paul and corinna and lucas' blog

I am officially in the same glamourous category as Gazza, Michael Owen, Alan Shearer, Roy Keane, Henrik Larsson and Ruud Van Nistelrooy! I would normally be happy about that, except I can no longer sing 'the thigh bone's connected to' anything!! I've got a "partial to near complete tear" of my Anterior Cruciate Ligament and need some Reconstructive Arthroscopy – it's basically hanging on by a tread so they shove a camera in and sew it back up. I hope it's a small camera, not like my old one! Unfortunately Dr Steadman is a little busy... And a little expensive.

Back in October I was playing footie with the guys at work. Towards the end of the match I was spinning away from a tackle but as I planted my right leg (my shooting leg) down it completely gave way. I had worked myself into a great shooting position and was on form (already had my hattrick) so I wasn't about to hold back! I buried it in the bottom corner to seal the match. Then I realised I could hardly walk... It was painful and worryingly it felt like I could put weight on it but it would crumble sideways like a tower of wooden blocks when Lucas whacks it!

I've never really had any bad injuries before – my body just tends to sort itself out (what an amazing design!) – so like always I just rested until it felt better. A month later I tried footie again – didn't last 2 minutes! It's frustrating because I was averaging 3.5 goals a match that season! (If I'd have kept that up I would have been challenging for the golden boot!) I then saw my GP who stalled for a bit to get the swelling down etc., eventually she booked me in for an MRI scan last week (that was a weird experience!) which confirmed the diagnosis. Thankfully it looks like it's not completely torn which I think makes it easier to repair. I'm now getting booked in for that...

I've uploaded some photos here. It was a good idea inviting some babysitters, but it wasn't quite as relaxing as planned – Lucas was all over the place due to the skylight without anything to cover it! The scenery was of course dramatic. At one point we were sat looking out over a lake when two figher jets came screaming down the valley and (what seemed like) a few metres over our heads! I thought it was cool but Lucas didn't take well to it... And here's something novel – I read a novel! First one I ever remember reading, or at least in the last 20 years anyway! (Without anyone making me do it.) It's on the best sellers list too – well I never! (Except I just did...)

It was interesting to hear the British F1 GP is moving – I only booked a red letter day at Donington Park the other day! As a birthday pressie from Corinna, I'll be whisked round the track by a pro driver at full speed – not an F1 car unfortunately – it would be a bit of a squeeze to get me in that thing, let alone the driver! Looking forward to it even more now...

Talking of Lucas, I've added some more photos – some of my favourites being: this one, this one, this one, this one, and of course, this one.

Going from being a full time teacher to a 24/7 mum is so wierd, hard but worthwhile. I dont know what my expectations were when thinking of having baby, but being a mum is a very different world to be in. I have found it very challenging and character-building.

I always thought I was quite selfless and that I could live for someone other than myself – well I was wrong. Lucas is making me have a really good look at myself and my agenda. Both Paul and I have determined over the last few years to begin to reach out to others and put others before ourselves. I found that easy in some ways because at the end of the day you can walk way from others and have a break to recharge your batteries. But having a baby is soooooo different. I have found myself in a place where I can no longer just think about me but I have to put Lucas first, with my time, energy, love and best of all my beloved sleep! God is doing something in me, forming me into a less self-centred me and man sometimes it's hard. I sometimes envy Paul who can go to work but at the same time I enjoy being there for Lucas too. I guess this is how most first time mums feel. It would have been nice to be told beforehand tho. Somedays I have felt invisible, like all I am now is a mum and that I have little to give. I am learning however that raising a child is one of the highest callings God gave.

I was thinking recently about what Jesus did for us on the cross. Being a mum gives it a whole different dimension. Now I can empathise with God in a way and understand some of the heartache he must of gone through seeing his son die.

This is a new season in my life and little by little I am gaining confidence and see the importance of what I'm doing. I miss school, the challenge of encouraging those children, but now I have my own little one who I can nurture and encourage from a difference stance. What a privilege!

1. When you begin, boy does it hurt (it hurt so much that a few unsavoury words came out of my mouth!)
2. It is so time consuming (in the early days you feed every 1-2 hours day AND NIGHT)
3. It is quite embarrassing (I am a bit prudish when it comes to these things – in front of in-laws especially!)
4. It ties you down (you can't just go out when you want, you have to plan around feeding and knowing where you can feed)
5. It is laden with guilt (people make you feel guilty when you choose to stop – that really made it hard for me)
6. You worry – am I producing enough? (Definitely more of a worry with a reflux child)
7. And what will my breasts be like aftewards? (I know... Very vain of me!)
8. It invades your personal space (It's strange having a baby that close)
9. Makes you feel less sexy (Well you would too, feeling like a cow with udders!)
10. You go up a few bra sizes (Not something I needed! He he...)

Well what a culture shock! It's taken me 7 weeks nearly to start to begin to adjust to this new way of life. I feel like it's somewhere between having Christmas everyday and a lot of hard slog. Lucas is a joy, he has such a wonderful personality already – he smiles and has started to giggle! (A kind of half giggle, so cute...) He is a complete daddy's boy who loves to be held and talked to by his daddy. Me, well I am mostly the food production person! As you know we have not had an easy time of it with Lucas' reflux and acid pain, but he makes it easier to go through being so lovely.

I am still adjusting from working full time with challenging kids to working with an adorable yet demanding newborn. I have made an effort to get out every day visiting friends and going for walks so I don't feel tied down too much.

Labour was interesting, I am proud of myself for not taking the hard stuff and coping with tens and gas and air, I figured that God gave us women the abilty to cope with labour or we wouldn't be doing it. It was hard work and having Paul there was a real comfort.

I am excited by the prospect of this year, I dont know what is around the corner work-wise. I have so much on my heart to do and I know being a mum is preparing me for the next part of life.

Paul has been a fantastic dad. He is so supportive and sees bringing up Lucas as a shared experience, sadly not many dads see it that way. I look forward to him coming home cause I know Lucas enjoys spending time with his dad.

It has been a rollercoster ride for me. I didn't think being a mum would throw me into such disarray. Being anxious about silly things like seeing a mark on Lucas, to being elated that he's putting on weight.

I am sure it'll get more and more interesting as he gets older too!

This weekend we visited mum and dad over in Scarborough:

The weather was all over the place - it really was 'four seasons in one day' stuff! (And we forgot the pram raincover!) Lucas gave us his first proper smiles! (Though I'm yet to catch one on camera!)

We came back late afternoon on Monday to find the heating refusing to come on! There was no hot water either so I figure it hadn't worked all weekend. The pilot light refused to come on. After a couple of hours trying, we packed up and shipped off to Corinna's parents' – good job we didn't bother unpacking properly!

I cheekily tried to setup a British Gas homecare package, but of course they want to charge rediculous amounts of cash to repair an existing problem – though interestingly they let slip that even existing customers would have to wait until later in the week to get someone round because there were so many people having the same problem! (Coming back on a Bank Holiday.) So I tried my trick of finding a local guy in the Yellow Pages who lives just round the corner – so if there are any problems with their work, they know I'll be bugging them! He came out the same day and fixed it in 30 mins! (And for a lot less than British Gas would have charged!)

Turns out our boiler is built like a tank and should last 20 years (another 12 or so) – there's basically only one thing that goes wrong with them, and even then, only every few years. The pilot light's gas injector on the thermocouple was a bit clogged up. One drawing pin to scratch it clean and hey presto, a working boiler! He showed me how the thermocouple works by putting the heat sensitive bit over our cooker hob – basically keeps the pilot gas supply button pressed in using a small electrical current if the other end is warm (which the pilot light does if lit). Nifty!

Corinna has been invited to interview for extending her contract at school, which seemed a little odd to us considering she's been there for three years! Anyway, she's taken it as an opportunity to re-evaluate things and wrote this letter in response, which I'm republishing because I think it really captures her time there well and I'm really proud of her. (Not for sour grapes!) I also think she's standing up a bit for the kids and the other teachers who don't have that option.

Thank you for the offer of an interview to possibly extend my contract. After some thought, I have decided to decline the interview, but I did not think it fair to say that without explaining my thinking.

Working at Barkerend Primary has really grown me as a person. From starting out as a fresh PGCE graduate, there were lots of things I had to learn quickly – I made a few small mistakes but both the school and I are better off for them. I can think of many individuals that I have played a major part in turning their lives around – instilling confidence and a positive attitude, getting them excited about learning, releasing potential that was otherwise being locked up (the kind of teacher I needed at school). For that opportunity I'm extremely grateful. I have also made some really good friends, and enjoyed things like starting and running the choir, directing school productions, and this last year, single-handedly remodelling the year 3 curriculum while teaching it and effectively leading the year group at the same time. I was pleased to see my pupils meet or exceed their educational targets almost all the time, but for me, their long term wellbeing was always more important.

They have not always been positive times of course. I often felt like I was treated as just another 'number', rather than an individual with my own individual strengths and experience. I was often very unsupported, which made my life difficult. I feel the school is heading even more towards a culture where short term targets are the primary focus, not children. Also, I don't really understand why an interview is needed – I would have thought the last three years would be enough. And I am not sure how to take your implication that me becoming a parent would hinder my ability to teach under your new plans for the school.

For these reasons, I have decided to decline the interview, but thanks again for the offer.

AND she didn't mention anything about usually being first in and last out... But I will!  :)

I remember with fondness visiting you as a kid, sleeping on that old fold-down bed in your study – surrounded by photos of old army reunions, maps of India and collections of butterflies. With all your stories of journies and knick knacks from far off lands, I felt part of a great history.

I remember exploring the jungle at the end of your garden; slicing enormous quantities of the runner beans you grew in it; laughing through re-lived stories like Matt falling in the pond; sunny days spent jumping through the sprinkler on the croquet lawn; the smell inside your shed – and many other little memories.

I used to wonder – how did you ever get all those baby photos on the wall above the stairs? You must have risked many a broken limb to get those things up!

I see now that you loved your family a lot. You were always delighted to see us and hear from us, and I remember those little things like your tickles. You loved England and Englishness – and your Daily Telegraph of course. Although I only knew you from when you were long since retired, you never lost your Army-ness. A proud man, you played your cards close to your chest, but as I grew older I saw more clearly that your strong regiment hid a great tenderness and caring. I love that masculine heart and your sense of humour – you always kept that wit – I remember with a smile how you loved to taunt me every time Man United lost to Portsmouth or Southampton.

You continue to be an inspiration – knowing someone in my family who did so well in army and business and life. I want to be there for you today, but with the new arrival, I need to be at home. I would have loved for Lucas to meet you, but it's strange how the timing has worked out. When he is older, I will be proud to tell my son all about his great-grandad, and hopefully, I will pass on to him some of the great values you stood for.

We've been very busy, so the blog hasn't had much time lately! And with one month to go before our little bundle of joy arrives, it's not going to get quieter any time soon! (Literally!) Still, preparations are coming along. We've bought most of the stuff we need now. We're cutting back on serving and sorting other stuff out. Everything seems to be coming together. There have been a couple of blood complications, but it sounds like everything should be ok. Now we just need to find out how the heck you're meant to look after a baby!!

