Minor Surgery!

Well, I had to try and make it sound more dramatic than it really was. I had this skin tag at the top of my leg, that over the last year has grown! Well last week I decided it was time to get it chopped off.
I went to see the doc last Friday and she took great delight in telling me she loved 'whipping' ones like that off! Shit!
So at 3pm today I went back, I had to wait as the operation had to be carried out in the nurses room, fair enough! Well, I lay on the operating table and the tag is high on my leg, so I rolled my shorts up to give access, but I wasn't aware that the nurse would hold them, conveniently for her resting her hands across my bits - well I wasn't expecting the injected anaesthetic, more serious than I had expected I was thinking.
That soon took effect then the doc was standing there with a soldering iron looking thing, said, you may smell burning flesh, but don't worry! Ffftft ffffft fffft rising smoke, vial smell, there you go mr turner, all done. Weyhey, not much bleeding, but take it easy for a couple of days incase the stalk does bleed, then apply pressure. I am officially getting old.

A pic from my holiday!






Thought I would throw this in as I would like to be back in the warm again.

Transfer window closes.

Thank god, maybe things will settle down, lots of slagging off for not getting another striker, but would we have got anyone better than what we have? Or just added depth? At least it's over now so we can get on with the season and climb the table.

Holiday Blues

Well its been 3 days since returning from my holiday in Spain!
Work all seems ok, other than the issues I needed to resolve before I went away, still need to be resolved - but I knew that anyway and I also have to work out how to take on the book keeping, should be interesting if nothing else!
I was amazed to see how green the garden was when we got back, so whilst we were enjoying hot, dry sunny weather in Spain, it must have rained quite a bit here.

Liverpool

Well we lost 3-0 to Man City on Monday night, not the best way to end my first day back after holiday. What happened? I thought we looked like we lost focus and concentration for some bizarre reason.
I think we do have players that are good enough, but they don't try hard enough or have a confidence issue or just are different to Liverpool legends of the past in their approach. Why wait to go 2-0 down before really having a go?
In addition, the commentators drooling over Gareth Barry and James Milner makes me want to be sick! Barry is a waste of space I don't know how he plays for England or what people see in him. Then you get the "city have thumped Liverpool 3-0" crap, well you only need to look at the stats to see that they actually only had 3 shots on target and it happened that they all went in! Reina did not have 1 save to make - fact!
Yet again, we don't get any luck, When Stevie hit the post and it came back and hit Hart, if that was us, it would have gone in a la v Arsenal!
I also don't get why some people are giving Hodgson a hard time and harping on about Rafa! Yes he did ok, but, if Istanbul wouldn't have happened it would all be so different. Rafa didn't finish top 4 in his 1st season or his last, he made amazingly negative substitutions at times that I never understood - so all I say is let Roy get on with it, 2 down, 36 to go!

Starting an E-commerce Website

I have been asked a few times in recent months about setting up and starting an e-commerce website and I am happy to help and offer advice. Having created 3 or 4 to date, the creation is one thing, understanding what to look for etc and then marketing it (theres no point having the best website in the world if no one visits it) is not really difficult, but it takes time and can be very expensive without some guidance from someone who has done it to help you avoid the pitfalls!
I am putting together a guide, all free, for that process so that I can help others create what they want, and avoid the big pitfalls. At the end of the day you learn by your mistakes, so you will still make some, but, with some guidance you will be able to avoid a lot and understand why they are not right for your business or project. One thing that often doesn't get counted is the cost of time! It takes time finding out things things and I mean say months, so if you project you can make £4k profit a month, but it take 4 months to figure out why something doesn't work, that cost could be £16k!!
If you want to follow, or have friends or colleagues you thing this may be of interest to, get them to register for the email updates.

Almost time to go home!

Well its now Friday night and we leave on Sunday back to cloudy England!
So far, the holiday has definitely been a success in terms of relaxing, which was the main aim.
The kids have continued to be pretty angelic, if you give them a bit of slack for being kids, definitely no complaining.
There isn't really an awful lot to do here, and that isn't a complaint! There is more than enough close by to get by with a mix of Spanish and English shops, with a large supermarket no more than 20 mins drive away. The pace of life is slow and relaxed. Really love the villa, the kids have only mentioned going to the beach once, as with the pool they are more than content and their swimming has improved dramatically, we're already considering when we can come back! Need to get cheaper flights.

Apologising!

