Playing at the park

Something tells me that Jack isn't going to make it as a goalie if he is to become a football player...

This was him and Lewis messing about up there the other day and me trying to hone my skills (non-existent skills) as a Sports Action photographer. I went down to Oxford City at the weekend as well and fared no better to be honest.

At least it was an hour well spend as I appreciated the difficulty in planning where the ball would be and making sure I had the focus and shot as I wanted it.

Should get better with practice, that's the idea anyway.

Long old day

Not much to say about today really, was woken up by Tash running out of bed to throw up in the toilet - so not the most pleasant way to wake up in the morning...for either of us I guess! She seems to have come down with this bug that is going through the family and she spend the whole day in bed being sick or complaining of a headache, or both.

Not often she is laid low so you know it is serious, although she was up and about late afternoon so she'll be back to normal tomorrow.

I have spent the whole day, and evening just working. Been productive though so no complaints, got loads done and got a lot of things I wanted to be organised sorted out.

Anyway, enough of me typing just for the sake of it...

A week to forget

I didn't mention it earlier in the week but this week has been awful for the Wolvercote community and one family in particular. On Sunday coming back from Madam Tussaud's we heard over the radio that a boy of 15 had fallen into the river in Oxford and drowned. It was only when I was up in Edinburgh that Tash told me it was Ben Halsey-Jones who are a family that we are friends with and live only a matter of doors away on our street. Tash would often look after his younger siblings and Ben would crash out on our sofa watching telly so she got to know him well enough to be really upset by this - as are the rest of the community.

There was a prayer evening for him today at the local church that pretty much all of Wolvercote attended, I didn't make it as I was playing the Vets football match, but when coming home near the end of it I could see all the cars drawn up. Apart from the obvious tradegy, the police divers still haven't been able to locate Ben's body from the river, this just doesn't bear thinking about and you pray each day that he is found so that he can be buried properly.

I don't even pretend to imagine what the family are going through, there is great local support as it is quite a close-nit community here, but the thought of losing your child in any manner however serious or innocuous (he rode over a pothole and lost his balance from the towpath!) just leaves me cold and no words would get through to me.

It just drives home to you how fickle life is and how important little things are and not to be complacent with any of it.

New Year

Well, it's a new year and all the usual promises have been made with no intention of keeping them. In saying that, when very drunk on New Year's Day watching MTV with my nieces I said that I could get as fit a body as the lads on the videos - so that has been my challenge for the summer - oh dear. I have made half an effort to get into shape with some running up to the school and things, but so far it isn't really paying dividends.

What have we done since the last blog? Went to Lapland before Xmas, fantastic, had a brill Xmas and New Year, have been busy with work and was up in Scotland this week, been out for Gaz's 40th Birthday and went to Madam Tussaud's the next day.

We have a veterans game this Sunday at Flackwell Heath - should be interesting as none of us have played since the last match. Although I did have a run out the other day for Gordon at one of the colleges against Chalgrove - interesting match that was. Was called an old fat bastard at one point, couldn't really argue back on that point, it was concise and fairly made...

Looking to keep this a bit more up to date this year, haven't started well but we'll see what happens.