It's all about me - rest

The house - August 2009

One of the biggest results of me being made redundant in June 2009 was us moving to the South Coast of England. It had been our intention to move for a while, but we thought we would ride out the bad economic situation and then move when things got better. Our hand was forced by JC Decaux though and so we moved to a village just outside Portsmouth. We sold up in London and bought what seemed and idyllic 3 bed end of terrace house in a quiet cul-de-sac. The house was bigger than London, but the garden was smaller. However there are areas for the children to play in outside so it had good and bad aspects to it. You should never judge a book by its cover and that has proven very true with our new house. From the start we uncovered problems and over the past couple of years we have spent a lot of time, effort and money making the place safe primarily and in close second nice. It is now in a condition which we’re pretty much happy with, but the house just isn’t built very well and there’s very little we can do about that. However it has had (deep breath) two new bathrooms, been decorated throughout, had wooden flooring put down through the whole downstairs, had a new boiler, the front and back gardens have been landscaped, had new doors, new roof on the shed and recently had solar panels put on the roof (and breathe out). Amusing/worrying things include me opening our bedroom window to let air in on day one and having the window fall out of its brackets nearly taking me with it; discovering that the metal light fittings upstairs we not earthed and had someone touched them they would have been electrocuted; discovering that the previous owner did indeed have a freezer under the stairs, but that it had no power socket in the cupboard and therefore wasn’t used. Nevertheless it is now out home and I think we are pretty happy there.

I am particularly proud of Theresa for doing or supervising so much of the work while I’ve been working. This despite looking after one then two children all day. She is very much the homemaker and left to my own devices I would live a pretty minimalist life I think. Theresa described our London home as a show home when she first moved in and then proceeded to make it cosy. She chose the colour schemes and most of the furniture and equipment we have put in both houses. She is also the one who can accept the chaos that two young children bring and the associated stuff they need. While it does my head in sometimes I can understand that Meg and Joel need their toys around and they are not old enough to understand keeping things tidy. As well as why should they be expected to keep everything neat and put away as this will stymie them from growing and developing. Theresa will hunt online for the best deals and is very focussed on what she wants and likes. We have moved on from buying Ikea grade furniture to more expensive (although not as much more as you’d think) solid wood and leather pieces. These should last us for many years if not our lifetimes I would hope. They also bring a sense of individuality to our home as they are all hand made and beautifully simple and classic in their looks. I guess a good way of summing up where we live is that it has gone from being a house to a home.

It's all about me - work

What has happened to me in the last three years? I did end up being made redundant from JC Decaux in London. It all got a little bit messy towards the end, but life turned out alright as I took up a job offer as factory manager at one of my suppliers. They were based in Portsmouth and was a printing and graphics company. I started with them on July 1st 2009 and ended up staying until September 2011. Maybe staying isn’t the word, surviving probably being more appropriate. The job was interesting and exciting to start with, but the longer I was there the more I learnt that it was a most bizarre organisation. It was owned by a paranoid manic depressive who was completely irrational. He steadfastly refused to invest in the company which meant that the machines were kept running by a combination of bodging and luck. The directors all hated each other and were regularly at war with all of us caught in the middle. The staff on the whole were competent and good workers, but there was very little motivation in the place due to the owners attitude.

I ended up doing several roles at the company (many at the same time) including running the factory and running accounts for Sunglass Hut and the National Trust. Those were enjoyable sides to the role as it allowed me to deal with people and solve problems which I’m good at. Looking back the experience was very tough and included me being accused of sexual assault by an employee I took on and then fired due to incompetence. However I’m very pleased I toughed it out until I found a new role as it has given me a very good and solid base from which to build my career. During my term there I learnt a huge amount about employment law, learnt to manage shop floor staff (whereas before I’d been used to London office staff), learnt to ignore unreasonable crap being thrown at me and toughened up a lot. Every job I had been in up to then was measured in levels of success. This job was all about degrees of failure. I think my percentage of failure was quite low and I am proud to have lasted longer than almost everyone else who historically did that role. In life what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and that adage could have been written for Gardiner Graphics!

Staying on the employment theme I am now working in graphics but for a vehicle repair company. Once again I am running a part of the organisation, but this is one with a structure, a proper IT/MIS system, motivated staff and the resources to get the proper equipment to be able to do the job correctly. I am pleased to say that since joining the turnover has doubled and we are now consistently making a decent profit. When I joined it was a stated goal to achieve £50,000 per month in turnover and that had never been done (the monthly average was around £30,000). We are now consistently in the £60,000 + levels. Other elements of the company have been through a tough time in recent weeks, but we have been left alone which to me confirms we have done a good job.

