Time to Retire

My colleague is retiring and his last day in the office is tomorrow.  Although I have only worked with him for the past 3.5 years, we have become rather close and I admit I will definitely miss him.

I will be giving his leaving speech, the first retirement speech I will have ever done.  Have to admit I feel rather nervous but also looking forward to it.

I have also with the undercover help of his wife managed to get a number of photos of him, showing him over the years and taking in his many hobbies, including sailing, playing music and morris. These will be printed and around the office tomorrow along with a photo slides of him to show later in the day.

I will miss his many stories but I have gained a sense of how much can be achieved and personally how much you can be involved with to give real meaning to the fullness of life, once the kids are all grown up.

As he is so fond of his Morris, as tribute to him a linky to the Kennet Morris Men -
https://www.facebook.com/KennetMorrisMen
http://www.kennetmorrismen.co.uk/

Where has the TV gone?

We have removed access to the TV!
This is not an experiment though.  We have done it a number of times before over the years.

There is no access to TV in the house for the next few weeks.  What will we do?  Well I suppose the same as previously, the children will start playing with their toys again and talking to us and us to them.

We started over the weekend and the kids have got used to it already and it does help with the better weather.

It is us adults who are having the most difficulty though, being so used to relaxing in front of the TV in the evening.  We are talking more and reading more now,

You'll be amazed how much you find to do and talk about,

• Reading
• Talking
• Sitting down for longer at dinner time and having family discussions
• Playing cards
• Playing in the garden
• Playing games together

Changing Faces

This month is birthday month for both of our children.  Eldest, Aden, is 8 and youngest, Zara, is 5.


As another year has crept up on us, the unsuspecting parents, we were reminiscing a few days ago about how fast the years seem to have gone and our once little babies are growing fast, rushing towards those teenage years.  


I got to looking through some of the many pictures we have taken of the children over the past 8 years and thought I would share a small collection of them with you via a collage (I used smilebox) 
This is the shortest of journeys through 8 and 5 years respectively


I will leave you to work out which baby picture is Aden / Zara.

Chainging Faces

One missed call

I was remembering today and thinking back, many years ago now, while I was working overseas I spoke to my then girlfriend (now wife) every day.  I do remember rather keenly though that there was one day on which we did not speak over my 2 years before she joined me, as wife.

Maybe it was the fact that we spoke every day that makes us remember the one day that we missed. The great thing about talking every day was that we really got to know each other very well, especially as most days we spoke twice per day.

Now you are asking yourself, how long have you known each other.....well since 1990.....university sweethearts.

key fob repair

Every so often you come across a website that belongs as a note in the little black book of useful sites.
This is one of them,
http://www.keyfobrepair.co.uk/

Our car remote key fob was looking rather tatty, with holes giving a clear view of the electronics below the casing, as well as only being able to remotely open the car. Locking the car was a manual task.

To get a new remote from a dealership is an expensive bit of kit, which makes manually opening or closing the car rather bearable.
I went hunting though for a solution to my partially working, tatty looking remote key fob and came across this site.  

I visited their shop in Palmer Green and within the space of half hour I parted with £20 and had a fully working and new looking remote key fob.

A great addition to the little black book of useful numbers and sites.

A year in photos - Lost

You know the proverb about making hasty while the sun shines? Well we all prove it true at some time.
My opportunity came last month.
Nearly a years worth of pictures stored on our home laptop (you're guessing what happened already...)
There is no reason these pictures should not be backed up; we have a NAS shown as a drive on the laptop.
Thought about just dragging and dropping the pictures so often. Did I do it? "No!"

So the day comes, son accidentally drops the laptop.

There in that moment, the hard drive becomes as useful as a paperweight and the curtain closes on photo memories of 2011, apart from what has been shared on the social networking sites.

A lesson to reaquaint myself with need to backup files, especially when I have made it so easy already.

Here today, gone tomorrow

Every so often a day comes along to remind you personally of the fragility of life. Not the numerous newspaper reports of people "living by the sword, dying by the sword" but just someone taken away without warning.

A friend's dad died yesterday, Thursday.  He was fine at the weekend.  On Tuesday he was admitted to hospital not feeling well and by Wednesday the family had news that he had a form of leukaemia. He went into a coma on Thursday and passed away the same day.
Apparently his blood was "poisoned" and his organs then shut down.
This "all out of the blue"

That is the fragility of life.  Enjoy every day you have.