Nothing like the smell of fresh paint...

So, a new broom sweeps clean and all that, we're finally having some aesthetic cleansing done.....by that metaphor I mean that the wonder Danny, has been working his decor magic in our tired old living room.

The darn thing has been "stripped and ready" for nearly 3 years, so I can't tell you how invigorating it is to see it taking shape into an inviting and calm retreat from the daily grind.

It's very plain, and what we hope will be a blank canvass to be adorned by inspiring pictures and paintings by friends and family, and of those cherished folks in our lives.

This has really kicked 2012 off for us, and I'm busy pursuing a teaching assistant role on a part time basis.  This I hope will give me valuable classroom experience, and also help motivate me in the continued study of my GCSEs.   A visit to the BETT show last week gave me a further boost, seeing so many enthusiastic and passionate educators in one place, and also seeing the amazing technology that is available in the classroom now.  I highly recommend it, even if you're not interested in a career in education, it's truly amazing.

I met lots of old twitter friends there and some new ones, and it further cements in me that I want to teach.

For the meantime, I'll leave you with a couple of pics from our Somerset House ice skating trip at the weeken....now I really must go and hang a clock on a wall!

                                             

The Brook Estate

I grew up in a family of four brothers, for 21 years, we always lived in the same street, on the now infamous 'Brook Estate".

So to the memories, which can be funny things,often romanticised, sometimes chronologically askew, but all very personal, and these, are mine of those years.
It was a council estate, and for all of my childhood my parents rented the accommodation, and with many other occupants were working class people (I always struggle nowadays to know if we should or shouldn't categorise by class, but these are memories so I'll stick with it) Mrs Thatchers right to buy initiative changed that in the eighties.

Dad, after living a 'jack of all trades' existence, became, through the guidance and support of mum and his friends who helped him attain the profession through city and guilds classed at night school, a plumber, in the employ of the local authority. Mum did what many wives did and, still do, working one or more jobs in the evenings, to help swell the coffers and fund the ever rising cost of feeding 4 "growing lads".

We were all taken to the local toddler group, all went to the nearby primary school, and would play on the green (although of course "no ball games allowed") next to our end of terrace house.

We were close to our immediate neighbours, played in each others gardens with their children, and there were various street party's to celebrate the Queens jubilee and the wedding of Charles and Diana.

There were the run of the mill events, minor burglaries, accidents in the two uprights of the ladder configuration of roads that comprised the estate, the estate was a rat run for traffic on the Rochester Way/A2, so these accidents and other pressures brought to bear the relief road being built in 1988), yet we always felt safe in our surroundings.

In addition to school, we were encouraged by our parents to try various other activities, these included the local youth club, boys brigade and most extensively and life affirming, the Scout Association, which I personally was involved with from the age of 8 until I was 25.

None of this was easy for my parents, to either support financially or logistically, but ways were found, clothes were handed down etc etc.

We were always aware of the 'bad boys' and 'street rakers' that lived on or near the estate, but frankly this was never an overbearing problem for us or our parents as they always knew where we were and what we were doing, and more importantly, they were interested in these details. The estate was populated by families from a range of ethnic. I never felt an overbearing sense of racial tension, this wasn't the 60's, I have always felt that I live in a multi cultural society and the Brook Estate epitomised this. At no time did I perceive a large presence of police, it was normal to see them on the street from time to time of course. The only recollection I have is of my eldest brother being stopped and searched on his way home one day, as he matched the description of someone who had burgled a house on the estate.

I think it's extremely sad that the events of 1993 occurred, and that only now any semblance of a  resolution has happened. It’s my strong belief that the parental guidance, love and ambition that I and my brothers received is the reason that we never brought any of the disappointment and dark clouds to their door that have surfaced in the press in recent weeks.

