The Bearded Assassin returns

With no job on the horizon and boredom surging through my veins, Ive decided to have another attempt at a beard (such is the rollercoaster life of the unemployed).

I'm 1 week in and things are looking ok. Week 3 is the acid test because thats when it got itchy last time and had to get it shaved off (at 4.00 am Monday morning I might add).
Alas I feel Im a flogging to nothing here but my indefatigable pursuit of hirsute is admirable and should serve as a example to all those yearn to grow a beard...
enclosed is 'Beard: Take 2: week 1...













Bearded Assassin returns: progress update!!
This beard thing really is the way forward. Ive been getting some rather admiring glances from the ladies in the Post Office queue....
enclosed is 'Beard: Take 2: week 2...










Bearded Assassin returns: The final Hurrah!
The great Beard experiment has finally drawn to a close. After 4 weeks of sturdy growth I have had a shave. To emphasis how pathetic my beard had become, wifey didnt notice I had shaved it off until fully 5 hours later when we were going to bed. I retire, beaten but not disgraced.




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Father and Son bonding (its all about the family)

As its currently half term, my son decided he would like to stop the night and chill with the old man.

With wifey off to work the following morning I thought about how best to entertain my son for the day. I did my contemplating in bed with my eyes closed until 12.30. I finally got up, needled into action by the errie silence from downstairs. I needn’t have concerned myself…Jake had busied himself with playing on the PS3. Not one to interrupt, I left him to it as I shuffled into the kitchen for brunch.

I returned in with some nutritious toast and biscuits and 2 cuppas and then belly-splashed fonzy style on the couch. For the next 3 hours I coached goaded and instructed Jake through various levels of this game before getting bored and sloping off to put up that chest of drawers that I’d been meaning to do for days…..

Then off to the Park Inn to shoot some pool. Which turned into snooker coz the pool cue ball was missing. Mutual frustration at not being able to pot anything and the game soon degenerated into snooker belt-em-up, thrashing the ball as hard as we could in the hope of a fluke pot. This whiled away another couple of hours.

When we had tired of that our minds turned to food so it was a short jaunt up to the Golden Arches (aka Maccy-D’s) for some healthy dinner.

On the way home Jake decided he would like me to show him some chords on the guitar. Well I’m pretty poor as most who have heard me will testify, but Jake can’t play a note and in the land of the blind the one eyed man is King.

Finally, at 9ish, 1 hour later than I’d said to Jake I would take him home and 3 hours later than I said to him mum I’d bring him home, I took Jake home. He loved it and is already talking about stopping over again before he goes back to school.

There’s too much emphasis these days on father and son bonding sessions and ‘heart-to-hearts’.
Although nothing constructive came of this inpromtu day, sometimes father and son need to just kick back and slob out.

So, is this a good example of 'right-on' parenting? Probably not.
Would this have been allowed to happen if wifey had been with us? Not a chance.
Did we have a good time? Damn right we did

The Bearded Assassin (my failed attempt to grow a beard)

During my sabbatical I have taken it upon myself to grow a beard. Why? I don’t know. But I can grow a beard such is my want, now that I don’t have to be concerned with such trivial matters as work since joining the massed ranks of the unemployed.

The results are disappointing. After 18 days, all I have achieved is a tramp makeover. What’s worse, I actually have some lovely blond whiskers which frustrates me further, as a decent blond beard is the stuff of surf folklore.

Instead of looking sagacious and philosophical, I look like a hobo.

I’m going to persevere until next Tuesday so that at least I can look back in my twilight years and recall ‘The time I had a beard’ or to me more accurate, ‘The time I didn’t shave for 3 weeks’

Lazy Days....(bumming about when youre unemployed)

For those of you that don’t know, I am a self employed IT contract manager, which probably doesn’t mean much to the uninitiated so I shall briefly explain. In short, I’m paid by companies on a 3 month rolling contractual basis to prove new software is working correctly before it’s used in anger.