I've got a new car, which is great. I'll upload some photos if I get a chance, but rest assured, a baby car seat fits in (just!) It's the end of an era really – the ZX made it to something like 190000 and was still going when I traded it in for £90 (with about £35 of diesel in the tank – doh!)

I wish I kept hold of the ZX for a bit longer now – I just had to drive through a river to get home... (Everyone was sent home early because of the flooding!) Here's the river near where I work at the mo:

(Funny effect because my friend was trying to take the photo while I was driving off!) This is nearly at the same level as the road (if not slightly above?) and I reckon from this angle, you normally can't see the river at all!! On the road, I reckon it was a couple of feet deep, and with cars coming towards you creating waves, the water was literally washing across the bonnet (not just splashing!). It was definitely nail-biting stuff! When I got home, there were just a few (well, lots) of dead leaves in the grill, hopefully it will still work tonight!

Corinna is on maternity leave as from today, and is a bit peeved that she had to give her laptop back (could have kept it I guess, but she's a bit too honest – her replacement might need it). So I've ordered an eeePC for her – looked neat in the shop... Tiny, 900g, 3hr battery, linux...

Check out a new website I was part of developing: aktiv8.org.uk – neat eh? (Even when I have to cut back on serving, my creation can keep going for me!)

There are lots of things on my 'stuff to blog' list – let's see if I get a chance to do any of them!

Here's a couple:

Yes, that's "You don't need a VISA to access God" and "Bank on God for a higher rate of interest". Putting a twist on the financial theme, another put the gospel message as: "Come inflation or recession, the wages of sin remain the same" hmm... I also spotted this one a while back: "Carpenter from Nazareth needs joiners" – ho ho... And "Exercise daily: walk with God". One had the bright idea of grabbing attention first: a big poster saying SOLD, but when you look closer it reads "Our aim is to be SOLD out for God". Not to be out done, another one said "TO LET the love of Christ shine..." Unfortunately, my exclusive has been broken as I spotted this book in a shop the other day... I can't compete with that!

Here's a shot from our visit to London at the end of October:

(I had to lighten that a lot! It was really pushing my little phone camera to the limit!) We took in a show (Le Miz as they call it), and did all the tourist things (london eye, river cruise, bus tour), staying in a swanky hotel in Westminster just near here. Very nice! We figured it will be a while before we get to go on holiday just the two of us again!

We went for our second scan today, and everything seems healthy!

It was funny to watch baby moving around and gulping and stretching!

Continued from my earlier post:

17. You can get temporarily blindness from cars with headlights on dipped beam as they go over speed bumps.

There's nothing quite like going up a 9m ladder to clear out your gutters to make you consider updating it... (And all that praying makes you feel closer to God!)

(as far as I know!)

Yep, we're having a baby! Of course it's a lot clearer when you're there, but you can pretty much make it out (click to zoom in). It was quite amazing seeing the little heart beating (two little pixels oscillating between black and white). It's currently 6cm from head to bum, and the due date is the 20th February...

They do 'dress down Fridays' for charity here, which is good except nobody told me so it's like school all over again – the only one who forgot it's casual day!

Oooops, meant to mention this before, Corinna's mum's art website is up and running now: abrushwithnature.co.uk – didn't take me long to do, it's pretty straightforward. The painings themselves are excellent...

Here's another shot of Corinna's car – you can see it this time:

This is our garden, looking a bit unkept (a foot high! Rectified today):

And here's a car we saw recently – a Star Trek fan by any chance? (click to zoom in)

And we just saw a fox close up during a walk in the park, but I was too slow with the phone to catch it...

Here's Corinna with her new car, a Micra!

I did tell her to look happy, but Pete caught her off guard! Oh well...

Will try to take another photo when the weather's good again.

Dad and I recently went up Snowdon – a good challenge and a chance for dad to reminisce, being a mountaineering instructor in a former life. Unfortunately the weather was against us. At sea level it was ok but we could see the fog rolling on nearby hills, and as we drove up to our starting point we were enveloped in heavy wind and rain. Still we continued up the Pyg track as planned, keeping in mind the way back if we had to turn round!

In good weather there are some fantastic views. In this weather, we could hardly see 6 ft in front of us at times! So not much point taking lots of photos! It possibly helped me as we were walking next to sheer drops, but I couldn't see how big a drop it was – I don't get on well with heights! So ironically, this probably would have been a good time to do Crib Goch (if we wouldn't have been blown off it that is...)

We took these at the halfway point (yellow dot) – there are some amazing lakes below and we could hear the waterfalls but not see a thing!

(Not exactly the most fashionable of fellas are we? Dad got a few funny comments about his trousers all the way. Mind you, we met someone with the same ones so they may be catching. Might have been worth it anyway in that weather!)

As we climbed up onto the shoulder (second yellow dot) the wind from the West hit us hard and it was absolutely freezing even with the number of lumnious layers we had on! Funny to think – we were basically walking in cloud! And some people were going up in t-shirts and short sleeved shirts!!

These are to prove we made it to the top! (I nipped back down to the bottom of the mountain and zoomed in loads to take that one of dad...)

Here's me saying something funny at the summit of Snowdon. And here's me re-grouping at the top, and just to show what it's like walking in cloud, there's a close up on my hand – 'fine rain, worst kinda rain that...'

What did we see at the top? Seagulls!! Miles from the sea so I'm guessing they followed dad from Scarborough.

It was quite funny actually, they seemed to guide us up the mountain!

We came back down the Llanberis Path (a longer but easier route, and ended at basecamp):

Halfway down it was like the cloud just stopped...

... so we could take a few photos! The railway was up and running (though only up to the halfway station – they're refurbing the summit), if we were feeling lazy we could have gone down the easy way.

These photos are: a sunset over Llanberis from Pen-y-Pass that evening, Snowdon over Llyn Peris, and to the side of Snowdon over Nant Gwynant, mum and dad's old house (Market Square, Tremadog) and their old Mountain Centre.

A great time was had by all. Well, both.

We did some wrestling the other day – here's Corinna flooring a UK freestyle wrestling team coach! You don't want to get on the wrong side of this lady!

It was a couple of days ago and my muscles still haven't recovered! Great fun though...

This was embedded in our tyre recently (the half pliers not the 50p silly, that's for scale):

Here are our next door neighbours' cats delicately balancing on our fence:

This is what Matt and I did for a surprisingly short amount of time when they came over to visit:

And this is what Corinna did for a surprisingly long amount of time:

If you can be bothered to read
Here is my myspace

http://www.myspace.com/cazparks

Inspired by Matt's video blog the other day, I thought I would try uploading one. Here's us redecorating our bedroom in one minute (with a few minutes snipped out... And it's "us" even though it looks like only Corinna's doing all the work...). I didn't catch the room before or during painting, that would have been better. But at least you get to see our delightful old wallpaper, and if you listen closely you will hear such musical greats as United, U2 and Jack Johnson. Corinna was at pains to point out that we have since changed the duvet cover, etc.   :)   The bit I like is my commentary: "This is the wall".

(Obviously some interlacing issue there, haven't quite worked out how to fix that yet.)

Here's a fantastic pressie Corinna got me for Christmas (imagine it about A3 and not blurry):

If you can't make it out, here's a close up of the important bit:




Ha ha, brilliant!

CORINNA
C	is for	Complex
O	is for	Orderly
R	is for	Refined
I	is for	Intelligent
N	is for	Nervy
N	is for	Neglected
A	is for	Altruistic

What Does Your Name Mean?

This is not another 'wanted' photo. It's my Academy graduation group photo that arrived this morning:

There's some funny lookin' people in that lot. Taken on the steps of our church's Youth and Community building. A DVD of the graduation is on its way too, so I'll bore you with some clips of that soon, oooo!

First, Break All The Rules
I don't normally recommend books, but I'm recommending two here. (Yes, they're like buses I know...) First, Break All The Rules is the first of a pair of books written by the Gallup people after conducting a few million open-ended interviews. Even though it was the second one I really wanted to read, obviously I forced myself to read (most of) the first one beforehand for completeness! (That's just how I'm wired!) It turns out you don't really need to read the first one as it's sumarised in the second.

But it's still worth reading. It's a study of "What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently". It starts by talking about the difference between productive engaged employees and those who 'retire on active duty', asserting that a company's value, potential, longevity, profit, productivity, etc. is all tied up in attracting, focusing and keeping the first type. Then they come up with a measure - a set of twelve simple questions that engaged people answer positively and others do not. Not on things like pay or senior management which are important to everyone. They're things like: do I know what is expected of me at work? Do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day? In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?

They draw various conclusions. One good one is that a fair few of the questions are directly influenced by your immediate manager, meaning that people leave managers not companies. You might join for the generous benefits package or reputation, but your relationship with your manager determines how long you will stay there and how productive you will be while there. Another is how employees view things like ambiguity and new initiatives. Those working for a great manager will trust him through it and adopt quickly, whereas others will greet everything with suspicion.

Later on they talk a little bit about the development of the brain (very interesting from a scientific point of view). They explain how everyone develops their own way of thinking early in life and there is a limit on how much a person's nature can change. So rather than waste a lot of effort trying to 'fix' people, great managers try to draw out what is in them already. [I don't agree 100% with everything they say here. Part of the Christian message is that a person's nature can be changed, but they still have some good points.]

They redefine talent from celebrated excellence to a recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behaviour that can be productively applied. That's not immediately obvious, but the implications kick in as you read on. Basically, you have a talent for something if you can continue to do it often and yet it doesn't seem to drain you of energy (but it would kill someone who doesn't have that talent to do it for any significant amount of time). Skills and knowledge can be taught, but your talents are defined by your nature - how your brain developed when growing up, who you are. It also means talent is not rare or special.

Sorry if I make it sound boring or dry, it's not. I found it quite inspiring. I've known good and bad managers, and had to manage engaged and actively disengaged people, and I found it interesting thinking about how I/they approach things. I was having mini-realisations reading this and thinking back on my working life. There's loads more in the book too, so it's still worth reading! And at £7.19 it's great value!

Now, Discover Your Strengths
Even better (at only £4.49!) is Now, Discover Your Strengths. It contains a kind of personality test, focusing on themes of strength rather than 'you are this or that type of person'. There's not much actual 'book' here. Most of it is either setting you up for the test or interpreting/applying the results, but it's still worth buying, firstly because there is some great stuff in it, and secondly you have to buy it to be able to take the test! Sneaky! (The test is online and you can only use the code in the book once.)

Continuing on from the first book, it says most organisations are built on two flawed assumptions about people: they can learn to be competent in almost anything, and their greatest room for growth is their greatest weaknesses. For example, these companies spend more money on training than selecting people properly in the first place. They allocate training money to plug gaps in skills, calling them "areas of opportunity". (Which might be necessary in some cases, e.g. a basic communication course for programmers (!) but that's not people development, it's damage control.) They promote people based on skills and experiences and well-roundedness.

