Jo

Feeling kinda proud,
Glen puffed out his chest and shouted loud,
With such a lot to say,
He knew he’d draw a crowd.

“I’ve searched and now I’ve found her”,
Were the words that Glen could muster,
“So tell us – what’s her name?”
Asked the crowd, now quite a cluster.

“She’s my up, my down, my death, my life,
My work, my play, my joy, my strife,
Until I draw my final breath,
I want her to be my wife”

“OOOOH” sighed the masses,
Both the lads and the lasses,
“Tell us her name now,
Before this moment passes.”

“This woman’s beauty is beyond compare,
Call me crazy, I just don’t care,
Sandra Bullock couldn’t pull me away,
From the grip of this wonderful snare.

She’s entrapped me deep within her eyes,
A gorgeous abyss of unimaginable size,
I could never escape, I can’t even try,
This amazing woman is cocaine in disguise.”

The mob, looking restless, were hooked by Glen’s game,
As one they all asked, “Who is this drug that you blame?”
“Oh” said Glen, “Have you really not guessed?
She’s all that I want, and Jo is her name”

BBQ season is back

Summer time and the barbeques are primed, beer is chilling and life is good.

For the first time since the production of my first little clone way back in 2001, we have decided to hold a BBQ for a big group of friends, and the hope is that we will get a good crowd in. Friends from both sides of the marital fence are invited, from work, from netball and wherever as they once were so long ago.

On that occasion we were all so much younger, and living in Harrow, so all of our mates were easily able to find us. Jo struggled a little, 8 months pregnant on a hot Summers day, but at least it meant that she didn’t embarrass me by making me duet with her, Karaoke style, singing ‘I got you babe’ again.

Now we are sensible parents and living way out of London and so the pressure for me to produce some friends is on.

Dragging folk out of London for drinks is notoriously hard though. If the underground doesn’t stop there then it doesn’t exist.

Jo on the other hand is based locally, and so has a ready supply of friends. I’m going to wind up looking like Mr. Bean at his New Years Eve party aren’t I?

My little roped off section of the garden will consist of me and the kids while Jo and her friends spread out across the lawn. No doubt the visiting children will all wind up being pushed towards me as people assume I’m running the crèche.

I’ll have the last laugh though because women cannot cook on Barbeques (rules are rules) so while me and the boys tuck into hot dogs and burgers, they will have to eat the 50 different types of salad that they will all no doubt have created out of three tomatoes, an avocado, some mozzarella and a bottle of balsamic (no man knows how or why women produce so much salad at barbeques, they just do).

What has really made me laugh though, is the different way that people react when you ask them over.

There are two actual reactions but 7 possible meanings.

Men’s reaction:

“I’m not sure, sounds good – I’ll have to check”

Meaning:

That sounds good, hopefully I’ll be there – I just need to ask my Missus if we can come, hopefully yes.
That sounds good but I know my Missus won’t have any of that so the answer is no.
I can’t really be arsed.



Women’s reaction:

“Yes – sounds good”

Meaning:
Yes, I’ll tell my hubby that I am going.
Yes, I’ll tell my hubby that he is bringing me.

“I’m not sure, sounds good – I’ll have to check”

Meaning:

That sounds good, hopefully I’ll be there – I just need to check that the girls aren’t planning anything better first.
That sounds good, but it’s a long way so I need to check if I can be arsed on the day.
I can’t really be arsed.


Only women seem able to give a decisive answer without needing to consult anybody, what has happened to this world? When did us men lose control of things?

I’m sure that we are supposed to be the decision makers, isn’t that why our salaries are higher?

The truth is simply that at some point in the past the power was given up and that is that. Perhaps things will be different when Prince Charles becomes king. His first kingly duty should be to reinstate our marital rights of decision making.

Until then, I will just have to put the garden snakes and ladders game out to entertain those kids.

A game of chance sir?

I need to tell you about a couple of stories I read in the paper today. I don’t like “outraged of London” letters that people write about subjects they have heard or read but know nothing about – this is not one of those.

I’m not in a fury because I’ve read about someone who has claimed that their child was told that they couldn’t fly their country’s flag. I’m not going to rant on about how England has declined to anarchy because some rough 8 year old, who was probably trying to poke some shopkeeper in the eye with the flag while stealing chocolate, has been asked to leave a shop only for his mother to declare that the Muslim shopkeeper ejected them because of the flag, and not the torrent of abuse that they had hurled his way.

Far from it, I’m giggling. I am “amused of London.”

I read today of complaints that have been made against a Hoopla stall owner in Blackpool. The Hoopla stall is part of a fairground attraction. The complaint is that he was crooked. When I say crooked I mean that his Hoopla stall was really very hard to win on. “What?” I hear you ask, “You mean that the stalls at a fairground aren’t completely fair and honest?”

It seems that they aren’t – shocking isn’t it.

To be fair, it was apparent that this one was a little more bent than most and it was almost impossible to win – almost. There in lies the point, it wasn’t actually impossible to win just highly unlikely. Isn’t that standard gambling?