Anyhoo, I have just finished a 14 month stint in the south of England which involved a daily commute on the train of 3 hours each way. I’d rise at 5.30am and would not get back home until 7.30pm. By January I was a barely human somnambulist shuffling from station to work to station to bed. Now that’s over, I find myself at a hiatus. I’ve decided to take some extended leave and get back to feeling human again.

I’m currently 2 weeks into this sabbatical and already I’m feeling quite chipper again. I know this because I’ve begun doing little experiments around the house. The latest experiment is making briquettes from old newspapers. We have 2 wood-burners in our house and its fantastic this time of year to snuggle in front of a roaring fire. But I want to be more eco-friendly, so I’ve been running some experiments withhold newspapers. Now the method is simple; soak said papers in water for about 1 hour, them compress them and leave to dry for 4-5 days. Volia! Renewable slow-burning fuel. I’ve been working on 2 models, one using the loaf tins wifey uses for making bread and the other simply squashed in my hand to make a poo-shaped briquette.

Both burned quite well last night on the fire so I’m upping production. Wifey isn’t so happy about this experiment, because when the plumber came around to fix my botch job on the kitchen he asked about said briquettes festooned all about the house drying out and I told him nonchalantly ‘Oh those belong to the wife – I’ve no idea what they’re for’

Hello!

I am a 40 something bon-viveur and would be raconteur. Variously boyish and childish, thoughtful and thoughtless but to name a few traits; suffice it to say, I have many good points and many many bad ones. I was born in Jersey in the Channel Isles but now currently live in Telford England, with my lovely wife and (on a part time basis) my fantastic son.

So who am I? I can best describe myself as a pessimistic optimist. ‘That’s not possible!!” I hear you cry in unision, (with the more astute amonst you also commeting '....thats an oxymoron!'). So let me try to explain. For me, the glass begins quite full but sooner or later ends up as dry as if left out in the midday sun for a week. The transition from ‘quite full’ to ‘bone dry’ can best be described thus: For the most part, I follow my pre-programmed approach to life that follows five basic steps: (adjectives added for additional clarity)
Joyous optimism.
Deflated realisation
Dumbfounded inertia
Anger and self loathing
Pessimistic acceptance

Of course I don’t follow all five stages in linear progression. For example, the other day I wanted to fit a new sink and drainage pipe in my kitchen. I knew in theory how to do it but stage one was rapidly replaced by stage two and then stage three when I realised I didn’t have the tools for the job with me trying to figure what kitchen utensils could double up as work-tools. A few scraped knuckles and stabbed thumbs later and I’m on stage four. The evening ended in my lonely lament to myself (and the 24 hour emergency plumber) of how cruel life was to me (Stage five).

On the other hand, yesterday, I tried to dig the trench outside the house for the waste pipe. (Stage one). As the club hammer skewed off the kitchen knife that was doubling up as a chisel, and into my index finger, the remaining four stages happened simultaneously. I lingered on stages two and three (Deflated realisation and Dumbfounded inertia) for some time as I viewed the blood blister on my finger. Woe (again) is me....

So, this roadmap to my life has served me well these last forty years. Indeed, there but for the grace of God go I. And before this turns into a diatribe, I will move swiftly on….

My son. What a fantastic lad he is. In many regards a chip off the old block, but blessed with a much more pleasant demeanour and a fantastic attitude to life. It’s like all the bits that make up the sum of me have been put in a giant sieve and the bad bits taken out. We have such fun (especially as he is now old enough to understand and appreciate smutty childish humour – something to which I am most adept)

And finally, my lovely wife, or ‘wifey’ as I like to call her (‘wifey-woo’, when we are using that silly, childish made up speak that partners do for each other as tokens of affection when they’ve long stopped swinging from the chandeliers). I love my wifey dearly and really do believe that she is my soul mate. Now I know that this term is oft overused but for clarity; in my mid thirties, I had accepted that life relationships were simply about having fun with beautiful women until you basically got too old. Then, you simply married the one you were with and hoped for the best. Thankfully fate intervened. I’ve been married for eighteen months and we have been together for 5 years and not once have I ever regretted it. I hope she feels the same because Lord knows; I have the capacity to try the patience of a saint. And Saintly that she is, wifey accepts me warts and all.