on the blog.. this week has been a total mare (and it's only Wednesday argggh).

My daughter has been vomiting at night, teething, coughing, running a temperature and all in all is not a happy camper at the moment. Last night I ended up driving around in the car with her at 2.30, going up and down the motorway until she dropped off. As that wasn't until 3.30 or so I've had about two hours sleep and feel like death. It was pretty much the same story over the weekend.

To make a bad week worse it's the start of the party conferences in the UK so the news has been full of coverage of those. As the conferences for all the main parties are just stage-managed Hitler Youth style affairs they bore me to tears.

There's been a lot of talk about Gordon Brown replacing Tony Bliar (mis-spelling IS intentional lol) then more talk about how he (Blair) isn't going to step down for at least another two years...

Lucky us....

On the plus side, no boss this week. He's bumming around in Europe somewhere so fewer stupid questions to answer.

The house sale isn't really doing too much at the moment - all the paperwork for the mortgage is done so just the survey to go for us. Complete silence from our buyers which is starting to get worrying, especially as they were the ones who wanted to get it wrapped up quickly. Still if we didn't have all this hassle in our lives we'd probably have to worry about something really important..

here are full of stuff on Rita and the evacuation.

One thing I noticed on the news helicopter shots, they've got all the Northbound lanes of the freeways clogged with traffic, but hardly any use of the Southbound sides, for obvious reasons.
Why didn't they cone off one lane of the South side for traffic going that way as normal, and allow Northbound traffic to use the rest?
Surely that would have eased the traffic flow which they must have predicted would be bad? The same thing happened when they evacuated from NO for Katrina. How come?

Perhaps I'm just ignorant of how the US road system works - would it not have been possible?

I meant 'Rita' of course, not Kate (obviously had my ex on my mind at the time of writing - she was def a natural disaster!)

to everyone in the path of 'Kate' - I've heard on the news here that they've reclassified the hurricane as a 5. I can't imagine how traumatic it must be to have lost your home, your workplace and your property and THEN find that you've been ordered to move again from a 'safe haven.' My thoughts are with everyone who's currently experiencing that nightmare.

There was a piece in the newspaper here saying that prices in New Orleans are going through the roof as estate agents are making a killing from companies wanting land in the city. Just a pity that the people who lost out most badly (the poor) aren't going to get any benefit from the land boom at all and, by all accounts (in the UK papers), aren't going to have anywhere to go back to once they stop moving and once the floods subside.

I guess it's going to be a good opportunity for the US to stop and think about how it organises itself on a State, Federal and local level. I just wish in a way that our own politicians in the UK would see it as a wake-up call too and stop to consider how we treat certain sections of our own community.

Wow, I didn't really mean to get that political - sorry.

On the home front we're now fretting that we'll have our buyer drop out on us as the next door neighbour has put his house up for sale. It's had an extension on the back and has nicer gardens so we're worried our buyer will drop out for that.

Fingers crossed...!

always seem to go to hell in a handbasket lol.

I got home, having arranged with my wifes Sister to babysit, to find that my wife had no intention of going anywhere (except possibly straight to bed) as our darling daughter is teething badly and had been a major pain (as well as being IN major pain) all day...

Once we'd managed to sort her out and get her to bed we ended up just watching Without a Trace and then hit the sack ourselves at about 10.
Right in the middle of a lovely nights sleep my daughter starts crying (this is at 2am). I get her off again by 3, she's up again at 3.30 having thrown up all her milk (my wife does this one!) back down again at 4.30 and then crying again at 6am.

Needless to say I'm a zombie this morning and my wife has called in sick to look after our daughter today. I left them sleeping next to each other in our bed - it looked so cute it almost made up for last night lol.

No rest for the wicked though - I got in to find that a client hasn't received original Bills of Lading for his shipment and now can't get the goods released, my boss is cursing because he's in London in a 10 mile tail-back of traffic and wants directions, and another colleague is trying to sort out his travel arrangements for a trip starting Sunday.....

I'm putting a 'closed' sign above my head and going to sleep!!

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz

has inspired me - his blog entry on date night and keeping your relationship alive reminded me that I've not told my wife I love her in far too long....

It's so easy to take the best things in your life for granted - to assume that they'll always be there day after day.

So much goes on in the world around you (Katrina, July 7th, Sept 11th, the war in Iraq etc etc) that SHOULD encourage you to seize the day, but somehow you get inured to it. You always think it'll happen to somebody else. You feel sorry for them, help them if you can, but ultimately you get on with your own life whilst forgetting to tell the people who make that life special how much they mean to you.

Sorry, I know this has all been said before (and much better by others) - it's no great revelation, but obviously I, for one, needed reminding.

I'm going to give my wife a big sloppy kiss, hand my daughter to the babysitter (and run fast) and take her out (my wife, not the babysitter!) somewhere nice..

See you all (86 so far!!) tomorrow

They came back with an offer that we could accept, so it looks like we'll be on the move before too long (assuming the solicitor doesn't drag her heels).

One big stress replaced by another (packing) but we're making progress. Have a great day

last night and they've put an offer in 7K lower than asking price. We need to get at least another 5K more from them to make it possible to afford the place we want - the trouble is that it's def a buyers market at the moment. They can afford to take their time and wait us out, but at least we're off the blocks now.

I heard on the news today that the guy (I'm ashamed to say I can't think of his name) who caught Adolf Eichmann has died at 93. Not bad going for someone who survived the concentration camps. He made it his job to seek out all the Nazi war criminals he could find, and did it in an atmosphere of complete indifference on the part of the Allied governments.

Perhaps I'm naive enough to think that there should be justice in the world - especially in so-called democracies - but it's saddening to think that there were an estimated 90,000 ex-Nazi's who'd actively committed war crimes in Germany alone after the war and yet the British Government of the time wound up its investigative unit in 1948.

And nothing has changed - look at Afghanistan, Somalia, Bosnia and no doubt Iraq too where known war criminals have gone without punishment and have even stood for political office!

I guess it's called 'Real Politick' but however hard you try to sanitise it, it's still a case of money talks loudest.

And on that depressing note I'll say goodbye for now...

Thank you to Juicy and SCC - my first ever comments in my first ever blog. I'll cherish the memory forever

My boss is away for the next two days in London so I get to have a breather and relax for a bit (at least for the 10 minutes before the next call from him)

Mind you, if I relax any more than I have I'll probably just slide right off my chair into the wastebin... and I'm looking at the bottom of my wastebin right now and I really don't want to go there - why, even though I don't chew gum, is there a piece stuck to the bottom of my bin? And WHAT is that gunky looking stuff with the Coke stain doing? (I think I may have discovered / created a new lifeform - I swear it just winked at me)

My wife and I went to our neighbour's house yesterday as he'd had his son Christened. They're def going to be missed when we move. I intend to keep in touch, but it's nice to be able to pop next door for a pint and not worry about who's driving..

We've become a bit hermit-like since my daughter was born so it's nice to socialise and chill out. It def did us some good - the whole house move has been getting us so stressed out that I think we've argued every night for the last week (usually over something really stupid and trivial), but we came back from the Christening in a really good mood...

Then my daughter woke us at 3am (she's teething) and wouldn't get back to sleep until 5!! Aaaaaarghhhhhh!

I just noticed that I'm finally off the 'least viewed' list - thanks to each and every one of you 46 viewers.. Only about another hundred years to go before I'm on the 'most viewed' lol.. (I'm not holding my breath)

Have a great day wherever / whoever you are...