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July 22 a requestI'd just like to take this opportunity to ask certain people to please leave us alone. I have a life that i want to get on with and as far as i'm concerned i have everyone in it that i need or want. what other people do is nothing to do with me or my parents so please leave us alone now!
If Donna wants to get in touch with anyone she will and i have no influence on what she does. I can garuantee that i will not attempt to influence her feelings. i accepted what she wanted to do and i really think you all should too!
just to add that i honestly have no ill will towards ANYONE! i just want to be left alone to get on with my life without threats on my life! i don't think that is too much to ask June 16 finally..well not finally but finally, if you know what i mean!Well here is my first blog since arriving in Cyprus, even though i have been here over 3 months now.
didn't realise it was going to take as long as it has to get settled here, but we finally have and starting to get on with enjoying the next 3 years that we have out here.
first of all i can't speak highly enough of the island of cyprus and the people that live here. It is a truly beautiful island and the people are the friendliest that you will find anywhere in the world. the fact that the vast majority of the island speaks english as well as greek is an added bonus too.
work out here is pretty boring for me, i am used to having something to do all of the time so sitting on my arse for most of the day is coming as a bit of a culture shock, don't get me wrong i am not moaning about having nothing to do, it's just...different
Donna and the kids are loving it out here too, Donna has made loads of new friends and the kids are both in school and having the time of their lives.
I think i am just about over, or nearly over what happened last year. i can't believe it has taken this long but as anyone that really knows me will tell you it hit me pretty hard. Anyway it's over now so that's enough about that
so as you can probably tell things are really starting to look up for me and my family after quite a long period of unrest and heartache. i hope i am not tempting fate by saying that!!!
much love to everyone that knows me, fuck it even to those that don't as i'm in a pretty good mood at the moment
take care everyone out there and i wil post again soon when i have thought of something a bit more substantial to say!
later
March 05 final countdownWell it's finally down to less than one week until we are off to Cyprus for 3 years!!!!
been so busy trying to sort things out at work and at home it's been unbelievable. think I'm pretty much sorted now. the nerves and excitement are starting to kick in.
The removal men are coming on thurdsay, then its gonna be a rush job to get the house clean before the march out on friday afternoon. After which i have to go to work to complete some last minute admin/clearing then off to my parents house for the weekend.. give my brother the car, get my dad to drop us off at the airport on tuesday morning
5 1/2 hour flight to akrotiri
should be a car waiting for us there...20 minute drive to episkopi wher someone has already taken over the keys to our new house for us...
cant' wait!!!
can u tell??? January 30 things that really grip my sh**well i haven't added anything on here for a hell of a long time, but that is not to say that i haven't been busy or that i have nothing to say...just haven't had time to get on here! first of all, you might like to know that i am posted to Cyprus in march so i don't know what is going to happen to this blog thingy then... can't see it will be that much of a problem to get internet access. It's not as though i am moving to the moon or anything. well as you probably gathered by the title of this blog post. this is gonna be all about the things that i personally consider to be of interest to the average british person. the things that are going wrong with this country... i'd like to begin with an admission of guilt if i may. I voted for the labour party in this country at the last local and general elections. in my own defence however i don't really believe that there is any viable opposition to the labour party which is why i believe that they will also win at the next general election....i digress the reason for this admission is that the things that 'grip my shit' the most in this once great country are all the doing of the labour party and its apparenty inablity to carry through with a single one of its promises to the nation. i think that any reasonable person that is reading this... if anyone does in fact read what i write... will agree with me that this country is fast approaching breaking piont. let me begin with the National Health Service
New Labour rose to power in this country on the back of many promises, amongst these was the promise to re-vamp the ailing NHS and to provide the British taxpayer with a world class health service. Ten years on and to put it quite bluntly they have failed. the NHS is in as bad a state as it was in 1997 (if not worse) individual health care trusts now find themselves millions of pounds in the red with the only way to claw back this money being cutting back on staff or services. We have seen to tangible reduction in waiting list times and MRSA and other 'super-bugs' are actually KILLING PEOPLE. Please don't get me wrong i am not in the slightest trying to belittle the work that NHS workers in all hospitals thoughout the country are doing, it is just they they do not have the money, resources or personnel to do the job. This leads me nicely to my next gripe, an absolute travesty of government policy that i myself have had first hand experiece of and demostrate the true cynicism of the Labour machine.