Instead, the best managers correspondingly assume: people's talents are enduring and unique, and their greatest room for growth is their greatest strengths. It goes on to talk about building your life around your strengths, defining a strength as consistent near-perfect performance. Again, not immediately obvious, but it becomes clear later. In my words, a strength is something you can do well that seems to just flow out of who you are rather than being something you have to work hard at. I love this phrase they once use when talking about a famous orator: "it's as though the performance was not created by him but was being channeled through him, flawless and sublime" (which I take as a hint at divine perfection flowing through him). And they found that excellent performers are rarely well-rounded, implying that you can only excel by maximising your strengths, not fixing your weaknesses. (Though you have to learn to manage around your weaknesses, e.g. by delegating.)

They carefully define knowledge and skills and use the earlier definition for talents, and say a strength happens when you combine all three (though it is possible to build a strength purely on talent, but not without talent):

The key to building a bona fide strength is to identify your dominant talents and then refine them with knowledge and skills. Remember that many people don't appreciate what talents are, let alone what their talents are. They think with enough practice almost everything is learnable. They don't actively seek knowledge and skills to enhance their talents. Rather they fall into the trap of trying to acquire as much knowledge and as many skills as they are able in the hope of bettering themselves in some general way, smoothing out their rough edges, and emerging suitably well rounded.

So the test is designed to identify your dominant talents, i.e. potential strengths. They say the best way is to self-observe, e.g. how you react to things, what you are drawn to, what you pick up quickly, what you feel energised by, what you get sucked into so much that you lose track of time. But because your talents are so intimate, and they've been there so long, they are difficult to discern. (You're too close to see them - 'Doesn't everyone think like that?') [Plus a lot of people are not good at recognising strengths anyway.] So they've introduced some standard terms for strengths:

Listen to a couple of HR professionals describing the merits of three candidates for a position. You might hear a couple of broad generalizations such as 'I liked her people skills' or 'he seemed self-motivated' but then the conversation will revert to comparisons of facts such as each candidate's education and work experience. ... If you say two people have 'people skills' what does that tell you about them? It tells you they both seem to relate to people well, but probably not much else. It doesn't tell you that one excels at building trust with people once the initial contact has been made, while the other is brilliant at initiating the contact. Both of these abilities have to do with people, but they are obviously not the same. Yet this difference has practical implications. [You wouldn't put them in the same roles, or manage them in the same way.] Since these variables combine to create each one's performance, knowing [the differences] might make the difference between success and failure. In this situation the term 'people skills' simply doesn't help you very much.

Unfortunately this applies to most of the [current] language of human strengths. What does 'self-motivated' mean exactly? Does it mean the person is driven by an internal need for achievement that will keep firing away no matter how you manage her? Or does it mean that she needs you to set challenging goals, which she then motivates herself to surpass? ... It is possible that you know exactly what you mean ... but what about the people around you? They may use the same words with very different meanings. ... And when we do have a precise, commonly agreed upon word for a strong pattern of behaviour, the word we use often has a negative connotation. ...

Don't even get me started on using "experience" (number of years) and "skills" as a measure of capability or even maturity! If I started my own company (hey, hang on, I have! No, I mean if I employed people) there's no way I would select people anything like how the companies I've worked for do!

Anyway, the point of that quote was to explain the need for these 'themes' they've introduced which act as the vocabulary for a better strengths language. Of course, the themes combine to create many permutations, but they tried to isolate the common themes in all their interviewing and came up with 34. (Reminiscent of design patterns, if you're a programmer/architect/cross-stitcher.) Each has a one page description, and they use examples from the interviews to say what someone with that theme sounds like. Later they describe how to manage people with that theme, etc.

Our Strengths
The test said my dominant themes are: Competition, Learner (just loves to learn), Achiever (driven by a constant need to achieve), Focus (stays on task) and Strategic (sees patterns, plays out 'what if?' scenarios). I wasn't too sure about Focus until I thought about it some more, and then I realised it was one of those 'too close to the action' things - I couldn't see it because it's everywhere I look!

Corinna's dominant themes are: Connectedness (awareness of being part of a bigger picture), Developer (sees potential in others, loves causing growth), Empathy, Input (inquisitive, likes collecting things) and Positivity (generous with praise, enthusiastic). I predicted Developer, unsurprisingly a lot of teachers have it, and things like being energised by tiny glimpses of growth gave it away. I didn't predict a couple of the others though!   :)

The test was good but I didn't think it told me enough about myself so I devised my own. For each theme, I measured how closely I matched the description:

100% me (they should rename the theme 'Paul')
Achiever	driven by a constant need to achieve, starts every day at zero, always reaching for more
Analytical	likes finding patterns and causes, logical and rigorous
Competition	measures progress against the performance of others, strives to win
Ideation	fascinated by ideas, looks for simple connections under complexity, creative
Intellection	loves thinking, introspective
Learner	loves the process of learning (not just the outcome)
Responsibility	takes ownership of things committed to, bound to complete, stable, honest, loyal
Self-assurance	confident in your own decisions
Significance	independent, wants to be recognised and seen as important
Close match (>= 90%)
Belief	has enduring core values that define your life purpose, direction and priorities and makes you easy to trust, also demands that your work meshes with your values
Deliberative	careful, anticipates obstacles
Focus	needs a clear destination, sets goals and stays on track, filters distractions
Strategic	sees patterns where others see complexity, creates alternative ways to proceed
Good match (>= 55%)
Communication	finds it easy to put thoughts into words, loves storytelling
Connectedness	awareness of being part of a bigger picture, careful to not harm others
Futuristic	inspired by the future
Includer	accepting of others, includes those who feel left out
Input	inquisitive, likes collecting things
Maximizer	loves and stimulates excellence
Positivity	generous with praise, enthusiastic
Partial match (>= 20%)
Activator	makes things happen, impatient
Command	"opinionated", takes charge, makes decisions, not afraid of confrontation
Consistency	fair, treats everyone the same
Context	enjoys thinking about the past, understands the present by researching its history
Developer	sees potential in others, loves causing growth
Discipline	enjoys routine and structure and predictability
Empathy	senses and feels others' emotions, understands
Harmony	dislikes conflict, seeks agreement
Individualization	intrigued with the unique qualities of each person
Relator	enjoys close relationships, pulled towards people you already know
Restorative	loves fixing things
Barely registers (> 0%)
Arranger	loves optimizing in complex situations
Not me at all (0%)
Adaptability	lives in the moment, goes with the flow, takes things as they come
Woo	enjoys making connections, meeting new people and winning them over

That mostly agrees with the test. I guess they weren't measuring exactly the same thing. I expected to be stronger on some of the themes like Harmony and Empathy, but it's good to know what you're not as much as what you are! I remember feeling so released when I had the realisation I don't have to be everything! Anyway, I'm sure you really wanted to know all that. You know me a bit better now at least.

One of the twelve questions in the first book is "do I have a best friend at work?" (I'm not quite sure how to answer that as I'm self-employed!?) which links nicely to the book I'm reading now, another one of Gallup's: Vital Friends. (Ooo, is that a third recommendation? They really are like buses!)

We had our 5 year anniversary recently, so I made some photobooks as a gift for Corinna:

(From left to Right: handbag-sized [for Corinna's handbag that is!], hardcover, and one of the thinner ones)

They're like photo albums, but with the images printed on rather than having photos stuck in and sticking out. I think they're better than normal photo albums. Our photographer was kind enough to let us have digitised copies of all the official wedding photos! Thanks again! The small one is so Corinna can take it out and show friends easily, the hardcover one is to keep on our bookshelf, and I did two others, for our parents. They have different designs depending on who they're for, page dimensions, number of pages, etc.

I did it through myphotobook.co.uk. (A German company with a .co.uk domain?!) You download their software and you can spend days designing your own photobooks like I did!   :)   The software is a little buggy, but once you've learned which buttons to avoid pressing (because they blow it up!) it's pretty neat. And I'm really impressed with the quality of the end product. The print is great. Obviously the softcover ones aren't designed to cope with loads of abuse, but the hardcover one seems solid - like a proper book! You can always order extras I guess. I can allow other people to access the photobooks I've made online, so you can look at them yourself and even order your own copies! (Let me know if you want to, or if you want to do your own coz I can get a referral bonus!) They are very reasonably priced. The only annoyance I had was speed. The softcover ones were done quickly but the hardcover one took almost a month. Looks great though.

Photoshop helps too.

Yay! Our trusty steed has made it to 175000 miles!

I wanted to get a shot at 175001 but drove straight past it, doh! (Though it was too dark for my phone's camera last night anyway.)

I hoped she had made it to the moon, but alas there's another 63850 or 63851 miles to go. It is just over 7 times round the equator though. Pretty impressive still.

And I just found out the Earth is not spherical either - it's geoid, wider than it is tall, which makes sense really...

(All this maths is a bit too much for my computer - it just bluescreened for the first time!)

Oooo, we're famous. Check out the video highlights for Cherish 2006 and you will briefly see Corinna tucking into one of the chocolate fondue fountains. Or if you miss it:

Just after the clip they show you, she gives up on the marshmellows and dunks her face in...

And I'm on the academy's former students page... Eh? "Former" students? I've still got a day left!   :)

Well, it's not every day you get told off by your mum for not blogging enough! That's what happened to me the other day! And that's twice now!

So here's a quick update as we're very busy at the moment: We're both doing really well.

Ok, I'll add a bit more... We had a great little holiday up in the lake district at half term, see this page for details and photos. Corinna's teaching is going really well - will blog more on that shortly. My course is brill too.

Well we've been in our new house for just over a month. We're still not quite unpacked yet but we're getting there. I'll post some photos when we're up and running properly. We have a few things to do, and then we intend to have a house-warming sometime in the new year.

It's great a great house though - even better than we remembered from viewing the place. We felt right at home before we even got our stuff in. More space and better than our last house. I have my own study and we have a good garage as well. The loft is great too - all boarded, lit, power, permanent ladder - and to think we didn't even bother looking at it when we viewed the house! It's such an asset though. Gives the house a lot more usable space. We still haven't got our internet up and running yet though! Been messed around a bit by BT but they came good in the end.

The move went very well. We were a little late picking up the van due to the Leeds ring road rush hour. But then we loaded it up in double-quick time and ended up leaving Leeds ahead of schedule! The van was good fun to drive by the way, when empty anyway. (I made sure only I could drive it, he he...) A Merc 3.5 tonne Luton - more pirky and responsive than our car! I think loading went so smoothly because we had everything packed and organised, and downstairs ready to load. (And because of the excellent help obviously! Thanks everyone!) Plus we'd used parents' houses to store some excess stuff, he he... But even then the van was nearly full. We could have taken more with the cars and everything but it was good to get most stuff in the van with some space to spare. Excellent 3d jigsaw packing by my dad as always!

We got unloaded and unpacked the essentials, dropped the van off, tucked into some fish and chips, and everyone still left as early as 5pm! (James left after unloading - before 4 I think!) We had to return the van full of fuel so I had to stick a massive £4 in, but even then I think I returned it with more fuel than when we got it. When we dropped the van off we were laughed at. "17.3 miles, yeah, you really got your money's worth!" He he...

