A day of rest is needed

Friday is going to have to be a day to take it easy otherwise I am going to burn out before I even get to move in to my new home.

I have been back and forward everyday this week and as I am having to wait around in there for contractors etc I am not able to go out and get sustenance...OK you say I could take food and drink with me but I have enough to carry without more to take.
If I haven't lost at least a stone when the move is over then I will be very peeved off.

Wednesday was the worst. I waited all day for Electric and 2 different Gas contractors and only the electric man came...so luckily now I can have the radio on while I am in there as well as having the lights on and I found out that neither the video entry or the burglar alarm actually work properly *ROLLSEYES*

The Before pictures

I know everyone is dying to see this new homestead of ours so here are the before pictures...Before being before we have decorated and moved in. I will do an After post when we are all done and unpacked :)

The Hallway

First bedroom

Second Bedroom

Third bedroom

The kitchen (the washer and cooker will be going)

The lounge

The most exciting part of the house for me is the hatch between the lounge and the dining room and this is the view of the kitchen from the lounge
And the lounge from the kitchen

Oh and the Bathroom (Toilet is separate, didn't think you needed to see that ;-)


After pictures to come once we have moved everything in :-)

Its more than itchy feet.

Anyone would probably say I am being a fool for wanting to move from a huge 3 bedroomed terraced house with a large kitchen and garden and 2 reception rooms, to a small 3 bedroomed first floor flat.

Thing is my life has been in sich a rut for the past year or so. The chronic depression hasn't helped that my surroundings are full of clutter. No amount of fluttering about with flylady could ever help me get my house in order because I hate everything about my surroundings. The housework just became too overwhelming and I would break out in a cold sweat just trying to get to grips with it.

So when this offer of a move came up I jumped at the chance. A 3-bedoomed first floor flat. It is a lot smaller than what I am used to and we will have to do a hell of a lot of downsizing but getting rid of all the clutter and mess is just what we need. I will be able to take a hold of the housekeeping and keep it all under my control.

I am really excited about the move. It is all going a bit too slow for my liking though and things aren't going as smoothly as I would like but our moving date has now been set for September 8th and then the only way is up!

Da BBC bus

We were in town today and we saw the BBC Bus.


We didn't go in it though.

Do you Twitter??

You would not believe what has been happening to me. Alas I can't tell you about it yet but while you are waiting why not join the Twitter revolution!!

Memories are made of this.

Friday was time for our obligatory trip to Coventry to visit my Nan and Grandad.

It gets a little boring in the afternoon for the children as Nan was pottering in the kitchen and Grandad was trying to have a nap so I took them out for a wonder round my old stomping ground.
Obviously as I haven't lived there since I was 10 years old, lots of things have changed.

First of all we went to visit the old flats where I lived with my parents and my sister. It was a weird old setup for a flat. You went in the front door and immediately in front of you was the bathroom with the kitchen next door. Then you went down the stairs to the lounge and bedrooms. I remember that there was a large space under the stairs where we would put a zbed if anyone came to stay.


I also wanted to take them to see my old infant/junior school so we walked up through the gitty and round past the 11 storey flats. So called, of course, because they have 11 - Count them...11 storeys.

I remember I was always jealous of the people who lived there cos they got to go in the lift where as we didn't have a lift and had to walk up the 7 flights of stairs to our flat.

I was really disappointed when we reached the school as it is all fenced up like a prison. 7 foot security fences topped with spikes and painted with anti-climb paint. We couldn't get anywhere near. I felt very sad...It wasn't like that when I was there and it was a blight on the area.

We had a good old wander around the neighbourhood before taking the long way round back to Nan's house. By then she was getting tea ready and we had worked up quite an appetite.

We left their house about 6.15 and yes the journey back was the same old nightmare that it always is when we go down to Cov. The train was 1 hour late and there were no seats so we had to stand most of the way back but it was the straight through train so at least we didn't have all the palava of changing at BNS.

To be beside the seaside

Tuesday was our annual trip to the seaside town of Rhyl.
OK yes after all the fantastic summer weather we have been enjoying we chose the worst day of the month so far to go.

I got up Tuesday morning with a contingency plan of going to the Sealife centre at Brum instead but I had a look on the Rhyl webcam and it didn't look so bad. So even though it was spitting with rain here I decided to go ahead with our plan and off to Wales it was.



As it happens the weather wasn't too bad once we finally arrived in Rhyl. It had been lashing it down all throughout the journey and when we changed at Crewe it was so horrible I was considering turning back. However as the train stopped in Rhyl there was no more rain and although it was quite overcast it was very warm indeed with a slight breeze.

If you have been reading my blogging since day 1 you will know that our trips to Rhyl are mostly packed with visiting all the arcades and trying to win as many keyrings as we can. We seem to have become bored with this persuit though as by 2pm we had visited all the arcades along the front. So for the first time we made the walk right along to the end where the (rather pitiful) pleasure beach stands.

I bet the place was thriving once but now it is just rundown.


There are lots of units all boarded up and hanging broken signs and I guess it was the weather keeping all the punters away. There were a handful of tourists in the cafe area but nobody on the rides. I would have let the kids go on the bumper cars only it isn't much fun if there is no one else on there to bump into.

There was 1 moment of excitement when DD managed to win a dalek keyring.


We crossed over to the beachside of the road as there is no point going to the seaside if you don't at least visit the beach and see the sea.

You can't see it on this picture but there is a wind farm on the horizon

We walked down the front and then we popped into Billy's Sports bar for a sit-down and a drink. Something I never do when I am out with the kids is go for a proper drink as I never saw the point but I was so hot and my feet were aching I thought we all deserved a sit down.

