Placeholder for something better

I owe a considerable post on life in general at the moment.  Most significantly the recent arrival of my baby daughter Olivia.  I'm struggling to decide whether to have a seperate blog for my gushing on that subject, or whether to include the likely sporadic posts here.  Either way they'll be mention on here which ever way, of course.

For now a quick summary of recent times.

- Daughter born!!
- Coping with late nights!
- Found my Siamese Dreams CD
- Playing COD 4... again.
- Got a Blackberry Bold (through work)
- Feeling web inspired

There's hopefully more to come soon.

Epic Fail

Last weekend I was a keen bean about getting things sorted around the house. We have a baby on the way (don't worry, they'll be a proper post on that!) and a spare room that has been a repository for junk for far too long.

A couple of weekends back I had gotten rid of the spare double bed we had, and it went from audious chore to enourmous fun in the space of about 5 minutes. The reason? A hammer. The bed was a duvan, and as such was made up of two hallow frames (so it could accomodate drawers) wrapped in fabric - so basically you have two boxes as the base. Having lugged them all the way downstairs, panting and sweating, I quickly came to realise that they weren't going in the boot. I hadn't really wanted to start my day messing around with furniture, and I still wasn't convinced that the bed in whole form wasn't worth some money. But the powers that be (Emma) had determined it junk so junk it was. Fine, but how was I going to get it to the dump. Hammer time baby!! I only have a little claw hammer but man, it made short work of it. I was jumping, leaping, stamping, slamming, clawing, wrenching, and destroying to my hearts content - I reduced it to splinters I'm telling you. FUN!

Wait, what? How did I get onto that? Anwyway, so I had this room to clear and the main contributer to my reluctance was the computer desk. This room has been my domain for 2 years now, and has been basically a boys room of things that are fun. Computer(s) in the corner, shelving full of CD's and old consoles and games, guitar(s) and amps about the place, it was great. At any turn there was something of mine, something to play with - and now the baby wanted it out! I don't really mind of course, I rejoice in the thought of converting this space into a babies room and Emma has some brilliant ideas surrounding that, but where the hell was all my stuff going to go? Where was I going to sit at my computer and do what I do? Where was I going to practice being a rock and roll star? Where was I going to lay on the floor with all my CD's around me putting them into some clever order? Dammit, where was I going to hide!! Bit by bit I started dismantling things. The computer desk now resides in our bedroom... on my side of the bed - which is about as far away from a power plug as can be in that room. The shelving went to a better home and my cd's nestle sheepishly in a smaller unit in the landing. All the rest, yep still in there. Hence the title.

You see I was left to my own devices most of Saturday last week, with one clear message coming from my wife... "Clear out the room before I kill you until you are dead from it!!!" or words to that effect. As the whip crashed over me I begged to be left to it while she.... er, went out and had fun I think. Anyway, I started immediately (after a quick game of Call of Duty 4) on dismantling the computer desk. It was dusty. I made a mess. I broke the desk a little. It was a sunny day. I got hot. I got fed up. But I completed that task all the same, and it fit pretty well into our room and I considered the fact that we would now be able to watch DVD's or even downloaded or streamed content - a nice little byproduct actually. But there was more to be done, and I started back immediately (after a quick sit down and some TV) to the spare room to continue. The last break had drained my enthausiasm, but nevertheless I decided the next step was to stick some items in the loft, one of which was a TV stand that I've never been able to find the screw key for. Well, I found it straight away (who knew actually looking would work) and I made short work of it's breakdown and now I had a good size pile of stuff to put in the loft. The day was now cooking and I considered another break - and before I knew it I was outside with a cup of tea. Suddenly hungry I gave Emma a ring to see what she wanted to do about lunch, and the response was "I've already eaten". Perfect. And that marked the end of that session. I'd bottom'd out on that bomb shell.

What does this mean? What this means is this weekend, the glorious sunny bank holiday weekend, will be spent finishing that room so that it is ready to decorate next weekend. And that kids is why you should do what you're told and finish something when you say you will...

Ushering in a new era of lawn upkeep

Bit of an overstatement, but none the less the grass is now cut. I did indeed borrow the aforementioned flymo and it was brilliant.

I started out the back, and fired away with no clear plan of coverage. The flymo was struggling, the grass considerable in height, and occasionally it coughed and stubbled as it keenly tore through. When it did get to an agreeable height it happily made a good job of it. And it was a pleasure to use as well, light and nibble, quiet and easy.

After some considerble effort I looked around to review my progress and found there there wasn't any - I perservered with renewed vigor. Eventually I'd covered the area, and with the exception of the border (which was still sporting it's messy hair look) it was looking prettyneat. It came however at a cost, I was knackered. With the old mower it was a simple walk up and down the garden with it purring away yumming up all the grass. Because of it's wieght it did alot of the work itself and now I was missing it, as I felt the heat in the lower back and contemplated the compression of my spine that I was suffering at the hands of the nippy flymo. The new guy had also neglected to retreive a single particle of grass.... it lacked the capacity, and again I looked over to my old mower in the corner with its onboard grass collector with renewed fondness.