The location has made such a difference though. Rather than having to get up at a rediculous time in the morning, we can now get up at a stupid one (not as bad). We can just nip down the road to church or school, not a 30 minute expidition. Excellent.

A couple of weeks ago I got a desk and chair from Ikea. The chair is very comfy and was easy to put up, an hour or so, but the desk is like Ipswich Mission Control and took me a week to build! (literally!) And it was great in the shop but kinda takes over my little study room, he he... Good though.

My course is going brilliantly too. Can't believe a third of it has gone already. Really enjoying myself at church. A couple of weeks ago we went out inviting people to the Christmas giveaway (which happened yesterday - was brilliant by the way) and if everyone came that said they wanted to, there would have been 200 people from just that one small estate! We were hiring a couple of double deckers to try and transport them (even that would only have been 160 seats!). Not sure how many came, but the place was totally packed, someone said there were 3000 people but I'm not sure, well over 2k though definitely.

Corinna is getting on very well at school. Glad for a break and understandably tired after lots of pressure for her first term (a long term too - 16 weeks, the other two are only 12 I think) but she's coped well, even with some unnecessary additional pressure (nuff said). Still, she's loving being a teacher and the kids she's got. They're doing a total re-organisation of how they teach English starting next term so Corinna's learning a new way of teaching! (The standard way is not ideal for kids where English is their second language.) It's funny when you go into her classroom and there's posters saying "Mrs Parkins' Class" and stuff... Weird - it's like she's a proper teacher! He he...   :)

We're very much looking forward to Christmas. They're loads more fun now we have a little niece to play with. Though it's going to be a bit disjointed this year with Matt & Jo in Oz and the rest of us not really overlapping well. Oh well...   :)   It'll still be fun!

Oooo, some more good news I forgot to mention: Corinna's passed her driving test! It was in the midst of a stressy week too! One manouver she literally couldn't do the day before she executed perfectly on the test. She's now driven over to her parents' house in Leeds and we're all very proud of her. Watch out on the roads!   :)

No news about the house move yet. There was a possible move day last Friday but that didn't happen. Another one today but that didn't happen either. We're hoping for early November now (i.e. next week). Everything on our purchase side is "virtually complete" it's just our buyer's bank that are being very slow. It was all going a bit too smoothly so I wasn't shocked when something slowed it all down. But if it does happen early November, that would work out to just under 3 months since we started proper, so still not bad.

Well, it's the end of one era and the start of another. Yesterday I said my goodbyes to everyone at CODA. There were lots of nice comments on the 'escapee' card, and I got some thoughtful pressies and a decent amount in book tokens as well. And my team leader said some kind words as he presented them to me. I thought I'd be fine, but I found it hard to leave the good friends I've made over the last couple of years. Still, it's not like I'm moving a million miles away so I'll continue to see and play footie with some of them.

I have now put my work trousers and shirts into stasis (literally - a vacuum storage bag) and on Monday I start on my course at church. I've been looking forward to it for so long that I think I'm past the excitement now - I just want to get started! It's funny because everyone I've mentioned the idea to has been so supportive, some were even more excited about it than me! The only people who haven't were some Christians! Eh? How does that work?!

Anyway, I'm glad to finally get started. I'm not sure what to expect, but I will learn a lot about myself, God and his heart for people, and how to express that heart myself. No doubt some things I will love and some I won't enjoy at all. It will be an experience!

It will be weird not driving an hour only to sit at a computer for 9 hours most days. Yes it made a decent wage and kept us comfortable, but all I was really doing was monkey work, making someone else a load of money. I did as well as I could, but my heart wasn't really in it. (It's funny how many people said they felt the same way and wish they could do something more worthwhile.) So in a way it wasn't too difficult to give up (apart from the people, as I said before).

But, as someone pointed out, we are giving up half our income. (And it would have been a lot more if God had not been so good to us and worked out Corinna's job so perfectly!) And for what? I don't know...

But we both feel it is the right way forward. And we trust that God will guide us through the rest of our lives, whichever weird and wacky directions they take.

A lot of people used the word vocation when talking to me, which I didn't really get. I have always thought of vocation in terms of a synonym for career but the dictionary corrected me. It can be a career, but one for which you're particularly suited. Or an inclination to undertake a certain kind of work as if in response to a call. Not that I aspire to 'become a vicar' as some of them put it, he he...   :)   But I think they may have been right to use the word.

Woohoo, we've finally got our house on fish4, propertyfinder and homesandproperty.co.uk which means you can find it on over 300 websites including UpMyStreet, the major newspapers, Channel4.com/4Homes, etc.

We have gone with Whitegates as well, but it hasn't appeared on their website yet...

Woohoo! Our house is on the market! See this and this. Let me know if you want a great house in North Leeds!

Also, Wassim and Nicola's blog is back up and running! Got to admire that layout but I think green would have been better...   :)

Some good news: Corinna's contract has been extended to full time and permanent come September. (Though she's looking forward to having a break in the summer hols!!) Also, I've been offered a place on the Abundant Life Leadership Academy (here) which starts in September too. I don't know exactly how it will work out but it sounds like good fun, and it could work out nicely. With us travelling over there daily, it would make sense to move to Bradford. Not as glamourous as some places, I know...   :)   We have been DIYing the house a lot recently and we'll stick it on the market shortly.

Trip to grandad's: Love the tiny pic of us...   :)

It's funny because Matt txt'd a mate saying we've got a Rover 75 and he replied "that's apt, having a granddad's car to go see your granddad"...

That car was absolutely superb though. Brilliant to drive. The motorway was a breeze. It made the trip a joy. Great fun round country roads and town driving as well. Brilliant. Drank loads of fuel too though!   :)

Not being used to such a long car, when we arrived at the B&B on the Friday I managed to back it into a mud bank. We had to fish mud out of the exhaust pipes with a stick! He he...

Got it back in one piece though. It survived those narrow Devon lanes. Quite often both wing mirrors were hitting the vegetation at the same time they were that narrow. I even had to do a 3 point turn (ahem, 5, ish) at one point when we got lost.

So not only did we get an upgrade to a brilliant car (much better than we were paying for) but they knocked 22% off. I checked my card statement later and noticed that they tried to charge for it twice - cheeky! - I got the more expensive one refunded, so it worked out even cheaper. (Only slightly, but it's the principle...)

And this time we got the nice big room with en suite and Matt and Jo got the shared bathroom... Ha ha!

Thought I'd give the quiz a go quickly too. I came out the same, but I also scored high on Idealist... I wonder what the text for that was? It asked me a decider question to choose between them.

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. Idealist 75% Cultural Creative 75% Existentialist 38% Postmodernist 38% Fundamentalist 31% Romanticist 25% Modernist 19% Materialist 6% What is Your World View? (corrected...again) created with QuizFarm.com

I did write a World View diagnosis program myself years ago for a friend. He was using an old DOS program so I re-implemented it in Windows, and he used the printing functions a lot so I made that all a lot nicer. Don't have a copy of that anymore, but it was a good thinking starter.

Phew! After nearly 2½ months of tooing and froing, the student loans people have finally agreed Corinna is not earning enough to start paying (and not by a small amount). Our last letter was just a list of 7 bullet points recapping all the evidence we've provided over the last 3 letters! Now they've sent a nice letter agreeing with us that finishes with:

If it appears that you have knowingly or recklessly provided false information ... criminal proceedings may be initiated against you. The Company may also initiate civil proceedings against you.

Real nice.

I feel like replying with "If you continue to knowingly or recklessly hassle us unnecessarily, criminal proceedings may be initiated against you. We may also initiate civil proceedings against you if you continue to be uncivil."

Some good news from Corinna's job... No doubt the headmaster is dealing with negatives and bad news all the time. So when a parent asked for a meeting with him recently he wasn't sure what to expect, not good news anyway. But in the end she just wanted to say that her child (in Corinna's class) is really happy at the moment, and that it is much better having a permanent teacher as well. (The kids have been messed about a bit in the past.) The head was re-telling this at the staff meeting, so I think he was effectively commending Corinna in front of everyone!   :)

Primary pupils 'out of control': This is a school Corinna was going to apply for!

An inner-city school had suffered a complete breakdown in discipline with pupils as young as seven out of control, a report has revealed.

Physical and verbal abuse has been hurled at staff and dinner ladies and bad behaviour is going unchecked at Woodlands Primary school in east Leeds.

Education Leeds officials now say new measures are in place to improve the running of the school.

!

Haven't blogged in ages, mainly because I have not had a lot to say.
Been looking for work over the last month, and began to get very board and extremely frustrated with doing nothing. Anyway went for an interview in Bradford last Friday, got the job and start this Wednesday.

This week I have been going into the school and finding out what I'll be teaching etc.

The school is in a predominantly Asian area with all but one child Asian in my class.
It is a huge school with around 300 children. Some parents don't speak English and the children are still slowly learning it themselves.
Being a deprived area there are a lot of issues these children have to face.

I have mixed feelings about working there right now, I'm not sure if it is because it is something new and I'm feeling a bit anxious or what.
I will be working 3 days a week, well 2 and a half really but its easier for me to go in all day on a Wednesday.
I'm sure whatever happens it will be good for me and a good experience. I have met many of the staff and they seem really nice and supportive. The teacher that I will be sharing the class with is lovely and we seem to really get on.
Anyway will let you know more as I go along

> Can't find the school's website right now, but will post it later.

Ahh, that may be because it doesn't have one... Oh well.

Woohoo! Corinna just got a job! 1 interview, 1 job offer - not a bad ratio! :)

She is really excited about it right now. She starts on the 9th, just in time for the easter break, good timing! He he...

Can't find the school's website right now, but will post it later.

Looks like I was wrong about there being no snow, there has been loads here! I like snow. It makes driving good fun anyway. This morning a van was trying to drive up our street. Just past our house his wheels were moving but the van wasn't going anywhere, he he... Fortunately, I was pointing downhill so it was easier to get out.

Talking about My Mobible hits, here's what happened:

We were trundling along, peaking at 15 hits (wow!), then on the 1st Feb it hit 107! Cool...

There was no snow this winter, so here are a couple of pics I came across from last year, just to cheer you up. These were from January '04:

Aww... And this was from the end of February! So it may still happen yet!

Woohoo! Corinna passed her final QTS Skills Test! That NQT's on its way!

There were a couple of funny articles in the Times this Saturday. The first was a half-page spread on one of the main sports pages: Scarborough harbour golden memories. It was basically talking about the 0-1 Chelsea win last year. It describes the McCain stadium as the Theatre of Chips, he he...

I thought they were going to talk about the 0-1 Arsenal win, and the 1-4 Middlesborough win which I both went to (it was 1-1 for a while - the crowd went mad). But I was most surprised that it didn't reminisce about when Scarborough actually did beat Chelsea in 1989 (a bit before my time). Scarborough came back from 2-0 down to win 3-2!

The other article was quite topical for my posts on politeness. At least the Jerry Springer show didn't upset any Greeks!

