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615 days ago

It's been an interesting few days and a major milestone for our family. On Monday Chris reached his 18th Birthday, and suddenly I'm no longer a single parent with children! OK Matt and Chris will always be my children, but technically if not practically they're now on their own in the world. From my own point of view it's been a time of looking back at the last 19 years with a mixture of incredulity, pride, laughs and tears. It's also reminded me of what's important in being a single parent. I once thought that the most important single task was to prepare the boys with the knowledge and skills to become happy members of society. While that's a vital task, never to be forgotten, it's a shared responsibility with society itself. A parent and family, however, are the only source of information for children on who they are and where they come from. The last couple of years have been a time of a lot of self-examination, and finally at the age of 46 I know who I am. I don't mean a ...

Why?

617 days ago

Still on the subject of why we don't have any trust in the symbols of modern society: So if we can't trust the politicians or the Police, what about that last bastion of justice - the judiciary? Well, sure enough, every now and then they come down on the side of the public as opposed to the Government but let's look a little closer. In 2006 this government introduced new rules as a knee jerk reaction to much hyped cases where millionaires got Legal Aid. The result is that nowthe only hope of getting fair and adequate legal representation is to be rich. In an example from last summer one defendent had a solicitor who openly told a court that if the case were to be heard there and then he would have to walk out leaving the defendent unrepresented. The reason? - months of delay getting approval for Legal Aid while they tried to bring in a new syatem. Even if you do succeed in getting Legal Aid, this is minimal and has a limited amount both in termsd of finance and ...

Still fighting

617 days ago

Radio 5 Live has been running a series of interesting phone in debates lately that seem to be focusing on why society no longer seems to respect the Police, Politicians or Business. The truth seems to be quite simple: Respect has to be earned, and rather than earn it our Politicains, Police and Business show no respect for us, the people, and act as laws unto themselves. Business If you talk to pretty much anyone these days for any length of time you'll here the same gripes time after time. People are fed up of businesses doing what the hell they like, then sending you round and round in circles when you try and complain. Take Virgin Media as an example - when someone decided last night to rip the cable feed from the outside wall of the house, disconnecting phone, tv and broadband all I wanted to do was get it fixed. Well simple as it m,ay sound it took 7 minutes on a mobile before even getting to talk to a human being - and even then it was someone in India who was about ...

Time goes slowly

647 days ago

Its funny how time seems to fly away with some things and drag with others. Strangely it generally seems to be almost predictable in that when you need time it flys by and when you want something doing it takes for ever - especially if it's dealing with large organisations or teenagers. Outdoors: Well Matt's supposed to have had the new site ready a month or more ago and I'm still waiting! Iain's site has taken priority with a complete facelift, and just as that was almost complete he had a comletre hard drive failure so had to start again. In the meantime my site waits - he could walk into a job at Magicalia using this sort of timescale lol. The recent spell of unseasonal weather has brought benefits and disadvantages. On the bright side it's been stunning weather for driving round with the roof down and getting piles of stock photos. On the downside it's only a week till the Winter Skills and that means we need snow! This year's going to be a bt different with ...

Christmas 2007

701 days ago

It's December the 24th, and there's no Christmas lights or decorations. There's a couple of presents wrapped up in a carrier bag for the kid's grandparents but that's the only sign of Christmas. Christmas is or families and young children, and we made a decision over ayear ago that we wouldn't bother with it. When the kids were still youg, and we were a family there was a point but they're now both nearly adults and since "she" has decided she doesn't now have children that does away with the family bit. Tomorrow will see us set off about 7.30 am for the long drive to Harlech, where the boys will stop till Boxing Day, while I return home in the evening. It's going to be a strange day and the first Christmas spent with Tracy and her parents in nearly 20 years, and harder still for the boys. OK Matt and Tracy have got to know each other fairly well over the last few years but to Chris she's still an unknown quantity. Not surprisingly neither of the kids have had even a ...