What made me laugh was the way that the ‘victims’ were so thick. If you go to a fair, and try your luck on the Hoopla or the shooting or whatever, you know you haven’t got much chance right? You have a couple of goes because it is fun, and because they are not impossible – sometimes you can get lucky, could tonight be your night? These people though take the absolute biscuit.

A Doctor, an educated man, complained because after he had spent £1,200 (I kid you not) he had still not managed to win a cuddly toy. ONE THOUSAND AND TWO HUNDRED F**&&(#ING POUNDS! Who on this planet would still be trying to win a prize worth at best £20 (there were bottles of cheap looking champagne on offer too, but they turned out to be empty) after you had passed the £30 mark? How on Earth would anyone still be trying after £1000? This man deserved everything he got – or didn’t get, to be accurate.

Another woman said that when she had run out of money, one of the stall holders walked with her to show her where a cash point was so that she could continue her run of bad luck, this lady should work in banking.

It really makes me laugh that people can be so dumb, free the stall holder I say and let him get back to his traditional dishonesty.

Lastly, in the same paper I saw that an Eastern European phone company has stopped selling an ‘unlucky’ phone number after its third owner on the trot had died suddenly. They no longer wanted the blood of their customers on their hands with the golden phone number of 0888 888 888. At first I agreed with them, that is quite a shocking set of coincidences. Then I read on.

The first owner died fairly suddenly of Cancer, an awful fact that is neither funny nor unimportant to somebody.

However, every time one person dies of any disease, the phone companies don’t declare their phone number unlucky. That needed the other two deaths to make it important to the report.

The second owner was gunned down in a mafia attack, on account of him also being a mobster, but for the other team.

The third, a ‘bent businessman’, was also shot by the mafia.

Now is it me, or is more likely that dealing with the mafia is actually where the bad luck is in this story, rather than having a specific phone number?

Or have I missed the boat completely and in fact the mafia simply really want that phone number?

Either way, I can’t help feeling that dealing with those guys has to shorten your odds of survival.

So if the odds are stacked against you on that phone number, I wonder if our Doctor friend has tried to buy it yet.

Summer has arrived

Summer is here, thank goodness. At last it’s starting to get warm.

Of course we go from cold to too hot in a single day according to the English (Barbara!) – We are truly never happy.

We spent the weekend in the garden doing weeding and strimming and cutting and raking and an endless list of jobs. I say we did this, but actually I did that while Jo flounced around with some cutters in her hand for 5 minutes, before declaring that it was too hot and pulling the sun lounger over to the shade for an emergency lie down.

The boys played (actually Jamie played – Daniel wasn’t very well, bless him, and spent most of the weekend laid out either asleep or being comforted by the TV babysitter. The paddling pool made its first appearance of the year as did 2010’s first water fight. It was in fact a very nice weekend (except for one of us being ill of course).

The English are never happy though and at work I must have heard 6 different people complaining about the heat. No one can sleep, it’s too hot. For some reason us Brits want to be unhappy. No Brit is happier than when they are complaining, no one knows why, we just are.

Today every one will be smiling from ear to ear as the rain is forecast to return. Now everyone can moan in ecstasy about “Is that Summer done then?” and “Bloody British Summers) having completely forgotten how seemingly unhappy they were with the sun when it was here.

THE WEEKEND WAS GORGEOUS!

Absolutely lovely.

I struggled to get to sleep when it was really hot as well, but come on!

It helps that I work in London and have to put up with the sight of 50 million scantily clad women suddenly appearing all over the place, it’s a chore but someone’s got to notice them. Think how unhappy they would be if they weren’t being appreciated by stumpy married Danny Devito lookalikes; I’m only trying to help. It isn’t even unfair either, there are approximately 100 good looking scantily clad men in London for them to look at. Sadly there a quite a few million men who think that they look ok in shorts and sandals with their shirt off too, even though their bodies haven’t seen the sun since 1976 and they haven’t seen their toes since 1984.

I was asked at work if I thought that we guys should be able to wear shorts and sandals to work in this heat. I simply said we should have a cardboard cut out of a predetermined body shape by the lifts. If you can walk through it without knocking it over you can wear shorts, otherwise you had to turn around and go get changed. The people at work do not need to see my legs and feet; some things are just not required. Besides, my sandals really smell bad.

As you can see, I have quite a poor self body image. I did consider joining in with the bloggers without make up meme, but for a laugh buying a really cheap and obvious toupee, and then very badly photo shopping the picture to make me look thinner. The idea of that made me laugh but of course I chickened out. The idea of putting a close up non vetted full on picture of me never ever entered my head. No way, you’d have to be really brave to do that.

Meanwhile I’m still dabbling with my attempts to get work as the Diet Coke man. Now and again I pop down to the 1st floor Coke machine and buy Diet Coke. When I come out of the lift into the office drinking it with muscles flexed, I scan round to see which women have noticed and got excited. So far none of them have raised so much as an eyebrow, even when I go over and pretend to fix the printer holding the can. I suppose it doesn’t help that in my other hand I usually have a burger.

