Spent the day with Rhiannon doing very little. We had lunch at the Mall, in the car, after buying sandwiches from "the make-up shop" or "Boots" as the rest of the world call it :)

Then we spent a couple of hours at my sisters. She mentioned I looked happy.

So did Ian and Shelle. Damn them :)

And I need to buy more tickets to the Thunder concert at the end of the month, as more people are coming along now. I'll leave it up to you to work out who...

[link]   Posted @ 23:59

Picked up Rhiannon at 11am this morning, but not Chandler. He isnt very well so was staying with his mum. I was more than happy for him to come with me ill, but his mum wanted to keep an eye on him, so thats fair enough.

Rhiannon and I picked up Tracey and her 2 boys (Darrell and Lee) and went up to Wendys for the evening. There were lots of fireworks and a good time was had by all. Got home around 10pm and am now hanging. Tomorrow evening could well be spent playing pool with Tim and the twins, and I'll be seeing Tracey in the week :)

[link]   Posted @ 00:03

Todays interesting/comedy link is this. Truly outstanding.

Was out in Bristol last night with Andy, Paul and Andy. Met up with loads of old Lloyds/IBM people and had a blast at "Reflex - The 80s Club", dancing the night away. Made up a lot of lost time with Bryan (the guy who broke up my first marriage), and think I convinced him that I hold no grudge. I have his mobile number, so will give him a call. I've missed having him as my mate for many years :(

Picking up the kids this morning, doing some shopping, etc (gotta collect some stuff from town) and fireworks/tea this evening at Wendys (Shelles mum). Tracey will be there :)

[link]   Posted @ 09:11

Went out with Tracey last night.

We met at Unwined at 8pm and then moved onto the Cabot at 10.30.

We talked the whole time. Discovered that we have a huge amount in common, same views about all sorts of things, both love our kids beyond anything and that we may have known each other when we were teenagers, and we may have a couple of mutual friends. We were eventually turfed out at around 2am, and took a romantic walk along the sea-front* to get a taxi.

We got on really well and we will be seeing more of each other (YAY!). Saturday night, we are going to Shelle's mums house for a firework display (Ian got a discount on �70 worth of fireworks!), so it will also give our kids a chance to meet again :o

Life is improving...

Todays comedy moment is brought to you courtesy of BBC news. Jokes based around "fingers", "ring" and "vibrate" should be sent to the usual address.

* For those of you who know Weston-super-Mare, you know what a satirical statement that was.

[link]   Posted @ 11:21

Thought for the day:

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift which is why it's called the Present!

[link]   Posted @ 13:28

Went to the kids Nans for tea and fireworks last night. Rhiannon wasnt feeling well when I picked her up, but improved over the evening. Chandler ate like a horse - continually eating apart from when he was watching the fireworks!

Ended up at Ian and Shelles for the rest of the evening, chatting and stuff. Ian came up with some good idea for my "assembling bunk beds" webpage. Suggestions included adding pictures of the tools (screwdrivers, hammer, saw, bottle of whisky, etc) as well as comedy setups of me impaled, the beds resembling various other objects, etc.

Todays link is to here. The man has way too much time on his hand, but frankly, its brilliant. Great site design and good idea. If I had the time, I'd do it. But I havent, so I wont :)

[link]   Posted @ 10:48

Spent the evening last night tidying up and moving the kids bedrooms around. Chandlers bed is now in Rhiannons room - leaving me space to assemble the bunk beds in Chandlers old room. Thats part 1 of the "How to assemble a bunk bed" page. I figure, if I mention that phrase often enough, my google ranking might go up :)

Boxed up and moved loads of stuff out of my room as well, which has made my bedroom look a lot larger. I might even move the bed now.

And then I had a phone call from Martin telling me that we had a power cut at the data centre and could I call in and check that all the network was up and running. Did that and everything was fine.

And then I had a phone call from Telewest at 02:20 to tell me that a line had gone down. But they didnt know what line it was, where it went or what it did. Just before I finished getting dressed, we agreed that it could wait until the morning, when they might have been able to get more details about it!

