Monday 4th December

Dropped girls off at school. Went to post office to post final ebay items. Took a bus to the school clothes shop as the girls need new cardigans. Tidied the house (still in a mess after the room move around at the weekend). Put up some more Xmas decs including the outside snowdrop lights - this girls will love it when they come home from school

Spent some time on the we, picked up the girls. SJ at yoga (last one before Xmas) so spent some time with the girls, cooked, got them in bed and then played online for a while.

Monday 27th November 2006

Spent all day learning more about frontpage, chatting online to friends and family and playing COD UO.

Must get my list out again!

Friday 24th November 2006

SJ took the girls to school today whilst I went to Asda for the weekly veg. We've decided that the "big shop" can be done online very two weeks but we still need to stock up on staples weekly. SJ had coffee with the school mums so I updated my gaming website. Once SJ returned we went off to Wilkinsons and Matalan for "essentials". Home for lunch. Tidied the house and the dog had a haircut. Wrapped some more ebay items and went to the PO. Prewtty much lounged around the rest of the day.

Monday 20th November 2006

Dropped the girls off at school, returned to walk the dog (nobody has yet asked what dog I might add). Wrapped the items I sold on eBay (well, the ones people had paid for at least)...made over £100 on things we just don't want anymore. There will be more going on, probably after Xmas, but here is the link anyhow in case any of you would like to buy my cast-offs http://members.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=mybootsale.

Spent some time teaching myself frontpage. I've been developing a temporary website for the gaming group I belong to www.renegadesalliance.bravehost.com. Went to the post office to get rid of my stock. Collected the girls (five hours flies!!) . SJ at yoga so I played COD once the girls had gone to bed.

Friday 17th November 2006

Post beaujolais nouveaux day...very messy. Head aching and feeling sick. Sj wants to finish off decorating Bambi's bedroom then go xmas shopping . Thankfully done mostly online. Managed Asda, the bookshop and TKmax before we had lunch at SJ's favourite café (usually reserved for girlie lunches)...double egg and chips should have sorted me out but still not great. Home to rest and take the rest of the day very easy.

Special Midweek Post

My brother (a police officer in the West Midlands force), is running an online auction of football memorabilia to raise money for the West Midlands Police Benevolent Fund and Leukaemia Research. All of the items have been donated following the unexpected death of a police officer and his brother last year .

100% of the money raised will be donated to the nominated charities.

http://sports-memorabilia.search.ebay.co.uk/_Sports-Memorabilia_W0QQcatrefZC12QQsacatZ64482QQsassZandrew6037

Thanks for your support,

Monday 13th November 2006

SJs colleague dropped her PC in yesterday. It's not powering up. I deduced that it's the power supply at fault and remove it and order another from eBuyer. Decided to re-configure my laptop and update the Microsoft patches etc. at the same time. BT arrived to liven up the new telephone line. I'm switching back to BT after 12 odd years with NTL. NTL service sucks and a BT line offers far greater flexibility in terms of choosing a broadband provider. That's the next thing, hunt around for some kind of phone, broandband, mobile phone package deal. But not until after Xmas as I've signed up with BT anytime for 3 months (just to get the line and get rid of NTL!!).

Attended my final "maths for parents" class. Division (long division to be precise). But, they don't call it that anymore or infact do they do it the way I was taught. It's now called dvision by chunking. The course has been an invaluable insight into modern mathmatics teaching methods and I'm finally speaking the same langauge as my kids!! Here is an example of division by chunking: -
86 / 3
-30 (3 x 10)
56
-30 (3 x 10)
26
-24 (3 x 8)
r2

28 r2

I'm going to check out what other free courses the government are offering parents. Although not until after Xmas.

Collected the girls. SJ went yoga. I bathed the girls, got them in bed and played Call of Duty for an hour (which turned into a couple more hours after SJ came home!!).

Only a 2.5 day week at work this week as I've taken Thursday afternoon off to celebrate Beaujolais day with a few friends over on the South Bank.