Enjoy the sun folks – I’ve spent a lot of money on petrol to get you this warmth, you could at least try and appreciate it.

Marriage

“Don’t say that you love me…”

Sang legendary 70’s nut cases Fleetwood Mac.

“Just tell me that you want me.”

I haven’t done any way near enough drugs to be able to dissect the rest of that song for you as paracetamol is simply not strong enough to work out why they suddenly shout TUSK or why some marching band turns up.

But I do understand those two lines.

I’m not really experienced enough yet to be able to conclusively say what makes a marriage successful. I’ve only done a shade under 12 years, which theoretically isn’t even half way towards being able to claim any expertise. My parents and Jo’s parents are certainly in a position to give advice, each pairing lasting for more than 40 years. So I am not about to even try and dish out marital guidance, however I will tell you what I think and hope will work for me.

Share a sense of humour – This is vital and probably the most important of all aspects of a relationship to get right. Make sure you are with someone you can laugh with. We face many challenges over the years, many hardships, whether or not you have kids (sometimes especially if you don’t). When the chips are down and you are at your lowest ebbs, you need someone there who can make you smile again. Help you to see the path ahead is not so dark.

Feeling wanted – As the Mac said “wanting” your partner is somewhat important. I think it gets a little missed as folk think that as long as they say “I love you” every day then everything is fine. However all of us need to feel wanted now and again, to have someone need you is not the same. You can need someone to clean the house or cook your tea or mend the fence and cut the grass. We need to do the grocery shopping every week, but who gets excited about that? However going out shopping for something you want is whole different ball game. It doesn’t just have to be about sex, though that is probably the easiest way of showing it, sometimes you can be wanted simply for company – not just watching TV together but having a game of scrabble. I’m talking about you personally being wanted for a chat, for comfort and support, for someone to cry on, for someone to laugh with. Knowing that it is you that is wanted for something, rather than just ‘a person’ needed to help with the house or to babysit, makes you feel special. I think it is easy to forget this, to think that needing someone to do things and telling them ‘thanks’ and ‘I love you’ is the same, it isn’t. Let them know that you want them – not just somebody, but that one specific person.

Doing the things that are needed – Bearing in mind what I have just said, the fact is that we do have to do things that are needed too. Spot the things your partner needs, the every day dross of life that they are dealing with. It might not have to be you that will help with these problems, but if not who will? No one is perfect at this, no one can be, I for one am pretty terrible at it, but I try. Don’t sit back and wait for your partner to find someone else to help relieve the monotony of life.

Love – So with all that I’ve said, where does love fit in? In itself I don’t believe that it does, I see no important value in a long term relationship in simply saying “I love you” now and again (however, my wife does so you’d better believe I do it!), words can be said easily enough, meaning them is the key. What I do believe though, is that the love is found in the three points I’ve already covered. When you truly love someone, you want them, you need them and er you make them laugh. Ok not quite that last one, but loving someone so much that they still make you laugh after X years is kind of part of it. The respect that you show somebody when you are there for them, in any, and every way that you can manage, not because you need to, not because you ought to, but because you truly want to – is love.

So that’s my current theory, this theory will probably be different to my wife’s. This time next year I could be divorced and putting a link back to this post as a reference to all the things you should never do. For sure I’m talking about how I would like to behave; I’m not saying I’m great at it.

Hopefully, one day I’ll have been married long enough to call myself a success, but right now all I can say is that I’m happy and working at helping Jo be happy too. I only have another 32 years until I catch my parents up – crikey that is a long time, we are going to need a bigger TV.

Glen's Life

I’ve grown up!

Have you noticed the change?

I’ve gone and got my own thingermebob, wathercallit, webby domain wotsit.

I finally decided it was time bite the bullet and make the change.

I am now here at www.glenslife.com

How easy is that to remember? Very easy, is the answer to that question.

While we are on the subject – have any of you browsed by the contact me page above? If you have you might have seen this…





If not, you have seen it now.

Change is a funny thing isn’t it? Change is one of life’s conundrums. I love change; I get bored so easily and soon find myself wanting something new to happen. I have no desire to change home, family or friends and work is tight at the moment, so I’m not exactly going to run to the boss and demand a new mobile (the true test of your worth in the telecoms business is whether or not you are allowed a free upgrade to the newest mobile without first “accidentally” dropping your old one down the toilet. My phone is nearly three years old and has heard of the Internet, but just doesn’t believe it will ever come to anything. Apparently I am highly valued).

So I find little areas to change, such as the design or domain of my blog. Maybe I’ll occasionally order something completely random at a restaurant instead of the safe and trusted option (not too often though). I’m very excited about changing out my old Sky+ box for a Sky+ HD one.

Small changes are good.

And yet.