The best aspect of work is that I am enjoying it most of the time. I have a long commute each day (80 miles), and that does wear me down a bit, but I look forward to work most of the time. This week has been a bit quieter, but this is the first time in 9 months that has happened. The people working for me are good and do a good job on the whole. I am still learning about this aspect of graphics and that is also motivating. The money is better and the potential is there to progress both financially and from a business perspective. I am not coming to work wondering who is going to be bullied that day and whether I’m going to be threatened with being fired again.

It's all about Theresa

Meg and Theresa - Sept 2011

Theresa and I are still happily married. Many things around us have changed over the past three years, but I’d like to think we are stronger than ever. Having Joel has been the icing on a very busy three years together. She won’t thank me for saying that she is turning 40 this year, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her in my opinion. Despite moving house, her mum dying, me changing jobs twice, having Joel and the stuff that just seems to fill up your day she still seems to keep everything together and be a rock in my life.

I don’t think it’s fair to presume thoughts and feelings from Theresa so this is a brief post to just say that I love her more than anything else in the world. I am honoured to be with her and I am looking forward to the rest of our lives together.

I am yours … always … and forever.

It's all about Joel

One of the most significant events in my life over the past couple of years has been the birth of my second child Joel. He arrived in the world at 04:45 on Monday December 6th 2010. It was a cold December night. We'd had huge amounts of snow in the fortnight before his birth and we were worried in case it carried on snowing when Theresa went into labour in case we couldn't get to the hospital. However everything cleared up the week before and it was dry on the day in question. Theresa started getting contractions around 21:00 so we went to the hospital. We were told everything was fine and to go home and rest. At about 00:30 Theresa noticed blood when she went to the toilet and realised something wasn't right so we went straight back to the hospital. Luckily it was only 10 minutes drive from us. We knew we were going to have a boy and had been discussing middle names for a while. We’d settled on maybe Adam so he would have the same name as me, but then on the way to the hospital at 01:00 I happened to mention that it was St Nicholas’ day and that when I used to live in Belgium all of the kids used to get treats on that day – in Europe December 6th is more significant than December 25th. We both simultaneously decided that if Joel was born that day then his middle name would be Nicholas. Weird how things work out sometime.

Joel in kitchen - May 2012

Joel and Theresa had a difficult birth as he was breached and she had to be rushed into surgery and have an emergency c-section. It all got a bit dramatic and Joel wasn’t breathing when he was born. It took the operating team 3 minutes to bring him round. I was concentrating on Theresa so much that I didn’t realise there was a problem until I picked up that I hadn’t heard him cry. As I looked round he made a noise and all was well. I went over to see him and managed to hold him for a minute before I fainted. I think the emotion of the moment, the fact that I hadn’t slept for 30 hours and that I could see Theresa had gone through so much just overwhelmed me. I’m not embarrassed about it and it kind of added to Joel’s arrival in the world. To cap it all the song on the radio in the operating theatre was The Black Eyed Peas with ‘It’s going to be a good night tonight’. That summed it up perfectly. Strangely he weighed one ounce less than Meg at his birth. We have consistent kids!!

After the birth I came home and took Meg to school and life assumed some kind of normality for a while. Theresa and Joel stayed in hospital for three days while Meg and I had some time to ourselves as well. We finished preparing the house and our lives for the Joel to come home. As he was nine days early there were still bits and pieces to do. Theresa was given her own room (perhaps helped by us giving the nurses on duty some drinks and cakes on day one!?). That time and quiet really allowed them to bond and I’m convinced helped Joel to have a tranquil start to life in the outside world. I took two weeks paternity leave so it was lovely to take Meg to school and collect here each day. I took Joel out for his first walk after he’d been home for a couple of days. Theresa concentrated on Joel a lot and I think we generally embraced being a family of four.

Joel and Meg - April 2012

Theresa’s parents came over on day two and Marnie in particular was so excited about having a baby boy. Sam came over on day three and then we had a steady stream of visitors when we got home. Everyone seemed really happy for us and Joel seemed quite happy being passed around. Early impressions were of a child who liked being held, was quite at peace with himself and ate and poo'd regularly.