On 11th September 2001, the world received a huge wake up call to the threat of terrorism in the modern world. we have had violent reminders ever since. most notably in this country on 7th July 2005 with the London bombings. Now it is not my place or my wish to debate the morality/ legality of coalition invasions of either Afghanistan or Iraq. suffice to say that is a FACT that British forces were sent to these 2 hostile environments by the democratically elected government of the day. that is enough for most serving personnel... it is our job after all. now what really does enrage me about the state of affairs that we now find our selves in is that despite Tony Blairs hollow words our armed forces are severly underfunded, undermanned and poorly equipped. Despite the fact that our excellent forces are fighting a war on two fronts... that would be the war on terror, for to call it anything but a war is an insult to those that have lost their lives fighting for freedom! This war that has seen and continues to see some of the most ferocious fighting for generations. What do our troops get in return for doing their jobs so well? massive cut backs in manpwer, RAF station closures, ancient army regiments being combined to reduce costs and manpower, naval warships being scrapped, the threat of closure of one of only 3 remaining naval bases, lack of body armour for front line troops etc. etc. why? how? well to start with the professionalism of our armed forces in a way makes this all possible. Our troops get the job done... no matter what. the MOD knows this well and therefore turn a blind eye to the massive cuts safe in the knowledge that the average soldier, sailor, airman will continue to carry out their missions despite not because of the MOD's support. Secondly what could be possibly do anyway? we aren't allowed a union, we aren't allowed to strike, go to the papers and intimidating words like TREASON are banded about all over the place! or the old favourite the officail secrets act is brought out! we have no united voice that together with the fact that the armed forces are the most under represnted voting group... there is your answer the government is saving money because they know that they can get away with it. travel to any army camp, naval base or air force station and talk to the people there and every single one of them if being honest will tell you that things are worse than they have ever been and that our armed forces are at breaking point RIGHT NOW. Mr Blair/ Brown...you have been warned.
As anyone that reads this will already know, the state of law and order in this country is another thing to 'grip my shit' a certain politician once promised us he would be "tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime" hearing those LIES (for there simply is no other words for it) is almost laughable now, well it would be if it wasn't so terrifying. pick up any newspaper, watch any news channel, takl talk to anyone on the street about crime in this country and you will see just how tough we are on crime! just one example...last week a convicted peadophile was released because the home secretary had issue a directive not to put anyone in prison if at all possible! unbelievable. prisons are at maximum capacity as are the holding cells in police stations the length and breadth of the country... what is the government doing about it? NOTHING oooh very tough, i bet the criminal fraternity is quacking in their boots. look out for another installment of 'what grips my shit' soon, when i have calmed down! to include...immigration, education and tv licensing September 19 time to catch upwell here we go again
i have finally got the internet up and running in my room at northwood...got a new bt home hub and its pretty good i have to say, despite the fact that i am currently using a fucking shitty old pc as my laptop got totally fucked up when i dropped it!
claiming on insurance for a new laptop though so hopefully, fingers crossed it wont take too long
on the personal front things are really looking up
donna and i are really getting on again and i have seen the kids loads which has made me really really happy and them too i think!
for anyone that has my mobile number and thinks that i am ignoring them...i aint but my phone has been cut off because it was in donna's name so i can only recieve texts and calls and not make any at the moment...until i get a new contract fone...which again i hope to do very soon
May 06 boring boring boringBeen a totally weird day today... it's gone well quickly and i aint done hardly anything wanted to do some more in the garden but it has been raining for most of the day for anyone that doesn't know there is a programme on BBC2 tonight about the late great BOBBY MOORE...WATCH IT!!!! the greatest England football captain ever, the greatest defender in the world!!
nothing else to report today really...how boring eh?
boring boring boringBeen a totally weird day today... it's gone well quickly and i aint done hardly anything wanted to do some more in the garden but it has been raining for most of the day for anyone that doesn't know there is a programme on BBC2 tonight about the late great BOBBY MOORE...WATCH IT!!!! the greatest England football captain ever, the greatest defender in the world!!
nothing else to report today really...how boring eh?
May 05 I just can't believe itFirst time in ages that i have even been on here and i realised that it is fucking ages since i made an entry
and even longer since i got any bloody comments
so much has happened
West Ham have qualified for the EUFA cup next season and are in the FA Cup Final in a weeks time
Went to my good mate Ben and Anna's wedding. had a great time got wrecked and went to bed at 5 in the morning
i'm on my first 21 days off from work...it's going too quickly
the Labour party is losing it
BNP are gaining support
we had temperatures over 27 degrees 2 days running
still no rain.
hosepipe ban
March 16 COME ON YOU IRONSwhat a night for football eh? west ham r through to the quarter finals of the fa cup after beating bolton last night
not the most attractive football or the best performance of the season, but we got the result and at this stage that is the most important thing
bring on man city on monday
September 07 OH MY GOD!!Ignore everything i just said... England suck!!! sack Sven NOW!!!