And yet change is one of the things I hate the most. I get very stressed out when I find myself in new environments. I always did. This was not great when I was in the Navy and had to up sticks and move to completely new ships or bases ever other year. I really struggled, but survived. Even now it’s the same. When I go to a meeting at an office I don’t know or with people I don’t know, I just feel so stressed. My neck hurts, my jaw grinds and I pace about hating every minute. I’ll arrive about a week early, in absolute fear of being late, and then sit and wait only to discover as the time goes by that I’m in completely the wrong place, stood outside meeting room 3 instead of 1.

Big changes are bad.

And yet.

And yet without those big changes where would we be? I’d still be in the Navy, I’d not be living with Jo nor have my two boys.

Considering how much stress, consideration and upheaval upgrading to HD TV has been – you have no idea how close making the decision to have kids came to killing me!

Have a good weekend.

UPDATE:

Can't resist showing you the video of my mate Craig trying his hand at nappy changing. I've had one of Craig's videos on here before, when he had his boys night out. Craig is a bouncer, a boxer, I think he may have even had a go at cage fighting. These things do not phase him - one large poo on the other hand...

The commuting Hobo

Oh my goodness – I’m feeling ill!

I just got on the train feeling bright and breezy at the start of another day. Everything was fine – everything was sunny. All is well in my life.

To cap off a beautiful morning the train was not full. Ahead of me I saw a wonderful sight – a choice of seats. Not just any old seats either, but double seats – Ben Elton’s sacred holy from the 1980’s. I smiled and swiftly chose the double seats facing forwards and sat my self down with a laugh. Immediately behind me the other seats quickly filled.

Almost immediately as I sat, it hit me.

The smell.

The stench of sweat and Meth’s induced body odour that hasn’t had access to a shower in weeks never mind a change of clothes, collapsed my lungs and blurred my vision. The smell was unbearable. I screwed up my nose, stood up and looked around accusingly. Desperately I searched for the culprit, finally after ruling out the little old lady, the business man and the hot blonde, I came to the somewhat judgemental conclusion that the only possible culprit was the tramp sat in the seat to my right.

I can be quite perceptive at times. Sherlock Holmes was British you know – it’s in my genes.

I hate stereotypes, so in fact I don’t want to accuse anyone of being something based on looks alone, but the scruffy old clothes, big heavy dirty coat, and woolly hat all being worn indoors while sitting mysteriously close to the source of the most horrendous smell in the world, kind of pointed to a vague level of trampishness that is hard to ignore.

My eyes were streaming, but I had a seat and had no intention of giving it up. I considered my options. Asking him to move on was quickly discarded, this is so far away from my principles and morals it couldn’t even be considered – who am I to ask him to move on?

At the same time, offering him my shirt and taking him into the toilets to give him a sponge bath wasn’t exactly on my list either.

Suddenly I remembered that at Reading we would be stopping and more people would be getting on. This not only meant that the few remaining seat choices would be gone, but also that someone else would come and sit next to me. That lucky person might not see the tramp. That person might think it was me!

I only had one option, so I did the only thing available to me. I pretended there was no problem where I was – and moved. I got myself sat somewhere else and tried to forget about it. The problem goes away if you ignore it.

At Reading the seats filled up and I noticed the look of desperation on the face of the girl who sat in my seat, as she realised what she had done. I can see her eyes now – all puffed up and red as if she has just woken up to find her head in a bucket of pollen after a practical joke at the AGM of the Narcoleptics with hay fever Society.

Thankfully I am able to turn my head and ignore the stench of the UK’s Million homeless, so it’s not my problem.

Is it?

The A-Team

I see the A-Team are coming back! There was a trailer for a new film on Love Film, this has got me somewhat excited while at the same time – very scared.

Who didn’t love the A-Team? Not one kid of the 80’s can possibly put their hand up and pretend that they didn’t love the A-Team. If they do, don’t believe them, they are trying to make themselves sound important – it isn’t working. I pity the fool that tries to pull that lie off!

Suddenly there is a whole new bunch of actors taking these parts on (how brave are they?) and bringing the team right up to date, oh my goodness!

How can you bring it up to date but still keep the core A-Teamness alive? Somehow BA has to pull off being camp and impossibly hard at the same time. Somehow The Face has to woo the ladies with the worst lines imaginable – could he get away with saying “Hey, here is a dollar – call us a taxi, we’re going back to your place love”? In this day and age ladies have moved the goal posts a bit haven’t they? “The face is leaving in ten minutes – be on it” Simply doesn’t work anymore. The new Face can’t even ‘accidentally’ mention that he used to be Starbucks in order to impress the girls because that would bring up a whole new issue nowadays, even if the girl was intelligent enough not to think he used to pour overpriced coffee they would still want to know how he is suddenly a man.

Most of all, how are they going to convincingly fill an hour and a half action movie with explosions, fighting, shooting and general mayhem in today’s’ world without one single person getting killed? I shall be the first person writing complaints into whoever it is you complain to, if I so much as see one person getting an unrecoverable injury. I don’t mind if they wind up in a hospital bed in traction, covered from head to foot in plaster as long as by the end of the film you see them laughing as their wheelchair is allowed to roll down a hill into a lake, where we amusingly see that the plaster acts as a buoyancy aid. That would be fine.

