised as a series of competing options and therein lies the rub, the verbalisation.  When the risks are said out loud it’s suddenly a decision that cannot be made unconsciously as it sits in front of you with a quizzical “so?” on its face.

“If you don’t do x, y could happen.  However there’s a risk with doing x that may result in y”

It all looks a bit like a mathematical formula at this point, especially when percentages are thrown at you to “help”.  Risk now moves from a personal set of choices to an impersonal set of numbers with some unpalatable consequences attached to them… or not… maybe.

So now I am left to face the calculation of “could” vs “may” and all that entails.

There’s a lot to be said for ignoring the whole issue and just throwing yourself into the elsewhere, delaying the inevitable and concentrating on those things that you can influence.. but the quizzical face is still there.

So?  Block vs Strike?  Could vs May?  Do vs Die?

This Monday just gone I was in a bad mood, and I hate being in a bad mood.

Being in a bad mood takes a lot of effort to maintain and really doesn’t do anything for ones complexion.

I especially hate being in a bad mood with the sprogs but sometimes, no matter how much of a “new age” parent you try to be, the little wallet drainers will dive head first into full martyrdom mode, throwing  proverbial dummies out of the even more proverbial cot, and get right on my tit.

The thing is, I remember being almost exactly the same when I was Number 1 son’s age.  The world was almost entirely against me and my parents were just the frontline of the battle-lines being drawn between me and the rest of the population of the Universe (yep, we’ve escalated from World to Universe).

To be fair my battles were minor scuffles when compared to the ding-dongs my Sister used to throw :¬)

To now find myself being that frontline soldier is somewhat startling.  Despite the rapid hair loss, white streaks in my facial bum-fluff, and snaps crackles & pops sounds that my bones make – in my head I am still that gangly 6’1 blonde idiot I was in my teenage years.

In a moment of revelation I look at the moping 13yo in front of me;

• 6’1? near as dammit,
• blonde? check,
• idiot? oh yes!

Oh crap!  I’m looking at Andy Mk II, the improved model.  I wonder if my dad ever had the same thoughts running through his mind?  …Probably not.

Not that this made the mood appreciatively better, although I now felt considerably older than I did a few seconds before that little epiphical revelation, cos now I feel I am just arguing with myself of 30-odd years ago!

*sigh* I feel the need to go and apologise to my parents…

Beer, pizza, mindless violence, hyper-active kids, cider, karate, mad dashes across Northamptonshire, troubleshooting wireless access points, kung-fu in a film with karate in the title, pill popping, weak-ass shower switching between nut-shrivellingly-cold and skin-searingly-hot, missing a birthday party, talking-about-love-n-life, kiddies roller disco party, tea, more tea, COFFEE, fighting, laughing, Iron Maiden, bruises, yoda, young love, old friends, full english breakfast, kids up till 3am, Jackie Chan overload, grading, teasing, expectations, throwing up, winding down, blogging, snoozing…

How was your weekend?

Blink, and *ping!* twelve years seem to have passed when you finally re-open your eyes.  Or at least that’s what it feels like with number one son.  The time has come in the Stewart & Moreno household to have some very earnest discussions, frettings, nashing of nails about the aforementioned clown-footed-floppy-haired-gangly offspring and his inevitable bid for new freedoms.

What freedoms do you allow a 12 year old to have?  At the end of the day although he is he is very tall, has a girlfriend and some semblance of common sense (if you dig deep enough), he is still the little boy that I used to bottle feed and dry after his bath… Even if he is now pretty much at an eye-to-eye level with me!

The thing is I think I was younger than this when I walked the few miles between our house in Northampton, through Abington Park, to School.  I also remember the first visible signs of fretting my parents had when they decided to let me have my wings, at what age I can’t remember, in Corby.

Of course, being young, I didn’t much worry about the fretting and I distinctly remember my watch “conveniently” stopping so the time I did eventually wander back home didn’t exactly match the time I was told to be in by.

My dad was very wise to that little trick!

So now it’s our turn to start that “fretting” to wonder what is acceptable freedoms to grant in this slightly less innocent age.  I am mindful, however, of whether the fears I have are entirely justifiable?

