He's back...

Right.

I'm back. Alive still. Depressed still. Undertaking CBT.

One of the useful things to do is to keep a diary.

So, here we go.

Today was a good day overall. A long way from home, working away, but will be home tomorrow to see all my angels. So that's all positive!

So, it seems (from my start on the CBT path to health, happiness and the meaning of life) that I need to start looking for the positives in life, and dwelling less on the negatives. Jolly easy to say, a little trickier to do.

So, today, rather than thinking what does the boss want now for goodness sake, I tried to think, what help does he need to allow him to manage this particular problem or issue... Not perfect, but I actually feel a bit brighter this evening and a bit more positive about life. So, as a reminder, when I feel down, I thought I'd start by listing the positives in life.

Nicky and the girls
Happily married to wonderful woman that I love.
Car is OK at the moment
Job - although I'm away from home 3 days a week, I am at home the other 4, and the job isn't bad and the money is OK.
Christmas - holiday in the sun over Christmas to look forward to
Banjo playing is fun
Looking forward to the weekend with my girls
And Tom the dog...
Not smoking - vaping instead and that feels a lot better.


Things to work on:-

Rebuilding relationship with Sophie who seems to have felt a bit alienated since Nicky and I got married
In-Laws - more on that another time.
Be more forgiving of other people's foibles and foolishness (in my opinion)
Spend more time doing quality things with family
Find time to do quality things for me (other than watching TV and sitting on the sofa)


Stop going over the recent and distant past. Raking up things that I would do differently now won't change what happened at the time. Move on.


So, good things today:-

Had a nice breakfast in the hotel (toast and marmalade, two glasses of orange and a coffee)
Decent day at work - a few small tasks achieved.
A decent chat with a couple of my staff.
A decent chat with the big boss
Good recall of facts to refute some supplier silliness


Good things to look forward to tomorrow:-

Breakfast!
A couple of meetings at work that are likely to be a bit fractious, but I am prepared and have all the facts at my fingertips.
Good position on the project - from us (the customer) being rather letting the team down, to us being in a good place and actually it's now the supplier that can't cope!
Good facts to apply pressure for more resources from them.
Then, late afternoon, heading off back home. Getting back for 7:30 to see my girls when they land back from Nanny & Granddad, and work, respectively...

So, lots of things to think positively about, without being Pollyanna (I hope). Fewer things to worry about than I imagine most of the time.

No point worrying about the unchangeable past. Let the past bury its dead and move on.

He's Back?

Hellooooo...

To anyone out there. Not posted for a long time. Not really had the inclination I'm afraid. That's not good.

The idea of this blog in the first place was to leave a few tracks in the sand - or silicon - just to show I was once here.

Since last posting - over two years ago a lot has happened. Another beautiful daughter has been born - the two of them will grow up together close in age, and I hope close to each other and be there for each other when I am not.

Until that time they are my main source of delight. I love them both totally and completely.

They are both totally beautiful and a constant joy to me.

I will try to write a little more now - for them, perhaps in years to come, but at the moment I'm still not too well and not ready to write down my thoughts, fears and worries. Perhaps I should and it might help me deal with them. Or perhaps it won't and will just leave ugly footprints in the sand instead of the nice ones I want for my daughters.




My Darling Evelyn Jane




And my darling Elizabeth.

A lovely weekend away

We went off to a site near Banbury this weekend for a short break in the caravan. It's getting easier in the caravan now - as we are getting used to the bigger caravan and where things go in it, and how everything works, so the time to set up is back to under half an hour, and the same to pack up when leaving.

We are also getting used to caravanning with Elizabeth now - she's as good as gold, bless her, and seems to like the change. It was nice when we went home though, as I took her up to bed in her own little bedroom you could see she recognised it as hers by the big beaming smile when I laid her in her cot!

It's odd really - I like going away in the van, but it's always nice to get back home too - and I think Elizabeth sees it that way too! But, when I leave the van at the storage place and drive off I always feel a bit sad that the adventure is over - but I feel the same at night when I close Elizabeth's bedroom door after kissing her goodnight. I just can't wait until the morning when she wakes up and calls me - in I go and she sees me and beams at me! I pick her up and she is starting to really cuddle me now when I do that.