Hannibal has to say he loves it when a plan comes together; Murdoch has to be a nut job. Any lady that gets involved has to be gorgeous and only ever wearing full on evening dresses or bikinis with hair so big it has its own eco system. These are their rules, not mine.

I am both looking forward to seeing this film and dreading it.

Did anyone see the new remake of Knight Rider? Did anyone watch the 2nd episode? I thought not.

Mr. Benn

Did you ever wonder about Mr.Benn and his visits to the fancy dress shop? What was that all about? Off he would go in his nice suit, clearly on his way to work in the City. He could never resist just popping in and trying on something outrageous though could he?

A strangely dressed man appeared and told him he would look absolutely fabulous as a strong knight, or a pirate, and then told him to go through the back door. Now I’m no expert but…

In fact people have been making that assumption for years in the same way that they talk about George from Rainbow (though there was never any doubt about him, an extremely camp pink hippo that spends all his time with his own personal gimp who can be zipped shut on a whim is a bit obvious). I won’t ask why Bungle went around naked until bedtime, when he always put pyjamas on, because the poor bear had to share a bed with George and Zippy doing their thing, of course he didn’t go to bed naked – would you?

Don’t try telling me that Madame Cholet didn’t work her way through a substantial amount of those Wombles either. Tobermory couldn’t possibly have kept her satisfied by himself – she was too much woman for him to handle. I reckon Womble swinger parties were a regular occurrence on Wimbledon Common in the 1970’s.

Big Bird? Oh don’t get me started!

Is it only me that thought Florence from Magic Roundabout was sexy?

Enough of this madness, the point that I actually wanted to get to about Mr.Benn wasn’t the obvious joke at all. I simply was sitting here thinking how nice it would be to have an escape like that. To depart from the commute and the monotony of life and go on an impossible adventure is a truly exciting thought. Mr.Benn wasn’t gay, he was bored. His daily life as an accountant fitted in around a three hour commute, only to go home to an empty house and microwave meals had nearly killed him. The divorce had stripped him of his remaining dignity and cash. No longer could he holiday in Mrs. Jackson’s B&B in Margate for a week in Summer. He could not afford it and no longer had anybody to take anyway.

Where had the marriage gone wrong anyway? She had never been able to accept that he had not been unfaithful since the pink silk scarf incident. Finding it in Mr.Benn’s jacket pocket had broken her. She would never accept that it had been given to him by a Princess in OOMMGAHAHA land after he had rescued her and her Prince from a fire breathing dragon, whilst dressed as a mediaeval knight. Gladys had run out the door with the cat and never came back.

With nothing in his life to look forward to, why not indulge in a little role play at the old fancy dress shop? Who wouldn’t?

His blossoming friendship with the little man that runs the place was a bonus, a confusing, wonderful bonus.

This is actually the kind of thing that goes through my mind on these long boring commutes… If only there was a fancy dress shop in Didcot!

The years go by

Let’s talk about years.

It’s 39 years since I was born.

34 years since I started school.

27 years since my first proper grown up kiss.

23 years since I left school.

23 years since I joined the Navy.

22 years since – ahem.

20 years since ahem got good.

18 years since I became an Uncle for the first time.

16 years since I met my wife.

16 years since I went to live in Naples.

14 years since I tried skydiving.

14 years since I returned to England.

12 years since I got Married.

12 years since I left the Navy and became a telecoms engineer.

9 years since I became a Dad.

6 years since I became a Dad again.

5 years since the chances of me ever becoming a Dad again were dramatically cut (literally).

1 year since I became a blogger!

It has truly been an interesting year (perhaps not as interesting as the one 20 years ago). I’ve learned an awful lot about writing in this year, most of all about setting realistic goals.

When I published my first post (about becoming a dot com millionaire, sadly I deleted it later in a moment of madness, to make way for my hugely successful shopping empire.) I really thought that this was all you had to do – write something. The next day I expected to see that thousands of people had read my work, that publishers would be emailing me to ask where I had been all these years.

I had no clue.

For ages I moped about on the edges of reality, writing my thoughts and desperately trying to figure out how to get people to read it. Nobody wanted to read it. I still cannot believe how ridiculously hard it is to prise people’s time out of their hands and into your blog.

A year later then and what has changed? My expectations have changed. After a year I still am quite a few short of my projected target of a hundred thousand readers, and several million pounds short of my budgeted targets on advertising revenue, but I no longer care.

I love what I’m doing here, I love that there are a handful of people around this planet who don’t know me but stop by and read my nonsense anyway. What a rush to grab even one person’s attention for long enough for them to take even more time out of their day to write a comment and say something nice! Would I hate it if thousands of people were doing it? Er, no – but even if it’s only one it still amazes me, the fact that they might be a size 8, chocolate dodging rapist had never actually occurred to me.