I’ve recently been watching Charlie Brooker‘s excellent “How TV Ruined Your Life” which has given me some food for thought.  So, whilst I ponder my sproglets current bid for freedom, feel free to pass on any wise words you may have on this subject, and bring much wisdom to the…. wisdomless, wise-ass-less, fick, wiseless (that’ll be me).

….hopefully number one son won’t be donning blue wode and mauling Scottish history in the meantime

Somewhat reminded of that scene from Blazing Saddles where Lilly Von Shtup is singing “I’m Tired”, not so much in the sense of being a “Goddess of Desire”, etc, but just the sheer sense of not being able to get the energy up to do anything of much use.

These past few weeks have been a manic blur of competing priorities, unrealistic expectations of what one person can achieve in a relatively short space of time, and this week just gone is something that just doesn’t want repeating.  Headless chicken mode is a thing of wonder and highly amusing… when it ain’t you that’s the nogginless avian!

Won’t go too much into detail, cos… well… I’m too tired to string the relevant words together properly, and in my case that level of in-eloquence isn’t pretty – suffice to say; kids, injuries and a little measure of work.  ’nuff said.

All of which is a rather round-about way of apologising for a lack of posts on my narcissistic little corner of the Internet.  I will try better, honest… just let me chug a few cans of Red Bull whilst chewing coffee beans and Zolpidem!

..Should make the next post an interesting one (at last)!

It’s true, I have reached a kind of prolonged brain-fart.  The brain is whirring around, as much as it ever does, the fingers are itchy to put something down in words, but all that comes out is some slightly stale air.

As much as I want to jot down the daily doings of me, in some kind of narcissistic ‘dear diary’, the truth is that not an awful lot of interest happens.  Life certainly isn’t in any shape or form as life-and-death as Ann Frank’s, or as tally-ho-trousers-down-and-up-the-constituents as Alan Clark’s.

So I find myself, during lunchtime at work, again within one of the music pods, sitting in front of this blog wondering what the hell to write down?  Life, as I see it, is pretty much consisting of the following;

1. Work is work.  I work in a Bank designing computer systems, how exactly exciting do you think that can get?   Of course, the slightly annoying element of me being no longer required come 31st December does cause some concern… but 31st DECEMBER?!  That’s like a lifetime away! (feel free to point me in the direction of this post in 2011 and rub my face in it if things don’t entirely work out the way I hope)
2. Karate is still providing the source of me getting beaten up in various, and intriguing, ways by multiple peoples.  Just as an aside a new lesson has been learnt; do NOT do leg exercises at the Gym just before a karate lesson later that evening.  The results are not impressive and the scowling by ones Sensei is something frightening to behold.
3. Home-life is home-life.  Trying to resolve the latest home based dramas; house, heating, repairs, family arguments, money, etc, etc. is starting to feel like work.  In the spirit of holding my hand up though, this is no different than anyone else.  However the feeling of just throwing the arms up in the air with some of the new drama’s and say “Fine, I give up, have it your way!” is just too strong at the moment.
4. Sleep is not sleep.  ‘Nuff said.
5. Go back to step #1

In my actual verbal self I am a person who doesn’t mind not having something to say.  I am completely comfortable, when I have nothing of interest to say, in saying nothing at all.  I don’t have the gift of the gab or have a hundred and one amusing anecdotes with which to regale friends and colleagues alike, and as seen from the above there’s nothing of note to bore the poor person I happen to be with about.

I just wish I had the same control when it came to blogging, although why blog in the first place if that were to be the case?  Here’s as good a place as any to dump any brain-fartage and it’s not as though anyone reads the thing!

There, “ramble” done and dumped onto the t’interweb along with all the other rubbish that inhabit it.  No violence (or at least none seen), or porn (that would be too terrifying a vision to dwell on) or conclusion to this post….

…just a faint stale smell, depending on how long after I posted this you read it, and a slightly relieved feeling on my part to expel it albeit somewhat publicly (which is very rude).

I looked at the ‘langostinos’ and rather disturbingly they looked back.  I’ll give most things a try, but not when those ‘things’ are able to look at me, with more than a little recrimination, and have more legs than foodstuffs should have!

“Look Dad! Buggly eyed beasties!” the boys bellowed across the table at me, knowing that the unofficial name that I gave this favoured Spanish dish gets me in more than a little trouble with the natives.

