Down the Bog

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!

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!

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.

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. 

We went grocery shopping today and I found myself musing at all of the halloween candy (sweets) that were still piled high but now selling at half-price. Halloween is a big thing in North America and as early as July the shops are full of scary decororations and candy that’s sold to give away on the doorstep to “trick or treaters” come October 31st. But inevitably it’s not all sold. So, of course when is it the best time to buy halloween stuff? Straight after halloween when it’s half-price!

It’s the same at Christmas too though. Everyone rushes around buying all of their festive gifts with the full knowledge that a good many stores will be having a new year sale two days after Christmas with all those same gift ideas knocked down in price. So when is it best to buy Christmas gifts? We all know the answer.

This time of year does concern me a bit though.I spent around ten years working in retail for a clothing company and the Christmas trade was our busiest time. We’d take a lot of money during December but I could also see just what a strain it seemed to place on people in first finding the money and second knowing what to actually buy. How many gifts are purchased that never get used? I’d love to know the percentage and for sure some of those gifts were bought by people who couldn’t really afford it but had to stretch their finances to manage the Christmas shopping.

And then if that wasn’t bad enough then everything gets reduced after the big day when everybody is already in debt. Am I sounding too miserable? Do I sound like Scrooge?

I don’t mean to. It can be a nice time of year and a great time for families and friends to get together and share gifts. But it’s an even nicer time if everyone manages to spend within their means and isn’t counting the cost for the next twelve months.

I’ve uploaded a few videos to Youtube over the last year or two and without doubt my most popular video is one of Basildon Town Centre that I took back in early 2004. (I think!)

Basildon is a town in the county of Essex in England and was a twelve mile drive for us to get to. It was quite a large shopping centre and it seemed that we’d go there at least every other week to browse around the stores and try and find an excuse to buy something. I really miss the place though and can’t wait to get back to the UK and do a little shopping there again.

The video has attracted quite a lot of comments on Youtube and it seems to be split between people that think it’s a complete dump and people that don’t. I, for one have to admit that Basildon has probably seen better days but I still have a soft spot for the place although I only ever visited for shopping trips and I’m not sure that I’d have chosen to live there.

Ah well, thinking about Basildon makes me homesick and because it’s my most popular video on Youtube I thought I’d embed it here. You’ll take a look and probably think “What a dump!” But that will be harsh. It’s a great place really and after all Depeche Mode came from Basildon. Who?

I keep looking at our bathroom wanting to decorate it but it’s going to have to wait it’s turn because I’m halfway through painting one of the kiddies bedrooms and I just know it’s going to take me ages. Why? Because I find it so easy to procrastinate, be sidestepped by something else and just generally not get any sense of priority into my days.

When I wake up in the morning I think of the day ahead and how in between my paid work I’m going to be extremely productive with getting work done at home. But does it happen? Well, I keep hoping.

Anyway I digressed terribly from talking about the bathroom. As I was saying I want to paint the bathroom because it needs it and because it’s blue and I don’t like blue bathrooms. Blue seems like such cold colour for a bathroom and I prefer a warmer, more neutral colour.

But my biggest dread of bathrooms is the caulking around the bathtub and shower. I find it such an impossible task. It’s one of those things that looks so straight forward when someone else does it but when I do it, it just becomes a disaster area. It never ends up smooth, it never looks right in the corners and I get an incredibly large amount on me. So when I do get around to the bathroom I don’t imagine tackling the caulking at all. I want to but unless Nicola is willing I think we’ll really have to pay someone to come and do it for us.

There now. Caulking may not be an interesting blogging topic but I’ve got my frustration over caulking off my chest and I feel better. 

It’s turning distinctly chilly and I as I drove home this evening the local weather forecast said that we could look forward to some “flurries” tomorrow morning which I assume meant snow flurries. I know that’s nothing to worry about but it signals the approach of winter and in the three plus years that I’ve been in Canada I’ve learnt not to love the Canadian winters.

I’m not a winter sports person and perhaps I should be seeing as I’m now living in Canada although I probably need to be living near the rockies or something to ski. But I don’t have the interest to ski, skate or do anything with ice or snow. I haven’t even built a snowman since getting here.

Last year we had a mild run up to the real snowy season so in fact we didn’t see any of the angry white stuff until after the Christmas season but once it did arrive it seemed to hang around further into the year. It’s almost like we’re going to have a set amount of snow so if it arrives late then it will be leaving late. You can tell that I take it very personally, can’t you?! 

I miss our milder UK weather so that in January it’s possible to get cold weather one day and warm spring like weather the next. People say that British weather doesn’t seem to have any real change in season but it also doesn’t have minus twenty-five degrees either. So there!

I say to Nicola that maybe we’ll be snow free this year but she knows that I know that it just can’t happen. The snow will arrive for sure and when it does the best time for me will be tucked up inside on the couch with the wood stove going keeping me toasty warm and I’ll be shutting my eyes dreaming of the summer.

The marvel of the internet for me is shopping online. It’s so great to able to sit at my computer and shop by surfing online stores on the web. Sometimes I buy and sometimes I’ll sit in front of my screen and look around creating a wish list of the things I would like to buy if I had the endless amounts of cash to get everything that I desire!

But if there is a problem with all of this (apart from not using my legs to walk and shop) then it’s knowing where to go online to get what I want and at the best price.

For example I’m in the market to replace the computer that I’m using to write this blog entry but I’m not sure where to get the best deal from. At least I wasn’t until I came across Techbargains.com which seems to be a great place to track down discount computers. It’s a web site that takes RSS feeds from all of the technology big players such as Best Buy or Tiger Direct and is able to bring together all of the best deals in one place to view.

It’s not just computers though because they have all the latest prices, information and reviews on HDTV’s, Cell Phones, Digital Camera’s, Scanners and a lot more.

It seems to me that the best thing to do along with browsing around the website is to sign up for the email alerts so that you can be notified of the latest deals and these can be configured to suit each individual customer’s needs. There’s also the option to have these alerts sent to wireless devices for those on the move.

I also like the fact that there’s a coupon page which may provide an extra opportunity to save cash on top of looking for the best price.

This is a website that’s updated continually so it’s well worth visiting to see about saving money and importantly finding what we are looking for and I always get a warm cosy feeling when I’m able to buy exactly what I want and at the price I wanted to pay.

In the UK tomorrow (5th November) it’s Guy Fawkes night or bonfire night and I kind of miss not being there.

A lot of people will have celebrated the event already this past weekend and people will continue to maybe have their own firework parties during the coming week or next weekend. That’s the big problem really. No one keeps to just one night and there can be heard bangs and whistles from fireworks for the last two weeks of October and the first two of November.

Personally I don’t think fireworks should be sold to the general public for nuisance and safety reasons and that everyone should just attend public organised displays. We used to do that by going to a local display operated by a leisure centre in our home town of Brentwood in England. It was a great event to go to and I really enjoyed it.

The display was set to music and would be themed lasting about 30 minutes. There’d be live music from some local bands prior to and after the main event along with a funfair and food stalls. A good evening out! 

My daughter Hannah mentioned the firework display in her blog as she attended it this Saturday just gone. She was able to video a part of it so I was able to enjoy a little bit of the show. It made me homesick.