This is my personal hobby, my escape, my ‘me’ time. I love my family beyond belief, I love spending my time with them and never ever want to be without that. In the end though, we all need something, no matter how small, that is just for us. I’m not doing this for my wife; I’m not doing this for my kids. I’m doing it for me, and it absolutely makes me appreciate the time with my family even more.

I’ve really started to enjoy the community side of blogging, and have really grown because of it. Reading blogs written by some quality writers (instead of the dross hate mongers that I always assumed most bloggers were) has improved my writing no end. I still feel that I’m only confident and competent enough to write articles, one day I hope to be able to write a book, but not yet.

To those of you who tune in and read here, whether you leave comments or prefer to just read, I just want to say thanks. You have given me a real buzz and I love it.

1 year of blogging complete

I can’t believe it; a whole year has passed since I started blogging!

To celebrate I’ve decided to clear the floor and stand back, to allow a guest blogger to have her say. This lady has either had to put up with my constant wittering on about my other life for a whole year, or my absence, as I lock myself away to blog!

As the long suffering muse of my marital comedy, it seems only right to let her fight back, and so I give you my lovely wife – Jo.

So, it’s been a year since my husband started this blog and finally I’ve been let loose. The blog has so far been Glen’s domain save for a few ‘edited’ comments from me and I intend it to stay this way. However, recently I foolishly announced, (after reading yet another damning review of my culinary skills): ‘Right, that’s it, I’m writing a blog’. Instead of dismissing me and laughing about this, which would have been the correct response, Glen agreed and said ‘Go on then…You can be my guest blogger!’
Hmmm……
So here I am. I am not a poet. I do not want to write a book some day. I do not have the talent for amusing anecdotes that my husband has. I am not good with words. I have not spent hours planning what to write. The one thing I can promise you is that I will do my best!

I am a teacher. I enjoy seeing children reaching their potential, having fun, making friends and working hard. I have seen my man doing all of these whilst writing his blog and that makes me (and him) happy. I also enjoy helping children to get things right. So Glen I’m sorry if I’ve occasionally read your blog and pointed out the spelling and grammatical errors. I’m just doing my job!

I don’t really ‘get’ this whole blog thing. I don’t understand how people can believe that they have entered into genuine friendships after reading each others’ blogs a few times. How do you know you are not making friends with people that you have no desire to be with? You know the kind of people; paedophiles, chocolate avoiders, criminals, murderers, size eight models, need I go on? However I do read around Glen’s blog and I see relationships forming, friends being made, genuine warmth being exchanged over the internet. I find this confusing and slightly worrying. You can be whoever you want to be on the pages of your blog. Glen, I know, is genuine. I don’t know if all the ‘others’ are though. I did have a slight wobble when he started talking about meeting up with some of them. (Ladies, I won’t name you, you know who you are!) Funnily enough I had no problem with Glen meeting them. My wobbles came when he suggested I should go with him. Whoa there! No thank you! It’s your blog, your world, your stalker, your funeral!!!

Anyway, I am now going to take this opportunity to defend myself about a few things that have been written about me of late since that was the reason this whole ‘me writing a blog’ thing started…

I have never and would never force anyone to eat chick peas. The truth is I make a mean butternut squash and chick pea curry which also happens to be low fat, healthy and meat free; 3 things which by husband is not!

I am actually undergoing proper training in order to run the Race for Life. To run 5km will be a major achievement for me. I have never used a taxi to supplement my training. If I was going to have an affair it would not be with a taxi driver (no offence to cabbies).

My diet is MY diet. Glen has made no attempt to join me in this venture or diet by proxy. In fact just this week he went to do the weekly shop where he stocked up on Pringles (Buy 1 get 2 free – apparently an offer too good to refuse) and Rolo desserts.

I do wonder sometimes, from the comments that come rolling in when I feature in a blog, if some of Glen’s readers actually believe that I really am a complete cow. I’m not. I’m just a bit of a cow!

So Glen,
I am a first and foremost a mum and wife who happens to have an extremely lovely family, thank you very much.
I also have a great but very difficult job. Sometimes I am tired. Sometimes there are things on my mind which are way bigger than the blog and sometimes I just want to watch Desperate Housewives. So if I do not always share your enthusiasm for the blogging world then I am sorry. I do think you are a great writer though and I hope that one day you get the proper recognition and the deal that you deserve. (Not least so I can buy shoes whenever I like. The shoe references, dear followers, are all true!)

Jo x

PS
A confession….Yesterday whilst driving past the fire station I nearly crashed the car because I was distracted by a large group of firemen outside. Sorry.

The Rib Room

“No ribs? What do you mean no ribs? This is The Rib Room”

I’ve just got back from working way up in the North of my country, near Durham. This was quite some drive, though I dare say any Australians or Americans reading this would find it amusing that I was able to drive to almost the other end of England in four and a half hours, for you guys that’s like visiting your neighbours.

As it was, the drive went very well and unusually untroubled by congestion. In fact on the 500 mile return trip I only got caught up in one traffic problem that brought me to a stop, and that was within half a mile of my turn off for home on my way back, this is so typical.

