We've moved

I have to say it was one of the most knackering experiences I've ever had... we only had a small van to do the move because we simply refused to pay the £150 to hire one (plus fuel).... so it took 252 miles or 7 trips there and back....

The teenagers were suspiciously absent except for the odd occasion, so basically Andrea and I did it all, FOMO boy was more help than both the teenagers put together... We did have some sterling help from Lauren's boyfriend Tom who's muscles and spatial ability came up trumps at a point where my brain had been frazzled by lack of sleep, tiredness and aching muscles. But eventually it was all done and all that remained was to put everything in its place and unpack everything.... (which is actually the hardest part!!!)

I have to admit I lost my rag on a few occasions, mainly through tiredness and  muscles screaming out to be rested and although I didn't fly into full blown massacre mode it was close..... however I did manage to keep a lid on it (mostly) but my patience was thinner than the skin on a rice pudding... I was bubbling away for quiet some time .....

It wasn't helped by the endless heap of teenage bodies which seemed to be appearing from every crack in the front door (Lauren's friends) ..... last thing you need after a house move are teenagers... in fact I think they should be banned from being seen or heard by adults until they are at least 21.....

Broadband and the phone appeared on the 20th as promised by the Post Office and at a blistering full rate of 8Mbits but I'd be silly to think it would be anything else considering how close we are to the exchange.....

I had to "undo" some "Larney" wheezes, such as the pub powering it's beer garden lights off our ring main.... that was disconnected immediately I found out.... we did have the landlord poke his head over our fence and ask us to switch a light on and off on our wall which they had "tapped" into... which was completely pointless as it had been removed at the fuse box ;¬)

We still have a few things to sort out such as the Rayburn only fires on the oven side not the heating, but we'll get that sorted out fairly soon before the cold weather hits.... (oh sorry it already has it's August already!!!)

other than that we are moved in and all systems go......

We are moving !!!

For those of you familiar with the picture on the left will realise that we are moving to Laugharne the town where Dylan Thomas lived for the latter part of his life... I actually grew up in Laugharne and my parents still live there... so it's a kind of homecoming for me... it's a sleepy little town right next to the sea or should I say Estuary.... it's going to be nice to wake up to the "ding" "ding"  of the town clock again (its a very distinctive "ding" trust me) :) We have been buzzing about like blue bottomed flies in this house packing boxes, throwing stuff away, burning stuff we don't want to turn up on a dump.... we've been pretty ruthless, but it does feel good to get rid of stuff that's been hanging around for ages, old paper work, old insurance documents, seven year old bank statements, computers bits and pieces and old computers I lugged around with me, all gone...

The only problem is I think I've thrown out my mobile phone.... I hope I haven't, I'm hoping it turns up in some box we unpack when we get to the new house.... which is enormous, we fell in love with the place as soon as we walked in .... it has a huge kitchen, with a big rayburn in it, gas oven, gas hob, granite work tops, very nicely done out...

All the enormous bedrooms have en suite shower/bath/toilet... Freya already loves the place because it's close to the park with the whirly slide as she calls it.... so no doubt I'll be getting dragged down there at all hours...

As much as I love this place where we are now for it's isolation and lack of neighbours ... it's not doing the kids much good.... arranging sleep overs and visits is becoming a major logistical nightmare... then you have to drive miles to pick them up.... I think I will have to wait for desolation and idyllic peace and no neighbours for a few more years yet..... besides once Freya is a bit older and less of a handful we have handy baby sitters on the doorstep ;¬)

Anyway I will be offline for a while whilst our ISP sort themselves out... we are due to resurface online on or around the 20th August apparently .... (yeah of course) one thing for certain we are a mere stones throw from the BT exchange (literally) and I will cut off both of my arms if we don't achieve over 7Mbit (there may be some blood spilt as I might regret that statement) ....

We are all looking forward to the move.... well except Xbox boy ... he isn't chuffed that he now has to travel even further to visit his girlfriend.... ahhh well I'm sure the extra 15 minutes on the bus won't kill him......but at least with the regular bus service the taxi of mum and stepdad will cease... no excuse now...

"Oh dear you missed the last bus..... unlucky!!!"  I've walked to Laugharne many a time after missing the last bus in my youth.... let's not break the tradition :)

No more Mr Nice guy

I've had it up to the back teeth with re-installing the kids computer because of viruses and I've told them if it gets taken down by another virus I'm killing Windows XP on it and installing Linux ... like it or lump it end of viruses it just works and keeps working...

My 18 year old step son is the prime culprit (no he actually is the culprit) he like all 18 year old lads has a fascination for porn, most if not all porn sites are designed to deliver a virus or some kind of payload to your computer and it doesn't seem to matter how many times I've told him not to visit those sites he persists, I've blocked network access with OpenDNS and Netelligence which filters out I'd say about 98% of them but it's not 100% ... 

I've not actually got an issue with him looking at porn... the only issue I do have is that the computer he views it on is a shared computer and his younger sister does all her banking on it... which is like playing russian roulette with a semi automatic pistol, it's not if you'll get shot it's more when.....plus every time it gets infected with a nasty virus all the kids lose everything in their profiles....which simply isn't fair

Anyway I've warned him and he's ignored me, so he's had his internet/computer access revoked indefinitely, He's lucky I was going to send his girlfriend a list of websites he visits on a regular basis.... but that's too cruel....

So his ass is banned .... it's the only way it seems