Life

Life's been a bit of a rollercoaster in the last couple of weeks.  My dad had a triple bypass on 31st October, and developed a lung infection in the week after, he had to have another operation last Thursday to rectify that and enable the antibiotics they have given, the ability to work the infection through.   So emotionally it's been very draining, he was extremely confused and frightened for several days and me, my brothers and our mum have all cry many tears, but thankfully he seems to have turned the corner and is much better, all that that much better is still hooked up to various machines that bleep, a torrent of medication and blood transfusions.

And I also find myself in a state of limbo, where I can't seem to focus on any particular task, feel quite despondent about a lot of things.  No matter how much I know how lucky and blessed I truly am, it's quite impossible to actually find the light at the end of the tunnel, silver lining, or whatever metaphor/cliche applies.

All I'm sure of is what I DON'T want at the moment,

•  to argue with my wife and kids as frequently as it seems.
• to have a cash flow that is so stretched, living week to week.
• to live in a house for 7 years and yet nothing in the house reflect that fact.

I guess the obvious thing is to counter these by saying,

• I do want to spend quality time with my wife and kids, cherishing the wonderful people they.
• I want to be able to exist without these monetary issues, I'm not materialistic at all, but live in a world which is obsessed with it.
• I want to live in a house that is bright and inviting.

When I was 31 I decided upon a career path which I now do not enjoy as I had hoped, does not provide me with flexibility as I had hoped and feel as if I have wasted that time. It also is proving very difficult to study for the other aims I do have, which I've talked about in previous postings.

My worst attribute, is that I cannot empty my head of things to do, people to worry about, situations I want to avoid. These projections, in my head, of events that may or not come to fruition.          

I normally post a link to twitter and facebook of my posts, but I think on this occasion I won't.  At the moment its enough just for me to know I've written this and hopefully I can get off my backside and do the other things I need to do today.

A description of me....

Did a thing and was asked to pen a few words for it...... These are they, I liked them so thought I'd blog it.

Where to start....My involvement in the 140characters project was thru, funnily enough, a twitter follower/ee the wonderful @Dr_Black, I'd met Sue back in November 2009 when I attended a conference, yes that's right, an actual "let's get together and talk about twitter" gathering arranged by someone else I'd met......well, you can guess the rest.

Being a human being that positively thrives on interaction, twitter has been the office I don't work in, the group of like-minded people I would drink with in a pub, if we lived closer than the miles/continents we actually inhabit, and didn't have the other distractions of life that are spouses, children and earning a daily crust.

By day (and also night sometimes) I'm a London cabbie, no, not one of those stereotypical flat cap, sun reading bigoted xenophobic women haters, an actual real life, ambitious, enthusiastic likeable guy who loves people and learning.......oh and I'm studying to become a primary school teacher

The world is android shaped.......

Well..it is for now, I picked up my new phone this week, a very nice, shiny Samsung Galaxy S2 (oooh !) so far so good. It does lots my old iphone did and more, and what's more important, is that it does so far more quickly, and more than one thing at a time....simultaneously if you will.

I've had a great week, and had a very pleasant brush with rockstars. On Friday I picked up three guys near Waterloo station, they were Australian, nothing out of the ordinary.  During the journey I kept noticing the very well kept goatee that one was sporting. I finally plucked up the courage to ask at their destination "are you guys in Inxs *?" to which they replied "yes we are."

I was, just a little, starstruck....you see, I quite like the Inxs discography, so meeting the purveyors of 'Mystify' and 'Never Tear Us Apart' will be a dinner anecdote for some time to come!

Oh well that'll do for now, here's a pic of the boys playing footy yesterday

*they're are over for a gig at Clapham Common Sat June 11th

Cadburys take them and they cover them in chocolate.......

Nothing like a random post title to get you going.......and this certainly is one....

Anyway, it's been a busy few weeks, quite a lot of frustration with my damaged ankle ligaments and some other annoying niggles that have made me feel less than A1....I'm pretty much into the new routine, not working Monday and now Tuesday, doing the school runs, and most importantly - studying, I'm resigned to the fact that English will be almost straightforward, Science a little harder but enjoyable, and Maths, well, a challenge!

