Down the Bog

We went to the Ottawa Children’s Hospital yesterday for a consultation with regard to our son Jake. Jake is three years old and has some development issues including not yet having started to speak. In general his communication skills have been poor and his play limited and not constructive. So we’d already prepared ourselves for the possibility of Autism and indeed the Doctor that we saw gave us the same opinion. We sat there during the consultation answering lots of questions and also allowing for the Doctor to watch Jake. Even taking into account the fact that Jake wasn’t in his usual home enviroment there wasn’t any real doubt over his conclusion.

So there we are. At least we know that Jake has a situation in his life where he is going to need extra assistance from us and also the professional help that’s available. When I feel down about it I must admit to wondering just how rocky the road ahead might be. But I’m determined to be upbeat because it’s also a road ahead that offers real excitement as we know that Jake has the oppertunity to grow and continue (along with all our other children) to make our lives so special.

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Regular visitors to this blog (you know who you are) will notice a change of presentation. I was forced to pick a new style because a fellow blogger kindly pointed out that if the site was viewed in Mozilla then things began to look a little wild and whacky towards the bottom of the page.

As an occasional Mozilla user I was surprised at myself for not previously checking this but I was horrified when I saw just how bad it looked. I set out to find a new theme and had some difficulty in finding one that I liked and also looked good in Mozilla aswell as Internet Explorer and Opera. My other (better) half, Nicola came to the rescue and found a new theme that would work and I’m very grateful to her. This seems to work well in all three browsers and that’s exactly how it should be as I’m anxious to attract new readers to the blog and I don’t want them to be chased away by problems I should have been aware of.

Anyway I’m pleased with how the new look is working and although a little more tweaking is required I like to think it’s looking pretty good!

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I’ll be forty-six in a couple of months time and it really feels like the time is accelerating. Just yesterday I was forty and now fifty seems like just around the corner. Still, on the other hand it’s only a number and although I can’t turn back the clock or magic away just how stiff my knees feel first thing in the morning I do know that inside I still feel like I’m just a puppy.

As everyone knows Youtube is an amazing resource and quite by accident I came across the opening titles from a few of the shows that were on TV without fail every summer holiday period in the UK. I guess possibly it’s the late sixties and certainly during the seventies that I’m thinking of. Anyone of my generation will know what I mean by checking these links out and going back in an instant to that time in our lives when we were likely enough to not have a care in the world. Just listening to the music will take those who remember to a different place.

Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe 2

White Horses

The Double Deckers

The Banana Splits

Casey Jones

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I’ve got quite a tendancy to go to bed late. It’s really not uncommon for me to finally collapse around 1am and immediately regret having left it so late. I always vow that the next night will lead to a much more appropriate bed time but there we are the next day comes to an end and there I am staggering up the stairs at an hour past midnight.

I don’t really know why I’ve got into such a habit and I do consider it to be a bad habit because of something someone told me many years ago. An old friend of mine said that every hour of sleep gained before midnight is worth two after. I think that makes sense and to be honest I do worry about the long term damage that might be cause by not getting adequate sleep over a sustained period of time. Do we really know that we aren’t causing ourselves long term damage? Before I moved over to Canada I used to have a job in England that meant getting up just after 5am and seeing as I didn’t normally go to bed until midnight that typically meant no more than five hours every night. I did that for years and that can’t have been good for me. Nowadays I work afternoons and evenings so I get longer nights but that just makes it more tempting to stay up late.

One of the things that I have noticed though is if I go to bed at a reasonable time and end up getting a good eight hours then I tend to be that much more aware of my dreams but if I go to bed a lot later and my night is shorter then I don’t remember anything. That leads me to one of the benefits to late retirement to bed. If it’s 1am then I collapse and I am out like a light but if it’s 11pm then I toss and turn and it seems to take a while. Nicola told me that she saw on TV recently a medical guy saying that it’s typical for an adult to take 15 minutes to half an hour to get to sleep. If we go to bed and collapse into a sleep immediately then we’re probably suffering from deprived sleep. So 1am is definitely too late for me! Am I gonna change? We’ll see.

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I broke my diet. What a disaster. I just don’t have it within me right now even though I felt certain that I did. Back to the drawing board and a rethink.    Oh and Wendy’s 

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I’ve decided to try and make a real effort to lose some weight. The last time that I really had a good go at this was in 2003. Back then I was quite successful in losing over 25 pounds and I could really see the difference in my body shape. Currently I’m weighing in at 204 pounds and I reckon that I need to lose a good 25 pounds again. Most of my excess weight is on my stomach which I know is the unhealthy kind of fat to have so apart from wanting to look a little slimmer there I also know that there are strong health issues concerning my heart that should also act as an incentive.

I’m opting as I did last time in counting calories and I find it’s useful to run a spreadsheet and keep an account of what I take in. My target is to have no more than 2000 calories a day which I think is fair. I don’t want to starve myself and therefore depress myself in the process and I don’t want to slow my metabolism down too much. So I’m aiming for that target figure which if I combine it with an increase in walking and drinking more water should head me in the right direction. Fortunately my job is physically active, unfortunately I get bored in the evening and that’s when I get the “munchies”. Always a tough time!