I had work to do at a business park near the oddly named Houghton Le Spring (Those pesky Normans at work again, I reckon). The work would take a while so I checked in at a hotel for the night.

The Ramside Hall Hotel is one of those funny places that is very nice but slightly hampered by their desperation to keep their history. The Hotel has its own golf course and so really wants to appear as a traditional golf club. It succeeds.

The fact is it is very nice, the staff are very good and the rooms are lovely, but somehow the old fashioned feel just does not work. In some places you really feel the ambience of centuries of use within these established hotels, here you just don’t. It’s clean and well preserved; you just think it could do with modernising. I don’t know of any other decent quality top class hotel, for instance, that does not offer WI-FI.

All of this took me to their restaurant, The Rib Room. As soon as the receptionist asked me if I’d like to eat in their restaurant, my mouth watered. The Rib Room, I mused, yes please! I imagined myself wearing an oversized bib and being wheel barrowed back up to my room afterwards. I was well up for a rib fest.

On arrival, the man ushered me to sit in the lounge area, and handed me a menu and a pint. Classy place, I thought. I then sat for ages staring at the menu. I turned it over three times, and checked round the doorway for a specials board. I searched everywhere, but absolutely no mention of ribs could be found.

Eventually my waiter returned to take my order. I looked at him bemused, and asked what rib options there were. “Ha ha” he said, “Ha” I replied. “Ha ha , Sir is a one”, “Ho ho aren’t I just?, so about the ribs?” “Ha ha Sir stop it as my laughter will surely make me cry and break my ribs” “Good, stick some BBQ sauce on them!”

Some time later we came to the agreement that there were no ribs on offer, and that many people make that same mistake. No explanation was given, however, as to why the restaurant was called the Rib Room. As it was I ordered a Porterhouse steak and hand cut chips as that sounded like a pretty nice consolation prize.

My waiter immediately looked concerned, my meal would take half an hour to cook and I had not ordered a starter, he found this quite alarming. I had no issue with waiting half an hour for my meal but felt his point was valid, surely I would be bored or half starved by the time my food arrived. I asked if they could bring me some bread, as I figured that would do nicely to while away a few minutes and enable me to have enough energy left to lift my knife and fork when my dinner finally arrived. My man panicked “Bread Sir? Oh dear, perhaps I could bring you some olives… yes I’ll bring you some olives ok?”

How could I refuse such concern?

I was shown to a table in the corner of the room, I naturally went to sit facing into the room so that I could look around and take things in during my wait, “Ahem Sir – Please lets not make a fuss, I think our other guests would prefer it this way?” the waiter indicated that whole sentence to me with a cough and a nod to the fact that the table was clearly laid for one person, facing into the wall.

So I sat myself down facing into the corner and made a point of not looking around, somehow I imagined behind me waiters were taking their clothes off or wiping slabs of steak on the floor before taking them to the tables. Behind me a party of golfers from Yorkshire droned on about whatever it was that they thought was expensive today. I tested out their Yorkshire heritage by taking a tissue out of my pocket and letting some coins fall out onto the floor. Every single one of them put their hands up and shouted “MINE” they were Yorkshire men alright.

Golfers, I have decided, are quite dull.

On the table was a basket of bread. It was warm and delicious, it tasted like olive bread. I assumed that this is what my waiter had meant, he could not bear to bring me out a slice of Hovis, so he had personally baked me some olive bread instead. I ate the bread and waited. No olives came so I sat back and relaxed. I’d wanted bread anyway so I certainly wasn’t worried. Eventually, after a delay that when you are alone feels like a lifetime but in fact was perfectly reasonable for a meal at a decent and busy restaurant, my waiter turned up and put some olives in front of me. “Here you are you fat git, olives, I hope you choke on them after eating the bread, I told you not to eat the bread!”

Okay, what he actually said was “Your olives sir, your steak is just coming” and with that he stepped back as a waitress handed me my meal. Why? I do not know why they brought out the olives at the same time as the meal; perhaps he had decided that they are the perfect side dish for steak and chips.

Guess what?

The meal was absolutely lovely.

The steak, cooked to perfection and extremely tasty went perfectly with the huge chips. The peppercorn sauce (that I forgot to mention earlier) was perfect. For some reason there was a big pile of leaves on the side of the plate, the reason for which I was unsure so I carefully scraped them into the bread basket and said no more about it. The meal was a joy to eat.

I quite enjoyed my rather novel olive based dessert too.

So there you have it, if you ever find yourself near Durham and fancy a very tasty non rib related meal in an oddly old fashioned restaurant, served by quirkily eccentric yet attentive and thorough staff, I can recommend The Rib Room at the Ramside Hotel.

I was not charged for either the bread or the olives, which was a pleasant surprise. They still couldn’t quite do that in a normal way though. Instead of simply not appearing on my bill, they appeared like this …

NO STARTER £0.00

I love it.

To my boys

Dear kids,

I love you.

I really do.

You have turned my life right around and made me a different man, a better man.