A Greek court has sentenced a cartoonist to six months in jail for portraying Jesus as a pot-smoking hippy who surfs naked across the Sea of Galilee. Gerhard Haderer, an Austrian, will only have to serve the term if he travels to Greece. The case was launched after the Greek Orthodox Church complained about his comic book ...

Just added some photos from our recent visit to Lotherton Hall.

New article added: Corinna's testimony, which explains a bit about her past and why she is a Christian.

Some recent pictures
I forgot to post this at Christmas, it's a house just round the corner from us. It looks much more glaring in real-life. I put the camera into 'night mode' and it was totally overloaded with light! So this is the normal daytime setting:

On TV after Christmas was Big Cat Week which was really good. At one point a leopard (I think it was) climbed up into a tree and flopped down on a branch with a leg dangling. It was funny because at that point I turned round and the cat was doing exactly the same thing (but on the nearest thing to a branch around):




Talking of animals, I love this drawing from a calendar we have. It's a kind of 'when I grow up, I want to...'. I just think the giraffe is hilarious - like a Tweenie on a stick...   :)

Woohoo! Corinna got an SMS message yesterday to say that all her work has been examined and she has passed the course! She is now officially more qualified than me! :)

So she has her PGCE. Just one little test to go before she is a 'Newly Qualified Teacher'.

Congratulations! I always knew you could do it!

Well, Happy New Year everyone! Or hau'oli makahiki hou as one email I got said, which I think means 'Happy New Year', but could just as well be swearing at me in some funny language...

We had a really great Christmas with family. Great fun. Especially with my little niece. She had so many presents, in the end we had to open them for her. It took us hours to open them all, we even had to take tea breaks!

One extra pressie I got from James was the flu. Nice. Took me out for a week, and I've still got it now, but hopefully should be over it soon...

Ahh, 'tis the season now at work. Electronic monotone Jingle Bells rings out across the room. Someone's even decorated my PC with tinsel:

Those are christmas tree lights in the background. He he, I remember the flashing ones caused a bit of a stir last year...  :)

Also, here's a pic of Corinna, as one of her pupils sees her:


Nice. That's on our fridge door.

Also, we've kind of adopted a cat from a few doors down. Or rather, she's adopted us. She's funny. When she hears the car coming, she'll run to our front door and things. She's very cute, but it's not easy to capture. Here's one movie of her. See how she tries to stroke Corinna's hand with her head at about 35s, he he... I did do more, but I'll have to get an editor so I can chop it down to the really cute bits.

We have some brilliant news. Not sure when Corinna will get round to blogging about it so I thought I'd jump the gun. Corinna has handed in all her coursework and with her final TP going so well, that's the course finished! Wow!

Just need to wait to see if all the work passes now, but in theory she will soon be a Teacher proper! She's applied for one job nearby. There's not much going right now, but we're hoping something will come up...

I know Corinna wouldn't want to go on about it herself, so I'll do it for her. She has had some brilliant reports about her current teaching practice (the final, 8 week one). The deputy head said she "will make a fantastic teacher", another colleage said she will be really missed and has become like a daughter to the teacher she's working with. She was told today that she's passed the TP with flying colours and is "the most successful" of all the people on her course, and "the best student they have had" at that school for years! Wow!

Man, it's freezing this morning! All the locks on the car were totally frozen except the boot's lock, so you can guess what I had to do ... yep, I climbed in from the boot. But then Corinna closed it, locking me in! (The only way to unlock the boot is with the key, and I had that inside the car, and all the doors and windows were frozen!) So I just had to sit there for 5 minutes while the car warmed up... Even then the front doors were frozen solid, so I drove Corinna to school chauffeur-style...  :)

I've added a Password Generator to our downloads page - wrote it in about 5 minutes last night. The idea is to use that along with RoboForm so you can have different random passwords for any websites you've signed up to. That way they won't know your passwords for other sites, and you don't have to re-use any sensitive passwords. I'm going to go through all my accounts and change the passwords to random things. I guess you'd be stuffed if RoboForm stopped working, but I've got backups of its files, and most sites aren't that important anyway...

Wow! I just popped out to post something and what a great day it is outside! Blue skies dotted with a few fluffy clouds, unusually warm... Probably better than most of the summer days this year and it's autumn! There's brown leaves everywhere! Funny...

Another thing, I started thinking the other day about how varied life is. For example, as close friends over the years I have had Muslims, a Jehovah's Witness, atheists and staunch believers in scientism. I have had Roman Catholic, Anglican, Baptist, Methodist and AoG friends, friends from all parts of the UK, some from South Africa and America, Canada and continental Europe, Nigeria and Brazil, China and Malaysia, and probably a load more (than I can remember). I've lived and holidayed in all over the UK and western Europe. Erm, and a load more stuff I thought of that I can't remember now...

This is so typical of me. Last night, having worked a bit late and needing to get down to Church, I rushed home, got changed at high-speed and wolfed down some food. I arrived at Church only 10 minutes late in the end (which I thought wasn't too bad) but strangely there weren't many people there? I walked in and it hadn't even started... Then I realised it starts at 7:30pm on a Wednesday, not 7pm, so I was actually 20mins early! Doh!

Not that I haven't gone to that meeting loads of times, I just forgot...  :)  Corinna wondered why I was rushing so much but didn't say anything... Well at least I got to chat to a few people for a while!

Corinna's teaching practice is going well anyway. The tail end of the first week wasn't easy, but this week has gone really well. She's had excellent assessments so far this time too, so it's looking good. Working hard though. I even did some ironing because she was busy working!  :)

I was driving to work this morning along country roads (at normal speeds) when I spotted a duck (my favourite bird) in the middle of my lane in the distance. I applied the brakes, but not slamming them on fully as I knew there was a car behind. As I was braking I realised the duck wasn't budging, and I didn't have the space to slow down to a stop. I ended up swerving on to the grass verge slightly to avoid him. The car jumped in the air like I'd hit a ramp. (Though I'd actually hit a rock.) I continued driving but I could hear the front-left wheel hissing, obviously losing pressure quickly, and it wasn't long before I was driving on its rim. I pulled into the first minor side-road and had a look; flat tyre.

I followed the instructions: put the jack up until it's touching the car (the verge where I was doing this had loads of nettles so I was stung on my knuckles - great). Next loosen the bolts. The last time I tried to change a wheel, on Cloe the Clio, the bolts were on so tight I couldn't budge them at all. I don't know what it is with garages but they insist on putting bolts on so tight that it's humanly impossible to loosen them... It was the same story with this car - I'm sure they were welded on!

I tried loosening them for about 10 mins, but to no avail. Just "loosen the bolts" the manual says, as though it's mocking me. At this point I began to think about some alternative plans. Fortunately I did remember to put Green Flag's number in the car - though it took a bit of finding. I got the mobile out and tried calling their free 0800 number - "you are out of calling credit, please arrange a topup". (Even though I do have 5p left...) So I tried calling Vodaphone to get some more credit, and as soon as the call connected the phone jumped from 4 bars (full power) down to 0 bars (battery nearly empty) and started beeping at me. Doh! It is a bit of a brick tho - I worked out that it's just a month or two shy of 6 years old now! Maybe I should get that new mobile a bit sooner than I planned...

So I'm stuck half-way up a hill, in the middle of nowhere, on a country road, no mobile phone, ages away from the nearest house. I guessed, if it came to it, I could walk until I find a house or telephone box, or even just drive to work slowly on the rim (only a couple of miles away), but that would probably wreck something and should only be a last resort.

I chose to get the bolts off. None of them would turn by pushing down. The first one loosened after about a minute by lifting as though I was lifting weights. That lifted my spirits too and gave me a bit of hope, but my hand was red-raw from doing just that one, and I somehow managed to cut my finger in the process too. I mocked up a field dressing from a tissue and some sellotape I had handy, and took a break for a bit...

None of the other 3 bolts would come off using the lifting technique, so I had to come up with something else. The next one came off by kicking the brace down, but I had to increase the force even more for the 3rd bolt by literally jumping & landing/kicking the brace (70*2=140kgs?). By this point, the brace head was bent at an angle of maybe 30 degrees from where it used to be, which made my kung fu bolt-loosening technique difficult because the brace would just slip off the bolt. Grrr!

Somewhere inbetween bolts 2 and 3, a load of cows in the field next to me came over to the fence and started mooing at me. They were scared off at one point by a tractor that came flying round the corner making a lot of noise, but then they slowly approached me again. When about 10ft from the fence, they just stood there, 12-15 of them, stood in a line watching me. He he, at least I had some company.

For the last bolt I tried wedging the spare wheel under the brace so it had something to rest on. I calculated that the upwards pressure would add to the turning power. I tried that for a while but the wheel was just too fat (because of the brace's bend, it wouldn't slot onto the bolt and rest on the wheel at the same time). So I looked around for something else and found that the jack's box was roughly the right height. I wedged that underneath and it loosened at the first attempt! Weyhey!

The rest of the procedure was fairly straight-forward, I drove down this little windy country lane for a bit, just to check the spare was ok, which it was, so I continued on to work at 30mph. Got a few odd looks from people overtaking me on the main 60mph road though...  :)

I eventually turned up at work at 10:30 (smelling like a mechanic) so it had taken about 1h30m to change a wheel! It's infinitely quicker than my first flat tyre though - I had to call out that RAC for that one!

I struck me as a bit of a 'good samaritan' story though. In total, I guess around 30 cars drove past in that hour and a half, some (e.g. tractors) even went past a few times. It was obvious I was broken down but no-one even slowed down let alone stopped. Would I do the same if I was the one running late for work, too busy to stop? (Which incidentally I was, but a flat tyre kind of dictates how you spend your time anyway...)

I can't think of a time when I've intentionally driven past people with a broken down car, but I wonder if that's because I automatically ignore them - like I filter them out because I don't want to even consider helping? I guess people are less inclined to help out in this day of mobile phones (i.e. help on hand) and the fear of crime/violence. I guess it's partly due to 'community' being very limited nowadays too. Anyway, next time I see someone with a flat tyre, I'll have to offer to help.

Saturday saw Rik's stag do, which was good fun. We had a 5-a-side tournament with 5 teams of 5, playing each other twice in a league. There were trophies and everything! Rik's team didn't do very well, but thankfully he won the golden boot with 9 goals; he scored all of his team's goals. Nice touch. As he went up for his award I shouted "It's not Rik's fault his team was rubbish"... He he, only kidding!

The teams were quite evenly matched and competition was tough, except for one team that dominated, finishing with 13pts from 16 (2pts for a win). My team was 2nd with 8. Matt's was joint third with 7. Last got 5 I think. We lost our first two games quite badly (one-sided 2-0 and 3-0'ers) but we pulled it back with W3 D2 L1 in the next 6 games. Great fun anyway.