I do it quite frequently (sorry but mrs is walking around with nothing on but her kaks!, not for my benefit but because it is hot!) if I say something wrong, or even if I don't but what I have said has upset or hurt some one because of what I have said. That's not meant in an arrogant or self righteousness way, but in a sympathetic and understanding way as I don't like or intend to upset people and feel it is the decent thing to apologise
However, it isn't the easiest thing to do, but I feel it is a good and almost cleansing thing to apologise. But some people don't, and that includes people close to me. They don't seem to get my reasoning and that my apology is my admission of being in the wrong, WRONG!
My stubborn streak would make me almost demand an apology if I feel I was owed one, which in turn would prevent me from making any form of apology to them - this would eat away at me. In the last few months I have learnt to accept that my way isn't the only or the right way to deal with these situations and that while I feel it is important for me to apologise, but that it is more important to accept that other peoples apologies may not be verbal but silent, to accept that, not demand it and move on.


Thank you for reading

Time flies when your having fun

Well, having got the first day, including the travelling out of the way the last 2 days have been a real joy!
After the first day, although I knew the kids hadn't really been that bad, I did feel an element of trepidation! However, over night the angels travelled to nr lake Venuela and possessed the children to their normal selves, in fact better than their normal selves if I am honest.
I was also anxious about the holiday and how I would cope with no Internet for a week, a concept that I was battling with for a while, leaving the business and just being able to relax. I know the business is in trustworthy hands and I am actually managing to chill. Reading a book, i have another one to try and help me to draw, of which I am not very good at, but hope i may find a way to relax and express things in drawing- potential for a shitty day to look like a pile of shit is very much a possibility!
All we have done is pop to the local shops, eaten out a couple of times, been to a big shopping centre, swam, chilled, read - about the most relaxing I have been since my honeymoon in October 2001.

Glad to hear that Spurs lost tonight and may they lose in the return leg as well, I have no time for any of the Redknapp, tv personality stuff, and Harry is an underhanded judas!


Thank you for reading

1st Day in Spain

I am writing this on Sunday 15th August, having almost completed our first day in Spain. It was an early start, up at 5 to make sure the kids we're ready to go, go to my parents to drop the dog in and for my Dad to drive us to the airport for 7 am.
Kids loved the flight although their hearing is poor as they don't seem to be listening to a word either Mel or I say, I accept an element of this is excitement but an element of this is also obnoxiousness, in my opinion. My wife is just able to put it all down to tiredness and hunger and break from the routine, whereas it just winds me up a treat, makes me angry and just makes me want to be at home, considerably better off having not worked my ass off to pay for the holiday, less stressed and also like a crap parent.
Not saying I am, but this kind of thing makes me feel as if I must be doing something wrong, or nit getting the point with the whole thing - this added with the stress that nr 3 is due along in January just completely does my head in!
Still it is almost the end of the day, I am sat on the verandah, looking across the hills as the sunsets, which I guess could be worse. Tiredness, frustration, anger, dissapointment, excited, happy, all in a day!

Liverpool v Arsenal

Well this hasn't helped matters much either today! Couldn't watch the game but listened to it on 5 live, should Cole have been sent off? I will see on MOTD later, but doesn't sound like he played well, Ngog scored again in a first team match, with only 10 men and then lucky lucky cheating get on my tits Arsenal get a Jammy og at the end. I don't think liverpool have had an ounce of lady luck in years, whereas Arse, chelski & manc have, regularly, and in some respects these decisions ARE the difference in winning or not winning the title.

Its been a long day!!

Happy To Help

My arm hurts and my shoulder from humping quite a heavy chest of drawers up stairs into my daughters bedroom, with help from my Brother in law.
Some time's in his day and age it seems to becoming more of a rare occurrence for someone to help, in the help sense that is, not in the yeah sure for a tenner way.
When I was out collecting the drawers, it looked like it was going to start raining and it was tricky getting the car close enough without blocking the road, we left the car and were carrying the drawers out, past some tables out side of a nero's coffee shop, it was quite clear where we were going and two people sat down at the table that was very close to us and then promptly dumped their bags in the only space we had to walk through. Now considering they literally sat down seconds before we got to them and they could see us, the look they gave was astounding at having to move their bags! Maybe they should try and be more helpful and less selfish, it feels good to help people!

Anyone looking to build an extension?

I have been working on a website the last couple of years that is just about completed to help everybody in the process of building and managing their own home extension.
In today's climate where less people are moving and more people extending it is important to understand how the process works so you get the most out of it.
The idea behind the website CostClick is to help people understand terms that are used, how to put a tender package together, how to find and manage builders. But the best part, well I think it is anyway is the onlne cost calculator. By simply entering a few dimensions, you can get a budget, in either basic or detailed format of what it is likely to cost for your extension. At the end of the day, the financial side is important to all of us, but costclick will help you to avoid the pitfalls of spending unnecessary money by just being organised.