I need to not be so hard on myself and expect to get everything right first time, I need to be persistent and take the same attitude as I did with the knowledge.   That experience teaches me that I can achieve the goals I set, despite the slings and arrows of misfortune (hearty apologies to Will Shakespeare for nicking his prose!).

In other news, we've decided to pull our finger out and get some work done on the house. In all good faith, almost 2 years ago now, I stripped our lounge and dining room, and that is how it has stayed every since.   Every good intention is there to complete the job, but as we all know, all manner of hurdles appear to thwart them!.

In the big scheme of things, it is far more easy for me to spend the time working to earn the money to let someone more adept at these things, and quicker, to be let loose.....so it is with great excitement that I can confirm we have enlisted the services of another parent at the boys school, his first task will be some plastering, and then the papering and painting of the rooms.

So, as it always seems I pen these posts late at night, I'll leave you......I will unusually add a rather substantial epilogue of sorts.  What follows is the latter part of my latest English test paper that I recently submitted, I am rather proud of it, and my tutor too was happy - enough to grade me with a big fat B!



“The Great Stone of Sardis” is written in quite an instructional manner, very little detail on the characters involved, and more on that of the great vessels. “Jude The Obscure” is written in much more personal and emotional tones, focusing very much on the close relationship that the schoolmaster has with his community and, in particular, Jude.

In “The Great Stone of Sardis”, there is lots of use of clear factual information about the circumstances, for example “The Euterpe-Thalia was one of those combined ocean vessels which had now been in use for nearly ten years.” There is also frequent use of descriptive language to give the reader a sense of the movement of these vessels in and around the port areas - “A westward bound Atlantic liner was rapidly nearing the port of New York.” and “The vessel now speeding along the southern coast of Long Island.”

In “Jude The Obscure”, there is an inclusion of many characters, to evidence that the schoolmaster has a very strong connection within the town. There is some use of onomatopoeia, “the purchased article had been a perpetual problem” and “standing in a perplexed attitudes.”

There is also some quite old fashioned language employed, phrases like “A proper good notion,” said the blacksmith” and “the practicability of the proposed shelter.”

The main difference for me, between the two passages are that in “Jude The Obscure” we see a very personal connection demonstrated between the schoolmaster and Jude, a lot of language toward the end of the passage about coming of age - “You wouldn’t understand my reasons, Jude, you will, perhaps, when you are older.” And finally, poignantly, the giving of a gift by the schoolmaster at the end.

It's been a while since my last post....I've been doing all the usual stuff, plus studying - here's an essay I have just written for my English language course.

Accidents

Accidents are common place in everyday life, from cutting ones finger on a sharp food tin, to tripping up a badly laid paving slab in the street. It is said that the most common place to have an accident is in your own home, I guess, this is because we have our defences down, not expecting to walk into an open draw or trip over a discarded wellington boot! The accident and emergency departments of hospitals up and down the land, could fill a book, on a daily basis, with the tale of domestic dangers galore.


I personally, was an extremely accident prone young boy. My mother would remark that “Your file at the Brook” the local hospital, “Is as big a phone book”, in reference to just how many times I made a visit. It’s a shame that the mid 70’s to early 80’s, were before the introduction of the loyalty schemes’ now employed by so many organisations. I could have paid for the family to fly down to Spain with my ‘NHS points’! The most notable of accidents, was when I was around 4 years old. We were visiting an uncle, who lived not far, in a block of flats - which come to think of it is irrelevant. When we arrived, I insisted on walking along a short brick wall that surrounded the flats, about 3 feet in height. This was all going well, until I fell of the wall. Not content with the damage that ensued from the fall, I then proceeded to roll underneath a parked car, slicing my chin on the rear bumper. So, another tick in the the Brooks’ visitor book for me!.

I try and be less clumsy these days, however it seems that the eldest of my two sons rather takes after me in this sense and often has to be reminded of impending dangers, such as the aforementioned cupboard doors and discarded Wellington boots. I think that despite societies protestations, there will always be a place for ROSPA (the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents), to spread the word of accident prevention.