Red Letter Day, Day Off, Hilly’s 50th, Whitney Houston dies & Egypt hols booked

So another quiet weekend in the Dark household…

As a reward for the efforts I do for the football team they have given me a Red Letter Day for each of the past few seasons which Tash and I enjoy sharing together. We haven’t used last season’s yet so have put some of it by to try Scuba Diving and there was enough left over for Tash and I to have a meal for two and a stay in a Manor House/Hotel just north of Northampton.

Luckily the kids football was all called off on Sunday so we were able to take Lewis to his skipping training session at Redditch at 8.30am and then went into Solihull Shopping centre to get the wall-paper for the front room decorating due in April and then onto the hotel. Lovely old building but also mixed with new office/training conference facilities. We got there around 1.30pm and too the chance to simply relax and do nothing. Had a couple of coffees and then found the gym and sauna and after just over an hour in there got ready for the evening meal.

That was excellent, I stuck to my non-drinking and it wasn’t difficult at all, surprised even myself that I didn’t fancy any of the beers or wine getting taken to tables beside me!

Next day was Monday and had the day off, again just took it easy and relaxed, hard a nice big breakfast, checked out and then wandered round the grounds. They have team-building events there and the usual sort of things were in evidence such as ropes and planks of wood. It was too frosty to try anything ourselves though!

Drove home, got a bit lost, but were home for 1.00(ish) and I spent the rest of the afternoon fixing bike punctures and brakes…hardly the first thing I’d choose to do with a day off but there are you. Still checked emails from work which wasn’t so bad really, usual shit coming in but it could wait for a day.

Nice to spend some time with Tash without the kids, agreed we’d need to do it more often..we’ll see!

 

Oh, sad new yesterday, Whitney Houston died in her hotel room in L.A. She’d been on drugs etc for many years and was in the papers two days ago looking dishevelled but no-one really predicted that she’d be dead so soon, only 48. Very sad really, asked the kids what they thought but she was not their era so it didn’t really mean a great deal to them. This was my favourite of hers:

Whilst writing, should also mention we went to John Hilland’s surprise 50th Birthday party at the pub in Horspath – really good evening that was. I drove and took Liam, Zoe, Wayne and Kerry and so many people were there. In fact the pub was too small and it was over-crowed, but it was so good to see so many old faces from football and times gone by. It was good to catch up with so many people. I got the piss taken out of me a bit for not drinking, but it wasn’t so bad so I didn’t mind.

Oh, finally, we’ve booked our summer holiday. After a few weeks of research we’re off to Egypt at a 5* all inclusive with Wayne & Kerry and their kids. We, sadly, think that the kids are soon going to be doing their own thing and the number of times that we’re going to get a chance to have a full family holiday together is coming down rapidly so we wanted to do something totally unforgettable and this we hope it is. There will be snorkelling, scuba diving, all sorts of water activities and quad bikes in the desert. We’ve saved for years and this is the last of the savings…or so I’ve been told but I don’t totally trust Tash on that point…looking forward to it, should be fantastic.(http://www.hilton.co.uk/sharmwaterfalls)

Big update on all things

Since being back at work after the January break it’s been absolutely manic from one week to the next, whether it’s working in the office or going to see customers – it’s just been so full on. Then tied up at the same time with weekends that have been full, it’s just been incredible. Even taking out half an hour to record this diary entry I feel guilty as I should be catching up on emails or doing some more work or just getting things sorted.

To do something I want to do, it’s hard! No doubt this will come back to bite me because I should have been doing something else.

So, what’s been going on?

Work? Crikey, where do I start?? So far in the last fortnight I’ve done two 60 hour weeks, a couple of times I’ve been working from 8.00am until 1 or 2.00am an then back up again at 6.00am after only 4 hours sleep. Not ideal of course but needed to be done to deal with emergencies and issues that have cropped up. Unfortunately, these were things just for one or two customers and knowing you’re working on these it means everything is building up for other clients as well! We try to maintain the appearance of a swan gliding along, but struggling to paddle under the water!

As always, it should sort itself out and I’ll catch up next week – yeah right!

Went out for a meal with Wayne and Kerry last week, we were going to have them around here but decided to go to town instead – All Bar One – nice to go out just the 4 of us without kids! Got a bit tipsy and ended up at Ask bar until late. We also got onto talking about holidays so it’s something we might be doing with them like and all-inclusive somewhere. Should be good, never done it before but it interests me now.

Heavy head in the morning, and then out in the evening to the Red Lion for 2 year anniversary celebration and there was a quiz, we were with John and Pauline and Liam and Zoe and had a really good night – overdid it of course and stayed until about 1.00am. In the doghouse as a result because of staying out that little bit longer than needed!

1.30am – we then had a phone call from Charlotte saying she wanted to come home, she’d gone out to Rose’s and were sleeping in the field behind their house that backs onto Port Meadow and there was drinking etc then there was search lights and helicopter etc so they panicked about being under-age drinking. Obviously it wasn’t them, someone had disappeared and the police were out looking for them and checking the canal. So she came home! I wasn’t sympathetic but went up there to get her but was drunk cycling past the police up there!

Luckily Jack’s football the following day was a 1.30pm kick off at Wheatley and again, he just looks so dangerous and exciting. Shit pitch to play on, we were losing 2-1 at half time but I had a go at them which is really unlike me, but they turned it around and Jack got 2 goals as did Pierce. We held out and won 3-2 so that was good. Managed to then got to see Lewis playing against Deddington and saw Jane and Mark and they were fine. Nice to hear people complimenting Lewis and he got Man of the Match. Dropped him off at karate afterwards.

We don’t have any TV at the minute! It’s actually quite nice, last Sunday it just “went” – can’t get it sorted for a while. Means we will lose all our saved items on the box when we get a replacement one, ah well. However, it’s meant that we have had a week with no TV, no arguing over it – we’ve had the chess set out and reading books – it’s been lovely. Tempted not to get it fixed!

It does make you realise, how demanding of your attention the TV is and the shit that’s on it!

Well, winter is on its way at last and we’re getting the cold snap come and it’s freezing! –2 degrees at 6.00pm at night – haven’t had any snow sadly though, hopefully that will come.