I wish I could be the kind of dad you deserve; a hero, a Superdad or a giant. I wish I could be there to pick you up from school, and go straight to the park for a game of football before dishing out some good quality, life improving advice about how to cope with growing up. I wish I could be there every night when you have your tea. I used to be home in time to do your bath and read you a story most nights, now I am not, believe me when I say I miss that. Even when I am at home to pick you up from school, I’m still working so we have to rush straight back to the house, and you get dumped in front of the TV while I go back to work. I know that you quite like the TV, but would be happy playing too – so would I.

Being a dad is much harder than I thought it would be. I thought I just had to do all the things that my dad did that I liked, not do the things that I didn’t like, and add in some things that I wanted him to do. Somewhere along the way that has got confused, it’s not always so straight forward.

Sometimes I’ve dug my heels in and got cross about things that I cannot even start to understand the reasons for now. It’s taken years to learn how to ignore the trivial fights and stick with just the important ones. I’ve made many mistakes on that front and probably still will for quite some time. Sorry, I’m not very good at that.

Daniel, you are incredible. You have such a thirst for knowledge that simply amazes me, you are going to go far mate, but I wish I could give you the 100% attention that you so desperately crave. I know how hard it was for you to accept a younger brother, and how much you have to put up with now, being followed about and adored by this boy. He ruins your games, breaks your toys and then runs off crying when you get cross with him, and this gets you in trouble again. How can someone you clearly love so much, cause you so much pain? It’s not just you mate, this has been happening for hundreds of years, ask your Uncle how it feels, I am his younger brother.

I’m sorry I couldn’t help you more when you were being bullied at school. I would have gone there for you if I could. I truly believe there are some things you have to sort out for your self though, and boy you really did. I told you to laugh it off and ignore them. I said they could only upset you if you let them, so show them that you weren’t bothered and they would move on. When your mum wasn’t listening I also mentioned that I didn’t expect you NOT to protect yourself if needed, I hope this didn’t confuse you. Since then you have done so much, and I know you are happier, you have done that yourself, and I am so proud. You have so many years left at school and there will always be problems like these, I really hope I’ve given you what you need to cope.

Jamie, you put up with so much, so patiently. Your lovely temperament and desire to play are rewarded, all too often, by being ignored while we deal with your big brother’s latest tantrum. You shrug your shoulders and play on your own, as your parents try and work out what to do with him, instead of doing something with you. Sorry son. I want you to know that we have spotted this happening, and are trying really hard to correct it. I will try my best to reward your behaviour with my time, which is all you really want, rather than giving that time to reward a different type of behaviour. This is surprisingly difficult to do, the theory makes sense but it is not easy, I will try harder mate. I’m so proud of how well you have coped with your first year at school. We were so worried about you because you were always so nervous and shy, but my goodness how you have grown this last year. Your confidence is amazing, you are amazing!

Boys, I know I don’t always get things right for you, and I hate that, but I am learning all the time, so hang in there. If I could protect you from every single piece of sadness and evil that this world will throw at you for ever, I would, but I know that I can’t. All I can do is teach, and encourage you to have the confidence and ability to face them alone. Remember when you do, I’m here.

I really don’t care what you want to be when you grow up and nor am I in a rush to find out, but I will fight hard for your right to have an opportunity to choose. I will try to help you develop into being whatever it is that you want to be. You both are blessed with good health and good brains; I hope you understand how lucky that makes you. You really can be anything!

Be happy.

Be healthy.

Be nice to your parents.

Do the best that you can at whatever you do, without comparing yourselves to other people. As long as you are trying your best, you will always be doing well.

Look out for each other.

Don’t do drugs.

As long as I’m alive, I will always be here for you; I’ll always be your dad. Come and tell me anything, whatever the problem is I will help. Oh I might be cross, I might be upset, I might even be gutted – but I will never turn my back on you when you need me, ever!

You are who you are, and I love you.

Dad x

Thanks Jo

Now that I have found the instruction manual for the microwave, and am therefore a little steadier on my feet, I can finally get my mind off food and move on (don’t panic men – I haven’t suddenly betrayed millions of years of evolution and started reading the instruction manual for a gadget – an absolute crime for a man – Jo had written the child lock code on the front page, without it I couldn’t get the damned thing to cook).

With that in mind I should point out that my poor wife does put up with a lot from me, and I just wanted to thank her for it.

I love my wife very much indeed, always have and always will. I love the way she looks after me and the boys even though she works full time herself.

I love the way she understands my humour and therefore puts up with me writing about her wifely exploits here.

I love the way she smiles.

I love the way she is smaller than me and doesn’t wear heels (Tom Cruise would love Jo)

I love the fact that she is my friend, as well as my wife.

Most of all, I love the way she makes me laugh.

The fact that she is most definitely a Yummy Mummy is a bonus.

I felt it about time I put that straight.

I’m just off out to the shops now to buy a new microwave, how was I supposed to know you have to take the chicken out of the can before you cook it?

Does anyone know how to get burn marks off a kitchen work top? No rush but Jo will be home in an hour!