And the festive season is upon us.

So we are well into the realms of mad Christmas gift buying. Fighting our way through the throngs of people who are all desperate to find the correct gifts for their loved ones and all those family members that you dont hear from for the other 11 months of the year. Ive been watching people maxing out their credit cards on extravagant gifts with fear in thier eyes of have they got it right as if love can be bought from one materialistic expression on a holiday that seems to have lost all of its original meaning in our society of disposable possesions.

You grumpy git you may be thinking and I am the first to admit I can be bah humbug but I do like Christmas. I love the time I spend with family and its always a happy couple of days but for me that is Christmas. I really dont care about lavish gifts because the best gift is the kids laughter.

A strange experience happened today. I have completed the latest contract and as the next doesnt start until the end of January I thought it was time to add some qualifications to my skills. No point in being able to do stuff in our paper obsessed society without the right qualificatins. So I went along to ask at the local college about computer courses and a plumbimg course. I was taken straight to the plumbing building where the secretary sat me down in a classroom and promptly handed me an exam telling me I had 45 minutes to complete it. I thought this a bit odd but perhaps it was an entrance exam and I then filled the form out using maths I last used at school.

When done the exam was taken, along with myself, to the head tutor who marked it and then congratulated me on passing my City & Guilds level 1 in plumbing!!!!!

After the laughter stopped from me I asked what percenntage I got, 87% as it happens, and then told them I had only popped in to enquire about the course! After the shock sank in he told me that it was one of the highest marks this year and the fact I never sat the course didnt matter as my experience had obviously taught me all I needed to do for that level.

So I am now enrolled in the level 2 course which is a year long but I have been told I can be fast tracked through it which is good.

I have a hectic week coming up as im sure all of you do to so my next post may be a little while.

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year (incase im not back before!)

Good News Good News!

What a difference a day really does make. The phone call for work never came so I made a couple of calls and lined up an interview or two. Wifey did the same and as a result this afternoon we both have jobs that start in the morning!

I will be doing handyman work for a chain of three homes that support adults with learning difficulties and wifey is working for a shop in the Victoria Centre so happy days.

Looks like Christmas should be good after all!

Getting settled.

I think I reached a new level of stress on this move. A plain of existence that brought home the fact that I am now 36 years old not 26 and I really need to get fitter because 10 days constant work no longer sits right with my body. Yes I have to admit that I feared a stroke or heart attack and once we were into the following day my body seemed to know that the worse of the decorating, building and moving boxes was over then took the opportunity to shut down and lock up for the day.

Still the worst is done and the house now resembles a home. The youngest starts school in the morning and the eldest should start next Monday. I was due to start work in the morning but as yet no one has called to confirm a start time....if they dont I will shoot down to another agency and sign up with them instead. I refuse to worry about it and I will get onboard with someone else as I have already made a couple of calls. I can be so sensible sometimes! I suppose its a case of having to be as we are skint after the move and Christmas is heading quickly in this direction.

I am the proud owner of two allotments here in sunny Nottingham. The best bit is they are directly behind the back garden so not far to go and potter. They have not been used in a long long time so there is alot of clearing to do but nothing worse than my old allotments were like.

We are finally connected to the internet again! The reason for my absense of late was the fact the old connection was playing up and I couldnt log on! Still here we are and the ramblings will continue!!!

My bike was parked up so long the battery died so it has been a mad hunt for a new one. The difference in prices from shop to shop is crazy!! The highest price was £44 but I paid £31 in the end so it proves its best to make more than one phone call!

So a fresh start all round and we are very very happy to be here.

Im stuck in the cardboard Alps!

As of late I have been crazy busy!

The move is on for Nottingham :) We collect the keys for the house up there first thing in the morning and a new start is on the way. The beauty of this move is we have paid for our present house until the end of the month, but I start work in two weeks, so I have two weeks to get our stuff from one to the other! With that amount of time I can literally make a new home for wifey and the kids before they move in which should make the transition alot easier especially on my grumpy teenager.

The house we are in is in surprisingly good order and this is due to only packing a van load at a time. The only drawback is I asked our local shop to save me some boxes and I think I now have more than a cardboard box factory!! Still it saves a fortune on buying the things so im not complaining!

Im going back on the road driving trucks to start with, although this isnt my first choice of what I want to do career wise, until something more interesting comes along. Wifey is now looking for work up there as well so hopefully we will both be working soon and get to replace our worn out furniture :)

MOT time had come around for my car again and of course it failed. Nothing too serious thankfully. Before I took it in I replaced the handbrake lever and rear lights so the only thing I missed was a rear suspension bush! The garage did that for a few pennies so hopefully we have another year out of our old jalopy before it needs replacing...as you can see im not that confident it will run for another year let alone pass another MOT LOL. Maybe I will be wrong and I hope so!

