Down the Bog

As a once divorced person myself I found this news item quite an interesting read. It’s a UK survey claiming that 59% of women and 51% of men don’t love their spouses.

Those make astonishing figures but I’m always a little careful to take surveys that seriously even though they are meant to be representative of the population. But certainly it’s no surprise to see that couple’s are struggling because the divorce rate is so high and presumably there aren’t any figures concerning unmarried couples with long-term relationships and the break up rates that affect them.

Still, anyone who’s been in a relationship of any length knows that it can’t stay perfect all of the time and that there can be periodic difficulties. I think that the secret there is to realize this and appreciate the value of always working at the relationship when we feel able. Sometimes it’s not within us to do this because of our mindset at the time but there has to be the resolve to get past that and rebuild because a relationship lost is normally gone forever as one or both partner’s will inevitably move on.

I have one failed marriage behind me and I’m not proud of that especially as we have loved children from that marriage. I’m now married for the second time and reading such astonishing figures like this remind me of the importance of always working at the relationship and not risking letting it slip away.

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I’ve just been looking at some Youtube videos online and when I do that I quite often take a look at the comments underneath to see what other people make of the video clip. If there’s one big, enormous thing that I cannot stand it’s when a contributor leaves a comment in text speak. It’s lazy and ignorant.

Text speak originates from text messages with cell phones where because the length of the message is limited and typed on a phone pad it’s become the normal thing to abbreviate the words. So something like “see you at eight mate” becomes “c u at 8 m8″.

But why oh why oh why oh why are there idiots out there who with a full keyboard and computer in front of them insist on using such text language for others to read when they leave comments? Don’t they realize that any sensible person will disregard what they’ve said because it’s so awkward to read? It’s as bad (if not worse) than when people do write with proper words but have never heard of paragraphs. Then the reader is confronted with a large amount of text that is just one big blur in front of the eyes.

Just because someone is typing on an internet forum or whatever it happens to be it’s no excuse to not make a proper effort in ensuring that it is reasonably easy for other people to read.

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Here we are then comfortably into 2008 and it’s been a while since I last blogged. I don’t know why it’s been so long but December certainly was a busy month for us (as it is for everyone) and it’s amazing that we’re nearly half-way through January. I sense another year of my life slipping by much too quickly!

We said goodbye to our broken Dodge Caravan today as it got towed away to the metal scrap dealer. I almost felt emotional when the guy with the tow truck said that this time tomorrow it will have been though the crusher. Okay, I didn’t really feel emotional because that would be silly but I certainly miss not having the vehicle to use. It was so roomy and now we just have a regular family sized car that moves us around but not much else. One day we’ll get another nice mini van.

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I think that I’m about thirty pounds heavier than I should be and that’s been the case for several years although in 2003 I applied myself to a calorie controlled diet and managed to lose those thirty pounds before coming off the diet and putting it all back on again!

Being this much overweight also makes me technically obese although I don’t feel as though I’m that big but maybe that’s half the problem. Still, I am bothered by being overweight and I know that to keep healthy I should try again to do something about it.

My heart goes out to the people out there that are very heavy and I’m talking about maybe a hundred or more pounds heavier than they should be. That must feel so oppressive. Some critics would say that they are that way because of greed but I’m not so sure. There are so many issues to deal with in this complicated world that we live in that I’m certain that excessive weight gain is all tied up within it and that food is more of an addiction than just a desire.

When it comes to a must-lose-weight situation I’m not sure what to think about the surgical solutions offered such as a gastric bypass which allows food to bypass some of the small intestine and make the eater feel fuller quicker. It seems so invasive and not quite right to try and stop some of the normal digestive system from doing it’s job. But I was interested to read of another option called gastric banding and what is known as the Lap Band system. This is when a special band is placed around the upper part of the stomach which forms a smaller pouch and a narrow passage leading to the larger stomach.

The idea here is to create a feeling of being full after eating just a small amount of food because of the small pouch and the narrower passage that leads to the stomach. The food travels down slowly and is digested properly because no part of the digestive system has been by by passed.

The other very important thing to note is the procedure used for this surgery. It’s all done with small incisions and one of those tiny cameras which is less invasive and lowers the risk of complications along with a quicker after surgery recovery. The procedure is fully reverseable and it’s claimed can result in a loss of one to pounds per week.

