I woke up this morning ....

... to a house load of kids age range of 13 - 18 and thought to myself, yes, this is how it is meant to be, a lively house and loads of happy people. I sometimes wish the kids would do this more often as there really is little worse as a parent to have kids seemingly avoiding the place!

In contrast, at some point today, most if not all of them will sod off again and I shall have the house back to myself.

Matt seems like he has decided to take a gap year which is fine except that he and me need to discuss finance as him taking a year out means I have to pay more money ... I lose Child Benefit for him, he no longer fits onto my income support claim and I have to pay a proportion of council tax and rent. It could actually cost him a fair bit to refund me te difference.

I need to start booking stuff. I am taking Robin to Calais next Thursday but it looks like Matt can't join us as he'll be starting his new job hopefully this week but I don't know that and he so needs to find out so that I can be certain of the booking. I shall soon be booking the murder evening for Robin and I which looks like being fun, that's another part of his spread out birthday present ... what with me trying to not make a big thing of the day itself. I also need to book flights and the accomodation to Venice else either the price will go up or their won't be anywhere to stay ... I can sort that when Nick gets back this week. I'd have liked to gone with Simon but realistically if we cannot manage to sort out one day together, a whole week stands no chance of happening. Not that I won't enjoy it with Nick, I am sure I will it just would have been nice to spend some time with Si.

You Bloody Idiot

I had a really enjoyable time in Meltham with Stan and Pete, even that walk against the wind up the pub on Saturday evening in a blizzard was fun. On the way there I thought it’d be fun to take some pictures of the car in the snow. I had not realised just how windy it was, I seriously thought my door was stuck when I tried to open it but it was just being pressurised by the forces outside. I am lucky really the wind had not been behind me else the door would have been ripped off. On the way back on Sunday I paid a visit to Sue in Sheffield. I like Sue and she is a great conversationalist. The journey was not without incident as the satnav kept failing and crashing and just became useless. I eventually tracked the problem down to the loudspeaker connection for the mount and once I’d removed that it was stable and guided me well to Sue’s door. I am really happy to report that the steroid injection I had last week as helped ease my pain. I still have the pain but it is not restricting me ...

2 Weeks in

Amazing as it seems I am two weeks through my visit here. Some might be getting a little confused about why I am here. There is only one important reason and that is to be with Dennis. This isn’t a vacation to me, it’s just about having to travel to the Philippines because it is where Dennis happens to be. I’m still in very regular contact with home dealing with daily issues, the council, social services and so on. I am geographically away from it but technically still connected. Obviously it’s cool to wander into Manila and see the place, travel in a Jeepney and so on. Wandering around the malls is fun but it is who I am with rather than where I am that matters most to me. Highlights for me, apart from every second I spend with Dennis have to be meeting family and friends. Veronica and her family and Imee of course who has kept me entertained for hours with conversation about anything and everything Ireneo too tries real hard wit...

Not a good day

Today is a very emotional one for me. I have no idea why that would be the case but apparently it is. For a day that had nothing pre-arranged this one has turned out quite busy. First, I agreed to take Matt for breakfast though I wasn't really hungry. He was being quite argumentative in the morning about some thing or other, I don't recall what exactly but some matter of politics where he was going to argue the toss whilst knowing little or nothing about it. But, even so, I was quite upbeat as Jermaine had gone to school on time ... no, scrub that, i was upbeat until I yet again had to tell Zoey to get her arse out of her room, downstairs, do her chores and get to school, that is when this day started to go downward. I spent way too much money on a new doorbell, true, we needed one but not one that cost nearly £50! This too has not helped. I went to see a garage that can fit parking sensors to my car, all well and good but they needed me to supply paint to match the circles up ...

Steve from England

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