England Friendly - Waste of Time

England have a friendly this evening, for what? Other than getting their first appearance since their poor world cup performance out of the way there really is no point to it.
All the Premier League Clubs have been busy in pre-season, or started in Europe and now they are expected to 'perform' for their country.
I think this is a big FAIL for the FA, whatever FIFA etc say or believe, we should have the right to protect not just our players, but our league as this time away from their clubs set up will only detract from their first game of the season.

Headaches
I tend to suffer from frequent, although not that bad headaches. It doesn't really worry me that much to be honest as I put it down to not wearing my glasses all the time when working at the computer and stuff like that, as well as stress from work!
However, this week, I feel I have been stressed as I am in the office on my own, working long hours etc yet I have only today had a headache, only slightly which has now gone and that's without any tablets!!

Broken Sword
You may have tried this on pc or playstation etc, but it is now available as a game on the Ipad. It really is quite good, interactive and interesting. Only been playing it a short while but loving it. Its different too and the the bird has quite a saucy French accent!
I know the Ipad isn't cheap, but the playability and quality of a lot of the game is really good (not all of course), but when you compare these to a game on a nintendo DS or PSP where a cheap game is around a tenner, if not £25, you can get some really top notch stuff for less than £5.
In addition, the HD resolution of the screen is impressive, as you are generally only arms length or relatively close it is almost like watching a 38" tv thats 8ft away!

Sometimes I hate Mondays

Mondays are always a hard day to start the week off after a nice weekend with the family. I have a week to go through and sort out stuff for my annual 5 day holiday, business is picking up and believe me I am not complaining about that after a couple of quiet months.
Yet today, I have struggled to get into it! there are problems with stock from a supplier, it happens so often in relation to this one Laura Ashley tile that they import I have no concept of what their buyers do or how they constantly allow it to go out of stock and usually there is a 3-6 week delay. I don't get the logic behind it at all, still there you go.

Books arrived
English to Spanish dictionary and phrase book and Drawing for dummies! yep that's me - I am so unnaturally creative with anything arty it pains me to try. Never had any interest in it as a kid, was always more interested in sport I guess, but decided to try and learn. Have a good app for the ipad to use and having seen some of the stuff by Kyle Lambert done on one I have no excuse for turning out junk!! (other than not being able to draw!), but I have no idea how to make an eye look like an eye or a nose like a nose, so this next week could be the moment that all changes. My plan is to be able to draw a recognisable Steven Gerrard portrait! asking too much maybe - probably.

Ooops!
Up and out of bed at 6am today as is pretty much normal, but could hear this noise that I couldn't make out where or what it was, but it did have an element of familiarity about it, I looked out of the bedroom window to see a flow of water running down the drive - shit! I ran downstairs and out the back door to see the hose had partly disconnected from the connector, spraying at full whack water up the side of the porch and running down the drive!! Although I wasn't over the moon, I was More relieved that it was me not turning the tap off after cleaning the cars than a burst pipe.

Mother and 12yr Old Daughter stab each other?

These kind of news stories are so unbelievably hard to understand! How on earth can a Mother stab her 12yr old daughter and as equally shocking, how on earth can a 12yr old get into a stabbing fight with her mother, both are in hospital in a critical position more bbc.

This reminded me very much of the Fordingbridge, New Forest incident a couple of weeks ago. It is so sad and hard to understand what can make these things happen, but I did hear a very good doctor on the radio a week or so ago and have tried to summarise what I heard the specialist says makes these things happen.

Apparently it starts as a mild form of depression, the kind that we all can get, the depression worsens over time, at each of these levels of worsening, different people deal with it in different ways, by talking to people, counselling, or just pull themselves out of it, so the numbers of people that get to the bad state is minimal.
It is 3 times more common in men than women, as men whether rightly or wrongly tend to take on and in turn burden themselves with the responsibility of taking care of themselves and their family, this more often than not in a financial way. So at the moment, with the longevity and constant media discussion of the recession and how bad it is and how long it may be till it all ends etc etc, this just makes the whole situation worse for them.
As the level of depression gets quite bad, so it starts to physically effect the person, anxiety, panic attacks, unable to sleep etc, then all of these things make living normally even more testing, and also when it gets to this stage the rational and irrational parts of the brain can gel into each other making it almost impossible for the person to see the difference between them, all these things add to the confusion and emotional state.
Apparently its also very difficult to understand these people to help them because you need to get to a similar level to be able to understand their rationale to help etc. A bit like if you were diving in the sea, and all your breathing gear etc was set to a max depth of 150ft and so is everyone else's on the boat, as you go deeper, the other people on the boat cant get you and also then risk the same dangers by going deeper than the 150ft.
So as this very low self esteem and depression is reached the triggers that set people off are more and more minor. There are then basically 2 ways the person reacts, they are either inwardly destructive (suicide) or outwardly destructive (murder or attempted murder) or in the cases that have been on the news recently both.

