Steve from England

OK, no they're not, they are outside my window and it is looking gloomy again. Not just the weather but the atmosphere here is downbeat. Last night I was able to give my eldest boy a shower and a shave which was a small miracle but this was mainly because he desperately needed the shit removed from him, I do literally mean shit here. I have effectively been cleaning up shit covered kids for 18 years now and have to say, I am just about sick of it, this is not what I signed up for ... or, I didn't think this was what I was signing up for when I decided to have children back in 1986. Neither did my then wife so she took the easy route when we got divorced and left the kids with me and now wants nothing to do with the eldest and very little interest in the others. Cutting off like that is a good trick if you can do it but I can't. I have this inbuilt committment to my children and that is me. I am also not a small bit fed up with still getting post for Nick. It is nearly a mon...

OK, no they're not, they are outside my window and it is looking gloomy again. Not just the weather but the atmosphere here is downbeat. Last night I was able to give my eldest boy a shower and a shave which was a small miracle but this was mainly because he desperately needed the shit removed from him, I do literally mean shit here. I have effectively been cleaning up shit covered kids for 18 years now and have to say, I am just about sick of it, this is not what I signed up for ... or, I didn't think this was what I was signing up for when I decided to have children back in 1986. Neither did my then wife so she took the easy route when we got divorced and left the kids with me and now wants nothing to do with the eldest and very little interest in the others. Cutting off like that is a good trick if you can do it but I can't. I have this inbuilt committment to my children and that is me. I am also not a small bit fed up with still getting post for Nick. It is nearly a mon...

I like warm sunny mornings, they make me feel that everything just might be right with the world. Personally, I feel dead tired still because of going to bed late mast night but there wasn't really a reason to, it just happened that way. OK, so there was trying to get this thing sorted (which I think I have done now) but apart from that, there was nothing that couldn't have waited. Will be picking my new car up later, hopefully that all goes smoothly. Robin is driving up from MK to drop me off there and I want to go over to see Tony later too if I can. Picked up new car, a little Neon and it is just a bit special so I am a happy bunny. Tony was fine, hopefully will get his plaster off in a day or so, his leg has taken an age to heal so I imagine he is quite pleased about that. Pete was there too which was a bonus. I need new telephones but not sure which to get yet, I really need a set of 5 but the most seems to be 4 and if it had an answerphone with a multi number memory all t...

I like warm sunny mornings, they make me feel that everything just might be right with the world. Personally, I feel dead tired still because of going to bed late mast night but there wasn't really a reason to, it just happened that way. OK, so there was trying to get this thing sorted (which I think I have done now) but apart from that, there was nothing that couldn't have waited. Will be picking my new car up later, hopefully that all goes smoothly. Robin is driving up from MK to drop me off there and I want to go over to see Tony later too if I can. Picked up new car, a little Neon and it is just a bit special so I am a happy bunny. Tony was fine, hopefully will get his plaster off in a day or so, his leg has taken an age to heal so I imagine he is quite pleased about that. Pete was there too which was a bonus. I need new telephones but not sure which to get yet, I really need a set of 5 but the most seems to be 4 and if it had an answerphone with a multi number memory all t...

I have spent an age editing this thing to get it looking how I want and it is still wrong ... fuck it, tomorrow will do!

I have spent an age editing this thing to get it looking how I want and it is still wrong ... fuck it, tomorrow will do!

Not that I should be shocked by this but, well, today was boring, functional but boring. Whenever I get a day to myself I just have this habit of filling it up with things I don't need to do and not taking time just for me. What I did first was to decide I would go get some coffee down town. On the way I thought what a clever idea it would be to go into the DVLA and pick up my new road tax so I did that. Then, coffee, only I didn't of course, I headed off to post a letter and then coffee, only I didn't .. I went to Halfords to look at some alloy wheels for my new car and then coffee? No, not a chance. Matt called and asked if I could meet him down town. He had screwed up his budget, can't quite get to grips with not being able to spend the same money twice and building in some set aside for those moments, like today, when we find things didn't quite work out as we planned. If I had taken the money he owed me, he would have been broke for a month which is just daft s...

Not that I should be shocked by this but, well, today was boring, functional but boring. Whenever I get a day to myself I just have this habit of filling it up with things I don't need to do and not taking time just for me. What I did first was to decide I would go get some coffee down town. On the way I thought what a clever idea it would be to go into the DVLA and pick up my new road tax so I did that. Then, coffee, only I didn't of course, I headed off to post a letter and then coffee, only I didn't .. I went to Halfords to look at some alloy wheels for my new car and then coffee? No, not a chance. Matt called and asked if I could meet him down town. He had screwed up his budget, can't quite get to grips with not being able to spend the same money twice and building in some set aside for those moments, like today, when we find things didn't quite work out as we planned. If I had taken the money he owed me, he would have been broke for a month which is just daft s...

Monday I had an all important network meeting with social services and just about everyone concerned with my eldest son (18) and his care (or lack thereof). Jermaine is really disabled, I mean, mentally and has been since he was 11 months old, we don't know what happened and it really isn't worth working out what it might have been, it won't change anything. Well, he is the eldest of 4 children, I have another boy now 17, a girl of 13 and another at 12, the eldest girl also has special needs but they are only moderate and a breeze in comparison to our Jermaine. I say 'our' but, really there is just the 5 of us as I divorced their mother in 2000 and she has shown little interest in the kids since, she refuses to have anything to do with the eldest and does a real fine job of pretending she is not even related to him. Up until just recently I had a partner but the lack of outside support with the really challenging violent behaviour from Jermaine ruined it. So far thi...

Monday I had an all important network meeting with social services and just about everyone concerned with my eldest son (18) and his care (or lack thereof). Jermaine is really disabled, I mean, mentally and has been since he was 11 months old, we don't know what happened and it really isn't worth working out what it might have been, it won't change anything. Well, he is the eldest of 4 children, I have another boy now 17, a girl of 13 and another at 12, the eldest girl also has special needs but they are only moderate and a breeze in comparison to our Jermaine. I say 'our' but, really there is just the 5 of us as I divorced their mother in 2000 and she has shown little interest in the kids since, she refuses to have anything to do with the eldest and does a real fine job of pretending she is not even related to him. Up until just recently I had a partner but the lack of outside support with the really challenging violent behaviour from Jermaine ruined it. So far thi...