This was shortlived. Though the old one appeared to offer more services, it was frankly never really good at them. For example, the weight meant moving it around was back breaking, it's straight line regime and rollers - while useful for creating light and dark stripes - was a game breaker if you missed a bit or made a mistake, and it's ace in the pack grass collector needed emtying constantly throughout. The reminiss was over, there was a new sheriff in town! So what if I needed to rake up the grass, it just looks like I'm working hard and in the process earning me more browny points. Right? Anway, it's sunny, raking will be... oh, I don't own a rake.

I'd borrowed the flymo with the promise of bringing it back the same day and I'm renowed for "borrowing" things longer term than planned and I wanted to break out of this association. I popped the mower in the car and headed for the sister in laws - hell, I'd pick up a rake and shears on the way home! (which I was interested in trying over a strimmer). Obviously stunned by the early return of their possesion they foolishing impulse offered me a rake and shears and although I wanted some of my own I accepted in the interest of time (and effort), so armed and dangerous I headed home to finish the job.

Target 1 was the front garden. The flymo had owned it, although the grass was such that it required that I hold the mower with both hands and do an initial sweep of the area a number of inches above the surface, then it was down to the nitty griity of trimming down. The front garden went from miniture nature reserve to short back and sides in a pretty short space and I took time to admire the new neatness of it all. Now for the finishing touches with the rake and shears. It turned into an obsessions. A snip here, and snip there, a re-snip there to keep the height accordingly.... and re-re-snip to adjust..... and re-do of the whole thing..... then further touchups! It was a enjoyable process but it was started to get old and in my haste to finish I servered the wire that records the gas and electric usage to the monitor outside and continued in a more mindful manner. Some raking later and I was done out the front. Tings were looking better.

I started on the back garden snipping my war around the perimeter, and by now I was starting to lag. My back was hurting and half way round I decided enough was enough and I needed a break... besides I was hungry.

And well I should be, it was gone 8 o'clock and Emma had neglected her duties as live in chef and irresponsibly fallen asleep on the couch! Disgraced she stubbled into the kitched and started to create something, and I used my role of critic and professional moaner to excuse myself from continuing the shearing and left the rest for the following day. It had been a good effort, the garden was looking much better, and the flymo had done itself proud.

.... I could almost hear our old mower choking in his own filth, outside, in the cold, lamenting it's inner workings which gave in to months of exposure. If it could speak it would likely say "bloody kids" as the memory of the small fast and nippy flymo burned in it's memory.

Lawn mower down

Our lawnmower is broken. Or at least, it's stopped working.

We were bought this mower as a moving in gift from Emma's parents, which was very nice of them - and as mowers go it's always been fine. Electric powered, rotary blade, roller on the back, no worries. The only real issue, and it's not a huge deal, is that it's fairly bulky - meaning when it comes to do the small patch of grass fondly referred to as the front garden it gets a bit tricky to manavoure and isn't really practical. None the less, it does a sterling job out back and the roller allows me to create Wembley style stripes up and down the pitch. I mean garden.

Now, storage of said mower was an issue. Money is often tight and some things fall by the wayside - and some form of shed or storage unit for the garden is one of them. Therefore, the mower is stored in a nice cosy corner of the garden and wrapped in plastic. This is far from ideal, I realise that, but plastic is in fact water proof and you can't tell me it's going to be warmer and happier in the shed. Well you could say that, but I'd mostly ignore you. It had concerned me throughout the winter, as I gazed at it longingly from the warmth and dry of our kitchen with a nice hot cup of tea in my hand and regretted it's weather induring misfortune - although feeling powerless to commit money to it. I'd like to think that it breaking in a smells all smokey, oh God the power is draining, what's that noise, ah shit, kind of way - was in no way related to it being stored outside for..... 2 years? I'd also like to think that no-one would hold me accountable for it's immediate failure to operate, although a giant foam finger is likely soon to be pointed at me for not caring enough about someone's gift to protect it appropraitely. And to be honest, that's valid.

There are two issues as I see it. (1) The grass is not mowed, and being spring it's going batshit crazy out there. Weather permitting I hope to get some garden work in this weekend because, damn, it's looking like it's going to go amazon any second. (2) I'd like a flymo, I really would. A small one. It's nippy, floats on a blanket of air, and it's highly mavauverable. But effectively replacing a gift... that's dangerous teritory.

So, tempoary solution is in place. Borrow the sister-in-laws flymo. Get the grass down this evening. Attempt to fix the old failing mower this weekend by gleefully tearing it to pieces to "see" if I can find anything wrong with it (perhaps it needs greasing up or something). If all else fails I'll be forced to buy a new one, simple as that. And I think I'm willing to commit some money towards some kind of garden storage unit to save this happening again. I don't want to spend the money but lesson learnt it needs doing!

Honestly, if it's not one thing it's another!