Tonight, I'm picking the kids up after work and taking them round to the their Nans for tea and fireworks, then round to Ians for the evening. Hopefully, I will get back in time to start my bunk bed project.

Note: The And then was especially for Ian, as it appears to be his favourite saying at the moment :)

[link]   Posted @ 14:07

Forgot to mention that I sold the P4 2.4G machine that I had lying around. Still have the keyboard/mouse and monitor left over though... I'm tempted to get it setup somewhere around the house and see if people try to use it...

Plus, I had a phone call from a guy (Darren) who bought a PC some months back. Went round his house, and found that the machine was completely dead - PSU had died. I'm looking around for a new machine for him, but I might end up building him a machine from the bits I have (plus one of the motherboards I've bought). He's given me a budget of �100 and I just need a base unit, so I should be able to do that.

He paid about �150 for a Pentium 200, 1.2Gb hdd, 2x CDROM, 14" screen, keyboard and mouse. He seemed genuinely upset when I told him it was only worth about �50. I should be more genteel and show some empathy really. Sorry Darren :)

Oh yeah. As well as the hectic life that is my life, I have to put my kids bunkbeds together soon. Currently there are in 3 pieces - a mattress, another mattress and a large box full of wood, instructions and screws. I'm tempted to photogrpah and document the whole process, in the lame hope that someone somewhere will one day search for "how to assemble bunk beds" on google and find my page...

[link]   Posted @ 11:45

Been spending a little this month. Along with several Xmas presents (yes, I know), I have bought:

Coat stand - for the kids, looks like a huge pencil
Burberry Jeans - these are really cool and soft
Fubu jeans - great baggy things - amazingly comfortable
Boxer shorts - really needed :)
Cargo trousers - required for work as my main pair of work combat/cargo trousers are ripped
Indiana Jones Trilogy on DVD - cheap from Tesco
2x Motherboards - to build a couple of machines from all the bits I have lying around
Volvo Seatbelt - to replace the broken one in the car
35000 Tattoos CD - to get my next tattoos planned out

I think that is everything. And I think I spent just over �100 on all that lot.

Spoke to Tracey on Sunday afternoon, when I was round Ian and Shelles. Shelle embarrassed us both by calling Tracey and then just handing me the phone. We chatted for a bit and are meeting up later in the week. Dead nervous about it, but really looking forward to it, as she was great at the wedding.

Going to a firework display on Saturday with the kids up at Shelle's mums. Should be good, as the one last year was.

[link]   Posted @ 11:36

Well its now Sunday, so time to update on the wedding and more...

Unfortunately, no pictures as I left my digital camera at home, but I will be scanning in all the photos (and possibly the proofs) when I get hold of them.

Anyway, Ian stayed over on Thursday night. Got my haircut in the morning. We took his 2 boys to the Wacky Warehouse for dinner and when we got back, started to get ready.

The Rolls Royce turned up at 3.30 to take us to the church, so off we went. Arrived in plenty of time, chatted to some friends outside and then made our way to the front of the church. Ethan scraped his finger on his chair before the service started and Auntie Gine had to sort out a plaster. Shelly and the bridesmaids arived. Shelle was in a black dress and look simply stunning. The bridesmaids were equally gorgeous, in red and black outfits. I'll talk more about the bridesmaids later :)

The service went perfectly, made even better by Anthony (Ian and Shelle's youngest lad) wandering around in the service and asking what was going on. The vicar was excellent about it - this is her last ever wedding as she is retiring soon. I was also Ians witness on the wedding certificate - which was cool. He only told me on Wednesday :)

After the actual service - photo time. The photographer (Tom Gage) was excellent and took a mass of photos inside and out.

The bridesmaids and I then took a limo to the reception - but we had to stop off at a cashpoint enroute ddue to me leaving all the cash at home! Spent most of the journey chatting to Tracey, one of the bridesmaids about all sorts of crap. There were 4 altogether, Rachel - 14, Nikki - 17, Vikki - 27 and Tracey - 32. They all looked great in their outfits.

