Decking the halls etc etc

Well, its been nearly a month since I last posted owt, and felt it only fair to update whats happened since.

Mrs J had just got confirmation that she had a full-time position with the libraries locally, and this is indeed been great news.  It’s been a month of adjustment to the new routine, namely me doing the school runs and fitting in work around that, which I’ve found quite tough.  It’s not that resent doing it, more that doing this 4 days out of 5, means that I miss both the morning and evening rush hours in the capital.

We’ve had a chat and the management at the libraries are considering a rejig of Deb’s hours which will allow me to do a bit more of the rush hours and balance things out a little.

The journey to primary teaching has started in earnest, my GCSE Maths, English and Science all arrived a couple of weeks back and so 2011 will be the year of learning again! really looking forward to getting back in the swing of it.

Christmas this year has been a very nice low-key affair, my parents came to us christmas eve and stayed over, having dinner with us and then they moved on to one of my brothers for the evening, Santa delivered some nice non-tech presents for the boys, one of the best being a football table – plenty of fun had with that already!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boxing day was spent at Mrs J’s parents with her sisters and their families, always a great time with nieces and nephews, lots of cuddles and laughs.  My father in law is an amazing cook, and his customary bubble and squeak didn’t disappoint!

Today’s been nice, just the four of us, a nice fry up for brunch and then an afternoon of mainly constructing Knex stuff that the boys got for Xmas.

So, I’ll leave it there, suffice to say I’ll be quietly glad to see the back of 2010, it’s been a very rocky period since August, but I’m happy to greet 2011 with a plan for the next few years, and an appreciation for what I have around me, two great children who have fantastic things ahead of them and a wife and partner who I respect and value more than ever…….

That’s all, more next year!

 

 

Control and changing roles…..

Good news this week, Mrs J has a full time role back with the local libraries, which is like going home to her. It’ll be great, and in many ways is the missing piece that has been so for a few years now in her life.

As a result we’re now changing roles a fair bit, she has a two week alternating shift pattern, and being self employed, I’m not dove-tailing my work around that. It’s good for our boys as they get to see more of me, and I get the opportunity to get to know their pre/post school routine/activities a little better.

Naturally this will now provide a little more financial stability, and along with the new job, Mrs J has taken over the reigns of our day to day accounts, which I have to say, has been a huge relief to me, and a big weight off my shoulders…..I’m such a bloody worry guts, and she’s super cool and much more practical.

It’s been a busy past week for us as Mrs J has worked a lot of it, this Saturday just past she worked and I and the boys went to my nephew Harry’s 2nd birthday bash, and saw my immediate family, even my elusive/reclusive elder brother and his kids.

This morning we carried on our recently new regime of going for a run and the boys joining us on their bikes. Today we aimed for and completed a 5 mile circular route which was v eventful, youngest son’s bike chain came off in the first half mile…..and we all generally had to battle thru some desires to turn back at a couple of points….we did it and finished in 1.06mins, an improvement of 4-5mins on the last time we did the route.

Oh well, nothing much else to report, thanks for reading!

It’s a funny old world…..

The past few weeks have been emotionally charged as I continue to get to grips with the downs I experienced towards the end of the summer….I’m slowly getting myself back on an even keel, it’s not easy and I’m blessed to have a very understanding wife!  The plans for primary teaching are still firm and I’m hoping to get the GCSE’s underway before the end of the year.

Positively though, Mrs Jackcabnory (follow her here on twitter….. she gives good tweet!) has finally started the sessional work back with the local library service, this is exactly what she was doing in a fulltime capacity before we had our two boys.   She has been doing quite a few days and we’ve been able, with my work flexibility, to ring the changes quite a bit and gives me the chance to do the school run……and get more practice at the diplomacy needed with a 7 & 10 yr old!!  If all goes well she could soon be working fulltime and we will be able to get ourselves financially more black than red!

On the subject of Mrs J, she sells greetings cards, gift wrap etc, so have a look at her site here (publicity push over!)

We’ve had some good and bad news in terms of new arrivals…..I’ll start with the bad news,  my youngest brother and his wife, who already have a nearly 2yr old boy, announced a few weeks ago that they were expecting no2.  Sadly they discovered this week that the baby will not make it, he has a disdended bowel (enlarged) and it has already burst.  It will be what they class as an “assisted miscarriage”………..