Holiday is Looming!
Only a week to go now and we will just be taking off from Southampton airport to Malaga! Kids are getting very excited having never flown before and we are pretty much organised, although I am sure the anxiety will increase through the week. Most disappointed I wont be able to see Liverpool's first game of the season Live, but the villa does have a British sky box with freeview so Match of the Day it will have to be!

LIverpool Triumphant

Last nights 2-0 win, (4-0 agg) was an extremely enjoyable game of football to watch, ok so the opponents werent really up to all that much, but they were a professional side and some of our big names were nack playing and some new ones.
Great to see Joe Cole, Danny Pacheco, Jovanovic Gerrard etc etc, we moved the ball around very well and should have scored more.
As a Liverpool fan of 35yrs it does pain me somewhat to hear the Rafa lovers still bangin' on about how it should be him there and not Roy, move on! If the Turnaround in Istanbul hadn't happened would he have been held in such high regard? and that wasn't all Rafa's doing, it had something to do with the 11 LFC players on the pitch!
I'm also not sure why people compare Ngog with Torres in the way they do! Torres has an amazing strike rate in the Premier League of 1 goal in every 4 shots! That's good!! But people never seem to talk of them playing alongside each other only as a backup?

Stevie's 1st goal of the Season



Rude Customers 2nd Installment
Miss rude from yesterday's blog called again now she has her tiles, great I thought. However she then went on to ask when we were coming out to measure up and what tiler would we recommend, all for sending 3 samples for £4.99.
Not only was her attitude wrong she obviously has major issues in translating into her native tongue!


New Table
I managed to get out this morning and pick up a new console table for the lounge to match the rest of our furniture is here waiting when my wife gets back from her break, then a week to prepare for our weeks holiday in Spain!!

2nd Leg at Anfield Tonight

Tonight will hopefully be a great night for Liverpool FC. Not the toughest of opponents and we already have a 2-0 lead from the 1st leg.
It's greatness will be more about our first competitive home game of the season and being able to see our stars tread the hallowed Anfield turf and show themselves to us, I am sure that we are all hoping to see Joe Cole make his debut, Stevie, Jamie, Nando, Dirk etc will hopefully be there too!
The match itself will hopefully provide a couple of hours distraction from the pretty constant media hype about the clubs ownership!

Interesting Reading
I have just started reading a book entitled "how to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk". When you have kids, there isn't a manual and trying to understand them isn't always that easy. With my 6&7 yr old they are doing a great job of arguing and stating their point, so I figured maybe we're doing something wrong! Responsible parenting is such a responsibility!!

Why are some people so damn rude
There really is no need for it, we have a customer of 'European' origin, I am sure of that, not 100% sure what country, but her tone and manners are so abrupt, she asked how thick a tile is, to which I replied between 9 & 10mm, depending on where you take the measurement, "ar vell, eez it 9 or eez it 10", well as I said it depends what part of the tile you measure "so, basically you don't know", well you get your sample hopefully you'll see what I mean, was my reply, when I actually felt like saying why don't you just f**k off you rude cow!
She then called back asking when her sample would be delivered, I said tomorrow or Friday "vell zat eez not good enuff, I need to know" yeh right love your going to get me bending over backwards to help you out! So pointless.

Liverpool Ownership Talks Continue

As the screen pops up all day long on tweetdeck there are a large amount of tweets relating to the take over situation of our beloved club, Liverpool FC.
There are, as always conflicting reports about the possible new owner, what he is prepared to offer or of his valuation of the club, but the bit's that interest me most are the comments about the owner or consortium making Liverpool the biggest club in the world, one to be rivaled by all, bring it on is what I say, I will refer and credit a number of LFC blogs over time, but Justin Heron's Kop That is always well written and informative!
It is so important that the current owners who's name's I cannot type to avoid my anger rising, go, no one likes them, they are lairs and thieves and are really trashing our club, historically the best in England! even wikipedia says this.
The current player situation is looking good, even with the current budget, Roy seems popular and the players seem happy, may it continue and improve under new ownership very soon.

Win one of 900 free fridges
Yes! apparently its all true, the best to register for this is to visit Martin Lewis' money saving website follow the instructions on this page and keep your fingers crossed!