I also can’t help but feel a little queasy when said natives are ripping apart the aforementioned buggly eyed beasties and leave what looks like a slaughter of the cast of fingerbobs.

The Christmas meal just doesn’t seem the same without an obscene amount of roasted turkey and a feeling afterwards that you’ll be pooping feathers for the next few days.

This year I thought that, rather than ask for my usual ‘useful’ gift, I would get something completely impractical and feed the big kid in me.  Santa didn’t disappoint and I am now the proud owner of a mini Apache AH-64 remote controlled helicopter!  The little devil fits in my hand and buzzes around the room menacing all that are within the vicinity… mainly due to my ineptness with the remote and the fact that it’s an absolute bastard to control.

In fact the full danger of me being behind the controls of the helicopter meant that I was banished to the spare room to try and perfect my skills without taking out a family member.  The “you’ll take somebody’s eye out with that!” argument wasn’t won by myself when I pointed out that it *WAS* an attack helicopter.

Push the controls upwards and the helicopter shoots up and nearly hits the roof. Suddenly letting go of the control lever to stop it hitting aforementioned roof and it slams into the floor.  Buggar!  Push controls gently upwards and the helicopter lifts 4 foot off the floor and starts rotating in an annoying circle.  Looking down at the remote control for the “rudder trim”, as I remember the instruction sheet mentioning something about this, and the little bastard exits stage left and out the window onto the balcony.  “Ooooh shit!”

The little helicopter was never designed to fly outside, and it certainly wasn’t designed to hover from 6 floors up a block of flats.  As I run to the balcony it gave me one last look and started its rapid descent downwards.  I think the roadrunner type “meep meep” was of my own imagination.

Lunging over the plant pots that lined the balcony and desperately pointing the remote control at the gravity aided bit of plastic I managed to at least check the descent to a plummet.

I don’t think the shouted “Sorry!” to the bouffant haired old dear, tottering along the street outside, did much to calm her nerves.  I don’t think she appreciated the last desperate act of skill that changed the kamikaze dive bombing into a crash landing into the bush next to her.  I also don’t think the liberal sprinkling of potted plant dirt in her face as she looked up was also much appreciated.

My grasp of Spanish is basic, to say the least, but I got the gist of her feelings.  “Yeah, yeah, and that’s for the armada” I muttered after her angrily retreating frame, and started the long trek down the stairs to retrieve the errant present.

It seems ages since we had all gathered for a proper Sunday roast, but the Stewart’s (and accompanying brood) once more descended and wreaked merry havoc at my Parent’s house.

Stuffed ourselves silly with Roast Pork & Beef, roast spuds, mashed spuds, Peas (maybe not), cabbage (definitely not!), yorkshire pud, crackling and lashings and lashings of rich gravy… Yum!

Quick trip to the park to shiver for a wee while whilst kids throw soggy wet leaves at one another, and of course challenging young Felix to a swinging contest.  The winner is fiercely debated, and yes.. pictures do exist, but I ain’t telling where!

All in all, a cracking day out, topped off with an excellent memento of the day

Well, I have hit that big milestone in my life which, depending on who you talk to, is either all down-hill from here-on-in or where my life begins.  I am of course talking about reaching my 40th year of life.

To be honest, and to great disappointment in some and relief to others, I haven’t had any major wobbles or mid-life-crisery with this particular milestone.. or in fact am particularly bothered by it.  For some reason I had a major wobble at 25, as my erstwhile friend in Scotland will avidly remember, and that’s it.

Apart from giving me an excuse to eat copious amounts of cream cakes and doughnuts, plus a damned good reason to demand gifts with menaces, I have entered my 40th year of life with a non-committal shrug of the shoulders and a “meh”.

That said, and despite all the gifts I received and which were gratefully received, I think the best presents I received were from my sprogs.. although I don’t think they intentionally went out and got these for my birthday.

My youngest managed to get a handful of 3A’s *and* a 4 in his SAT’s (which is in the ‘beyond expectation/exceptional’  range for his age) and my eldest got straight-5′s in his SAT’s (which again is in the ‘beyond expectations’ range).

A bit of a last huzzah from #1 son in his last year of Primary School, as he also received the School Governor’s award for excellence!

There’s nothing quite so soppy as a proud parent …apart from, possibly, an old soppy parent!