The first few days were exciting and tiring. I’d forgotten how exhausting it is to only catnap as Joel needed regular feeds. He took to breastfeeding well. After the two weeks leave I only had one week back at work before the Christmas holidays so it really felt like we all had a long period to bond as a family which I’m sure has proven beneficial. Gradually we moved into a routine, I went back to work in January, Meg went back to school and 2011 started well.

How to sum up the last 18 months with Joel without writing a book? He is left handed, very blond haired and with brown eyes. He seems very determined and likes being outdoors. He makes plenty of noise, but hasn’t said a recognisable word yet. I think this may be because he doesn’t see the point of it rather than through a lack of ability. He started walking at 16 months and is very confident now. He has recently figured out going up and down steps as well. He loves pushing things around and tries to be outdoors at any opportunity. We have recently landscaped the garden and that has given him a large and safe area to run around in. Joel likes playing with a variety of toys and loves music and dancing; Probably more so than even Megan. He sucks his thumb and has a funny way of needing to clutch his sleeve with his other hand while sucking as a comfort almost. He’s not interested in a little blanket though. It will go as far as cuddling up to my t-shirt when I’m carrying him on my back.

From very early on he was quite thoughtful and even now will still take things in before launching into something. He is very strong and if he doesn’t want to do something then he will resist vociferously. Joel does seem to understand what we are saying though and if we ask him to do something I’m convinced he knows what we’re asking. Overall he is very content little boy and is a delight to be around. He is quite mischievous in an endearing way which I suspect will take him far in his life.

Joel asleep - June 2012

It's all about Meg

Meg in Dartmouth, Devon - April 2012

So what has happened since the last post. So much, but where to begin?

I seem to come back to the blog in June each time so that seems as good a place to start as any. Meg has just turned six. She has gone from being a little girl to a young lady. She is growing incredibly fast and it is very true what people say about them growing up before you know it. She is now in her second year of school and has taken to it brilliantly. She seems to be nurturing a strong reading and drawing ability and keeps earning recognition from her teachers. Theresa and I are so proud of how she is getting on.

She is still very active and loves running around and dancing. She is swimming every week and has been swimming unaided for nearly a year now. Saturday mornings when I take her swimming is one of the highlights of my week as I can watch her. I don’t think she knows that I do follow what she does and I probably don’t acknowledge it enough.

Meg’s character is well and truly to the fore as well. She is definitely a leader and not a follower. She is very caring inside and does feel others’ pain. That is masked by her gregariousness, but it comes out when someone is hurt or if you need something from her. The other side of her strength of character is she is very pig headed and determined to do what she wants. This manifests itself in stomping off when she doesn’t get her way or a proper tantrum. I worry that part of this (not sure how much of a part) is down to me expecting so much from her. I have to remember she is just six years old and emotionally she is still so young. I think because she does achieve such great things at times I expect that all of the time. I understand that is not fair and not right and I am trying to change to allow her to be a child. I find that if I don’t concentrate on letting her be a child sometimes then I start to expect the unreasonable.

Meg still has her beautiful auburn hair and beautiful blue eyes. She has managed to lose some of her baby teeth (one fell out, one got pulled out by me, two got knocked out by her brother!) which is again changing her appearance significantly and which she sees as a significant moment in her life. She is starting to get interested in programs like Hannah Montana so she is well on the way to getting interested in clothes, phones, etc.. We are trying to stop her from watching young teen American dramas as we don’t want her being pressured subconsciously into growing up any faster than she has to. It’s difficult though as the exposure is everywhere.

Megan is brilliant with her younger brother. We were concerned that she might resent him being in all our lives, but the opposite has proven generally true. Luckily I think the age gap has helped as Joel is not a threat to her and doesn’t want her toys. But she is playing very well with him. She can be heavy handed of course, but I am very proud of how she has adapted to him. And you can see that he adores her which is so nice.

Into 2012

I don’t know why, but I suddenly had an urge to look back through my old blog. Reading some random posts in it I realised it was quite a significant document relaying some of the most important years of my life. I think it might make a good little testament that maybe my children will be interested in when they get older. I also found it quite cathartic to read and it allowed me to gently wallow in a bit of my history.

My life is very busy at the moment, but I think I might try and write some more posts to record where I’m at in my life. In the past I’ve gone through phases of writing for myself and/or for others, but this will only be for me now. The blog will stay public and whoever wants to can read it, but I won’t be put off if anyone doesn’t.

So here goes ….