About 2/3rds of the way through the competition I went in for a 50-50 challenge with Andy T and I basically just bounced off him. I think my knee bent the wrong way a bit (sideways) or I overstreched it or something, but basically it was quite painful afterwards and especially later on that day. And because I forgot to strech afterwards anyway, my legs were both really stiff (and still are!). Not long after I injured my right knee, Matt injured his left knee in a nasty fall, so walking away from the leisure centre we were like two old men hobbling along...  :)

One of the games I played up front, and it happened to be against Matt's team (he was playing up front too in that game) and from the kick off he went to foul me (tho it wasn't that bad in the end - we watched the replay - someone had brought a camcorder!) so I (ahem) appealed to the ref (like I would in PES3) then I remembered he's a real life ref so I'd better not abuse him!  :)  Our last game was 1-1 at the last second when Kev scored JUST after the whistle blew so he wasn't too happy with the ref at that point!  :)

After footie we had curry before diving into 16-player Halo on 4 XBoxes linked up with projectors; great fun, especially the Capture the Flag games. More fun than Quake used to be in the old days because you're sat next to your teammates and you can really co-ordinate your tactics! Matt and some others played Tiger Woods on another XBox and loved it. Cool.

After XBoxing we went on to some late night Poker which was good fun too (not playing for real money though, of course). Some people went out quickly which gave 2 or 3 players loads of money which made it really hard for the rest of us because once someone got a load of money they could dominate the play and get even more wonga. Anyway, I managed to stay in for quite a while. In fact, I was the one who stayed in longest without winning a single hand! Doh! Not something to be proud of I don't think...

We got home after poker at about 3am. Matt woke me up at 10:10am by squirting water on my face from my footie water bottle! Grrr...  :)

I haven't forgotten to blog about our hols, I just didn't get round to it until now.

We flew out of Leeds/Bradford. I love watching the wings cut through pure white clouds, and the feeling that you're driving on clouds. It's cool when you bank to one side and you can see the ground beneath you too. He he, funny. The flights there and back were both good, on time and everything, very smooth, no problems at all. In fact, I can't remember ever having a bad flight. Strange that, considering all the bad press airlines and airports have been getting. Maybe it's because I've never flown out of London?

I deliberately wore the usual clothes I would wear at the place I was leaving, just to experience the hit as I walked off the plane at the other end. Going there I wore jeans and a warm shirt, so it felt like walking into a furnace when I got off the plane in Spain. Coming back I wore a light shirt, shorts and sandals and you can guess what it was like stepping off the plane in Leeds! Buurrrr...

We were there for just over 2 weeks. We went with Corinna's parents and while we were out there, Corinna's uncle and aunt happened to be there too (not the ones who lent us use of the apartment, the other ones) along with her aunt's mum, staying in another apartment close by. So it was quite a family gathering, but in the end Corinna and I spent most of the time on our own, apart from the occasional meal or game of Scrabble or cards shared with C's parents.

Anyway, we got there and explored. The apartment is in La Manga del Mar Menor on the southern tip of this peninsula so we had the med to the East, a 5min walk away, and the Mar Menor ("little sea"?) right at the foot of our building, with a small private beach and a cool swimming pool (in both senses of the word). The Mar Menor was very calm and the descent from the beach was slow, making it shallow and warm. Plus it was quite salty so you could just float there effortlessly for ages with the sun shining down on you. Very relaxing.

There was a net in the water around our beach for jellyfish (to keep them out rather than in I think, though we did see a couple inside). It had a little reef too, so we enjoyed some snorkling a few times. I tried chasing some fish but they always out-swam me...  :)  Once, I swam up to the net to see if there were any jellyfish. As I swam towards it (in fairly low visibility) suddenly the net came into focus and I could see hundreds of pulsating jellyfish behind it. Urgh! That freaked me out so I stopped swimming then for a while...! (I certainly wasn't going to attempt to chase them!) According to John though the jellyfish around there have a pretty weak sting, but we still chuckled about what we would do if someone was stung. Apparently (according to Friends?) you need to get someone to pee on it - the amonia counteracts the sting... He he... (Though I've just read that that's not such a good idea.)

The weather was great, just right for me. Not too hot - I don't like it too warm - around 28-33^oC. (Apart from the first night which was swealtering - then we discovered that everyone else keeps all the doors and windows open to get a throughdraft!) It only rained once, and it was a little hazy some days, but mostly it was really good.

Sitting out on the balcony in the evenings 'til late was great... We mainly just relaxed the whole holiday and didn't do all that much. Well, I read a lot (4 books and a few newspapers in a couple of weeks - must be some sort of record for me I think, not that I was trying to read quickly...) but C tended to sunbathe a lot. We hired a Seat Cordoba Saloon (which was quite comfortable, and we were very greatful for the air con!) A few days we went off driving into the Spanish countryside. We admired some unspoilt old Spanish villages and tried to find some mountainous roads (for good views and that).

We went to beaches on the med a few times, 3 of which were miles long and quite idilic-looking, and because most tourists had gone home by that point, they were quite uncrowded. We discovered one when going out for a drive and it looked amazing and virtually deserted, so we decided to go back there another day. When we got there though we realised why it was virtually deserted: it was a mostly pebble beach and getting into the sea wasn't easy (without a little pain for the tootsies anyway). Still, it was really nice just being there. On the penultimate day we went to a beach we hadn't tried before and the waves were really big and powerful, so that was good fun...

One thing you definately have to do when you're out in Spain is adjust to their timezone. It's only an hour difference in real terms, but people live like it's 5 hours. Everyone (including young kids) stay up and party (loudly) until the early morning, once 'til 3am! Being very British we found this 'disorder' a bit off-putting for a couple of days, but we soon got into it, staying up 'til 3 ourselves once or twice! But with the weather being so nice in the evenings, we were happy to do that anyway.

Some funny things happened while we were there. I had a sore throat from a few days before we left for Spain, but within a few days of getting there it turned really nasty. I think it must have got infected or something. At one point I couldn't swallow at all. We went to the chemist and she gave me a coctail of drugs. I was grateful she spoke some English, but it was funny because she reeled off so quickly "dis wan 3 time a day, dis wan everee 4 owah, dis wan everee ...". I tried repeating it more slowly, getting it all wrong, and she again reeled off quickly "no, no, no, dis wan 3 time a day, dis wan ...". I gave up at that point and hoped they had English instructions inside. They didn't, but fortunately we did have an English<->Spanish dictionary back at the apartment. We spent ages translating (what we hoped was the dosage) one word at a time!  :)  Having studied Spanish for a good year or two a few years back I was sure I would at least remember some. But no, I didn't remember much at all. (Which is a pity. I might attempt to re-learn it sometime.) Anyway, within a few days it had cleared up and I was fine. I was a bit worried at the time though because I wouldn't know what to do in a Spanish hospital!

Another thing was the air was very clean and dry but everything outside (cars, the apartment's balcony - even though we were on the 8th floor!?, etc) seemed to be covered in a sandy dust. I couldn't work out where all the dust was coming from until a week into the holiday when it rained - the rain must pick up dust from the surrounding dry land... Funny. Must cost a fortune in car wash bills. I'd be no good as here I keep telling Corinna that there's no need to wash the car, the rain will do it for us...  :)

Another funny thing was Pete was on the beach one day, and settling down to sleep he decided to take off one of his hearing aids and put it down next to him. Later he got up and went back to the apartment, but when he got there he realised he hadn't picked it up! Doh! So at various times all seven of us were combing the beach trying to find it, which was quite a funny sight. Fortunately someone handed it in a few days later, though it looked like it had been corroded so it had probably sat in the water for a while. Someone thought a bird might have picked it up thinking it was food...

Another thing was when we were on a remote beach some Walls Ice Cream lorry drivers decided to drive across the beach to have a break I think. It wasn't such a clever idea though, 2 of them were stuck in the sand when they tried to drive off, so that provided the entertainment for a hour or so...  :)

So that was Spain. Holiday pics should hopefully appear shortly in the new photos section - see the link to the left. Ask me for the password. Where we were wasn't a typical English touristy area, in fact it was more popular for Spanish people's holidays, so that was good. There were some ex-pats out there (soon to include C's uncle and aunt) so we were able to go to an English pub a couple of times - it was good for the England v Austria game anyway!

We really enjoyed our time there and we would have loved to stay a bit longer. It took us a week to get into it really, so we were quite thankful that at least we had another week. There was lots of building work going on near where we were - not that we could hear it at all, it just spoilt some of the views. But after you've been there a week you seem to just be able to ignore that and appreciate the beauty of your surroundings. It hits me as an advantage we have as humans, that we somewhat automatically filter out things we don't want to see, whereas God has absolutely everything in focus always. Still, He can choose to not remember some things - something which I'd love to be able to do. Unlearning is not easy for us!

Another really cool thing that happened was this: on the plane on the way back I was sat near the middle so I could see out of windows on both sides. We were still at nearly full altitude (34,000ft I think it was) over London, so it was a real Eastenders moment there. Corinna started doing the outro drums. He he... (That wasn't the cool thing, this is:) it was a really clear day, very few clouds, and as we began our decent I suddenly realised I could see right from West Wales, Bristol and the Severn in one window through to Yarmouth/Norwich area in another window. I could see both sides of the country!! Distances that seem huge on the ground seemed not that big at all from that height... Odd!

All in all, a good holiday. We came back relaxed and refreshed.

just taken this personality test, this is me:

You are a SECF--Sober Emotional Constructive Follower. This makes you a Hippie.You are passionate about your causes and steadfast in your commitments. Once you've made up your mind, no one can convince you otherwise. Your politics are left-leaning, and your lifestyle choices decidedly temperate and chaste.You do tremendous work when focused, but usually you operate somewhat distracted. You blow hot and cold, and while you normally endeavor on the side of goodness and truth, you have a massive mean streak which is not to be taken lightly. You don't get mad, you get even.

i didn't think i was that evil...

I got to the car last night and found that someone had installed an optional extra! The front passenger footwell had been converted to a 3cm deep swimming pool. Nice.

I had to get a plastic cup and bail it out!

Another one developed overnight, so I bailed that out too, then on the way to work I could see it forming again. It was quite humorous when I slammed on the brakes and heard this spluwsh as all the water gushed to the front... :)

Windermere continued. On the way back we stopped off at Fell Foot Park. There aren't many places on Windermere that you can sit by the lake without crowds of people or shops or noise, but this is one of them. It even has a little beach and some shallow water so kids could go down and play in the lake. Cool on a sunny day, well, not really because I got sunburnt, but you know what I mean. It's right on the South edge and looks North so it's a great view too.

Afterwards Corinna drove us back home, a full 2 hours, and very well too, except momentarily thinking the Fell Foot car park was a game of bumper cars...  :)

As Paul said we had a lovely time in the Lakes last weekend, wished we could stay there for a week.
It was soooo peaceful and calming and after the last few weeks I really needed the break and the peacefulness.
Things here have been really stressful for me. I have been doing loads of assignments trying to get them out of the way so that I can start planning for my eight week placement in September. Quite excited about it, quite scared too though. Have just come back from Uni today (yes I do go in for lectures occasionally)and have been speaking to a few of my colleags that have just finshed thier eight week, they have all passed and I am so happy for them!
Only got five weeks till our holiday to Spain, we are going with my folks and staying in my Uncle and Aunts apartment out there. Can't wait two weeks of not thinking about planning and evaluating and bla bla bla...

