A-pop-t(i)g-ma wouldn't wanna be ya!

And so, after two and a half years, I reckon it's time to stop the blog. I don't want to carry this on into the next chapter, particularly if I fail spectacularly in the new job; I sure don't wanna catalogue my failures here and I reckon also I'm gonna be too busy to spend any time on apoptygma
If I can para-phrase Dante for a moment, and I believe I can, then I'd like to leave you with this, I heard the other day on ST - Voyager (season 5).

In that blog which is my memory, on the first page of the chapter, that is the day when I first met you, appear the words, 'here begins a new life'

End transmission

The Vine

Went out last night, to my first and last works social. Got hammered, natch. So, this morning I decided to work from home, well, why not? Tonight, I’m out again with the boys in a dodgy boozah on London Bridge…not my choice I have to say and there are plans afoot to make tracks away from it as soon as we all meet up in there.
I’ve not heard a peep from my new best Ware chum since our night out last week and I’m wondering if I said summat to upset the cunt but I can’t think what. Ah well, the thing with making new mates is…well…I wouldn’t know as I’m crap at it but I’m sure there’s a homely and reassuring phase or saying about making mates easily and often, so I’m comforted

The trains and boats and planes Took you away, away from me

Took delivery of some furniture yesterday, a new swivel chair and hide-a-way PC desk. I managed to put together the chair, the complicated item, but left the easy cabinet for the missus, she likes to make herself useful, so leaving her small projects like this fulfils her enormously. Needless to say, I'll have to unpick her efforts at a later date, put the doors on straight, put the back panel on the right side and so on but I'm willing to do this for her.

While she was banging away at it, I agreed to give the baby smasher a bath, I already noticed he'd done a packet and was fed up waiting for the missus to sort it, so, by giving him a bath, I could do two tasks in one fell swoop..clean and change baby...something I've been trying instil in the missus from day one, muti-task love...but anyway...

So, down come his trousers and sure enough his erse was covered in sticky poo...Quick, I said to the elder smash, Poo Alert!! go get me some wet wipes, as I figured I'd clean him up a little before dunking him in the bath....and off he runs, searching for the wet wipes like......
So...I'm waiting, trying to hold it all together, making sure the baby didn't start poking around behind himself, trying not to let poo onto the bathroom floor or into my hand...waiting....
Fed up waiting I order the baby to stand still and rush off to get the bloody wet wipes myself, easily found, in the change bag by the front door....So, I sort baby out, bung he in the bath and go off to have a pop at elder smash for failing in his duty...but where the feck is he?...I go upstairs and he's in his bedroom playing with his trains!! Oi I say, where's the wet wipes then?...I'm covered in poo and foam...and he looks at me, blinks and says, wet wipes daddy?...I tell ya, that boy, his concentration span is shorter than a...I dunno where he gets it from...shorter than...a...

Hey! I had 2 emails all day yesterday and one of those was from myself, emailing me a picture from the phone...I reckon I'm being side-lined here and my mate has to buy a sodding book teaching him how to open Outlook and read/delete his mails..2 emails, reckon I'll spend today emailing people for no reason in the hope they'll respond

It's all in the technique...I tell 'em

I'm gobbling for the kids...turkey see...gobble gobble...

Making new friends

The missus has got this bee in her bonnet about me not having any friends in Ware, why can't I be more sociable? how is it she has made loads of new mates and I've not made one?....I point out to her that a: she meets lots of people, Oh, I dunno in the supermarket, at the school, coffee mornings, toddler groups and so on whereas I don't. Simple. and B:...see "a"...
Still though, she says, you really ought not to be so unsociable, people will talk...so with this in mind the other week at the Ware quiz night I spied a potential friend, easily spotted as he was trying, and failing, to keep up with my enormous wine consumption. Hullo I thought, if he keeps this up all night he's bagged himself a new fried. At the end of the night, hugging each other, we exchanged email addresses. All pathetic of course, as the missus pointed out to me the next morning, so embarrassing, but a few days later, he emails me! A-ha!! I said, see, I can make friends...
Anyway, on Friday we met up and went drinking...moaned about married life, the lack of sex...you know, normal married man stuff. A Good night.
Saturday we decided to spend some money on furniture, money we don't have on furniture we don't need, but what the fuck, we were at a loose end.
Sunday, we went to a local farm, one of those kiddie ones and after hit a nearby boozah by the river. Lovely day, burnt my face and got slightly tipsy. Pictures to follow.

...and finally.

On Monday I resigned. Been a bit of a roller-coater ride these last few weeks, juggling interviews, second interviews, holidays, sickness, work and family. I've been offered a position in a company based in the West of England, down the M4. They wanted me to re-locate but the missus wasn't having any of it so this company and I carried on talking until we decided I could divide my time by remote working, working from client sites and commuting. Finally, after 2 and a half years since starting this blog, the end is it sight, I'm leaving.

You get the idea...Venice, done and done!