But the good news is that we today visited Mrs J’s younger sister, and had the pleasure of plenty of cuddles with our newest family member, Jack.  He’s a gorgeous little boy, born with downs syndrome,   into a loving family where he has two elder sisters to dote on him!   We’re very lucky to now have a total of 10 neices and nephews between our collective 5 siblings……..

So, I’m going to sign off here, leaving you a picture of the new addition……..thanks for reading, and as ever I will endeavour to post more frequently….

Time for a change…..

So it seems I haven’t written a long form blog post for six months……I have however been prevalent on that other micro blogging world, twitter, so if you been checking back here for news, you will have at least seen the 140 character snap shots of life.

So, where to begin, it’s been a very turbulent period since the last posting, moments of doubt at where I was going, what I want to do and who I’d be sharing that journey with.

Life as a self employed cab driver has been a very steep learning curve, from juggling a 3yr intense knowledge period/9-5 day job & young family….thru to the day to day work search and the uncertainty of whether work is there…

That may sound alarming to some, surely cabbies are always on the golf course? Well, yes some may well be, but it’s unlikely if they have small children and mortgages etc

I reached a point in the summer where I looked back and thought “what I am doing?” and “why am I doing it?”
I became extremely depressed, and thoughts were both irrational and fantastical……I really worried that I would not be able to find that illusive light in what seemed an awfully dark tunnel.

So after much soul searching, a bit of therapy and the continued love and support of my wonderful wife, I’ve decide to start the journey to becoming a teacher.

I’ve chosen to aim for primary school, for a number of reasons :

– there is a drastic shortage (our boys school has only 1 for instance)
– it’s a vital first building block of a childs education.
– I really don’t thunk I could handle a lippy 14yr old!

So, that’s my new resolve, just 3 GSCE’s, a higher level education course and a degree and I’ll be there! I’m so looking forward to learning and stimulating my grey cells again.

Lastly, I’m going to get stuck into a regular exercise routine, involving running 3 times a week, and doing toning exercises as well, the worry of the past few months has caused weight loss and want to make sure I keep that going but in a much more healthy manner!

The Country Life?

So, another birthday has come and gone – 38 now, and apart from the middle age spread and the inability to deal with late nights and or consumption of alcohol, I feel pretty much the same as I did at 18 and 28……

I’ve navigated thru my first tax return as a self employed worker, it was the “nose bleed” that my accountants had warned, but is now done.

So, the stalwart cab trade champions continue to berate the authorities for their lack of action to get the “touts/clipboard jonnies” to disist from their activities, but frankly I have a more pressing issue on my mind, as the title of my blog eludes.

I have two young sons, 7&9 and have found the balance between work and family life is not in the right balance…

We used to live a bit further out of town up to the birth of no2, and then following some compilcations in his early months and couple with an awful commute we (I) decided that we needed to be nearer work and family support. Now we are close to secondary education for the eldest, we need to either stick or twist, and twist is beig investigated now. The idea being we can hopefully reduce our mortgage and get a bit of cleaner living into the bargain…

We saw some great places at the weekend and some lovely locations – sadly the great homes were NOT in the lovely locations!! So the search continues, the property game has changed a little bit, upfront costs for HIP (home information pack for anyone not sure, or non-UK reader).

The hope is that we can do this move by the late summer…. Stay tuned, will post updates

Blog migration…..

Well, I’ve dilly dallied for ages, bit finally have migrated my blog to the hallowed ground of wordpress… This is short and sweet and blogs will be more frequent and detailed as I get more au fait with the inner workings of it all.

Will leave you with a small gripe, think I may have currency OCD, some womand gave me these two fivers on Saturday, must they be screwed up soo much?

Gadgets – we love ’em!!

The gadgets refers to the iPhone of which I had high expectations and was as excited about as my first cassette player in the early 80’s, I got mine last week and am using to write this blog. It’s the first blog since July and hopefully they will be a little more frequent with it’s arrival…

Well, where to start, we had a good summer break, a week in Norfolk under canvas, well actually man made fibre nowadays, it was great apart from my childrens near panic filled episodes every time a bee or wasp appeared in the tent. We visited Banham zoo, best zoo we’ve taken the boys to, really great facilities and you get really close to the animals. We also went to Bewilderwood, a kind of adventure park set in the forest with loads of zip wires etc. Last place to note was a visit to Jimmy’s Farm as featured in the BBC documentary of a few years ago – again great day out and can recommend the breakfast sausages!