Im really looking forward to a new start and working with people again. Theres only so much of the kids talk you can take before you feel yourself dumbing down on a permenant basis! I will keep you updated on how the move goes and what the new job is like :)

Mixed emotions..

It is with great sadness that I write that wifeys gran passed away on Wednesday morning. The blessing in this sad situation is that she passed in here sleep in no pain with all of her children and grandchildren around her. I cannot think of a better way to go myself.

Wifey seems to be doing ok with it as does her Mum. Dont get me wrong there are tears and lots of sadness but there is an air of finality that comes sfter a prolonged illness. The funeral is now set for Thursday so thats the second that I have attended this year after losing my great gran earlier. Must be a side effect of getting older to be losing people close together like this. I hate funerals and im sure there isnt anyone who likes them but it will give closure to a difficult time for my wifes family.

Why the title of mixed emotions??

Well its because even whilst there is great sadness at the moment there is also great joy as our move to Nottingham has fallen completely fallen into place. I have now been offered 2 jobs up there and we are getting the keys to our new place on the 8th of November so I get a couple of weeks to slowly move our kit up there!
I had an excellent interview for a logistics position within the NHS which I am really hoping I get because its only 5 minutes walk from our house :) That would save running an extra vehicle which makes a big saving on the limited monthly funds!
The children are looking forward to moving ( Yes even the pig miserable teenage one!!) and wifey is beside herself with excitement with the reality of moving "Home"

Yesterday evening was spent helping my youngest sister and her boyfriend move into their new home. As the youngest of 6 and at the grand old age of 21 she is the last to move out of our parents and she is so happy :) On the flip side of the coin though my Mum is having abandonment issues with her "baby" moving out and everyone else now scattered across the UK and Ireland LOL. The time has come for my parents to now visit all of us and not us just popping in to see them as we all lived locally for such a long time!

My Dad has saved us a couple of hundred pounds in a very unique way. I was going to hire a Luton van for the final push of the move but Pops is going to build his own campervan and has just bought a nice long wheelbase Maxus van that he has offered me the use of to cart out stuff! This is superb because wifeys car is nearly due its mot so im sure that will cost a pretty penny to do :)

Thats it for now I will write again soon.

The move is on :)

OK then as you all know I have been actively searching for a job and wining about my lack of success!

Well I am pleased to say finally all is change on the home front. Ive been offered some work doing property maintenance and driving and the following morning my old boss called offering us one of his houses from the end of November which is superb!

Talk about all things finally falling into place :) and just in time as wifey is at the end of her teather with work and deeply unhappy.

So now the packing boxes must be filled and a truck hired to transport the endless junk that the kids insist is being kept as they "NEEEED IT" even though they havnt looked at most of it for months LOL

So its looking up which is a great feeling :)

I had a good ride out on the bike to Oxford last week and as I pulled up I heard the wondeful noise of metal on metal. The front brake pads had had it so I had to replace those....feeling fed up and a bit lazy I asked the bike shop how much to fix it and they quoted £90!!! Bugger that I paid £40 for the pads and changed them myself in 20 mins! I would like to say I saved £50 but as I didnt have the money in the first place LOL

Onto sadder news. Wifeys gran is in a bad way and she has spent the last few days with her in Nottingham. Cancer is such a vicious thing. Still it was 2 1/2 years ago that they said she only had 6 months to live and is it me but that generation are made of such tough stuff that she has defied all the odds and has been active playing bingo a few times a week until last week. At least she is still suffering no pain as has been the norm throughout this illness so thank god for small mercies.

It is very hard to see your family suffering and have no way of taking the pain away. The best I can do is just be here to offer support.

So a mixed bag of good and bad but life is moving on as it always does. Wifey cannot wait to be back up north with her family full time and after chasing around with me for 10 years I really cant blame her :)

All quiet on the home front.

Now its been a while since I wrote much of anything and thats because at the moment I have very little in the areas of excitement or interest to talk about.

The job search goes on in earnest and I have to admit that it has never taken me so long to get a job as it is at the moment. I feel like a bit of a meathead because every job outside of my experience, and even some within it, now need either a degree or diploma to start with. Even my truck licences now need another bit of paper to prove I know how to drive and load a truck!! Funny that as I thought the 2 tests I took and the £2400 I spent to gain the piece of paper from DVLA proved it but apperntley thats not good enough anymore! What a load of crap its just another money making scheme from our happy government.

But not to worry because if I spend much more time in my house I will get past my cabin fever and go completely mad...problem solved as I would then be dosed up on so much medication I wont care.

The bike is still great fun, shame I have no money for petrol, and the van just sits on the drive supplying a nice and dry enviroment for the spiders that have moved in :)

See I said I had nothing of interest to report and now im onto a big winge session so im going to sign off and see what the weekend brings :)