My view and thoughts on everything!

"This is, however, short lived as the sugar in the drinks being consumed kicks in and hyper activity and shrieking is restored...I couldn't help thinking that her voice could be used as a weapon of mass destruction. Sadly for me there was no gaffer tape handy" Without a shadow of a doubt it has been a very busy week so far. They call it the silly season for a reason and it is truly living up to its name. It's only now as I am writing this blog that I have had time to finally sit down and do nothing (except blog writing that is!). Last weekend No Worries and I took our gals to breakfast at the infamous 'Golden Arches' restaurant. Now I have to state at the onset that we probably visit the Golden Arches only 4 or 5 times a year as we truly believe in trying to have a well-balanced diet. Mind you, given the last few days my diet should include copious amounts of alcohol, but sadly it doesn't! Naturally the gals had a great time eating hotcakes, hash brow

"Some of the dance movements do indeed seem as if the dancers are changing a light bulb or three, or having had too many beers!...To a passing stranger it might have appeared if I had ants in my pants or doing a mystical Indian dance" Last week No Worries and I took out daughters to an Indian celebration at a business centre in Sydney. We were all looking forward to it as it meant that my wife and gals could have an excuse to dress up Desi style. I too decided to get into the spirit of things by dressing up in Indian clothes. While my wife would be wearing a Salwar Kameez (aka Punjabi Suit), I decided to wear a Kurta Pyjama. To those who don't know, a Kurta Pyjama is a long shirt which has pants (trousers) underneath. My girls would complete the picture by wearing Lenghas (top and skirt) . We were all looking forward to the event. The weather too was doing its best Indian impersonations as the mercury was hovering around the 36C mark. We arrived at the business centre and

"Axl Rose and his merry band of musicians finally released "The Chinese Democracy" for all and sunder to hear. All hail Saint Axl for this gift to the masses...Every day I rushed to the letter box to see if it had arrived. Sadly, all I received was bills, bills and adverts for pizzas!" The silly season is now upon us. Christmas is just a few weeks away and people are frantically shopping for gifts for their loved ones. I wonder how many pairs of socks and toasters will be given this Christmas?? Fortunately, I am well and truly catered for in this regard (note to family and friends!!). Here in Sydney things are hotting up. Or I should say becoming more humid! The season of body odour (aka Summer) has hit this part of Australia. If you don't believe me then catch a train or bus and you will soon have a whiff of un-deodorised armpits heading for your direction. Still, as I mentioned earlier, it is the silly season and also the time for miracles of one nature or ano

"Firstly, I am not a male model (or b grade talent show contestant) and secondly I certainly wouldn't wear a g-string (unless it is for charity)....Within seconds she was standing right opposite me and then in a moment later promptly stood on my injured foot. "aaarghhh" I screamed. "There you go" said the wife "I bet you are not in as much pain now" Now that the weather is well and truly getting warmer us Sydneysiders are shedding our clothes. Now, I don't mean that everyone is going naked, but we are all obviously wearing apparel to match the weather and the impending approach of good ol' Summer. So shorts, t-shirts and, for the girls, summer dresses are de rigeur. Likewise boots and shoes have been exchanged for sandals. Mind you, given the past few days, where the mercury has been plummeting, you could be excused for thinking it's still winter here. On Sunday, I received a phone call from my sister in England. She said "gu

"Where was Santa? Maybe his reindeer had been wheel clamped due to illegal parking...Mind you, if I was facing 200 hungry children I would raise the white flag in an instant!" Recently No Worries (aka the wife) and I purchased tickets for our two daughters to have a breakfast with an ageing fat man who has a fetish for reindeers and sports a long white beard. The man in question was, of course, Santa! We were told to turn up at the local shopping centre at 8.30 and then shortly after Santa would arrive and lead the children to the area where they would have breakfast and be entertained. It sounded like our gals would certainly enjoy this event. The night before No Worries and I donned the flak jackets, got out the whiteboard and synchronised our watches. We would need to adopt a military style operation to ensure that our daughters got up on time, had a brief snack and then get dressed in their 'Christmas dresses' and reach the shopping centre on time. Also, I nee

"why would you want to know what a suitcase weighs in Milton Keynes? The answer is probably the same as in Leamington Spa or Wagga Wagga!...I can assure you that our thoughts are wide and varied. In brief it would revolve around beer, birds and footy!" The other day while having a cup of chai (Indian spiced tea to the uninitiated) I decided to look at some of the statistics surrounding my blog. I do this periodically as it's always good to see where people are viewing my blog from, and also how they came upon my epic tomes of everyday life. One statistic that really caught my eye, well both of them really, was the 'keyword analysis' stats. This is the wording used by an Internet user to stumble across my blog. Some of the word searches were quite interesting in their own right. So here are a selection of searches undertaken by readers of my blog: Weighing my suitcase in Milton Keynes - When I saw this I didn't know what to make of it! I know that Milton