Friday 10th November 2006

Took the girls to school whilst SJ started stripping the wallpaper off Bambi's bedroom. SJ cleared the room yesterday and Bambi has moved into the spare room temporarily, although alot of her things has had to go in storage in the garage as the spare room is so small.I have a whole morning of PC installations to do this morning. First off I have to go to my brother-in-law's and setup their new BT Home Hub and new wireless laptop. Whilst there I have to investigate why their desktop PC is so slow and keeps switching itself off. Then it's onto my mate Andy's to configure his new wireless laptop to be able to print to his inkjet printer across the network and configure MS Office.Got home around 1.30. SJ had stripped the bedroom!. Scoffed some lunch and went off with SJ to get some vegetables for the week and check out any bargains at Aldi. Back in time to collect the girls and for SJ to continue rubbing down the woodwork and filling. I have so far managed to do almost no decorating!

Monday 6th November 2006

Had fireworks party on Saturday evening, 12 adults and 8 kids. Had a really good laugh and all enjoyed it. Ended up drinking coctails so my mate Bud and I got pretty merry. Went to Brands Hatch on Sunday to watch the British Truck Superprix. Our good friends' brother owns a corporate box there and we were fortunate enough to get invited to use it for the day. Excellent racing and all for free!!

The central heating has started making funny noises. The boiler sometimes sounds liek a steam train, chuff chuff chuff. Thought about signing up for an insurance plan and having it serviced. instead I decided upon some self-maintenance. I telephone my father-in-law (he's a plumber) for some advice. He reckons it could be scale or sludge in the system so I need to get some kind of remedial additive. I will do but thought I'd try the good old drain out, flush through with clean water and re-fill. At the same time I cleaned out the expansion tank. All went to plan and had it all back and operational by lunchtime, noise gone!! Will still get additives though as these might prevent a reoccurence.

Finished my plumbing in time for my 3rd maths class at the school...multiplication. I am quite enjoying it. Collected girls from school, and burnt the pizza for tea. Had to get a takeaway!!

***Tuesday extra - had to saty home from work today with the london blitz (ryhming slang) !!! Ordered more xmas prezzies on the web - play.com have free delivery for DVDs and console games

Bambi got told off at school for talking when told not too. She wasn't very happy as it's the first time she's been told off properly. i explained there was much worse to come so don't worry about it!

Friday 3rd November 2006

Sj took girls the to school so I cleared away breakfast things and started on cleaning the bathrooms (one of my jobs now that the responsibilities are more evenly split at home). I don't mind cleaning the bathrooms actually, contrary to being "poo shy" (a term conined by the fact that I never did number 2 nappies and don't like scooping after the dog!!) Sj returned to the ironing. We both of us spent the day around home which was really nice.

Money saving tip: I washed the car, which was filthy. I usually take it to the carwash which is why it hasn't been washed in months so saved 6 quid by doing it myself. Just a quick once over mind, I'm not working part-time to spend three hours a week cleaning a car!

Sj collected the girls from school and I took them to junior badminton in the evening.

Monday 30th October 2006

Went to the Imperial War Museum at the weekend. Free admission and my rail season ticket meant the whole trip only cost us £15, including coffee whilst we were out. The museum is excellent and we all really enjoyed it. The girls had been watching the BBC TV program about wartime evacuation and the museum has an exhibition dedicated to this. They even have a full size wartime semi to wander around. In addition to this, and the world war I and II exhibitions there are also a couple of very interesting, moving if not harrowing exhibitions dedicated to the Holocaust and War crimes. These exhibits are not recommened for those under 14 though. Well worth the trip. (www.iwm.org.uk)

The girls are still off school today. Teacher training day. Took SJ to work so I could have the car. The girls asked to go to the Crazy Barn (.arrived too early at 9.45 so not open yet). Took the opportunity to peruse the farm shop (Kelsey Fram, Bexley). I like to look around at all the locally grown products. Can’t complete with Tesco on price though.

Barn open. Very busy. Girls played for 2 hours whilst I read the times from skin to skin. Had a coffee there too which the machine made too weak. Shame.

Came home for lunch and did online banking while girls played. Checked moneysavingexpert of course. Agreed to look after our neighbours children whilst their mum went to the Doctor.

The four kids played well so I managed some research into European Centerparcs for next Easter. We went to Centerparc in Belgium last year, they're all over Europe. We saved over £500 on the same trip to a UK Centerparc, including the Eurotunnel fare (and we had our own sauna in our villa!). Go to www.centerparcs.com, and make sure you don't get re-directed back to the UK site or else you will get ripped off. cp.com and cp.co.uk are two separate companies. I really recommend the De Vossermeren Centerparc in Belgium. We're going to try one in Holland next year. That was my money saving tip for this week ;o)

Friday 27th October

Still halfterm. Had to run around the shops again with SJ and the girls. Had to take the kitchen bin back to Argos...second one that's broken in less that a year. Got a different model this time.

