Football

The guys at work know I like to use my camera, so they suggested that I come and take some photos of their football game. I’ve never taken any photos of a football match before and I was anxious that I wouldn’t be able to get any good snaps of the guys playing. Nevertheless, I said I would go along but warned them all that the photos may not be any good.

They were playing at 3G pitch in Sittingbourne, which wasn’t too far from mine. I didn’t realise just how close it was so turned up around 20 minutes early.

Kick off was at 2pm then a trip to the pub for drinks afterwards. I took a fair amount of photos while at the game, some of the better ones are below.

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The Food Challenge

Completing a food challenge has been one of the things I have wanted to do for a while now. I didn’t want anything too huge but as with all food challenges there are of a certain size or that wouldn’t be challenges!

A few of us from work decided we would head to a Flaming Grill as they have some cheap challenges. There were four of us in total, I was preparing all day for this. I had the 32oz steak and chips and the other boys had a the 24oz burger with chicken, bacon, and chips.

When the plate arrived I lost all confidence in my ability to get through this thing alive. The steak was bigger than the damn plate!

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The boys faces when they got theirs was pretty much the same as mine! The size of their burger! Christ!

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As there was no time limit on the challenge we decided that we would take our time. We didn’t haven’t to be anywhere afterwards. I cut mine up into nice small pieces and worked my way through the steak. After about an hour I had finished the steak and half of the chips. I was reaching my limit.

Thirty minutes of chatter and I decided to pick at the remainder. I finished the chips – this left me with the onions, onion rings, tomato, mushrooms, and peas. The onion rings were easy. Down they went.

Next came the onions and damn they tasted disgusting. They had been sat under the steak the entire time cooking away on the hot plate that it was served on. They were burnt, gooey and tasted like ash and were mixed in with some of the mushrooms. I left those for a while and started on the peas, tomato, and other mushrooms.

I hate mushrooms – I don’t think they even lasted more than a second in my mouth. They were swallowed so quick. The same happened with the tomato. The peas were quite nice though. Everything is gone now except the onions and a few mushrooms.

At this point I look up at the boys and they had got through about half of their meal. Hardly touching their chips and other sides. It looks like I had to do this one on my own.

Each and every bite of the onions and mushrooms made me want to be sick. I was so full my stomach was hurting, and they tasted so gross. Finally after 2 hours and 30 odd minutes of the plates arriving I had finished. I had completed my challenge! I had been victorious. I was a champion! I even got my certificate to prove it!

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Wonders of technology

A while ago my daughter came across a YouTube channel called Art For Kids Hub that essentially teaches kids how to draw, and it does this in a very positive, friendly and relatable way that anyone of any age is able to follow.

The show looks to be hosted by a professional artist with his children. He teaches them step by step how to draw characters such as Mario, or a Minion, or a dinosaur. He is very patient and promotes the fact that even if a drawing is not that great it’s ok because this is all about practicing, and becoming better.

This evening I wanted to spend time with my daughter and partake in a subject that she enjoys – drawing. What better way to do this than to sit on FaceTime, and both watch the same video together all the while following the instructions.

Admittedly I’m no good at drawing, but I am willing to give anything a go just to spend time with my children even if it is by using FaceTime.

I took several shots of our drawings (mine are the smaller inset photo as these are screenshots of FaceTime), and have posted them below along with a video from Art For Kids Hub.

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Greg from Diary of a Wimpy Kid


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Christmas 2015

Earlier in the year I had agreed with the kids mum that they could come to mine for Christmas this year. I picked them up on the 18th of December. They were due to go back home on the 30th.

Everyone wanted to go out for dinner on Christmas day, and I was going to stay at home with the kids as it would have been just me and them, and cook for us. I was really looking forward to this. Unsurprisingly they all changed their mind. I ended up cooking for 10 people, which wasn’t the greatest decision I had ever made.

I don’t know the exact amount of money I spent on the kids this year, but I am definitely sure they had more than enough. Having only spoke to them the other day, they still haven’t had been able to play with all of their toys properly yet!

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I only just finished wrapping the presents an hour before I picked the kids up from their mums.

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I didn’t have any Christmas stockings for them, so had to go and buy some. I checked several shops and only Morrisons had them! They feel well put together, and only cost me £3 each. That’s what I call a bargain!

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A Night at the Hilton

Up at 4am, working 10 hours, 90-minute drive to Gatwick, and then 10 hours of drinking.

Well that was my day in the simplest form. Obviously there was much more to it. There was an award ceremony, photos, silly antics, meet and greets, laughs, eye candy, and an all round drunken time.

