Month: August 2011

A visit to the zoo

Posted on By admin

It was a bank holiday last weekend and we took Bean to Linton Zoo to change things around a bit. Bean is becoming a walking ball of overzealous destruction when left to his own devices, so we though taking him to see home animals would be a good diversion. The zoo is cute, and they have some really nice big cats, but it’s expensive for the size it is, sadly.

Still, it was a nice walk and Bean seemed to enjoy it. We’ll probably keep it as a treat for future outings.

Lots of pictures here: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/various_aug_2011/

We’re finding Bean a lot of hard work these days. He doesn’t listen, is very stubborn and has Katy’s temper (and elbows!). We’re having moderate success with time-outs, except that now he’s taken to putting his toys on time-out (no hit mummy and daddy!). It’s good that he gets the message, even though he’s not always acting on it.

We were in Leicester the weekend before that. I really needed a vacation from work stress so I’d taken some days off and we went to see the in-laws. The plan was to drop Bean off and spend some quiet time having cocktails, watch movies and some nice meals out. That went out the window when Katy’s dad was ill and her mom fell and dislocated her shoulder. We ended up babysitting the babysitters. Understandable, but poopey nonetheless. We managed to salvage some good times by making extravagant ice cream sundaes.

On a brighter note, Christmas is coming and we’ve started making plans!

uncategorized

Expensive weekend!

Posted on By admin

What did we do this weekend? We spent MONEY!

We went to Costco to replenish out supply of dry goods and cleaning products (£200)
We went to Ikea to buy some storage container for Bean’s arts and crafts supplies and steps for him to use in the bathroom. Of course, we left with may more shit than that (£90)
We went to Scottsdales for our regularly scheduled Sunday lunch outing. That’s always costly :) (£100)
We bought a new laptop, because the old one is finally on its last legs (£315)

So yeah.

Ouch.

It’s a good thing we don’t have many weekends like this.

To be honest though, the Costco outing is actually saving us money in the long run because we plan to buy stuff that’s generally 1/3 to 1/2 cheaper than what we’d pay at Tesco in our weekly grocery bill. I also need to point out that the laptop lasted surprisingly longer than I expected it to, considering that the screen is only hanging on by one hinge, the battery hasn’t worked in months, the CD cover plate got ripped off and the whole front panel/keyboard is about halfway off the laptop. I’m impressed with the build quality of the thing, considering that I don’t remember the number of times it’s been pushed/fell off the back of the sofa.

uncategorized

Come on, NHS, pull the finger out!

Posted on By admin

Normally, I can’t complain about the NHS. It gives a very acceptable level of service and I’ve never been disappointed so far. The only downside of it, as far as I can see, is that it’s too bureaucratic and the left hand doesn’t even know the right hand exists at times.

I’ve been waiting for my post-vasectomy fertility test results. I’ve called the GP surgery twice and they’ve not gotten anything back. I was told by the cell path lab that it would take about 5 days to get the results back. That was 10 days ago. After calling the GP (twice), the Saffron Walden community hospital where the procedure was done in the first place (and being transferred to the coivemail of somebody who is on holiday until the end of August), the Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow (twice, and once after doing a Google search to get the phone number of the cell path lab from some random press release, because it’s not on the main hospital website) and finally being bounced around 4 or 5 people in the outpatient clinic of the SWCH again, I finally found somebody who could tell me that, yes, they have the results but, no, they can’t give them out to me because they need to be reviewed by a doctor. They’ll fax the results to him and get back to me sometime this week.

Oy.

uncategorized

Time to change the countdown clock!

Posted on By admin

Well, my birthday has come and gone, and it was a good weekend. In fact, it’s probably been one of the better weekends we’ve had in a while. We were originally supposed to have gone to the beach with Bean, but since Katy’s mom was still a bit fragile after coming out of the hospital, we’d decided to go up to Leicester for the weekend.

Katy took me out on Saturday for a quick brunch at Mrs Bridges in Leicester, shopped for some arts & crafts supplies for Bean (face paint, gouache, plasticine, etc) then we went to see the last Harry Potter movie and then we went back to the oldies’ house for a BBQ once Bean had gone to bed. The HP movie was better than I expected, even if they did butcher the book to make it fit into the director’s random plotlines at times. Still, it was good and I’m glad I saw it. It’s the end of an era though, weird to think that the franchise has been going on for over 10 years. Some people are reportedly going a bit doolaley about the fact that their “childhood days are now officially over”. Weird…

The BBQ was amusing. I’d asked Mel to get a cheap BBQ from B&Q, as they were having an end-of-season sale. I finally got Mel cooking!

Katy spoiled me a bit for my b’day. She got me a subscription to NGS and BBC Good Food magazine, some cologne, some socks and undies (don’t laugh, I asked for them!), The Last Supper DVD†, a BBQ cookbook, a Get-On-My-Horse fridge magnet and, of course, an Insanity Prawn Boy t-shirt and matching plush prawn :) I love my wife, especially because she accepts my bizarre sense of humour.

Now that my birthday is passed, the countdown clock on the blog has been set to tick down until xmas. Only 138 to go! Woohoo :)

All pictures are online: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/birthday_2011/

†You know what you need Heather? You know what you really need?

uncategorized