Had a great day with Rhiannon and Chandler yesterday.
They both woke up late (around 07:00) and I had gone to bed around 22:00, so I got a good sleep, which is quite unusual for me.

We went out into town around 11:00 and then met up with everyone for lunch at 13:00 at The London. The kids shared a child sized roast chicken dinner, which was good, although Chandler still refused to eat the potatoes. We then went home and spent the afternoon watching films, playing with lego and beating me up. Rhiannon had me in stitches while we were walking back to the car, attempting to copy how a pigeon walks! I thought I was going to wet myself :)

Dropped them off to Bimbos at about 17:50, after we had had pizza for tea and Chandler was in his pyjamas. Once again, they didnt want me to leave. When I stood up to go, Chandler held my hand and led me to the door - not to let me out - but to take him back to my house again. He was not happy with being left again. Rhiannon actually broke out of the house and ran down the road as I was getting in the car! Made me feel crap again! I would love for them to come and live with me, but I dont think it will happen unless something happens to Bimbo or they werent safe. I'd drop my career like that! Being a full time dad would make me the happiest guy on the planet.

Got into work today to find everything was OK. Nothing left outstanding and no late evening work booked for me - which is excellent. I'm working late tomorrow and Thursday is a staff do - free drinks all night!

[link]   Posted @ 15:32

I've been off work since Wednesday with a horrendous cold. Glands have been up, white tongue, infected sinus, etc - quite horrible. Feeling better now, but had a horrendous couple of days :(

Met Petes new lass yesterday evening - Shelly. She is lovely. In every way. I was with Pete the night he met her but didnt recognise her.

Picked the kids up at 10.00 this morning. Went shopping for a bit, came home and had a snack, as we were meant to be going to a friends for a BBQ. Unfortunately, they called to say one of them was ill, so it got cancelled. As I dont have a BBQ at my house, we grilled the food instead and ate it in the garden/kitchen :)

Chandler didnt have his usual sleep this morning, so he has been a little irritable this afternoon. But when I put him to bed this evening, he didnt want to go down. Which is odd as normally he asks me to go to bed. Anyway, I took him downstairs and cuddled him while watching the end of the CBeebies channel on Freeview. As they were singing the closing song about going to bed and having a lovely day - he fell asleep. It was amazingly cute. I cried, just holding him asleep in my arms.

[link]   Posted @ 19:27

Well it looks as though I wont be going to court to sort out the financial side of things with Bimbo. We have come to an agreement between the two parties that we are both happy with and that will be that. I think 2 things have to be done in court, 1 the financial statement and 2 the "clean break" meaning that neither of us can do anything further against each other financially. So thats pretty cool.

My order from Amazon arrived this morning before I left for work (but only because I overslept - didnt wake up until 08:45!) which contained 4 books each containing 3 full novel. Thats 12 novels for me to read - should last me a couple weeks...

Working late tonight doing a change over at Parkway (from a problem dating back into last year), and tomorrow night will be round Ians to watch some films, etc.

I might try and get my DivX player working on my laptop, but I think I will need to install a completely new version of the OS first. Currently running Mandrake 7.2 on it, but I think I will download or obtain Mandrake 8.2 and try that out.

[link]   Posted @ 14:14

Right. Snooker on Thursday. I won 2-1. Which pleased me :)

Tim came home around 20:00 and said "Pack your bags. We are going to Newquay". I said I couldnt as I was picking up the kids in the morning. So of he went - to Newquay I thought...

I picked Rhiannon and Chandler up on Saturday morning about 10:00. I was expecting to pick them up at 08:00 as Bimbo may have been working, but she left me a message on Friday night.

Anyway, I picked them up and went to my sisters to celebrate her 17th Wedding Anniversary! We had scrambled eggs and salmon at about 12, so that was nice. Both kids started off not wanting the salmon and eventually ended eating most of the plate!

In the afternoon I took them to the Wacky Warehouse and Rhiannon had her face painted. Pictures of them will be in the gallery later, when I upload them and run the thumbnail script.

Chandler went to bed again at 6pm! Very strange...
Anyway, today we went into town as I had to buy some bits ready for the holiday in August. Oh yeah, I havent mentioned that have I :) More later.

I've just got back from dropping them back to Bimbos. Luke was there but it was alright. Chandler once again didnt want me to leave. I think he is so unused to the attention that I give him, that he doesnt want to be without me - which is extra nice. But I feel like a lowlife shit whenever I leave :(

Anyway, the holiday in August. Well, v. early in the year (before all the troubles), Bimbo and I agreed that I would have them 2 weeks in the summer holidays, so I am having them the first and last weeks in August. I havent planned anything for the 2nd week yet, but I have booked to go camping in the first week. We will be staying in Crantock (nr Newquay) for the Tuesday and Wednesday nights. 3 days/2 nights in a tent with both of them. Part of me is thinking I am mad, part of me is thinking it will be a nightmare, but most of me is so excited I want to scream.

I already have a tent, cooker, gas, etc and a bag for me. I bought a sleeping bag for Rhiannon today along with a beach tent (+50 UV protection) for when we are on the beach. Newquay/Cornwall is great for stuff like that. There is Newquay Zoo, Mevagissey, the beaches, etc, etc. As I work out more and more about it I will post items of interest (and items of disinterest).

[link]   Posted @ 17:22

Well - snooker went well last night - NOT!

We started paying at about 19:50 and I was doing well. I'd won 3 frames and then the lights went out. There was a power cut and half of the lights in the club went out (along with a couple of other places in the same street). So that cut that pretty short.