N.Ireland just scored!! 7th in the world my arrse
ARRSEI have recently discovered a very good website for those in the military. I know a lot of people that read this crap are in the services... although they never comment or make themselves known so i'm including this link for them... and anyone else that is bored and wants some insight into life in the UK armed forces.
sorry ladies... this one's about footballI purposely resisted the temptation to comment on the football after the recent match between England and Wales (probably for the best) but here we are halfway through a game against a Northern Ireland team currently ranked 116th in the latest FIFA rankings (if you don't believe me click here!) September 05 Life, the Universe and Everything!!!!!!!!!As you can probably guess from the title of this blog, today i watched the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy on dvd.
It is one of those films that i had wanted to see when it was on at the cinema but i never got round to it... when do i ever??
Now i must confess that i am no great fan of the tv series and i have never read the book but i was quite looking forward to this one as i thought it was the type of film that would appeal to my sense of humour. the first thing that struck me about this film was the strong British contigent within the cast. the second was that it obviously wasn't done on the cheap as the special effects were really quite good!
I did however get begin to get bored about half way through, when the story seemed to hit a lull. gonna watch it again tonight and see if it has the same affect. All in all a very entertaining film one that i would recommend to anyone and one that i intend to buy on dvd... i can't really think of a higher rating for a film than spending money adding it to my collection.
September 02 ladies and gentlemen. I give you... your PRESIDENT!!If you have been watching any news at all tonight then you will have seen George Bush being flown and shown around the southern states of the USA that were affected by hurricane Katrina. Now I usually try to stick up for him a bit, I mean he has one of the hardest jobs in the world and he gets more than his fair share of abuse. I couldn't help thinking though that he looked like he had better things to be doing, while listening to the details of the 000's of his fellow countrymen that have been left dead, homeless and in need after the disaster. I'm not kidding you... the guy looked BORED! I thought he might fall asleep at any minute. I mentioned this to my wife who agreed (there's a surprise in itself!!!)
I would also like to go on the record as saying that my thoughts are with all those affected by the hurricane. I am truly disgusted that the aid agencies of the world are apparently happy to let America's own humanitarian agencies deal with this one, and after the USA was so generous after the szunami! I think it's disgusting. Don't get me wrong i am not saying that we should all have our hands in our pockets again for the richest and most powerful nation on the planet. An offer of help would be nice though, especially from this country which is supposed to be your friend and ally!
Before any americans out there start emailing me telling me... we don't need any help...I appreciate that, but i'm talking about an OFFER of help a friendly gesture to let you know that you are not alone. ( some of the others states should be thinking the same i feel!)
YOU ARE NOT ALONE! i for one would like to do something to help... thought that might be where i was going today when my pager went off!!! no such luck though. well for now my thoughts and prayers will have to do.
ARE WE GOING TO WAR?? no it's just a test!1100hrs pager goes off! phone the number and told to get into work asap. go to collect kit from secure communications building. turn up at ops building to be briefed. this is it i'm expecting to be going to war of something... no it's just a test. we have to set up our communications suite and test it within the alloted 3 hours from call out... it has already taken us nearly an hour to get this far!!!
turns out that our deployable sat dish is shagged... yeah that's the technical term for it... so i perform what is known as a running repair (i bodge it). to cut a long story short we got comms in well within the alloted time frame so everyone was happy with what we did and i can rest assured that i would have been able to do my duty should it have been a real call out...
which leaves me thinking, what if it had been! i got about 30 secs to tell Donna what was happening and even then i didn't know where i was going or when or if i was coming back! let's hope that we only have to go through practice call outs for now, the alternative ain't very nice... believe me i have done that too! August 28 places to see/ things to do b4 i diegot to thinking, whilst looking for pictures of places i want to visit. thinking about all the places i want to see and things i want to do before i die. now don't get me wrong i hopefully have few years left before i have to start worrying about that but it made me think.
Anyway I was wondering, if there is anyone who actually reads this collection of ramblings where are the places that they want to visit, what thing do they want to do?
i'm not talking about things like a bungee jump i'm talking about things like... swimming in the dead sea!