Aren't kids great?

A few pics of our weekend away (for posterity) - I don't suppose anyone actually reads this - but it's theraputic to type it!


This is us on the site.


We also went to Hook Norton - I love that village - I spent some of my formative years there, probably the happiest time of my life as a child. It was a perfect 'Just William' type of existance - no worries and plenty of huge garden to play in, when we weren't playing in the woods and fields.



This is the tower of Hook Norton church - where my brother was christened.

Keep smiling.

Another week bites the dust

Yesterday was the funeral of Veronica, the wife of my very good friend. I read the eulogy in the church. Oddly I found this incredibly nerve wracking. Not sure why as I am quite a confident public speaker generally. I tried to strike a balance of somberness with some humour from her life to lighten the atmosphere a little. It seemed to go down OK.

RIP Veronica.



For me the weekend starts tonight, when we go out with Nick's mum and dad and sister and family for dinner. Not sure where, or whether it's going to be any good, but it's Nick's dad's and sister's birthdays - so this is their treat. We'll enjoy it and have a nice time.

Tomorrow kicks off early as a man is supposed to be coming at 8am to put a new windscreen in the car. To be honest, I'm slightly doubtful that he will arrive before lunchtime, and even more doubtful that he will have the right windscreen with him. Why am I so cynical about these skilled tradespeople? Experience perhaps.

A Weekend away

A busy few days - the death of the wife of a very good friend and weekend away in the caravan.

I've been busy working on the Eulogy for my friend's wife- and that's left me with little time to write on here.

We did have a weekend away in the caravan - in Worksop. Not the first holiday destination you would normally have in mind, but as a base for us to explore the norther part of the Peak District it was OK. I wouldn't particularly recommend Worksop to anyone but it was OK.

Two lovely sunny days - then Sunday - heavy snow for the tow home, which I was worried about. I've never towed a caravan in snow before!

Buy the way - if you click on the photo's it (should) will take you to Flickr where you can see the originals, plus all my other stuff.




But we saw some nice things.



Some sign of spring?



Some beautiful villages.




And some wildlife!

Back in the grind

Monday rolls around only too quickly again.

A nice weekend though - Man turned up as planned to pick up the item he won on eBay and away he went, apparently happy. Result.

I cooked Nicky a nice meal last night for Valentines day - not sure it was as nice as I intended, but it was OK.

Disty is now sampling solid food, and has been having something called baby rice and doing OK with it, so I bought her some Banana and Apple flavoured porridge - as a change, and she's mad for it - polishing off 3 helpings in one sitting yesterday afternoon. It was lovely to see her so keen - leaning forwards each time I took the spoon out of her mouth to scoop some more on! She polished it off then had a little nap - which was good as she wont normally have a nap of an afternoon, but that means she is very tired in the evening and a bit crabby! Last night she was less crabby and was good as gold - off to bed at 7 and slept through to 7:30 this morning.

Bless her!

It's nearly here...

The wekend that is.

Have a chap coming tomorrow to pick up one of the items I sold, and the other has already paid and gone. So that's a result.

I've been agonising for the last couple of days about what to do about/with the server at home. It's sitting in the garage chewing up power and not doing a lot at the moment. OK it's got a couple of terrabytes of data it serves up as and when needed, backups of all my pictures, DVD's/Films and music plus all our documents for the company and personal one. But it's no longer running Exchange, so it's a bit of an over kill I think.

So I've been looking at NAS's - the DROBO with DROBOSHARE looks good, and I have had positive things about them from someone who's got one. But they are a lot of money - even shopping around, by the time you've put some disks in you are looking at the thick end of 600 quid...

I'm sure they are a Rolls Royce solution, but blimey. £600 is a bit steep - for something that will be obsolete in a year. SSD's will get bigger and cheaper and probably be the right answer in a year or two...

So, stuck for the best solution at the moment. All thoughts gratefully received.

Have a good weekend - and don't forget it's Valentines Day on Sunday or you will be in trouble... Despite what they say about it not mattering.