"I don't have any set format. I normally go by the name and / or a gut feeling that I have at the time. Sometimes the gut feeling can be due to a dodgy curry!...As most males will tell you that is simply not the case. It's a bit like a guy telling his wife that all women's shoes are the same" The first Tuesday in November is a very special day in Australia. No, it's not a birthday of a famous celebrity or anything similar, but is the day that Australia downs tools to watch a horse race. Yes that's correct, folks - the global financial crisis is put on the back burner while Australian's bet vast sums of money on the outcome of a horse race! To be truthful, I contributed to the vast sums waged by outlaying $32. Yes, I am the last of the big spenders. As for the race itself some punters study the form guide intensely. Others will look at the horse and it's colours and then decide to bet on that one. As for me, well, I don't have any set form

"Or would it be about something obscure like paper clip collecting or toilet roll designing? I thought I had better find this out post haste....In fact, it was a family friend who had seen the interview and couldn't stop laughing!" There I was at work when the phone rang. Nothing unusual there. It was Friday after all and a few of my friends normally ring up to see what I am up to at the weekend (in my case normally nothing too exciting). This time, however, it was from someone I didn't know. The caller had gotten my phone number from a mutual friend and had rang me. The phone conversation went like this: "Hi, I hope you don't mind me ringing you, but I was wondering if you would like to be interviewed for a television programme?" asked the female caller. "Erm no, that will be fine" said I. Then I started thinking about what the subject matter would be. Would it be about the latest Coldplay album? Or would it be about something obscure

"other owners of my MP3 brand had experienced similar issues except in relation to purchasing cream or listening to Celine Dion...Maybe a postmaster eating monster was hiding in the backroom and had eked out its revenge" A couple of weeks ago I was on the train heading home after a busy day at work when my mobile phone rang. It was the wife aka "No Worries". I stopped listening to my MP3 player and answered it. "Hi" said No Worries. "When you get off the train can you pick up some milk and cream, please?" I confirmed in the affirmative. After all, it would only take a few minutes to get these items. I then returned to my music which I was thoroughly enjoying as per usual. As most of my family and friends know I am a huge music fan and really love to listen to a wide variety of music (except Celine Dion hehehe). After getting off the train, I headed to the local supermarket and purchased the milk and cream. Then I started to walk home. A

"Anyway, after 'swabbing' all over my clothes and mobile phone I was declared clear. Obviously I wasn't a danger to society and cardamons don't create explosives!" Last weekend No Worries and I took our two daughters up to the North Coast of NSW to see their Grandmother and two Uncles. Naturally the gals were excited to go, not just to see their relatives but also because they would be flying there. In fact, they couldn't wait to catch the plane! As most parents would know if you plan a holiday away (albeit ranging from a weekend to a few weeks) it becomes a logistic exercise. Not only do you have to pack things for yourself but you have to get things ready for your children. Anyway, the few days prior to leaving I kept cajoling No Worries to start packing. Naturally, No Worries wasn't too concerned about doing this. She replied in her usual way. "No worries, it'll only take 15 minutes to pack. We can do it on Friday night". I wasn

Every now and then, when I have that precious commodity called time, I review my blog to see what improvements can be made. I feel it is important to do this to try and keep the blog site fresh and exciting (or words to that effect). Over the past few months I have added a song of the week, and also a picture of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (taken by yours truly) to my site. One new feature that I have just added is the 'Follow' feature which is located at the top right hand side of the blog. This is a new feature that will help you to keep up to date with all the new blogs that will be spewing forth from my laptop very soon! In the meantime, I hope you enjoy reading my blogs as much as I like sharing them with you. Remember to leave a comment about any blog of mine that you have read. I always love reading what is posted.

" In fact, I keep expecting to see concrete cows everywhere!...“Daddy, which shop does Kevin Rudd work in?” My initial response was to say “a closed shop” but I bit my tongue" It all happened just over a week ago. No Worries and I were relaxing at home when all of a sudden I had an idea. Now this is not a common event. Far from it, really. So when this happened I got very excited. The idea revolved around the forthcoming NSW State holiday (Labour Day). As the long weekend was approaching faster than a City Rail train I though it would be good to take our daughters to Canberra for the Floriade (flower festival) and also to see Parliament House. They are now of an age where they would probably appreciate the excursion to Australia’s capital. No Worries concurred with me. As the drive from Sydney to Canberra is just under three hours all we needed to do was find some accommodation and we were set. Courtesy of Mr Google, this didn’t take too long to arrange. The next day we infor