So if there is anyone reading this please leave me a message with the places to go/ things to do and if i get enough i will post a top ten.
thanks for your time and i hope that you will give this a minute or two of thought!!!
if you are interested some of my places are...
machu picchu
statue of liberty
empire state building
ayers rock
sydney opera house
great wall of china
petra
the white house
taj mahal
obviously thats just a few, need to start soon!!! weekend with no kidsseems like i have not added anything for such a long time again. surely something interesting has happened in that time????
not really...
work have decided in their wisdom to kit me out with a pager so that i can be reached should they not be able to contact me on my home phone or my mobile phone. obviously if world war 3 was to start today then the U.K would be under serious threat if i was unreachable. i am to be no more that 12 hours from home and have 2 weeks kit packed ready to go. I am to remain at this high state of alert until next wednesday when i move up to the highest alert state, then i get another pager and i have to be ready to go at any time and can be no more than an hour from home... oh and no alcahol... can't wait!!
out in witney last night... woke up with a monster hangover. can't remember anything that happened after about 9pm. Donna and Bens birthday celebrations! i was quite obviously MINCED as Donna keeps telling me about things that i did and said last night... things that i have absolutely no recollection of! i hate that! well at least i didn't have an arguement or start a fight, which is what i usually do. still some of the things that i did cannot be recounted here as my family and some minors are liable to read this... just use your imaginations!!!
August 19 a week of missing blogslots has happened and i have been really busy since i last had the chance to update this bad boy
last sunday my mum, dad and sister came up for the day and we went to swindon. we picked up my new tropical fish tank in dads big arse motor and then went to frankie and bennies for a really nice meal. all in all a really good day!
monday and back to work, been working all week on a trial of the communications links required by a new aircraft that is due to come into service in the very near future. I know that is sounds boring but it was actually pretty interesting, and made me realise just how important these communicatios links are becoming for passing data between aircraft and hqs
thursday the new tv and dvd recorder arrived... it's well mint. we now have a big f*** off tv in the front room and in the bedroom and charlie at nearly 2 years of age has a tv and dvd player in his bedroom... we haven't seen him since it was installed!!!!
today i went to work in the morning but when i found out there was nothing to do, i put a days leave in and went shopping in witney with donna and the kids... we bought some new fish for the new tank a dvd for charlie and i bought donna's birthday present, which was easier than i thought it would be because she chose it herself!
all in all a pretty good and busy week... can't complain at all!!!
 August 10 Back to blogging basicsI was just thinking that it is probably about time that i went back to actual blogging instead of this crap about movies and google software... don't really know where that came from anyway!
Work has been pretty dead again this week, that's ok though because it has meant that i have been able to do sport or go to the gym every day. Now you can't argue with a job that lets you do that now can you?
On the home front, Donna is very tired, she is still doing all the feeds during the night. It's not that i don't want to help, after all i did do a lot with Charlie. It's just that as soon as my head hits the pillow i am gone... and that's all i know about til morning. I haven't promised Donna because i don't want to let her down but i am going to start doing one night about, so that every other night she gets a decent sleep.
I really have got a superwoman here!!!! she is still managing to do all the night feeding of Catherine, well pretty much all the feeding of Catherine actually, manage the household finances, do the shopping, keep the house clean and still cook! what do i do? i hear you ask??? not an f ing lot. I go to work and i come home, ok sometimes my job can be quite demanding, but most of the time i am sat on my butt doing nothing!!!!!
I am gonna make a concious effort to do more!!!! i will even try cooking, i think the main thing that Donna would appreciate help with though is feeding Catherine so that is where i intend to start...Tonight! after all i am going to Cosford for 10 weeks in september so its only fair.
will let you know how i get on, hopefully i won't let my family down by being a lazy bastard... any longer.... August 06 SUMMER BBQWell as i predicted the summer bbq was once again an excuse for everyone to get too pissed and try to beat each other up. I am getting pretty sick and tired of the way that these little idiots give it the big one, safe in the knowledge that nothing is going to happen to them. if you ask me they should get a damn good kicking!
I don't know who planned the BBQ this year but it seemed to me that the first thought was of beer, then someone thought there should be some food and the entertainment was just an afterthought. don't get me wrong the food was pretty good this year (although not worth £5) but one little bouncy castle for the kids isn't really good enough for a unit the size of TCW (700 people plus families and children) I also thought that there should have been some more stuff for the adults to do... i know there was a inflatable football and bungee run but they were only open for a couple of hours at most and hardly anyone got the chance to use them.
all in all it was an ok day. could and should have been a lot better and as for the night i would rather forget that! i seemed to get caught up in every little bit of drama going!
for anyone that was there on thursday hope you all had a good time and i hope that i will not still be here for the next SUMMER BBQ! really i do!!!! |
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