So we were home by 10 :(

Which left me time to sort out my new XP box by getting some software installed on it, etc. I will be setting the Win2K Dual PIII machine up as a server again pretty soon and moving the CDRW into the XP machine, so I can burn on the faster machine. When the 2 40gb drives come back from RMA, I will stick them into the server and woohoo!

Playing snooker with Ben tonight (hopefully it wont turn into the fiasco that was last Thursday).

I used to think I played too much pool. Now I think I play too much snooker. But I do seem to be improving - slowly...

[link]   Posted @ 09:57

Well - I took Bimbo to the hospital. She didnt have the operation today as the swelling is still too much, so she has to go back again next week.

So I didnt get the kids all day today :(

I'm feeling a bit shitty about that really. I wanted to have them, but on the grounds Bimbo was at home, it meant I could so some work, etc.

Chandler was most upset when I left. He has been like that the last few times he has been with me. Tanya took him out of the car (when I was dropping them home) while I emptied the boot. Partway into the house, he was kicking up so much stink and holding his arms out to me, I swapped the pram for Chandler. He stopped crying immediately and started smiling. Then, 2 minutes later, I handed him to Bimbo and it all started again. I really think he knows who I am now and people have remarked on how much of a Daddys Boy he is. If I leave the room or anything, he creates. I think its great, but it really hurts deep down whenever I leave him. [tears at this point]

Rhiannon is getting better at leaving me now. She understands, I think, that she is going to see me again soon, so she has nothing to worry about. Chandler doesnt. The age Chandler is now is the best age and I wish both of them were that age and could stay that age. He will be 18 months old on June 6th.

Bimbo also spoke today about arrangements for the summer holidays and Xmas holidays. At Xmas, I am at Center Parcs (as always), as is Bimbo. So we have agreed to split the week with the kids. Bimbo will have them Monday - Wednesday and I will have them Thursday - Sunday. As to what to do about the summer holidays, I dont know yet.

I am having them for 2 weeks in the summer, but am going to split that into 2 seperate weeks. We will definately go away during those weeks (probably just for a couple of days at a time). I would like to show them around England a bit, but being sat in a car is incredibly boring. Rhiannon wants to go camping at one point, so we might do that for a couple of nights down in Cornwall or something. The other week - god knows - but I dont want to stay at home with them, as that would be horrible for them.

[link]   Posted @ 22:04

Dropped the kids back earlier after taking them on the pier for a while. Went on some rides, won some 2p games, had ice-cream and hot donuts :)
Had a frank discussion with Bimbo about what kind of person she is. I was honest with her and she cried. I feel a sorry for her in a way, she has soooo many issues. Fortunately, I am not one of them anymore.

I vacuumed the house today (apart from Tims room and en-suite). Filled a whole bag with carpet fluff! Damn new carpets!

Tomorrow I am taking Bimbo to hospital and having the kids for the day.

I really must put some more interesting stuff up on here. Some peoples blogs are funny (I might do some funny pages to link to) but this just seems to be more like boring stuff. But I do know that people read it and have spoken to me about it, so....

[link]   Posted @ 20:00

I have the kids for like, loads!

Collected them this morning at 11. I went out last night with Tim and Lee (back from his cruise ship) and ended up in a club along with Pete, Nikki, Emma, Amy, Charlie and my ex-!

Excellent night all round. Had to run to Petes flat at one point 'cos the club wouldnt let me in with trainers on - so had to borrow his shoes...

Anyway, the kids. I picked them up this morning and have to drop them back at 12 on Monday, as Rhiannon has a friend round for the afternoon. Bimbo will then be dropping them off on Tuesday morning on her way to hospital.

Was meant to receive a delivery from CityLink, but they couldnt find the house and the cretin driver left the wrong number on the message he left so couldnt call him back. Twonk! Called the local office to find they finished at 12! So hopefully they will deliver on Tuesday. I paid �15 for the Saturday delivery as well.

[link]   Posted @ 12:40

Got a phone call from Bimbo today. She has an operation booked on the 27th May for her nose to be fixed. She will be having a general anaesthetic as it will go on for quite a while.
Apparently 4 breaks - and 1 of them has crumbled! Nice!

So I am having the day off work to have Rhiannon and Chandler - yay!

I am also not a snooker god. Lost to Ben 3 frames to 2 :(

[link]   Posted @ 13:56

I am a snooker god.

Well - ish :)

Play Ian last night at Rileys and won 7 frames to 1. Best break of the night by me was 27. I was well chuffed. I think playing with the same cue helps quite a bit. I'm playing again tonight against Ben, so I'll see if I can continue the winning streak I was hoping for.

Got shedloads of problems at work. One of our buildings is having real issues with their network at the moment, and we just cant work out what the root problem is. We now have some engineers turned up to sniff the network to see if they can find anything.

I spoke to Bimbo and the kids last night. Rhiannon rang me to tell me she was going to bed and had wet pyjamas. Apparently, she had sat on the loo and the pyjamas had slipped in :)
Anyway, they are back home now and not staying at her mums, so I hope everything goes OK. I am picking Rhiannon and Chandler up on Saturday morning for the weekend, so that will be cool.

I have also taken a load of pictures of them, but cannot get the drivers working on my Win2K machine, so I think I will have to install the drivers on Tims PC and get them off onto that one. I have some great pictures of Chandler looking out of the window at diggers, etc and really want them on the site...

Also had to RMA 2 40gb drives last night - one Seagate and one Maxtor. Both dead. One doesnt power and one is failing S.M.A.R.T - whatever that means. Ho-hum!

[link]   Posted @ 10:31