Here we are, The grand Canal innit, captured in rare moment when the sun came out

Venice - check-in

Venice. Got to airport in plenty of time, just as well too...we're in the queue and the missus says she needs the bog, fine I say, I move us forward, looking at some wanker in front of us, with scruffy hair and clothes, typical waster I'm thinking, I look at the birds in the queue next to me, I'd like to give them one.....she's gone a while, but when she comes back, I'm what, 4 or 6 people away from checking in and boy, am I looking forward to a coupla pints after we check in...but I calculate I can pop along to the bog myself before check in so I say to the missus that I'll be back in a thrice!...when, what's this?, I rub my eyes when I'm walking back from the bog, some bird, at the back of a very long queue, is wearing the same clothes as the missus! I'll have to tell her, she'll be cross someone's copying her "style"...same hair cut too....and I walk passed this look-a-like on the way to the front of the queue see...but this look-a-like calls my name out and I spin round, what! the lookie like IS the missus, what-the-bloody hell...and she says.."don't ask"...so, knowing I'll spoil Venice before we even board the plane, I don't...and I still don't know how she managed to get herself from the front of check-in to the back in the few minutes I left her alone. Needless to say, I missed the beers and had only moments to board the fucking plane before it took off without us!...but I digress....Venice...pictures to follow

The Shootist

Today is my birthday.
38 years ago The Monkees and The Beatles were the new Blur v's Oasis and the top film's were "Bonnie and Clyde", "The Graduate" and "In the Heat of the Night", the internet's great isn't it?
Just think, my mother would've come out of the local flea pit, having just watched "Cool Hand Luke" walking home with my father, getting a last pint in at the local, paying the babysitter off and putting on Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale" for the hundredth time and dancing in the living room, stopping when they can feel me kicking inside her...and there I was born, in that flat in Greenford, choking my way into life...Now my father's in an OAP home and my mothers been dead for ten years. Amazing, life and that.

Friday I'm off to Venice with the missus for the weekend, a special treat, costing a fortune and will probably be closed due to the pope dying and everything...still, they can't close the views, can they? I bought myself a swanky new phone too, it's got a camera, video, games...MP3 even...wonder if I can download "Whiter Shade of Pal
e" onto it from iTunes?..

So-called mates

Out Friday night, local quiz night to raise money for that AID thing; run by a pair of screaming queens. Good night, I had to ask the missus the next morning if we'd won or lost. I'm ashamed to say that after drinking 3, yes 3, bottles of wine the second half of the evening isn't so much of a blur and a void, complete darkness.
Needless to say the missus couldn't wait for me to open my pisshole-in-the-snow eyes the next morning to remind me just how embarrassed she was by my behaviour the night before. I groaned and rolled over, eventually getting out of bed around lunchtime.
Nearly bailed out of a meeting with my so-called mates in St Albans, I just wasn't feeling right, but I didn't want to let them down, so drove over and by the time we hit the fist boozah I was like a new man...a thirsty new man too.
Best mate let us down, by not showing up, was "painting" he reckons, which is obviously more important than seeing his mates like...ah well, will see him on 22nd...
6 hours later, there's 3 very drunk people around me, one get's himself off to find a train while we carry on back at me so-called mates flat. Another dropped out watching Dr Who leaving me and his missus but soon, she too retired to bed, after having kicked a full bottle of red wine over her new carpet, then pouring half a bottle of white over that. Drink the rest Steve, dunt leave it. So I did and a couple of hours later I was at the laptop doing my Sunday morning overtime work. Drove home 9:30am in time to take the smashers to the park for a kick-a-bout, then lunch, some Star Trek - Voyager, a sleep and later dinner, sex and early bed. Nice.

I'm skint, I have a date, I'll be hungover, I'm too lazy, I...

I get in nice and early as usual this morning, 6:15am, sitting in the car park, contemplating my future, watching the trains go by until, bored with myself, I summon up the energy to hit the gym. I reach for me kit bag, anticipating knocking out a few km's on the cross trainer, burning off some calories and toning up me muscles when...oh no!...I've only gone and left me gym bag at home this morning!...I wonder if I have something else on my mind...Decide to come in and crack on with some work instead, well, I say work, I mean blog of course...

Busy weekend ahead, tonight is a local quiz night, bring yir own booze...The missus said to me last night, what shall I get for you in the way of refreshments and I said a box of wine!...she said, no way, I'll get you a bottle...and a bottle for me too and I said, why not just get a box then?...I dunno, something to do with impressing her new friends by not untapping a box of liebfraumilch in front of them, or summat...And tomorrow, I'm meeting up with my so-called mates for a beer. We were all gonna meet in Ware, few beers by the river in the sun. nice. but no, me so-called rang the other night and said, could we make it St Albans instead, his wife didn't want him drinking in Ware. with me. or something, I dunno, I said, (sigh) sure, whatever...
The other so-called seems to have bailed out. again. The thought of travelling anywhere at the weekend fills him with laziness and has come up with some ingenious and frankly unbelievable excuses for not being there, some of which are in the title above....Whatever, we'll have the chance and the time to slag him off instead...much needed time too.