Also just want to say a big CONGRATULATIONS to Paul for putting up with me for so long!! Love you babe x

We had our 3rd wedding anniversary this weekend and to celebrate we popped over to Lake Windermere:

We stayed in a B&B:

I've not tried B&B's before, but it was really quite good. One time we took a 90-minute cruse down to the aquarium because Corinna wanted to see the otters:

Another time we drove up to Wrynose Pass (nearly 400m?) which had a great view back down the valley. (Apologies for the lack of photos but we forgot to take our camera.)

Following the line of poor blog jokes, I wanted to post "we went to see The Day after Tomorrow the day before yesterday" but I forgot to do it yesterday. I enjoyed the film though, very good. Then it was followed by that unexpected freak weather on Sunday. I just kept on saying to Corinna in a worried voice "It's just like the film, they didn't expect it either..."   :)

I was thinking about our experience with the Bluetits again this morning.

I heard recently about a survey that showed that we, as a country, give much more money to animal welfare charities than the human equivalents, and many more animal welfare ones exist too. I know that's not even close to being a definative measure (because there are shedloads of other things to take into account), but it is an interesting indicator.

We took these Bluetits in, tried our hardest to look after them, help them, encourage them, we grieved when two of them died. We went out of our way, and we are still looking out for the living ones now. But even though Jesus said people are worth more than whole flocks of birds, would I do the same for a human stranger?

Our next-door neighbours have put their house up for sale. They bought it around 20 years ago apparently - as soon as the 'right to buy' type schemes first came out - for a ridiculously low figure and they are moving to Spain with the proceeds! Superb!

Now I don't want to sound like I'm on one of those 'Brassed Off Britain' or 'Grumpy Old Men' TV programmes, but I've got to say something about speed bumps, road humps, sleeping policemen, whatever you want to call them. The idea is basically to make it uncomfortable to drive over them if you're driving too fast so you are forced to slow down.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the effort to slow people down in built-up areas and especially around schools or high-risk areas. That's good. I wholeheartedly support the desire to make our roads safer. However, this particular solution, speed bumps, is very poor:

1. The underlying logic is:
   1. some people drive too fast, which is dangerous;
   2. we need a way to stop them;
   3. force everybody to drive slowly.
   So everybody is punished because some people speed, i.e. the philosophy is criminalise everybody.
2. They aren't going to stop you if you're determined to speed. It just means you're going to have less control of the car, making it more dangerous.
3. Some drivers don't care or don't know what effect they will have, some may even want to experiement to see how much of a jump they can do by using them as ramps.
4. They cause additional danger for vehicles that are supposed to drive at speed, i.e. emergency vehicles. I saw one Police car, sirens blazing, literally flying down a road because of these bumps. Response times are reduced. Expensively kitted emergency vehicles are damaged. In the end all patients are affected.
5. The likelihood and severity of back problems are increased for everyone. I'm only 25 and I'm developing a backache (though there are other factors involved too). I even heard that some osteopaths are losing business because their patients have to go elsewhere – they couldn't face the journey to the surgery because of speed bumps. Existing health problems are exacerbated by them too.
6. People simply accellerate and brake harshly between each bump. This wastes fuel which is damaging to the environment, costs the driver more in fuel bills and increases the demand for already oversubscribed and overpriced oil supplies.
7. Eratic changes in speed also increases the chance of accidents, so to encourage this is to increase the overall level of danger.
8. Some drivers may even be encouraged to accelerate over them to demonstrate how smooth their suspension is.
9. The attention (and tarmac!) they require could be redirected towards the nearby pot hole-ridden roads – there are some particularly bad ones around here. The overall number of 'good' roads is decreasing because they are either falling into disrepair themselves or being 'disrepaired' by putting speed bumps on them.
10. They must cost a lot of money to put down, what with all that labour, equiptment, expertise and materials. That money could be diverted to cheaper, better alternatives, and even used to improve other services.
11. They are damaging to all vehicles. Suspension systems have additional wear, the undersides of some vehicles are scraped, brakes and engines experience additional wear from accellerating and braking harshly between bumps. Mechanics garages are already overworked and overpriced, this increase in vehicle damage just adds to it, and increasing the turnover of parts is also damaging to the environment.
12. They cause additional noise and vibration pollution.
13. They will increase damage to nearby buildings.
14. I have even heard anacdotal evidence of car accident rates increasing after speed bumps were introduced.
15. I have never been (or heard of anyone being) consulted when speed bumps are put up in my neighbourhood.
16. The 'singular speed bump in the middle of the lane' design is particularly bad:
    1. Especially for small cars, where the thinner wheelbase means they have a taller bump to go over – it was terrible when we had our Clio.
    2. They are ineffective against wide vehicles (and even normal vehicles in some places)
    3. Some are placed so close to the bump in the next lane that it's encouraging wing mirror collisions.

The cheaper and better alternatives to speed bumps I can think of are:

1. Reduce the speed limit. When I was learning to drive, my very experienced instructor (who is now an examiner) said "always drive at the speed limit unless you have a reason not to", and by 'reason' he meant anything that would make it unsafe to drive at that speed. In one lesson I attempted to drive at 30mph on a 30mph road with speed bumps. He said something like "why are you driving so fast, can't you see they want you to slow down?" Clearly, the purpose of speed bumps is not at all to stop drivers speeding, but in fact they are trying to reduce them to a speed significantly slower than the speed limit. But that makes no sense! If you want people to limit their speed to something lower, then set the speed limit to something lower!
2. If you need to enforce the speed limit more strongly, use something non-intrusive like speed cameras. Why should everyone be punished?

There are other alternative ideas floating about out there too...

So in summary, speed bumps are bad news for everyone. They are painful, costly and wasteful, and there are cheaper and better alternatives. I'm not saying they are the root of all evil, but they're certainly not a good idea. Thankfully, some people are getting the idea, e.g. some areas of London are having their speed bumps taken out and I've heard of this happening elsewhere too. (But what a waste in the first place if they are just going to be ripped up and thrown away!?)

Any more suggestions?

Latest news: the mum and dad keep getting food from our garden, but taking it away rather than eating it. Maybe the others did survive ok...

Three of the Bluetit babies flew away in the end so we hope they get on ok. We haven't seen them again yet, but hopefully they found somewhere to huddle last night because it was quite cold.

We were left with the two runts, Jumpy and Chirpy. Mum and dad seemed to be feeding them ok, but around 8:30pm yesterday evening Corinna noticed Jumpy was finding it hard to breathe. She took them inside so it was a bit warmer, but he didn't recover and died not long after.

Chirpy however seemed to be doing better though. He was happier inside, so we thought we'd keep him in overnight. Corinna tried letting his mum feed him, and tried feeding him herself, but he wouldn't eat much. He seemed to settle down to sleep anyway, breathing fine and seemed happy enough, but Corinna was woken at 5:30 by his chirping. She tried feeding and warming him but it wasn't long before Chirpy died too.

It's strange, I thought they were both quite healthy and they seemed happy enough yesterday. I guess it was too soon to leave the nest for these two little ones after all. This morning we could hear their mum trying to call out to her babies. It's sad. I buried Jumpy last night. That was quite emotional. Corinna's burying Chirpy nearby this morning.

Thinking about it, their real nest was a little more sheltered than our mocked up one. Plus, ever since they were been born they were huddled with 4 siblings and a parent or two. But mum and dad didn't seem too keen on our nest, and after the first three went, our two little ones were left alone.

I wonder whether we did the right thing in trying to free the one or two that were stuck in the cavity. Would the other babies have been able to complete their nesting period better without being disturbed? Possibly, but I think it wouldn't have been too long before the mum went down there herself anyway, so we would probably have ended up in the same situation anyway.

It's just sad that we didn't realise it wasn't a safe place for a nest earlier. We'll have to fix that now.

I guess I was right when I said before that "at least we've given them a chance now". It was a chance, and even if it was a better chance you still have to accept the remaining risk that it won't go to plan. We would have been happier for ourselves if they had all flown away so we were left with some hope, but as it was we're happier for them that at least they were able to die in warmth and comfort. I felt a bit like a nurse in a hospice without knowing. I have a lot of respect for people in that line of work. It was hard enough with just baby birds!

I just hope the three that flew away are ok...

Well, we've had an amusing morning. The old air vent in our bedroom is boarded up, but there is a slight gap in there and some Bluetits decided to nest there.

All was fine for a couple of weeks, they were quite cute chirping away and it didn't bother us at all. That was until yesterday when one or two babies decided to spread out and explore and managed to drop down a couple of feet into the wall cavity and get stuck there. Initially, because we couldn't think of how to get them out we thought we'd just have to leave them, but Corinna the big softie that she is couldn't live with that so this morning I ended up trying to make a hole for them to get out.

I think what happened next is because I was making a lot of noise with the drill, the babies were getting more distressed, so the mother decided to go down there to comfort them and got trapped herself. Then, as you do, the rest of the babies followed her down from the nest too. So we had all of the family except the dad in our wall, trapped between the bedroom's plasterboard and the external wall...

The mother managed to get out of the hole I made so we had her flapping around our bedroom for a while, headbutting the window, etc., but we managed to encourage her out through the open window (they're not too bright bless 'em). Then I guessed the hole was too high for the babies to jump/fly up to, so (trying hard to avoid injuring any of them!) I gradually made the hole lower and lower by ripping out more and more plasterboard. Still too high and my cordless drill battery runs out of power, but by this time the hole is big enough to use my hacksaw.

Eventually the liveliest of them (probably by climbing on its smaller siblings which they seem to do a lot, reminded me of my childhood...) managed to purch on the edge of the hole and after a minute or so decided to come out. I caught it in a box and put it outside so its mum could feed it, with Corinna standing guard from a distance for cats.

I thought there were only two in there, but after making the hole a bit lower again I could see there were still two in there. The next one again got to the hole, but purched there for ages, a good five minutes. He really didn't want to come out and for some reason he wasn't convinced at all that my wiggley finger was a big fat worm. It was my best worm impression too... In the end I had to give it a bit of a nudge! Having got that out though, I could see there was another three in there!

Corinna got the third one out, so we put all three in the same box, and put that on a high ledge outside. It was quite sweet to see Mum and Dad franticly rushing back and forth to feed them. Up 'til that point they had been very cagey and didn't want to come too close, flying around our heads, churping, purching on nearby trees; probably because mum had been trapped herself earlier.

At that point I had to leave for work. It was 9:40am already and I had a meeting I had to get to at 10am, and it takes at least 20mins (on a flying lap, forgive the pun) to get to work... I got here a little after 10, so it wasn't too bad...

I've just heard from Corinna that she managed to get the rest of them out ok. After putting them all safely in our fake nest they have been really naughty and flown away! She keeps taking them back but it looks like it maybe their time now. (They are only supposed to nest for a couple of weeks anyway, but they are still just little furballs right now and I don't think they could all fly!)

Apparently they have now all moved en masse to next door's garden (yes, the one with 4 cats), but she can't do much for them now if they insist on going back there as soon as she puts them back in the nest. Some are now flying, but not very well. Corinna's called in reinforcements (her mum and dad) to help shoo off the resident magpie...