Pending Holiday.
In about 10 days I am due to go away on holiday with my wife and kids to Spain. This is the first time we have flown in about 10 year's and the first time with the kids who are 6 & 7.
I have never had a problem with flying, but I am a little anxious this time. But more so about the kids.
They are being a real pair of little buggers at the moment, arguing and fighting with each other and the girl is the worse as she is so strong minded that she can explain her reasoning for all of her decision's.
I find it quite stressful preparing for a family holiday in as much that I need to make sure everything is sorted for the animals, the dog is ok as she goes to my Parent's, but we have chickens, guinea pigs and a bearded dragon. In addition, that I have handed sufficient notes over to a colleague for looking after the business. I know that everyone understands people are entitled to holidays etc, but, that doesn't stop you from hoping or wondering that that rare 'urgent and needs your attention and only your attention' message or task arrives in!!
I am mentally preparing for the holiday harder than I am physically!!

Cashback

I was looking around the Internet earlier on today to get travel insurance for my family holiday to Spain in a couple of weeks time.
I first visited the company who I have my house insurance with, quote £48.00. Obviously not happy with the first option I tried my car insurance company but they didn't do any travel insurance. Ah, I though, I will try the post office! A bit better at £40.00, this rates are for the family I hasten to add. Then came the discovery! ( probably everyone else knows about it but I didn't as no bugger told me!) topcashback.co.uk.
Basically with this site you need to register which is free, you then search for what you are looking for and different products with different suppliers, when you have chosen what you want ready to buy you will be shown the cash back value of the product! Anyway, insurance £13, cashback 17% - bargain!!
The site then keeps your cash back for you to buildup and use to get yourself something basically for free! Excellent.

Liverpool bids
Kenny Huang in the driving seat - apparently! In the course of 24 hrs it is amazing as a Liverpool supporter to see the amount of news coverage that the club takeover has had. It was all very quiet, but then all of a sudden this supposed billionaire Chinese guy is buying, then soon after that isnt the case as the board have 5 or 6 offers on the table they are considering - yet we hadnt heard anything about any of them. The we read Kenny isnt all that rich and doesnt have the funds himself to buy the club, it is so tiresome! We want Hicks and Gillett out and soon.


Double dip
Well theres plenty of depressing and morbid news around pretty constantly, the whole country is feeling it and to be honest, I walk around a high street sometimes and wonder how some people can look so bloody happy!!
The latest buzz word the US and the UK top financirs seem to be using is Double Dip recession, and it scares the shit out of me as to what this means and the effect it will have on the country, my business my family etc etc. Fingers crossed it can somehow be avoided.




Thank you for reading

Logic

Logic

One of the reasons I decided to start this blog was to help kind of council myself, to get things off my chest that I want to because they are bugging me or making feel in a certain way.
I have had counselling, as a way to try and find the answers to some of my feelings that made me behave in a certain way, but most importantly the triggers that really made me angry, not that I felt I needed anger management of course.
At my first session it became quite clear that I did have issues with triggers, my amazing ability to not be able to let things go easily, then one thing, however minor or major would happen and there was my trigger! My reaction would not be in perspective to the incident, in fact to my family seemed completely irrational - why? Simple, I would add a number of events together, that in my mind I could connect and therefore multiplying my reaction by 4,5,6 or more times.
Another factor in this is my logic! I don't perceive myself as highly intelligent or complicated, but if anything I try to keep things relatively simple. I.e if you go through the alphabet, I start with A and 26 letters later arrive at Z. My background from leaving school is as a quantity surveyor in the building industry, so there are set logical procedures you follow when building houses and that's kind of how my logic works.When people or procedures don't make sense to me, because it hasn't been done how I would do it, which in my mind is usually the most straight forward way, it frustrates me - and so starts my logic head asking why?
It is these things i want to write about, over time, as and when I feel like it and maybe these thoughts will be similar to how other people think about things, reassuring me that I am somewhere near just a normal guy! And although we're guys we still have feelings right!

Chopper 2

I have seen these app publicised couple of time over the last couple of days, so I thought I would give it a try. It is very good IMO.why?
Firstly it cost money so you expect it to be something worth buying, the loading screens look good too! But, if you have an iPhone or iPod and an iPad this is when it becomes very good. You can load the app onto your iPad and iPhone or iPod, turn on your blue tooth, and hey presto, your phone becomes a wireless remote control for the game! How cool is that?

Apart from that not done much else other than paint the kitchen and pop into Farnham, although I only live about 20 minutes from there only ever popped in there a couple of times for something specific, but had a good mooch today and quite enjoyed it, so I will be back there at some point.