I couldn't get over the fact that they have a vending machine for alcoholic drinks. I guess it is that long since I went to a nightclub...

Once we were fully refreshed, we carried on back along the arcades until the children were all spent up.



By 5pm the rain started to pour and as we were all exhausted we made our way back up to the train station. For once we were very lucky with the trains and with no hold-ups and no packed trains we got back very comfortably about 8.30pm. Finishing the day off with Pizza that we ordered in and an early night I think it was a successful trip.

New Season - Premiership stylee

Saturday was the first day of the brand new season and Derby start the day 6th in the Premiere league. DD was off to the match curtousy of her aunts and I was in preparation to get back in my Football routine.

It was a great day and although we drew 2-2, it felt like we had won. DD and her friend got back after 7pm very happy and excited because they had waited outside the players entrance and got loads of autographs from both the Derby players and the Portsmouth players. They also got photos of some of the players and even had their pictures taken with our great manager Billy Davies.

Next game is Wednesday - Man City

Then I go and spoil it all by doing something stupid

Everything was going swimmingly...Until I used a drive cleaning utility called Ncleaner. I wanted to clear out all the junk files, old registry entries and all the leftover bits from uninstalled programs. You know how the stuff clogs everything up, Plus I was running out of disc space and wanted to free as much space as I could.

So I ran a full disk scan and when it finished I ticked all entries and clicked OK. Then it gives you a warning message that some of these files might be needed by windows and if I click OK then the process can't be reversed. SO I just said Yeah, whatever - Now why would it want to clean files in the first place that are important, I clicked OK and went on my merry way. Everything was fine until I re-booted. I got a load of error messages that just kept coming and then the laptop re-booted itself. Then it just started on a cycle of re-booting.
I went into Safe mode to try a system restore but they had all been wiped out. I couldn't even get online to find a solution because once I had got it stabilised, I couldn't get online. For hours I tried everything, even getting the XP disc out and repairing but that didn't work...

There was only 1 thing left to do and that was through Acers own recovery suite toi go back to factory default settings. Now any normal person would have shut down the computer at this point and gone to bed to sleep on it. Maybe considered backing everything up first? Not me of course I went ahead and hit the button...

So I lost everything. I am so angry at myself. All the DT stuff I had collected, All my Griffin pictures and audio, all the Albion exclusive limited downloads All my emails and email addresses...I mean everything was gone.

Days on and it is kind of like having a new computer as I am going round downloading all the add on programs i lost as well as collecting together the video and pictures and sounds I lost but some things I will never get back, like the emails etc...Fortunately, all the photos I have taken recently are still on my memory card so they are saved.

Please learn from my mistakes cause I know I sure won't!

Doctor Who fans?

All who fans see my autograph blog Here

We is sitting in the Posh seats.

When I got an email the other day offering me 2 free tickets to todays game you can imagine I jumped at the chance. The very nice young man called Dan had already bought tickets for himself and his parents for the Friendly against RDC Espanyol and to her surprise, His mum got 2 free tickets when she bought the new season shirt from the Rams shop.

I offered the tickets to DD and DS first but DS decided he didn't want to go so that meant I could go with DD instead.

We set off about 1.30pm to take a leisurely walk up to the stadium. The weather although overcast was very hot and humid and it was a struggle to breath and by the time I arrived I was very hot and sweaty. We stood in the arranged place and as we waited for Dan and his parents to arrive we soaked up the atmosphere of all the excited fans. DD wanted to have a look round the shop but the queue just to get in stretched for miles so she decided against it.
Sadly Dan wasn't well so missed the match. I had a quick chat with his mum and dad as they gave me the tickets. They had bought their tickets when they first went on sale and were sitting in the East Stand but these free tickets were for the West stand.

West stand lower to be exact and when we got to our seats we found we were just behind the away dugouts within spitting distance of the pitch. The perfect position to see all the play and have a great view of all incidents. The only draw-back of being in the West stand is that we are away from the singing and all that the West standers do is clap politely. This didn't stop DD though as she was singing and chanting along with them.

1 thing that I missed from last season was the parade of the Ballboys and I was very pleased to see them back this year. This is great for the Ballboys to get a bit of the limelight and some recognition for the great job they do.

It was a very interesting game as there were new players for us and the Spanish players seemed to be terribly fragile as they were rolling around on the floor every 2 minutes. However the ref was totally suckered in and it was free kicks and cards all over the place.
At half time the score was 1-1.
I love standing watching everything at half time.

The second half wasn't as good and seemed to go on forever. Both teams made a load of substitutions. Then one of their players started rolling around in the box and the ref blew for a penalty. The best part of the half as all the East-Standers started singing "Stand up if you hate faggots!" and they carried on for just about the rest of the game.

Luckily Steve Howard scored right at the end to even up the score.

The game ended 2-2 and although it was really nothing to write home about, It was a fun day and I felt very lucky to be there.

Less than magical mystery tour

All week we seem to have been sat round the house glued to our computers. The kids not getting up before 3pm and then sitting around in their pjs.

I was sick of doing absolutely nothing so Friday I was determined to get us out the house and get some exercise. So I managed to get everyone up by mid-day and out the house for a nice walk round the city.



I have lived in this city since I was 10 years old but there are still some places I haven't seen. 1 such place is Darley Park so that is where we headed. Only it wasn't where I thought it was and we ended up walking round in a big circle and never actually found the park. How stupid do I feel?!

At least we did get a good lot of exercise though and we visited some parts of the city we have never seen before. By the time we got back home about 3pm we were all hot and thirsty and tired and my feet were throbbing so then we all felt justified spending the rest of the day slobbed out in front of the TV.

Derby County 2 - Notts Forest 0