"The question that we all hate having to answer was about to be asked. "do you think these earrings go with my outfit?".....The quiz master then said "yes, but what number is he?" I was stumped. I meekly answered "two, three, four..." In the past couple of weeks both No Worries and I have attended two trivia nights for our daughters schools. The idea behind them was to raise much needed money for these learning establishments. Trivia nights are great and as I am a trivia fan I couldn't wait for the night to come around. I was like a child waiting for Christmas Day to arrive. To me trivia is a lot of fun. Whilst, I don't go pouring over facts and figures I do tend to remember a lot of useless facts. I don't know why, but I do. Anyway, the first trivia night was for our eldest daughter and was a great success. Our team (of mums and dads) came second and we were just pipped at the post. Having said that, it was all a lot of fun and fo

"For whatever reason my sleep state then made out that I was a David Beckham like superstar. The only thing missing was his skill, the tattoos and his bank balance!...Sure enough, there they were next to my boots on the passenger seat seemingly grinning at me like a Cheshire Cat I recently had a dream. Now that is not unusual, you might say, but for me I seem to have them very infrequently. Maybe I actually dream more than I realise but when the alarm goes off most mornings my main thoughts are on waking up and getting ready for the day. As some of you would know I am one of 31,000 co-owners of Ebbsfleet United Football Club in England (if you trawl through my blog site you will find some blogs about 'the Fleet' and the MYFC setup). Anyway, for whatever reason my dream revolved around this fine football club. In this dream I was a member of the coaching staff and also a registered player. From what I could recall I was working as the second in command to Liam Daish the hea

"Two loaves? What are we doing? feeding the population of Australia or 30 kindergarten children??...It looked like a case of organised chaos (which it was)" A couple of weeks ago No Worries and I decided to have a party for our eldest daughter who was turning 6. We decided to have the party (aka afternoon tea) after school. The idea was to invite her friends over for an afternoon tea. To ensure a successful afternoon was had by all No Worries and I, in true military fashion, got out the white board, donned our flak jackets and worked out a plan of attack for the party. Initially discussions were around what food should be on offer for our hungry guests. We decided on cooking most of the food ourselves. I got the gourmet pizza cooking rights as well as the honour of making chocolate crackles (being a chocoholic I readily volunteered for this). No worries would take care of the fairy bread, pancakes, salad and all the other yummies. As the party was on a Monday we decided to do

"It was only about 30 seconds later when she realised she was in the wrong car!... Immediately the clerk informed her that she was four years too early!" Regular readers will know that on occasions my blog mentions my wife who has been nicknamed "No Worries". This moniker was chosen by my wife and it perfectly sums her up. This week, while I was recovering from our eldest daughters' birthday party, No Worries suggested that I write a blog about her. My initial thought was "nah" and then I thought "maybe it is a good idea" as I drank another beer. So here are some stories about the one and, thankfully, only No Worries. In brief, No Worries is a what can loosely be labelled 'scatterbrained'. She always seems to have her mind on about 10 different things at any one time. She says its called 'multi- skilling ' but I am not sure if that is the correct wording! As such she is always misplacing things. Almost everyday No Worries wil

"You only have to look at the faces of most of the parents to see that they are thinking "I really want to have a go at this"...We hit him at a fair speed and he seemed to be airborne for ages before coming back to earth" This time of year is a very busy period for the family. It's what I call 'the birthday party season'. Over the next few weeks we will be going to a number of birthday parties of the toddler and child variety. On top of this both our daughter's have their birthdays coming up in the next few weeks. Last weekend we attended two birthdays to kick off this party season. The one on Saturday was a home affair, while the one on Sunday was held at an indoor play centre. This one was located in a Inner Sydney suburb which is really a warehouse type structure that has climbing structures, slides, obstacles, ball pits and so on. To be totally honest, even though these places are for children it is obvious that us adults want to try out all the

"I need you to buy some stockings" Now my head was spinning? why would I need stockings???...It was at that stage that some Gordon Ramsay style language spewed forth from my mouth and the GPS was turned off" Weddings are great events. For the family and friends that attend the marriage service it truly is a moment of magic. However, for the bride, groom or bridal party it can be a very stressful time. The following is an account of what happened to me as I attended the wedding of my wife's best friend in Sydney. My wife was the Matron of Honour and my daughters were Flower Girls. The day before the wedding my wife informed me that we would need to get up early on Saturday morning so that my daughters and herself could have their hair and makeup done in preparation for the big event (and I don't mean the local footy match either). I considered this and said "no problems" thinking that we could leave home at 8 o'clock and arrive at the bride's hou