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)