It seems terrible to me that folks may need to consider such an option but with the ever increasing obesity levels especially in the western world it seems like more people will have to think seriously about consulting a lap band physician as a way to help with a serious and life threatening weight condition but it also seems like a promising route in the right circumstances.

Sensible diet along with daily physical activity should be the way to go for all of us but if somehow our lives take us in a different direction I find it encouraging to see the route that surgery can offer.

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I use an MP3 player every day when I’m at work as it occupies my mind on things other than the mundane work related tasks in hand. I tend to download podcasts from the BBC website as it helps me stay in touch with what’s going on back in the UK. Maybe it’s because I still miss home so much but I much prefer what UK radio has to offer rather than Canadian radio and thank goodness for the internet and online radio streaming is what I say!

I’ve never been into all the Ipod thing because they’re so expensive and I don’t want to be walking around with such expense in my pocket being knocked about by whatever. They might be very robust things but I’ve never been inclined to spend that kind of cash when there are so many cheaper alternatives.

Up until last week when it started to go wrong I was using an RCA brand but after eighteen months of steady use it started to play up. All of the buttons acted as an off button so if I wanted to skip a track or turn up the volume it would simply switch off.

So I’ve now bought another “cheapie” from Walmart. A 1gb model with the brand of Diamond on it for thirty dollars. Unfortunately it only lasted two days before it completely stopped working so maybe it was a little too cheap. Still, Walmart changed it without any problem so I’m back in business for now and we’ll just have to see how it goes. Gotta have me MP3 player!

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Oh good then. We’ve just had a nice big dump of snow which I’m delighted about for mid November. Last winter we avoided the disgusting stuff until the new year but not so lucky this time eh?

We’re just entering winter number four since arriving in Canada and to think that before we got here I was really excited about having a snowy season. Well, not any more! The first winter eased my excitement rapidly and now I simply dread it when the winter sets in. It seems like every time I need to venture outside I have to put loads of layers on to keep warm and everything becomes an epic.

Last night I also had the pleasure of finding the car doors completely frozen up so I had to get hot water to pour around the door and break the frozen seal. It did the trick but I was well aware that pouring water over the door surround would only encourage it to freeze up again.

It’s due to get a little warmer tomorrow so I’m hoping for a thaw and then to see no more snow until at least another month. But am I optimistic? Not a chance!

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Being married for the second time I have three grown-up daughters from my first marriage. The youngest one is still at school (just!) and I’m grateful that they’ve never been a problem in getting to school. In actual fact although like any parent I’ll have had my moans and groans about them they’ve really been very good children that have grown up into great adults. I’ve a lot to be proud of.

So I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a child who’s a real handful and especially a teenager that refuses to go to school. It presents a real problem for the school and parents because of the legal responsibility for children to attend school and of course because successful attendance and participation in school is of vital importance to prepare for adult life.

Dawn Joyce, a woman in the UK has just been jailed for two weeks because of her daughter’s continued failure to attend school. Jailing a parent involved in this kind of situation is considered the last resort after everything else has been tried but honestly, what can such a thing achieve? Is this going to make the daughter suddenly repent and see the error of her ways? It might do I suppose but if it doesn’t then what next? For a youngster to consistently miss so much school suggests deep seated problems that may well prove to be insurmountable but is a jail term for the Mum going to fix it?

A couple of a weeks ago I listened to a debate on the radio about overcrowding in UK prisons because increasingly offenders are being given jail terms. There are limited places so it’s suggested that alternative sentences need to be found for offenders who are not a threat to the public and that makes sense to me. Maybe those that aren’t a threat should be forced to stay at home in the evenings and overnight while during the day have community service that compels them to physically work hard. It’s a thought.

However, sending parents to jail who’s children play truant isn’t going to ease the overcrowding problem.

I don’t know the answer in getting persistent truants to school. I remember kids at my school that often failed to turn up because it’s an age old problem and maybe there will always be children that will grow up to have miserable adult lives because of their lack of application in attending school. On the hand maybe they go on to have very successful lives.

But in a country such as the UK where teenagers as young as fourteen can go on the contraceptive pill without their parents knowing (patient confidentiality and all that) then maybe those same kids have to accept full responsibilty for failure to attend school and the legal consequences such as they are.

