The Time Bubble

Today I achieved a life-long ambition. Yes - something I have always wanted to do. I consumed an entire pack of Lidl's 300gm Crusti Croc Cheese Balls in one go!!! Now that is dedication!!! Yet another picture of cheese balls Oh - and I also just published my first ever book on Amazon! "Fortysomething Father" is a collection of all the best bits of my blog, various letters and a fair bit of new material that I have collated together to produce a book that follows me through a year in my life. It is not just a blatant cut and paste of the blog into book format. The whole thing has been completely re-written in order to create a narrative flow. Lots of things have been taken out, moved around, personal references removed, a lot of repetition removed (didn't realise how often I'd repeated myself). An enormous amount of time and effort has gone into getting it right. It also required a huge amount of proof-reading. I did not realise how many spelling...

Yes, just when you thought I could not possibly squeeze any more mileage out of the Cheese Ball theme, I go one step further and start feeding them to crocodiles! Get them down you boys, they're good for you! I guess I had better explain - one of the good things about having a bestie on hand that you can rely on when you need them is that you can always call on them to help you out for a couple of hours with the kids when you have an appointment during the daytime and you need a little help. I help Lynda and she helps me (as do others - thank-you Anne I have not forgotten you). So as it happened, today, after a most pleasant lunch date with Jo Jo consuming a monster (look out on her blog for the lowdown on that), I headed round before the school run to the Sharp residence in order to pick up Hermione and Anneliese from school, so that Lynda and Cameron could attend an induction at his new school where he goes in September. Anyway, Bestie had kindly decided to reward me ...

Cruelly taken away from me, without warning... It's all over, our love shot down in its prime. And I never even got a chance to say goodbye. Yes, as Rihanna sang "we found love in a hopeless place" - this place being Tesco in town. And in that same place, my feelings of hopelessness and despair grew this week as the slow dawning realisation hit me that I was never to see my beloved Eastmans again.  Gone but not forgotten I first began to notice something was wrong when I turned up for our usual Wednesday morning rendezvous and she was not there. OK, I thought, she's never let me down before, perhaps there's a plausible explanation. Maybe the lorry that normally brings her was stuck in traffic or broke down. Let's not panic. I waited and waited to no avail but she did not come. All sorts of dark thoughts went through my mind...surely, she could not be giving her love to someone else. How could she even think of ever needing another lover after th...

Well here I am safely returned from across, or should I say, under "La Manche". Luckily the old gits did not succeed in their plan! http://www.casttv.com/video/hkrq7f4/harry-enfield-old-gits-channel-tunnel-video Alex picked me up at 6am and we were set fair on the drive to Folkestone. Apart from the usual slowdown around the M25 we made it in good time, in fact we were able to get a train half an hour before the scheduled one. This was my first time for me through the channel tunnel, and how easy was it? Amazingly so. When I think of the aggravation of the past, getting on and off ferries, not to mention the horror of the airport experience these days, this was a piece of the proverbial. If you haven't been, you literally drive your car straight into a train, park up, sit there and crack open the flask of coffee, sit back and relax, off goes the train and about 40 minutes later drive out the other end, hey presto! You're in France! Inside the train ...

Hi Ho Hi Ho it's off to work we go... Except no it isn't, hurrah! No more work until after Christmas, largely due to it falling on a Sunday this year. So preparations now in full swing here at "Ayres Mansion". Today is the day of the Big Shop for Christmas and we shall be heading off to Sainsbury bright and early. I had quite an early night last night by my standards, and apart from a couple of slices of ham was very good at bedtime, no crisps or cheese balls at all yesterday. Now as you know I blatantly resist any attempts to change my diet, however I have decided I am going to try and make a difference in the New Year purely for long term health reasons. And I may as well start now. Now I've no intention of giving up all the things I love I'm just going to moderate their intake, and I'm also going to try and eat more of things I like that are recognised as being good for you, i.e. fruit - predominantly citrus fruit. Now I love pineapple, grapefruit, ...