Accidental House Life

Is it just me or are we getting weaker as a species? On returning to the school playground I have yet to encounter a single family that wasn't affected by illness in some shape or form over the Christmas holidays. For some it was just sniffles, for others it was make you stay in bed viruses and for the unfortunate few, hospitalisation. Now don't get nickers in a twist that I'm making a huge generalisation or down playing peoples individual sickness, but this winter seemed to floor the entire village I live in. My fellow "Stayers" will read this with a nod and a knowing smile. We, dear reader, are the hardy few. We may have the sniffles, we may even have a virus, but we've had those for about a year now, it's our new norm. I say this slightly tongue in cheek. You see, when you "Jobbers" aren't around and we have uncensored conversations, by golly do we moan. And by we and sincerely mean we. I have a stock phrase in answer to the question ...

The wonderful wife asked a very interesting question the other evening. Whilst watching a particularly dull Christmas special on TV the usual post Boxing day adverts arrived prompting this; "what does a holiday mean to me?" An easy question to answer you may say, but on closer inspection, I disagree. Now for those of you of the working persuasion a holiday can quite simply be a break from work. Whether this be a long weekend, a week or even a fortnight, any break from the daily commute can be a welcome one. Even though it seems a lifetime ago I well remember that warm, glorious feeling of that final drive home prior to that wonderful break spending time away from my desk, not thinking about work and drinking in the afternoon purely because I could. Driving home for Christmas wasn't just an exceptionally good song but my official start of the holiday. Knowing that once parked that car of mine was only moving when I wanted to go somewhere, that, prior to children, the al...

With a sense of deja vu I feel the need to post a quick reminder to all the non house parents out there (and to reassure everyone like me it's ok, everything will be ok) that, all though you may be lucky enough to have time off work, you are now entering someone else's office. I know, I know, I've posted about this before, but a summer break is a lot different than Christmas. A quick calculation tells this stay at home parent that his world is about to turned upside down in 2 sleeps. Now for you mathematicians out there, you're right, that still several sleeps short of Christmas day, but for you stay at homers who feel my pain (stock up with Baileys, NOW!) it's about to be holiday time. You know it's coming, you think you've planned everything, all eventualities should be dealt with and yet....... Christmas is a different holiday to all the others and not just for the obvious reasons. Yes there's the stress of money, yes there's the stress of the...