The reception was held at the Commodore Hotel in Sand Bay and it was great. As the wedding happened on Hallowe'en, the room was decked out in a spooky manner and most of the guests were in fancy dress. It was great.

The speech - well here it is:

Ladies and gentlemen, firstly may I start by thanking Ian, on behalf of the bridesmaids and page boys, for his kind words..

When Ian first asked me to be the Best Man, I told him that I was deeply honoured, but unfortunately I didn�t think that I was the right person for the job.
Ian said to me �How about �20�. I said �Ian, I can�t be bought�. Ian then said to me �How about �20 and a double rum and coke�...(Pause)...So, Good evening ladies and gentleman my name is Tudor and I am the Best Man for today...

Initially, I was quite thrilled at the prospect of this privilege. But it didn't take long for this feeling to disappear as I remembered the last time I had to stand up in front of a room full of people. I was found guilty and fined �200...(PAUSE)...So I hope you will be a little bit more forgiving and lenient than the last lot were.

Being the best man is quite a responsibility, so I checked in several places and came up with a checklist of what my basic duties should be for today, just so that I wouldnt forget anything.

Item 1
On the day, bring a credit card and loads of cash in case there is anything the groom may have forgotten to pay for.

Well, ever since I have known Ian, I have had to carry around my credit card, this so thats nothing new. He's always pretty good with the cash though.

Item 2
Help the groom dress himself.

It took a while, but I did eventually manage to persuade Ian that the Church had a strict no jeans or Dr Martens policy.

Item 3
Ensure that the groom is sober, punctual, has his shoelaces tied ,his flies done up and uses the toilet before the service.

Well, that all went OK, but I did use the toilet before Ian and checked that the window was too small to escape out of.

Item 4
It is my responsibility to make sure his face and hair are in order.

Now I think that this is really unfair on the best man. If God couldn't do it right in the first place what chance did I have?

The rules also stated that I should sing the praises of the groom and tell you all about his good points.

So what can I say about him (get paper from pocket)

He's Handsome
Witty
Intelligent
Charming

Erm...

Sorry Ian, I can't read the rest of your writing, so we'll just leave it at that.

[READ CARDS]

It is customary at this point in the speech for the best man to launch a severe character assassination of the groom and to tell you a bit about the stag party, but frankly, I am far too scared of Shelle to do that so I will instead give Ian some tips that I found on the internet.

Ian:-

The best way to remember your anniversary is to forget it once.
Always remember those three little words..."You're right dear".
It is important to get on with your mother in law. My friend didnt speak to his for two years. Not because he didn't didnt't like her... he just thought it was rude to interrupt.

Anyway, I've done enough on my own so at this point I would like to ask Ian and Shelle to participate in the speech for a short moment. Don't worry, it's quite harmless, TRUST ME...
Shelle can I ask you to put your hand flat on the table...
Ian now it's your turn. Place your hand directly on top of Shelle�s.
I hope you're enjoying that Ian, because it's the last time you're gonna have the upper hand!

Now, it gives me great pleasure (and immense relief) to ask you all to stand and raise your glasses in a toast:

Michelle and Ian, May your love be modern enough to survive the times, and old fashioned enough to last forever...

Michelle and Ian

It went down really well and thankfully, several people told me how good it was, etc. The fact is, I was shaking like a leaf. In front of maybe 150 people. I've done public speaking in front of 12000 people before and not worried about it, but this was weird.

My kids were there the whole day with Bimbo, Pete and Shauni. When I wasn't doing my offical duties, I was with them, dancing with them, chatting to all and sundry or chatting to Tracey. Both of the kids fell asleep on me within 20mins of each other - it was great. I love it when that happens :)

At the end of the evening, I'm stood at the bar with Ian, drinking Brandy and Lime (it sounds disgusting, but its great) when Shelle comes up to me. Apparently, Tracey really liked me and would I be interested in going out with her? Yes I said, cos I thought she was lovely (and well fit!).

So we texted yesterday and we're going out next week :)

[link]   Posted @ 07:55