So there we have it. One sleepless night, a liberated family of daredevil Bluetits, a hole in our bedroom wall, and Corinna's hands covered in poo. We wish we could do more for them (although I personally wouldn't wish for more poo), but at least we've given them a chance now.

Inspired by Matt's massive 90% in the "how st toms are you?" quiz I thought I'd give it a go and got a dismal 45% (though to be fair, I was expecting worse). It said 6 people have the same or lower score than me, so that's ok then...   :)

Having said that, what would be the meaning I got 100%? I'm in the wrong church?

(Ha ha, I gave the quiz a rating of 5 and my score jumped up to 50%!! Was that part of the quiz then; St Tom's people are positive and appreciative?)

Hi, as Paul said we have just come back from Wales. We had a lovely time chillin' and spending time with God and one another. I have felt a bit low since coming back; I have been poorly for the last few days and I suppose coming back down to reality doesn't help.

I now know what school I am going into next. It's one in Otley, sounds really nice and hopefully less behavioral problems than last time!

As part of my course I need to prove that I am at GCSE level in maths, English and science. At the moment I am doing maths and I really don't enjoy it   :(   Never mind, must press on...

I read the Word for Today yesterday and it made a big impact on me. As I have been feeling a bit low and fed up it just reminded me that I must keep going: "we get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going" (2 Corinthians 4:9, NLT).

Well, we had a good time last week over in North Wales. We were at a Christian gathering.

To be honest, it was good just to get a break from work and be somewhere different for a week, and spend some time with Corinna. Plus, I didn't use our shower for the whole week!^†

There were some good meetings too. A guy called Jeff Lucas was one of the main speakers, and I maintain that he is 80% stand up comedian and 20% speaker, so that was fun. A very funny guy.

The weather held out quite well too - I even managed to get a little sunburnt (but that's not saying that much because I get sunburnt easily). We were right next to a long (mostly deserted) beach so we had some nice walks too. And I managed to read a book as well. Yeah, we had a good time.

When we got back, we did a load of gardening (aka weeding) and I even put up 2 shelves that Corinna's been wanting for ages (I must be becoming very domesticated...) - took me 3 hours though!   :)   Had enough time left over for a barbeque, so that was cool. (It was literally cool actually, had to go inside to eat because it's still a bit to early in the year for barbeques...)

^† I went swimming each morning too, so I used the showers at the pool...   :)

Sorry I haven't updated the blog for a few days. Very busy here at work and getting that chess program up and running then tuning it up. Got it done in the end though. A few things I didn't get the chance to say are:

• I have a fancy new haircut styled my my own personal stylist. Yep, I don't do things half-heartedly! (P.S. The stylist's name is Corinna, and I know her quite well...)
• On Sunday, we managed to leave the door open all morning when we went out to church! It wasn't just slightly ajar either - it was about a quarter open. So it was a bit cold in the house when we got back, but when I opened the kitchen door, the alarm did a funny noise and went off. We're still not sure whether it had been going off and waking up everyone early...
• I found a street in Harrogate called "Cold Bath Road" (he he)
• And thanks to me flogging stuff on Amazon (2 things sold so far for a grand total of £12), they are finally making some profit! (Credit to Wassim for the link.)

This is also me (Corinna)... should really get on and do some work instead of taking these silly tests!!

Myers Briggs Test Results


Extroverted (E) 54.84% Introverted (I) 45.16%
Sensing (S) 63.33% Intuitive (N) 36.67%
Feeling (F) 64.29% Thinking (T) 35.71%
Judging (J) 62.86% Perceiving (P) 37.14%

Accuracy: - 5 high 4 3 2 1 low

Your type is: ESFJ


ESFJ - "Seller". Most sociable of all types. Nurturer of harmony. Outstanding host or hostesses. 12.3% of total population.

Your conscious personality is Type 2w1 Your unconscious personality is Type 2w1

Image Icon results:



Scale (|||||||%) results:

We did some gardening over the weekend. I really didn't expect to enjoy it, but I did. Well, when I say gardening, I really just mean ripping up stuff that shouldn't be there, so maybe I was just enjoying the tension release of being destructive (in a constructive kind of way). I lost count at how many bags we filled. Loads! Looking at it, there's still loads more to do, but yeah, enjoyed it...

Again this is me (Corinna)?

Apparently this is me :)     (Corinna)

Finished my three week placement, thoroughly enjoyed it, extremely hard work though. Hoping to go back into the school to help out and do other things if possible. Had a class of 30 mostly boys and most had really bad behavior. The first week I was there I found this side to things really hard and extremely wearing.I Asked God to show me how to really love some of these kids and I believe because of this my attitude changed and there was a real breakthrough with some of the children and I can truly say I walked away from that school loving each child really deeply, more than I thought I could ever love, and I really miss them :( tell you a bit more later C

I am currently on a three week placement, teaching 60% of the time and finding it really tiring, I get in to school at about 7.30 each day set up the things I need for the day, teach most of the day, plan a bit in school, come home, plan more, go to bed... and so it goes on, I have real respect for teachers, they work really hard and a re really committed.
The schooI i am in an inner city school and in my class there are quite a few children with behavior problems, and you end up feeling you are nagging at children all day, I'm not so tired with all the planning etc, it's the nagging and the discipline that wares me out, oh well only 9 days (two weeks to go) I'll let you know if I survive.....

I was only just saying to Corinna while taking her to school that the roads are perfectly safe, even covered with snow and ice as they are. It's all about how you drive. Accidents are caused when people do stupid things... Sure enough, you knew what was going to happen on the way to work! Driving down a country lane (so just enough room for 2 cars, but not windey, these roads are fairly straight) the car in front of me went speeding off leaving a large gap between us. When he got to a corner (quite a tight one, not far off 90 degree) someone in an expensive Alpha Romao or similar came flying round the corner in the other direction. He must have been doing 40mph, which in normal conditions you would have just enough grip for, but obviously in this weather he had no chance! He narrowly missed the car in front of me (they were both going round the corner at same time) but went skidding onto my side of the road and was now flying towards me head-on. I slammed on my brakes, but obviously they weren't much good as I had little grip myself even going in a straight line. I managed the sneakily use the curb/verge edge to slow me down a bit quicker. He steered back for his side of the road and in the end we missed each other safely, but it was still far too close! I was a long way from the corner, but with the lack of grip, I'm thankful for the distance I had.

It doesn't half get your adrenaline going! I was driving at around 30 or 35 (I still a way off starting to slow down for the corner even in this weather - that's how far away from it I was!) so relatively, we were driving towards each other at about 70 or 75mph... It was over in an instant, but my heart was beating hard for a while afterwards...

I see loads of accidents though. Well, not accidents, but the aftermath of them. Only yesterday there was a taxi in a ditch about 100metres from work. The day before, I got diverted down some other country lanes because a lorry had crashed on the main road. Quite often there's big queues on the way home as the police bring a big main road down to one lane (stopping traffic in one direction) because of a crash. In fact, one of our roads here made it onto Top Gear's top 10 roads in the country for accidents... From what I can see, it's always because somebody has done something stupid, like a stupid overtaking maneuver or something. But I still maintain the roads are safe if people drive responsibly. It's just a pity that some don't.

Corinna was getting a lift into Uni with a friend yesterday. As they were coming up to a junction at a responsible 20mph (or so she says), her friend applied the brakes 'lightly' and managed to do a 180 degree spin! No one was hurt and no cars were hit or anything. Fun though init when you can feel the car doing the opposite of what you want?!

She's just been into School to see what her second teaching placement will be like too. The teacher and school are very nice apparently, but it takes quite a while to get there (up to an hour). The class sounds like it might be a bit boisterous as well; apparently they are a bit misbehaved at times. Corinna's response was: 'oh well, it'll be a challenge...' :)

When leaving work to go to footie last night, I tried to open the driver's door on the car but it wouldn't open. It was unlocked and everything, but it just wouldn't budge. So I increased the amount of force I was applying slightly (as you do) and the door opened ok. I started up the engine and started clearing the snow from the windscreen.

I got back into the car and put my seatbelt on, and I was about to start driving off when I noticed my door was still open?! Well, it was closed, but it was registering as open on the dashboard. I gave it a gentle push and it just opened! It wasn't clicking shut at all! Argh! I went outside to try the handle but that was all limp as though it wasn't connected to anything. I thought I must have broken something in the door. I tried fiddling with the lock mechanism, nothing was happening. I tried spraying anti-freeze stuff in there, nothing happened. I tried the remote central locking a few times, but each time it appeared to work (it looked the doors) but 2 seconds later it unlocked itself again!

I got back into the car and sat there for a bit wondering what I should do. I can probably get to footie ok (by holding the door shut!) because it's only round the corner, but I can't just leave the car in the car park with one door open! Then I started thinking, well, what about getting home? I can't go to a garage as they'll all be shut. I don't know how to fix a door, and I can't call out the RAC or anything (they won't help you if you're parked at home)...

So I drove round to footie thinking 'Maybe it is frozen up or something and it will work later' but when I got there it still wasn't working. The engine had been on for a good 10 or 15 minutes now. By this point I was worrying what I should do. I tried fiddling a bit more with the lock mechanism and nothing was happening at all. So I got back into the car and started praying hard. (Your prayer life always increases when things like this happen!) After about a minute (footie was about to start, and you can't be late for these things, so I desperately needed it to work right now) I tried it and it worked perfectly, as though nothing was ever wrong with it! Wow - relief! I tried it a few times just to make sure...

Then I remembered what my dad had told me sometime before: if the lock freezes up, just give it a while to warm up and it should be ok... :)

I removed the snow from the windscreen and lights and whathaveyou, but there was still some loose snow on the bonnet and roof of the car. As soon as I hit 40mph on the way to work, I was enveloped in my own personal snow storm. Cool. Now I know what it feels like to be a comet... Not sure the car behind appreciated how cool it was though!

The traffic was pretty bad too. Added to that, some roadworks are being done on the main road I usually take, causing massive queues. So this morning I decided to take some back country lanes to skip most of it... That was quite amusing in this weather! :) Still, I got here ok.

We've got the car all sorted now. In the end, we did a swap with Mum and Dad for their old Citroen ZX and they traded in our Cloe against their new car, so it's all worked out quite well. Only cost us the difference between the trade-in prices of the two cars, so it's saved us a small fortune.

The only odd thing was that the insurance papers came through saying I've had my licence for 7 years. In fact, it's only been just under 3, so I was a little worried it would push the (already pretty high) premium up even futher when I told them, but fortunately it hasn't. Cool...

We've just dropped Matt and Jo off at the train station (though we couldn't actually navigate our way round the new one-way system to take them directly to it). Had a really nice weekend just relaxing together and playing PES3 (co-op master league, which is good fun) as much as possible. We managed to play a season (from the start) with loads of wonga left over and having bought Pele! Not sure how good he will be, or whether he'll fit in with our team of Koreans... :)

Anyway, we're off to pick up Matt and Jo from Matt's footie match against a nearby team. They're coming over for the weekend, so that should be good...