Following that it was a solid 14 day stint at work, that’s August in a cab for you, my resolve is to gradually get to the position when I can take most of the month off…. And spend most of it on hole with my family, next year we’re planning to got to France to a friends farm house for two weeks… So anyway, after the long stretch we went down to the coast, Swalecliffe to be precise, where we camped again along with a few friends and although it was only three days, was a chance to recharge batteries.

So back to work in Sept, kids back to school, youngest now has a stricter teacher which will do him the world of good. Work has picked up considerably – much to our appreciation, atended a demonstrations against a convicted murderer doing the knowledge which was succesful.

Have had a few interesting passengers over the past few weeks, PR rep to food industry, some good fares via @tweetalondoncab which is a service offered thru Twitter by a group of likeminded tech savvy cab drivers read more about it here which please do pass on to friends and family, an easy way to assure yourself of a safe and reliable journey….

Passenger of most note was just this week, William Hague, shadow foreign secretary and 2nd in line to the throne if the inevitable happens at the forthcoming general election, a very amiable chap happy to talk about various issues and open about the need for the Tories to change the stereotype view that most folk have… He was on his way to the German Ambassadors residence for a shindig to celebrate the Merkel success.

Anyway must go it’s late and I need to get up early for a full on day of church parade with the boys as part of their scouting comitments and rehearsals for my return to the am dram scene as part of Copacabana here’s the link if you’re in SE London

Thanks for reading, more soon and twitter feed is on your right cheers

Tut, tut, twitter, twitter

Terribly slack on my behalf, but only just getting round to another blog in almost 3months….. no excuses, just a lack of time behind a PC. Needless to say my twitter performance goes from strength to strength, feed to your right!

On that subject some fellow cab drivers have set up tweetalondoncab and has been much publicised including on Channel 4 news…..

Other than that, I’ve been keeping my head afloat, trying to get a head of steam up to cover some time off during the summer holidays that are looming large. Recent pick ups of note have been Jamie Theakston (not v chatty), and the very interesting and chatty Simon Schama.

Have had a small (!) altercation with a PHV in Covent Garden, hey that’s what insurance is for…. Well I’m off to have my tea now, I’d like to say I’ll post more blogs soon, but the reality is my twitter feed will be more productive (via mobile) until October when the dawn of the Iphone will hit…..

Cheers

Wow, has it been that long….

…. since the last post! sorry, but as you can see from the right hand side of the screen, Twitter has rather taken my attention of late!

Just a brief posting for now, but I’ve added my twitter updates here, which are nice and easy to update via ye olde text messages. Recent customer have been Gillian Anderson (X Files), Felicity Kendal (again!), her “Good Life” co-star Penelope Keith, and very nearly William Hague this week (but Tamil protesters in Parliament Square put an end to that!).

Putting the hours in to get the funds for new tent for us, we’re off to Derbyshire again at the end of May with a load of friends – can’t wait!

Must beggar off now, I only came up to disconnect the Ipod!

Almost 37…… chilled chicken?!

The title is a reference to my birthday on St Davids Day – iechyd da! – just a few years til I enter my 5th decade…….

Been a busy week, bought new car (to us that is) on Saturday, so will need to get some extra hours on the road over coming weeks to cover the balance!

Nocelebs to mention thus far, have had some interesting twitter exchanges with Richard Bacon and Simon Mayo…. and did get a question via text thru to Al Murray on Mayo’s show yesterday.

Had a nice but brief coffee stop with an old colleague in Canary Wharf, next time we must do it longer, oh and realised that Canary Wharf is a tow away zone – ie that even as a licensed cab driver parking on a rank, you can’t leave it unattended, got back just in time.

Picked up the most bizarre cargo this week, I got a job on the radio to collect from M&S in Fenchurch St, a bag with 3 cooked chicken breasts, and had to take them to an office near to Victoria, £17 to move them seems a little excessive given the current economic climate!

A few weeks ago I did an interview along with 2 of the guys from Black Cab Sessions and it finally got transmitted on Wed, the link to the piece is here , lots of fun and hope it widens the audience for these sessions, which are amazing and very unique.

That’s all, nearly time to collect the old beast and go out on the streets of the smoke

Enjoy your Friday nights and weekends