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We went up to Montreal last weekend to see Nicola’s family and whenever we take a trip out like that I try to wash the car beforehand. It’s funny when I think about it because I doubt anybody else cares or notices that it’s been cleaned and in fact I’m sure they don’t but I still like do it. So I vacuumed the inside out and washed the car and it felt nice to have done it. I’d been very good that morning because I had also vacuumed around the house earlier so all was right with the world.

Once we’d embarked on our journey Nicola mentioned to me that she’d had a moment of frustration as she’d climbed the stairs to go to the bathroom because she could hear one of the kiddies complaining and yet I was still outside washing the car. Was it really so important she’d thought to herself?

Then she had the honesty to admit that she’d gone to the bathroom to apply a little more than usual make-up because thats what she liked to do before visiting friends or family. So it was interesting wasn’t it? She applies a little more make-up and I wash the car. That’s our routine before we go visiting.

It’s all about getting our priorities right. 

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We were reversing out of our drive last week and Nicola commented about the house number displayed on our mail box. She said that we needed to change it because it looked so drab. I’d not really thought about it until she drew my attention to the problem but I could see that she was right.

Our conversation got me to thinking about what kind of address plaque we might like to use. Since then I’ve taken the opportunity to see what kind of address plaques other people have for their homes and there’s quite a variety out there.

The most striking I’ve seen are those that are mounted onto a rock. It turns the address marker into a real feature and catches the eye. No longer does the name or number just serve a purpose for the mailman, delivery driver and (heaven forbid) emergency services to easily find where you live but it becomes a rather nice feature to the home.

The only possible problem with this idea is getting hold of a thousand pound rock. It’s inconvenient and probably very expensive to arrange.

Artificial Rocks Factory have a way around that. They supply very life-like rocks that are just a mere fifty to sixty pounds in weight but look like they should be much heavier. They aren’t made from fibre glass or anything like that but from construction grade cast stone which makes them much more natural in apperance.

The twenty different models that are available are hollow, about one inch thick and have an opening at the bottom. When I first saw this I wondered what would stop someone taking a liking to an artificial rock and maybe just picking it up, popping it into their truck and driving off from your front garden. Fortunately an anti-theft eye bolt is cast inside the rock so that it can be made secure.

The best way to see what’s available is to look at the rocks on the website where they can be seen with a 360 degree view so that all of the features can be appreciated. They really look very stylish and with a mounted home address plaque featuring numbers or letters in gold on a black background I just love the idea of it as a way to welcome visitors to our home.

It occurs to me that an artificial rock would make a great Christmas gift for folks that really take a pride in their home and what an original idea it would be too!

It’s funny how a little comment about the numbers on our mail box could turn into plans for having a rather nice feature added to our front garden in the form of an address rock. Sometimes you have to think outside of the box and in this case it was the mailbox!

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Here’s a strange story. It concerns a man who was charged and found guilty of “a sexually aggravated breach of the peace by conducting himself in a disorderly manner and simulating sex.” Or to put it another way he was attempting to have simulated sex with a bicycle.I really did do one of those double-takes when I read about this story. One, because in this bizarre world in which we live I still can’t imagine the circumstances of where one would be sexually attracted to a push-bike and two, the circumstances that could have led to this individual finding himself in court and ending up on the sex offenders register!

We’re reliant on what we read so there might be more to this but if you do read the account you’ll notice that the guy was attempting this feat in the privacy of his own locked room at a hostel and it only came to light when two cleaners chose to unlock the door because they couldn’t get his attention and feared for his well being.

So I am confused as to what offence has been committed. I can understand the shock of the cleaners once they unlocked the door but to be fair he was trying to do whatever he was doing in private and clearly hadn’t expected an audience. His defence was that he was drunk and it’s true that people (or bikes I suppose) can appear to be more attractive to those intoxicated but I’d have thought that a better defence would have been that he was in the privacy of his own room. Would an offence have been committed if he’d been caught with shall-we-say a more orthodox…ahem… sex toy?

It’s all very dodgy stuff you know and way beyond my understanding. I don’t want to belittle a sex crime because goodness knows there are too many innocent victims around the world but in this case? The guy is now on the sex offenders register for molesting a bicycle and I was going to say for getting caught doing it. But until his private space was invaded he was in the privacy of his own locked room and on his own.

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