I’m also using the meal replacement drinks for some meals. I’m not really sure they’re the perfect idea but they worked for me last time so I’m going with what works for me. Ideally I wish I had the self control to just eat a little less and more healthy but I’ve tried that umpteen times without any real success so it’s back to the calorie counting and spreadsheet. That keeps me on a tighter rein.

Okay, here we go then….

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Do you ever hear people referring to themselves in the third person? I’m not sure that I’ve ever known anyone personally but I sometimes hear sports personalties do it when being interviewed and I want to throw something at the TV or radio when I hear it.

Interviewer to world famous soccer player Joe Bloggs: “Do you think you’ll recover fully from this injury?”

World famous soccer player Joe Bloggs: “Don’t worry, Joe Bloggs will get back fitter and stronger than ever.”

Why? Why do they say that? When he’s at home does his wife ask him if he’d like a cup of tea and he says, “Let me be clear, Joe Bloggs will certainly want some tea”.

And another pet hate for me is when I hear people saying how mad they are or look out because of their whacky sense of humour. It’s like when you see people entering the Big Brother house on TV. They usually show a clip of them describing themselves and they always come out with the same “I’m mad, I’m whacky, I’m off the wall, people think I’m loopy….”

Yada, yada, yada….*yawn*. Why do people feel qualified to talk about themselves. We don’t really know what we’re like with other people. That’s for others to draw conclusions on. There’s nothing worse than someone walking around thinking they’ve got a neat sense of humour, no actually saying they’ve got a neat sense of humour when everyone else is thinking “they are soooooo annoying…..”

Rant over. 

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There are so many things to do and so little time in which to do them, right? Or do I just need to organize my life better? That’s probably what it is.

Yesterday I was very proud of myself for building a gate for our deck.  Previously we were using a child stair gate to stop Jake from wandering off of the deck and in to the garden. But now we have a proper hinged gate with a lock and it’s painted and everything! I think I took Nicola a little by surprise with my extreme productivity. That should buy me some goodwill for a while but I know that I can’t put off finishing painting the basement much longer. *sigh*

Still, I’ve been productive today. I’ve uploaded two new short video clips to the movie online website. Sarah will be pleased. 

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So we like to feed the birds here. It’s a very popular pastime you know. Just look around any of the supermarkets in the area and most certainly Walmart and you’ll see a vast selection of bird feeds available for sale. One of the things I appreciate about Canada is the lack of domesticated cats that typically lurk on every corner back in the UK. Over here many cat owners keep their cats indoors so the threat to wild birds seems far lower. So by sticking a bird feeder out in the garden it’s a great way of encouraging birds in and it’s nice to watch.

I must admit I prefer some birds to others and I don’t like to see some of the bigger birds hog the proceedings at the cost of the smaller birds but what can you do? Anyway the little guys seem to figure out how to get their share too.

The other day I heard a terrible commotion from outside and it certainly sounded like a bird was in distress. I went out to the deck expecting to see a bird on the ground held down by a rare cat. Instead I found a large bird violently attacking a small female sparrow. I didn’t know what to do because I thought it might be better to let the big bird finish it’s evil deed than for me to chase it away and then have a badly injured bird on my hands. Callous I know but nature just running it’s course if you know what I mean. But anyway the big bird chose to relax it’s grip for a second and I realised that the sparrow seemed more alive than I first thought. I leapt into action by making a large noise (rustling a crisp/chip packet that I conveniently was holding) and off both sparrow and the big bird flew. Both to fight another day I suppose.

So what was going on here? Are these big birds meat eaters too? And why do I keep referring to it as a big bird? That’s because I don’t know what kind of bird it is and I’d really appreciate it if anyone looking at the picture could let me know what kind of bird it is. Naturally I’ve banned it and all of it’s kind from the garden but so far they’ve ignored all my instructions.

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So have you seen Pirates of the Caribbean 3 yet? I haven’t. I’ve not even seen Pirates of the Caribbean 2. I did however see the first movie and I thought it was pretty good and I’ve watched it since on DVD. I do intend to watch the other two movies at some point. I don’t know when though because I’m so behind on living my life!

Anyway I know that the sequels haven’t had great reviews but check out this link for the definitive review from a guy named Mark Kermode who every friday afternoon reviews movies on the Simon Mayo show on BBC Radio 5 in the UK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6Q5FESHol0

Follow the above link for a Pirates of the Caribbean 3 ranting review!

Actually I thoroughly recommend the movie review podcast thats made available from the BBC website each week as a great way of keeping up to date with movie news even if it has a UK slant to it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/entertainment/kermode.shtml

Most of the podcasts are audio only but just recently one or two have been made as video podcasts as is the case with the above. Now go and watch the review.

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