As our company lost their contract it will be our last ever winter ball sadly, however a cracking good time was had.

I left work at 4pm ran to Asda and grabbed some vodka and then made my way to the Hilton. I arrived just before 6 and got straight into the shower. Shortly before 7 the friend I invited turned up. Drinks in hand we headed into the crowds and mingled.

Dinner and celebrations started at 7.30. After the awards the live music started, and the drinking began.

At about 10pm a photo booth was set up where people could dress up and take photos. I had to get in on it this year. We grabbed a few friends to come and join us to have a laugh. I even grabbed someone from upper management!

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C.E.R.N.

Visiting C.E.R.N has been one of the things I have been wanting to do for quite some time. I found out recently that they have tours of their facility and ordinary members of the public can request to join them.

After finding out they did tours I naturally got excited. It took me a couple of weeks to find a slot between seeing the kids, work and an availability in the tours. The next challenge was the price of the flight. I thought it was going to be expensive as hell to get a flight over to Geneva, Switzerland. Turns out it wasn’t! Using a website a friend from works introduced me to called Sky Scanner I was able to book a return flight for £42! It makes you wonder how it’s even possible!

I’ve never been on an aeroplane before, so the trip over to Geneva was going to be a completely new experience for me. I was so excited but so scared at the same time. I didn’t know what to expect.

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So this was the plane I was about to get on


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Ryans 10!

My son is now 10 years old! His birthday was on the 14th, but I had to see him the weekend before. This was a good thing as I found something that Ryan would enjoy so much.

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Ryan is heavily into beatboxing. He watches hours upon hours of videos on youtube of various artists performing their talent. What better gift could I get him than to take him to the Championships?
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Smoking

After trying to complete the Three Peaks Challenge and failing due to my lungs I have taken it upon my self to finally quit smoking – again!

At first I tried to go cold turkey and completely stop smoking. That didn’t last too long. By 4pm that day I was outside smoking again. Failure. So I decided to go down another route.

I have been speaking to people who are now smoking those e-cigarette things. Asking such questions as how do they compare to proper cigarettes / tobacco. Do they provide the same type of hit that normal fags do etc, and they sounded quite positive about the whole thing.

I wasn’t too convinced at first, but I thought fuck it. I really want to quit smoking and this seems like an option, and by this point I’m willing to try anything to quit, so I went and bought one. It cost me about the same as a pouch of tobacco, which is good.

The lady in the shop help me set it up and showed me how it worked as I have never tried one before. She understood that I was new at it and was very helpful.

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I am now three full days without smoking a single cigarette, and I’m feeling good for it. I still get the craving every now and then, but as long as I’m busy and I chug on this e-cigarette thing I’m generally ok.

They say after 28 days without smoking you’re a hell of a lot more likely to quit for good, and this is what I want. Lets hope that I can achieve it! Wish me luck.

Have you ever tried to quit smoking? Do you use one of the e-cigarettes – if you do how are you finding it compared to a proper one?

Find Your Stuff

The other day I decided to treat myself to some new clothes and trainers. I had it delivered to work as I knew I was working nights, and didn’t want to be disturbed at home. I have had stuff delivered here before and it was fine, so I thought I would do it again.

Around 11am this morning I received a text message and email from the delivery driver saying that my stuff had been delivered so I was excited to get to work and look at my new stuff.

I arrived at work, opened my package only to find it had already been opened. I was greeted with the following.

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Needless to say, but I wasn’t too impressed that my package had been opened and my trainers hidden. Nevertheless I followed the clues and kind of enjoyed it.

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Clue 2: “If finding your shoes is painful seek medical attention”

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Clue 3: “Are you a FAN of treasure hunt?”


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Day at the beach

It’s summer and its nice and hot. What is there better to do than to go to the beach? Thats exactly what we did. We packed our stuff and headed down to Camber Sands.

Unfortunately at the time of going to the beach Operation Stack was on which closed the majority of the M20 and caused chaos with the traffic in the local areas. We decided to go through Maidstone and down the A229 and then onto the A21 to Hastings heading to Camber from the West. It took a little longer to get there, but it was much more desirable taking that route than being stuck in hour upon hours of traffic!

We arrived just after 2pm at which time the parking becomes half price, so thats a bonus! We parked up and unpacked the car. I lathered up the kids with sunscreen and headed up the huge sand dunes over to the beach. We spent the next couple of hours playing about in the ocean.

We had loads of fun!

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