Went to B&Q. Bought TV areal cable so that we can swap round living rooms now that the summer is over. Took note of the wind turbine and solar panels. Would really like to go down this route (definately getting greener as I get older). Thinking about business opportunities and wondering if the government will ever legislate for all new homes to have alternative power installed.

Went to Morrisons for some vegetables and had lunch there. Four of us ate for £11. I felt stuffed all day after eating the All Day Breakfast!

Cleaned and tidied the house etc. in the afternoon as we're planning to be out all day Saturday at the Imperial War Museum.

MONEY SAVING: Signed up to swap telephone line back from NTL to BT. The switch (which I've signed up for their little known 3 month contract) will save me around £6 per month, but more importantly will allow me to switch to a BT line based bundle package after the 3 months is up.

MONEY SAVING: Got the Tesco pet insurance confirmation through the post today. Had a real bonus. For signing up they have given us 1000 clobcard points. So, not only did I save a few quid we've got enough airmiles from the 1000 points for the four of us to go to Legoland for FREE!

Musing: Why didn't Madonna and Guy adopt a child from the UK?? I'm sure there are plenty of children living not 100 miles from them who woul benefit from being adopted by Madge. Still, suppose it's not trendy enough.

Monday 23rd October

Still at my brothers. Had a great weekend with the family. It's my neice's 16th birthday next weekend so much talk of that.

Travelled back after lunch. Took almost 5 hours to do 200 miles as the traffic and roadworks were so bad.

SJ's mum came over. It's halfterm so she is looking after the girls for a couple of days.

Friday 20th October

Had to go fix the inlaws PC this morning and then ran around the shops with SJ. Needed a few things and started to buy some Christmas presents for the girls. Had lunch in SJs favourite cafe (normally reserved for school mum lunches) so now I guess I'm an honorary school mum...which I suppose along with my Monday maths classes and all the extra things I'm doing around the house is not surprising...roles are definately becoming more blurred on the domestic side of things. Don't worry, I'm keeping the important things in check!

SJ took the girls to an Hallowe'en disco at the school in the evening. I spent the evening playing Call of Duty online. Haven't done that in ages and the time really flew.

JT's friend came back from the disco to stay overnight. We'll all have to be up fairly early in the morning as we're off to my brother's in Shropshire for the weekend.

Monday 16 October

Had an eye test today. I've had a couple of bouts of slightly blurred vision over the last couple of months so thought I'd get them checked out. My employer provides a feww eye test every two years for computer users so I took advantage of that. Fist eye test I've had since being at school! Pleased to say that I passed with flying colours and have two above 20/20 vision. The Opterician reckons I've been having Asephalgic migraines...so need to google that later!

Visited the pound shop whilst at the high street. Picked up some bargains. That shop never ceases to amaze me. If you can be bothered to look around there are so mant bargains to be had!

Came home by bus, used my Oyster travel card which I have to have for work. First time I've used it for 'leisure'. The train company doesn't sell any travel card in less than 7 day durations and these are cheaper than buying 3 return tickets, so, I buy a monthly (yes I know a 3 month or annual would save me money I just haven't got round to sorting that one out yet...next month I think). The remaning four days of the ticket each week are usually wasted but today I started to redress that balance.

Having a coffee now and trying to sort out a few more financial bugs. NTL are STILL, yes STILL charging me for the TV service I haven't got. I used www.SAYNOTO0870.COM to find an alternative contact number for thier customer services dept. this time as I worked out it cost me almost a fiver to contact them with complaints last month! The website came up trumps. After holding for 20 mins the customer services assistant said he would credit me the wrongly charged amount and this time he has made certain I won't be charged again...yeh right. He also said he would credit me an extra £20 for the inconvenience. I'm taking the £20 and have called BT to discuss a switch back. I need to get a BT line if I'm to make a further switch to a new bundled Phone/Broandband supplier, so step one today. I reconnected the BT box yesterday so hopefully I've got the wiring correct!

Got to have lunch now, off to my second maths class at the school today. Subtraction, so at least I'll be able to check my bank statements! - only joking but it is useful to learn how the children are taught mathematics in the 21st century.